The Màlaga and Morocco Adventure! Part 1!

It was a tad difficult to finally fall asleep Thursday night, so I spent an hour or so packing and repacking, and finally fell asleep. We started off Friday morning wide awake and anticipating the weekends adventures, first going to my morning class. As I wasn`t the only one planning to make their way into Morocco that weekend, the class was dismally empty with only three students that came. I stayed in class for two hours myself, but I bade my teacher a quick adios to head home to pack a bit more and prepare for my 3 oclock bus to Màlaga, Spain.

I headed home and soon began to pack a couple of more items I hadn`t thrown in the night before, such as a shirt from the week`s laundry and my bathing suit. Our host mom had nicely packed us sandwiches to eat on the trip, and I was very grateful to have that quick lunch before I headed out. 1 òclock rolled by, and I idly cast glances at my wristwatch, waiting for Stephanie to come.
At 1:30 PM, Stephanie walked in our room. I rose immediately to greet her, and to ask when we wanted to depart. She said she wanted to take a quick shower before we left, so I sat back down to recheck my things. Stephanie showered, but afterwars she had to pack a couple of things in another bag she was going to bring, so she began to hastily throw things in. 2òclock hit, and I was becoming a bit antsy myself, and we finally left at 2:15 PM.

We hurried down the road, myself becoming more worried by the minute, but Stephanie was pretty calm the whole time. We finally caught a bus at 2:27 PM. (You know I must have been watching my clock because I have all these times memorized!)

Our bus was pretty full, and we did make several stops. Me and Stephanie looked at each other, each mentally thinking the worst, and we eventually had to discuss what we would do if we missed the bus. The outlook was turning grimmer as the clock struck 2:45, and we were only a bit more than halfway there. The clock then turned to 2:50, and I was mentally planning what to do from there.
But suddenly at 2:51 PM, the station appeared in sight! We hastily grabbed our things, and at exactly 2:56 PM we tore off that bus like bats from hell. Scurrying across traffic and bolting into the bus station, we flew through the terminal. We looked at our tickets, and read number 6 station. We saw a bus, and breathed a sigh of relief. We had made it... or so we thought.

Rushing to the bus, we waited in front of it, ready to board. But a call to our right showed Scott and Zach, Scott`s friend from Hong Kong, waving us to another bus, that was preparing to soon leave. We walked over in confusion- the ticket clearly read station 6, and they were in front of station 11. The decision came down to go with the number printed on the ticket- so we walked to station 6.

We waited in line, casting hasty glances between the buses, as Zach reached the bus driver. He checked our tickets, shaking his head and informing us the bus was at....station 11.

In horror, we turned to see the station 11 bus beginning to rev up. Once again the Granada gang was running to make it in time. We luckily flagged down the driver before the bus pulled all the way out, and with a scolding in Spanish, we hastily found seats. Needless to say, I spent most of that trip counting my blessings!

Two and a half hours later, and several stops finally found our way into the Andalucìan city of Màlaga. Getting off the bus, Scott told us that we wouldn`t be meeting up with his sister and the group until that evening, so we were to head down to enjoy the beach. The question came up.. where was the beach? Scott retrived his Mapquest map, but it only gave the name of main streets, and for the first 15 minutes we walked in the wrong direction. But with the help of a friendly local, and my Floridian intuition of following the breeze, we walked ourselves to the ocean. We then found the neaby road on the map, and walked several long streets to finally make it to the gorgeous looking beach of Màlaga.

We all made a strange group on the beach, wearing jeans and t-shirts, but a trip to a public bathroom (Which..was a public bathroom, to say the least) had us fitting in with the beachgoing crowd. Maybe not so much as several women on the beach, which to our astonishment, were going topless. I remembered hearing somewhere, (most likely my travel-going parents) that in Europe going to the beach topless was quite the normal, so we assured ourselves this wasn`t a nude beach!

We finally found a nice spot, spread out Scott`s blanket (he was the only one who had one) and we decided to jump into the Mediterranean Sea!

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/natalia_en_espana/IMGP4196.jpg

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/natalia_en_espana/IMGP4197.jpg

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/natalia_en_espana/IMGP4198.jpg

Our jaunt in the water wasn`t for very long- it was icy cold! Me and Stephanie stayed in the longest, (go girls!) but not for much longer- the beach was right next to the local port, and the water reflected that, with grime and debris and perhaps a bit of oil. We clambered from the water to enjoy relaxing on the beach, and getting a bit of a tan. I enjoyed about an hour a so of relxation, until the water began to creep up and splash my shoes. Then, we decided to head to meet up with Scott`s sister.

