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Published: September 12th 2005
WOW! There is so much to write about this weekend! I would have to say it was one of the best 48 hours of my entire life! I´ve never laughed so hard and seen and done so many interesting and exciting things!
Thursday night the group of 10 of us left for Tarifa, Spain. Tarifa is the most southern point of all of Europe. Our bus left at 11:00 p.m. Heather (a girl from my school) and I spent the 8 hour trip under the seats of the bus curled up in a sheet that I brought! It was a little squishy, but, hey, it worked and I was able to sleep some of the way there. We arrived in Tarifa around 7:30 in the morning. From there, we had to call Manuel, the head of OTB International Backpackers Hostel to drive us to the hostel from the bus stop. Well, Manuel pulls up in this hippy van and 5 of us pile in. Manuel says he´ll come back for the other 5 in a little bit. I was with the second group, so when we pulled up to the hostel, we just started laughing so hard! It basically is a hostel for hippies and surfers. There is a party room with sketchy leopard print couches and a "pool" outside with these same lounge beds. Then he shows us the 2 rooms upstairs where 5 of us slept in one room and 4 in the other. We threw our stuff down and decided to go to the beach. However, the only way to the beach is to walk through this desert/forest area and then to climb through barbed wire fence through a cow pasture. We were definitely laughing pretty hard during that one! The beach was nice, but the water was freezing. Since the sun wasn´t out, we decided to go into the town of Tarifa. Well, Manuel said he´d drive us there for free but we´d have to find our own way back. After an awesome lunch of this pita bread koskos stuff, the sun came out and we wanted to go back to the beach. So we go to the central part of town looking for a taxi. Who knew it would be so hard to find a taxi in Tarifa!?!? After about 10 minutes of searching, Oli suggests hitchhiking. Well, a few of the Furman girls did not think too highly of this and started walking the 2 km back to OTB. But I was up for anything, so Oli and I stood on the corner with our thumbs up. A minute later, this old man pulls up and says he´ll give us a lift to the hostel. There were other hitchhikers that we passed on the way, so I guess it´s very accepted! The other group that was walking saw us pass, and they ended up getting a ride hitchhiking as well!
When we got back, they told us that their driver was a guy from Holland who told them about an awesome beach 6 km from our hostel called "Las Dunas." So, next thing I know, all 10 of us are standing outside the hostel trying to hitch a ride to Las Dunas. This huge hippy van pulls up and says, sure, we can all pile in his van and he´ll take us there. Just imagine 10 of us all piled on top of eachother in the back of this van while he´s smoking some joint out the window, haha. Well, he drops us off at Las Dunas, and omg, it was so gorgeous!! There were huge sand dunes (think African desert) and then about 500 feet below, the most crystal clear water filled with windsurfers. We ran down the sand dunes to the beach. Well, it´s a European beach, so, almost everyone was....TOPLESS!! Not only were they all topless (and most guys didn´t have anything on either...) but they were all covered in this weird gray mud. We come to find out that 200 feet down the beach there was this giant mud pit where you can rub mud all over your body because it´s suppose to be really good for the skin. All of us girls decide that, hey, we wouldn´t mind trying out this mud pit, so we made Oli stay with the stuff, and then we walked down to the pit, you know, just to check it out. Next thing I know, we decide "Cuando haz en Roma, hace como los Romanos!!" basically, hey, all the locals are doing it, why not?!?! So, yes, we take off our tops and start smearing the mud all over ourselves! Then we decide to go for a walk "desnuda" on the beach (AWAY from where Oli was sitting, haha). Then we decide, hey, our tops are off, why not go skinny dipping as well?!?! I have never laughed so hard nor felt so liberated in my whole life!
After clothing ourselves again and walking back to find poor Oli, we hung out on the beach for a little longer before hitchhiking again to Tarifa for a dinner of paella (this awesome rice dish with fresh seafood) and vino 😊 By this time, it was 11 and we were exhausted after 24 hours of craziness, so we got a ride back to the hostel and crashed in bed.
Next day: AFRICA! We decided to go with a guided tour to Morocco because of safety reasons. The tour was only 5 Euro more than the boat ticket over and it included lunch, so it seemed like a really good deal. We took a ferry across the Straight of Gilbraltar and landed in Tangiers, Morocco. From there, we took a van and got a tour of the city in the van. We drove up to the highest point in the city and stopped there to take a ride on a camel. The ride only lasted about a minute, but it was still cool to be able to say that I have ridden a camel in Africa! Then we went on a tour through the market. Think the marketplace in Aladdin, and that´s seriousy what we were walking through! It was so cool! However, when we walked through the meat section of the market, there were whole animals just hanging there and the stench was a little nauseating!
From there, we went to a Moroccan restaurant where we had a classic Moroccan meal: soup, bread, meat kabobs (I could hardly eat those after the meat market...) koskos (SO GOOD!), sweet bread, and mint tea. Wow, the food was amazing! Then we went to a carpet store where they tried to sell us carpets. Then we went to a spice store. I had to use the restroom, so I walk upstairs and the only person up there is this Moroccan guy probably around my age. He shows me where the bathroom is which is seriously only a hole in the ground that you have to straddle. I come out, and he puts his arm around me and asks for my phone number. Yeah, I run downstairs pretty fast then. After the spice shop, we go to a hotel where you can see the whole city and the water from the veranda, so beautiful! By then, it was already 6:30 (our tour started at 11:30) and we had to get back to the boat. We took the ferry back, ate pizza in Tarifa, then went to the "feria" (fair) that was going on in town. It´s your classic carnival except all the locals dress up in these beautiful flamenco dresses. Oli, Maggie, and I decided to ride the pirate ship except instead of sitting in the middle of the ship, you stand in these cages at the end of the ship! Holy crap, I have never laughed so hard! The ride lasted about 15 minutes, we didn´t think it was going stop, and we were being thrown around in these cages on the end of the pirate ship!! After the feria, we hitchhiked a ride back to the hostel (I saved A LOT of money from all these hitchhiking trips...) and crashed in bed again.
Sunday wasn´t very interesting. We packed up, and then took a 4:30 bus back to Madrid. We got in around 12:30 a.m. Monday morning.
This upcoming Wednesday, I´m going with my group to see a Spanish film and then on Thursday to the Juanes concert (he´s a really popular singer in Spain). Sorry this blog was so long but there was just too much to say!
Love and miss you all as always
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joan
non-member comment
What an exciting trip!
Thanks for sharing all of your details. I faintly remember those days of throwing caution to the wind and enjoying every aspect of a trip. Keep having the time of you life. Hopefully, school back in Madrid will not seem so boring after this weekend.