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Jerez 2019 - anyone going?
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: Jerez 2019 - anyone going? (in reply to Escribano)
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I went to Tangier in the 1970s a couple of times. I didn't find it particularly congenial, but I did have a couple of adventures, one rather baroque.
I had the feeling the whole time that everybody was lying to me about something important. I understood at the time that this may have been as much due to my own cultural attitudes as it was to the actions of the Tangerines, but my feelings of mistrust were strong.
Just crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from Tarifa had plunged me into a very unfamiliar culture. The food and clothing were exotic, the old part of the city was architecturally Mediterranean, but utterly strange in both spoken and body language, people approached me in a manner that I took as indicating a con..
In fact a man approached me as I was out for a walk early one evening. He proposed to take me on a tour of night clubs. He was a good deal shorter and thinner than I, and walked with a slight limp. I decided to take the risk, but not to get into a confined space with him, nor to stick around if any of his friends showed up. It turned out that no plot materialized. We just toured some clubs at my expense. His story was plausible, if unverifiable. He said he had worked at a hotel in Spain, got into a traffic accident, returned to Morocco to avoid legal consequences, and couldn't find work in Tangier. The dancing girls at the night clubs didn't particularly interest me, nor did I seem to interest them very much.
The more unexpected adventure was worth the whole trip, but too long to repeat here.
The following was not an adventure, just a routine annoyance: Checking out of the Hotel Rif on a Sunday, the desk clerk refused my American Express card, without making a phone call or referring to a list of invalid cards. I pointed to the American Express sign on the wall above his head, and insisted he take it. He said he had none of the paper forms required in those days to record transactions.
When I had taken out my wallet to produce the card, it was possible the clerk might have seen I had British pounds and French francs. There was a lively black market in currencies. If he demanded European notes at the official rate and sold them on the black market, he could profit pretty well, even if he paid the bill in dirhams.
I pointed at the sign once again, and said, "If you won't take my card, you won't get paid." We were alone at the desk, there was no visible security guard, and a taxi was waiting for me at the door. I turned to walk out. Suddenly he found the paper forms. He filled in the amount by hand. When I signed the paper, I added the notation "Moroccan dirhams" to the number.
"Why did you do that?" he asked.
"So that you would not cheat me."
He responded in silence, but with tears in his eyes. Thinking it over in the taxi as we drove to the seaport, I speculated that he may have felt no particular injury having his scam detected, rather he may have been frustrated by his inability to respond physically to the insult.
RNJ
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Date Jan. 11 2019 19:26:05
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: Jerez 2019 - anyone going? (in reply to Goldwinghai)
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- If you cross over by boat, you could rent a car and drive down to Chefchaouen for a day or two (http://moroccotourismoffice.com/city/morocco-tourism-city-chefchaouen.html ), that's worth the visit, and stop by Tetouan or Tangiers the next day on your way back (both of those cities were largely unmemorable for me. Not bad, just not particularly memorable).
- There aren't many direct flights from Sevilla to anywhere in Africa, but I seem to recall that they do have flights towards Fes and Marrakech. I enjoyed Fes. Massive medina known for its tanning quarters. Might be worth getting a guide for the day. Marrakech is also enjoyable, kind of sells that "close to the desert" thing, but on the whole feels more touristy than Fes did.
Anyways, that's all that comes to mind for a weekend getaway (just because most flights to Africa go through Madrid or Lisboa, so travel time really adds up. For instance, a trip to Cabo Verde could be fun, just 3h from Lisboa IIRC, but I'd imagine from Sevilla the travel time piles up pretty fast).
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
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Date Jan. 12 2019 5:57:50
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: Jerez 2019 - anyone going? (in reply to flyeogh)
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Good thinking!
https://www.gibraltarairport.gi/content/destinations
I love that they have a flight to Tangiers. What's that got to be? like a 10 minute flight? ^^
The other one is Casablanca. I lived there for a while and honestly liked the place but I don't think I'd recommend it for tourism. There are a few hallmarks, like the Hassan II mosque but honestly not much. The medina is of no interest whatsoever, although there are a few souks that are fun (Derb Ghalef for instance, though it's entirely made of aluminum shanties).
Oh I forgot, if you're the outdoors type, the Toubkal summit is really close to Marrakech. I doubt it's accessible in the Winter months but I'm sure there's lots of good trekking that you could still do around there (FWIW, it's in that area that the two Norwegian hikers were killed recently, so do with that information what you will. It's otherwise not know to be an unsafe area at all, but, well, that did happen). There's a sort of desert right near Marrakech, but for the real deal you have to drive through the Atlas range, which is probably too much for the weekend.