We walked the way we came, Scott remembering more and more, as he had been there for two weeks before coming to Granada. We walked past a beautiful park, which the equivalent that comes to mind is a bigger and grander Central Park:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/natalia_en_espana/IMGP4199.jpg

Also, as we walked along the long main road to the city buses, I saw an old ship resting in the port. As my dad is a big nautical history fan, I took this picture for him to see it:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/natalia_en_espana/IMGP4200.jpg

We finally made it to the bus station with no worries, and hopped on the 21 bus enroute to Scott`s home. Our bus trip wasn`t short- Scott`s sister lived on the other side of town, so it took a good 30 minutes until we arrived at our destination. We walked off the bus as we approached the markoff point at Burger King, and a short uphill stroll found us at the right apartments. Scott`s sister came out to greet us, as well as her husband and two other friends who were coming with us to Morocco. The group in Màlaga besides one of our members were all from the United States, but all of them were missionaries living in Spain. The boys were going to stay with group members, but me and Stephanie got to donate 15 Euros to stay in a very nice apartment. We then put down our things, and met up with the group for dinner.

We then all headed out for a bit of a walk to find a tapas resturant, and soon we were chatting and munching on the different varities for dinner, as the cool ocean breeze made the night very pleasant. I then found out from the others that while the Granada gang was only going for Saturday and Sunday, the others were all staying down in Morocco an extra week- but with school still in session, we could only stay for the weekend. We talked about our plan to visit the city of Chechouan, Morocco, and the time we had to meet for the bus was 6 AM to catch the 6:30 AM bus. Finally, we walked back to the apartment complex and me and Stephanie headed to our rented room to retire for the night.

The next morning, I felt a small push of a foot on my side, (I was sleeping on the floor-bed) and Stephanie stood over me in the dim of the morning`s light. I eyed my watch. 6 AM.

I shot out of bed, Stephanie taking a step back to avoid my hasty rise to my feet. She had been up at 5:30 AM to take a morning shower (I took one the night before to save time) and said no one had stopped by to come get us. We were confused- had the time changed, had no one got up.. or had they gone off without us? We both came to the conclusion the best thing to do was to wait and see. I began changing and packing, Stephanie the same.

6:15 AM, and a rap on our door. Scott stood outside, telling us to grab our things and head downstairs. We quickly snatched them and hustled down to be amongst our group members. Apparently, only one person`s alarm had gone off, and they had gone to the meeting point at Burger King. Finding nobody there, they walked back and roused the rest- needless to say, another late start!

But our luck was still with us- an older couple that lived in the complex took the missionary van and drove us to the bus station. We pulled in at 6:30 AM, and again we had mucho suerte (much luck!) - the bus didn`t leave till 6:45 AM. We bought our tickets, and jumped on the bus, finally on our way to Morocco.

We reached the town of Algecìras at about 9 AM, and then walked several streets down to the port. Jamie, our Canadian ¨tour guide¨ (he had lived in Morocco for several months, and spoke excellent Moroccoan Arabic\Spanish) lead us inside the port of departure, and then went to negotiate with the boat agents for a good price to get to Ceuta. We had originally planned to go to the port town of Tanger, Morocco, but Jamie had made some Moroccoan friends on our bus, and they told him the faster way was to go through the Spanish colony of Ceuta.

Jamie finally struck a deal with one of the boat agents, and we got a good price for our group size of 9 people-22 Euros a piece. We all pooled in our share, and quickly hastened to hop on the 10:30 boat trip. Thus, not an hour later we finally stepped into Africa-but we weren`t in Morocco yet! We were still in Spanish territory, but as we grabbed a bus ride to the border, we wouldn`t be for much longer.

The bus stopped a few yards from the border, and a large port of entry loomed ahead, a large red flag with the green outline of a star lazily flapping in the breeze. We stepped off the bus, and walked several yards until we met a Moroccoan man holding out passport papers. He gave us all sheets, and Jamie tipped him a Euro- as we were to later realize that any help in Morocco isn`t free, a tip is always expected!

After filling out our many papers, we finally set out to cross the border. We had a bit of a mixup at first- we didn`t have stamps, so we had to go back and all get our passports stamped. Zach, our traveling companion from Hong Kong, ran into a bit of trouble with his passport, as the confusion was to whether it was real passport or not- as Hong Kong is a part of China, but it has its own set of government and passports. Finally we all got stamped, and we passed from Spain into the Arabic world of Morocco.

While we were getting our passports stamped, Jamie had acquired a friend in the form of an official Moroccan travel guide. The government of Morocco hires Moroccans that can speak several languages to act as waiting tour guides to foreigners that come into the country. After an enquiry to whether or not this guy was actually the real thing, Jamie told us that Moroccoans that try to fake being an official get sent directly to jail- that definately cleared up our worries!

Our Moroccoan guide talked to Jamie for a bit, and then Jamie approached us with a new idea. The guide suggested that he knew of a cheap hotel in Tetouan, and that we could overnight there and head to Chechouan in the morning. We all agreed that sounded like a good idea, and we all boarded into two taxis (for our large group- and it was bit jammed!), our tour guide coming with us. We then pulled out of the port of entry, the territory of Spain soon heading into the distance.

Finally, we were on our way into Morocco!

(These posts are long, so to break them up a bit I have divided the Morocco entry into parts. The next part will be the above post!)