New Continent.

On this epic Journey across Spain and Portugal it only made sense to do yet another thing that many people cannot say they hace done. That thing is visiting Africa. We took the ferry from Tarifa, Spain to Tangier, Morocco. We signed up for a city tour but just as I suspected that any visit to Africa would be one for the books, I was of course right. Turns out that this tour of Tangier that we signed up for was more like a timeshare presentation, only property was not what they were selling. We started out with our tour bus rear ending a taxi cab downtown. That was pretty interesting. Then they took us to a restaurant where all of these Muslims were playing traditional music and the women were dancing in traditional dress as part of the atmosphere. We had traditional Moroccan food which was quite filling.
From there story takes off. We were completely bombarded by street salesmen selling all kinds of junk you didn´t even know existed. On the long walk there the tour guide took through some mundane sights to a rug presentation. Turns out these people are fantastic rug makers. We were all suspicious that this was a bogus tour and that it was in fact just a forced shopping excursion since we spent 20 minutes at the rug place, and then another 20 minutes at a spice presentation. As we were walking from sight to sight I couldnt help but be overwhelmed by the stetch of this place and how they had sewage running through the market place filled with people that had no teeth practically.
We finally complained and told them we were not here to shop and wantedt o actually SEE the city. To which they jumped up and said ¨OH OF COURSE, BUT I HAVE SOME YOU MIGHT WANT TO BUY.¨ IT was now clear that this was a complete shakedown and not a real tour of any kind. We were trapped in a poor and perhaps dangerous country being forced to shop for expensive junk that we didn´t want. You might think that this came as a surprise to me but it didn´t. I went on this tour for the soul purpose of visiting a completely different country, and that is exactly what I got. IT would have been nice to learn about the one city I saw but oh well. There are many impressions that are almost impossible to explain but once we finally got back on the boat I felt like I had caught a true glimps of life outside the western sphere of inluence in which I was brought up. All I can think is THANK GOD for it or whatever forces that maybe at play. I had been to third world countries before but this experience actually brought me outside my comfort zone, and that was exactly what I was looking for.

Southwestern Europe trip

At the beginning of April Jessie and I met her father Ken in Lisbon POrtugal to take a roadtrip through Spain to the edge of southern france. I am now in Valencia, Spain and I have to decided to update as I can now check off many must sees that I put on my bucket list so to speak. For starters I never thought that I would make it to PORTUGAL of all places. Seriously, what business could anyone ever have there? Well we met JEssie´s dad In Lisbon and saw much of the city. I was quite surprised at how no one speaks any english at all. Compare that to Germany where almost everyone understands it at least. I imagine that the kids who study abroad to either Spain or Portugal are really forced to learn the language because the never have english to fall back on like I do in Germany. Anyway, from there we went to the rock of Gibraltar which is basically this tiny piece of the United Kingdom in Spain. IT is at the mouth of the sea there and has been under british control since the 1700´s. Not only does it provide a spectacular view of Spain, the Atlantic, Africa, and the Meditarranean (spelling). Gibraltar is also Europe´s only host to wild monkey´s. APes to be exact. Though it is not recommended, it is quite easy for visitors to interact with these apes as well. It is quite sureal to pass by families of monkey´s just hanging out freely.
I climbed to the top of the rock with Ken via the extremely long staircase (shared by apes of course). The weather was fantastic, and a welcome relief to what we had experienced in Germany over the winter. From the rock of Gibraltar we drove to the southern most point of Spain and windsurfing capital called Tarifa.