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Published: August 6th 2007
It's a rare thing for a vacation to go all wrong, but sometimes it does.
We'd been gearing ourselves up for weeks for our trip to Morocco. Katie was in town for a week and she thought, "Hey, when will I be this close again?" So we woke up super early and caught a bus to Algeciras, where we bought tickets for a ferry ride across the straight of Gibraltar. So far...no complaints.
Our plan was to enter Morocco via the border at Ceuta, a Spanish city on the northern tip of the African continent. Once landed, we grabbed a taxi to the border and...this is where the drama begins.
In my 25 years on this earth, I have crossed many a political border. I have crossed them in planes, in cars, in buses and even several on foot. And in my humble experience, the on foot crossing is the simplest variety. It's easy. I was There, now I want to go Here, so stamp my passport and I leave the land of There and enter Here-ville. No messy vehicle searches or surreal time changes to bear. Just a short stroll and your travels are over.
Or
so I thought.
As it turns out, not all borders are user-friendly. In fact, I got the distinct impression that the Ceuta-Morocco border was not actually designed for letting people into or out of any country. A purely decorative border- could it be?? We walked about for a good 15 minutes trying desperately to figure out just who the border guards were. We were approached from all sides by men who heard us speaking English (that was our first mistake) and wanted to "help" us by taking our passports. Umm...yeah, no thanks.
When we refused to hand our passports over to the un-uniformed men, they began verbally berating us for not trusting them. At last we managed to locate a border agent in an unmarked booth that said he would take care of our paperwork (NOTE: the sketchy guys continued to try and take our passports through out this process and the border agent did nothing to make them go away).
With fresh ink on our passport pages and our sense of adventure renewed, we asked the border agent for advice on how much we should expect to pay for a taxi to Chefchaouen (our final destination).
You see, my co-workers who frequent Morocco warned me that haggling is a part of the daily culture. When buying a shirt, renting a hotel room or taking a taxi ride, never ever was I to accept the first price I was offered. According to the border agent, the entire taxi fare for three people should cost us 1 euro and 50 cents.
Now haggling is quite possibly the 3rd worst task in the world, surpassed only by #1: breaking up with someone and #2: trying on jeans under a florescent light. So I called in the supports. If there was ever a person capable of getting a bargain on practically anything, it's Sage.
But even the master of bargains herself was shaken by the scene ahead of us- 50 or so blue sedans from the early 1980's parked one after another in a tight square, accompanied by 50 or so men who were all staring at us. It was hard not to feel a bit in the spotlight.
Sage, like all determined New Yorkers in need of cab, marched right over to the first cabbie and explained that she wanted a ride for the 3 of
us to Chefchaouen and asked how much it would cost. "100 euros," he replied.
Needless to say, his opening offer came as quite a shock to us. It's a bit difficult to talk someone down from a price nearly 100 times what you're hoping to pay. But I can't say Sage didn't try. When the first driver refused to lower his fare, she went to the next. When he refused to take us at all because he was the second cab in the line, she went to the next cab. She went from cab to cab, all the way to the end of the line. It was quite a scene. The unyielding determination of the cabbies not to break the order in the line or to budge on the prices was impressive. I probably would have gotten a bit misty eyed at the informal union they had formed had I not realized that they were only banding together in order to rip me off beyond belief.
Having exhausted our options, we went back to the front of the line and Sage got into a heavy discussion with the first cabbie about why on earth he was charging us
based on how many of us there where when the border agent had told us that the fare was a per car rate. But the stubborn driver refused to back down. He quoted us another outrageous price and said that we could take it or find 3 other people to fill the cab. (It's worth noting that there were only 4 seats in these cars.) Realizing that we had no other choice, as there was no form of public transportation to Chefchaouen, 40 kilometers or so away, we set out to find ourselves some travel buddies.
As luck would have it, a French woman and her parents walked across the border moments later and headed toward the taxis.
After we intercepted them, Sage explained our predicament to the English-speaking daughter while Katie made small talk in French with the non-English speaking parents. Who knows why, but they agreed to give it a try. Feeling like we'd beat the system, we crammed 6 passengers into the tiny car and anxiously waited for the driver to start the car. Sadly his keys would never make it into the ignition.
Gee, I don't know. Maybe we looked desperate or something, but
the cab driver somehow got the idea that we were suckers. He climbed into the car, shut the door and demanded our fare before he would start the car. Out of the cab we went.
Running out of ideas and steam, we decided that if our first attempt at haggling in Morocco had gone like this, we weren't sure we were in the mood to have to do it again every time we wanted to eat, drink or buy something. So we did like all good quitters before us. We snapped a quick photo (which provoked an angry response from the border agents) and crossed right back across that border.
Relieved and hungry, we hopped on the first public bus we saw and took our 60-cent ride into the center of Ceuta. Ten minutes later we set down our luggage in a lovely hostel room with a balcony overlooking the main drag and dropped off into siesta heaven.
So, we never really got to see Morocco, which I know we all regret. But we had a grand time in Ceuta appreciating Moroccan culture at Spanish prices. We ate tajine (tender lamb slow roasted with apricots, dates, apples,
raisins and almonds) and tangy lemon/garlic/eggplant dip spread on oven fresh bread. We sampled warm Moroccan pastries and washed them down with pots of tea brewed with fresh mint leaves and pine nuts. And as we listened to the rough waves crash on the shore of this Spanish city we asked ourselves, "Are we in Spain or Africa?"
I'm still not sure, but one thing is certain: life is full of surprises with Katie Schweighofer around. Earlier that week she and I had set out to tour the Muslim castle in Malaga. Known as the Gibralfaro, the castle rests atop a steep hill near the sea. The hill, I should mention, is one of those hills that makes a person question the difference between a mountain and a hill. After 20 minutes of intense hiking, we reached the top, huffing and puffing, and were dismayed to find that the gate to the Gibralfaro entrance was bolted. The security guard was busy turning away another tourist wanting to see the castle, but I didn't let that break my resolve. We were going to see that castle and we were not hiking up that mountainous hill again!!
So I patiently awaited my turn. When the woman finally gave up and left, I approached the guard with my best Erin Cox face. (She has a gift I've always envied for convincing people to do favors for her without feeling the slightest bit inconvenienced.) I asked him if the castle was closed (duh, it obviously was) and when he explained that the gates had closed 45 minutes ago, I feigned complete shock and disappointment. I turned to Katie (who doesn't speak Spanish) and dramatically explained to her in Spanish that the castle was closed and that this man couldn't let us in. Now she had no idea what my words were, but she played right along with my woe-is-me facial expressions. No doubt feeling sorry for me, the guard suggested that we come back the next morning when the castle would open again. Incredulous, I explained that I couldn't possibly hike that big hill again. I told him that we were only in Malaga for one day and that we had hiked that big ol' hill to see the good view, but the good view was closed. Intrigued, he asked where we were from. When I replied that we were from the US, he looked over his shoulder and then said to me that he was going to let us in, but only because we were from the US. He slid open the gates and in we went.
As it turns out, our new friend Felipe had a soft spot in his heart for people from the US (or women from the US who flirt shamelessly with him). He not only let us in after hours, but he didn't charge us an admission fee and he gave us a guided tour of the place. The view truly was magnificent- well worth the performance I had to give. On the way out Felipe insisted on taking a photo with both Katie and me and told us that next time we were in Malaga, we had to drop by and see him. Guess I won't be going back with any future visitors!
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Katie
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you're such a storyteller
Amber, your adventures are hilarious! I think you must write a book...