Just to add an address: here's where I stayed in Fes: https://www.riadelghalia.com/about-us
I've got very good memories of the place (nice hosts, quiet even though in the medina, and the food was to die for). I've been hoping to go back there one summer to attend the World Festival of Sacred Music, and if I make it I plan to go back to that riad.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
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Date Jan. 12 2019 7:16:59
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Jerez 2019 - anyone going? (in reply to Escribano)
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Tangier has a very rich history, particularly for those of us in the United States. Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States, in 1777, before we had won our independence from Britain. And a formal treaty was signed in 1786. There is a beautiful old building in Tangier that was the original American Legation in Morocco, and it is maintained today as a cultural center. The old American Legation building in Tangier is the oldest American-owned property outside the United States.
Moreover, Tangier was an exotic and exciting international city for decades, drawing people like the American writer, composer, and translator Paul Bowles who, with his equally talented wife Jane Bowles, lived there from 1947. Bowles's most notable work was "The Sheltering Sky," about three naive American "travelers" wandering in the Algerian desert, mostly without a clue. As might be imagined, it does not end well for them.
Tangier, like Alexandria, Egypt, at one time was an exciting, multicultural city with different ethnic and cultural groups. If you have ever read "The Alexandria Quartet," by Lawrence Durrell, you will have a flavor of what Tangier was like in its heyday. Unfortunately, Tangier's international status ended in 1956 when Morocco gained its independence from France, and many of the characteristics of its former cultural mix disappeared. The same thing happened with Alexandria after Nasser took over Egypt. The former foreign groups that gave the city its vibrant life--Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and others--largely departed.
If I were to advise anyone visiting Tangier today, I would suggest that you read up on some of the history (I realize the old American Legation would be of interest only to Americans), and especially immerse yourself in some of Paul Bowles's works. It will give you an idea of what the city once was. I have found that if you carry a sense of history with you on your travels, even the most uninteresting places you come accross today can be very interesting, historically speaking.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 12 2019 13:33:57
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Jerez 2019 - anyone going? (in reply to Piwin)
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quote:
There are still things I really enjoy about Morocco. Waking up to the sound of a muezzin (odd thing to enjoy for an atheist I suppose),
My assignments in the US diplomatic service included many years in Islamic countries, including eight years divided between Malaysia and Indonesia. I have always found the Muezzin's call to prayer to be very haunting. I particularly like the call, known as the Maghreb, at sunset. Nevertheless, in Jakarta, Indonesia, we lived near enough to a mosque to hear the call to prayer at home, and I must say that the morning call, known as the Fajr, was less haunting when it would wake us up at 4:30 AM!
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 12 2019 13:52:35
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Jerez 2019 - anyone going? (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
I have always found the Muezzin's call to prayer to be very haunting. I particularly like the call, known as the Maghreb, at sunset. Nevertheless, in Jakarta, Indonesia, we lived near enough to a mosque to hear the call to prayer at home, and I must say that the morning call, known as the Fajr, was less haunting when it would wake us up at 4:30 AM!
Bill
I spent a couple of nights at a resort town on the northern slope of a mountain in East Java. Sitting on the terrace adjoining my hotel room in the afternoon I could hear a boy 30 yards away chanting Q'ran.
At 4:30 the next morning I was awakened by the extremely loud P.A. system of the mosque a couple hundred yards up the hill. The singing went on for at least 15 minutes, maybe more. My guide and translator, staying further away, said that there were probably prayers as well as the traditional call.
I was fascinated by the music. The muezzin was a virtuosic singer. The scales were exotic. The modulations to new modes via quarter tones seemed quite dramatic to me.
At breakfast in the hotel dining room a young Dutch couple invited me to join them. They complained of the toneless caterwauling from the mosque, then moved on to more positive opinions.
RNJ
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Date Jan. 12 2019 19:30:21
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Jerez 2019 - anyone going? (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
Tangier, like Alexandria, Egypt, at one time was an exciting, multicultural city with different ethnic and cultural groups. If you have ever read "The Alexandria Quartet," by Lawrence Durrell, you will have a flavor of what Tangier was like in its heyday.
Traveling on the train from Machu Picchu back to Cuzco, we shared a table with a woman born in Alexandria, whose youth and early adulthood coincided with Durell's time there. Her father was Italian, her mother Lebanese. She said Durell had done pretty well capturing the ambience, from the viewpoint of an Englishman.
She had spent a career working for the United Nations, some of it in the USA, and had chosen Chile for retirement.
quote:
I have found that if you carry a sense of history with you on your travels, even the most uninteresting places you come across today can be very interesting, historically speaking.
Bill
We spent the day in Toledo last summer. Compared to the Moorish architectural splendors of Cordoba, Granada and Sevilla, Toledo is small and poor. But the surviving evidence of multiculturalism was impressive. Over lunch we talked of the flood of classical literature, translated first to Arabic then to Latin, unleashed by the Christian conquest of the city, and its influence on the beginnings of the Renaissance.
RNJ
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Date Jan. 12 2019 19:45:56
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