On Friday, February 26th we played yet another game of frantically packing and rushing to find our bus. We didn’t even have the excuse an early departure since we didn’t have to be at the bus until about 4. None the less, we arrived and had to split up to sit in the single sporadic seats left, well except for Nick and Tricia who somehow managed to get seats next to each other. I however was stuck with a girl who I immediately liked because she let me sit by the window (although I guess she didn’t really want it since she was already sitting in the aisle). Thus, I was very friendly and we chatted for the first 15 minutes before the bus started moving. Once we were set in motion though I was no longer really up for chatting but apparently I wasn’t doing a very good job of getting the message across because Chatty-Cathy was on a role. She had other friends on the bus that she pointed out and even talked about for awhile but they weren’t sitting by her and I now knew why. I nonchalantly took out my iPod and started attempting to wrap up the convo while slipping my headphones in my ears. This was not enough of a social signal though and with my favorite “movie” of the Spanish landscape starting I finally had to say “Alrighty well it was nice talking but I think I’m going to try to get some rest…” That seemed to do the trick, at least for awhile.
I cannot express to you how much I love sitting on a bus and watching Spain stretch out in front of me. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is or how tired I am, I cannot tear my eyes away from it. There were about 20 times when I went to tap “Cathy” on the shoulder to say “Oh my gosh look how pretty that is!” before I thought better of it in fear that it would start an hour long conversation. Plus, sometimes it’s just good to savor your own wonderment.
Along with the beauty of the landscape that was rolling past me I also got to see the damage all of buckets of rain southern Spain has been experiencing. As I mentioned before, Seville hasn’t experienced this much rain in over 30 years and such statistics pretty much stand for everywhere in Spain (just last week we had students in our program get snowed-in in Barcelona. The whole city shut down because they had never seen such weather). What I was seeing was huge pools of water covering large areas of land. There were trees underwater and homes flooded. I saw numerous men with their herd of muddy lambs trying to find areas without water, which left muddy ground as their other option. Clearly that is not ideal weather for livestock and I saw the casualties lying right there in the muddy water. I had never seen anything like this nor had I considered the hardship that such conditions placed on these people. I was unbelievably ashamed to realize my main concern for the past weeks had been that I had to walk to school in the rain, or that I wouldn’t be getting a tan. Little did I know that this was only the beginning of an eye-opening trip.
When we arrived at the ferry station in Tarifa the sun was saying it’s last goodbye for the day and we had to leave our bags on the bus but bring our passports and little slips of paper for entering a new country. By the way, never have I appreciated my parents enough for filling those entry form things out. What is with that? Will I have to start doing all my own paperwork now that I’m growing up? ☺ We had a little bit of a wait so the majority of people grabbed something to eat and relaxed. When it was time to get on the ferry I had a weird sense of not knowing what I was about to climb onto. I had never been on a ferry as far as I could remember and the only thing that I could picture was an open boat where you stand around the edges and peer at the water. Don’t ask me where I got this visual (I’m assuming from some Mary-Kate and Ashley movie). So you can imagine my utter amazement to see that the boat we were about the board was huge! My excitement and nerves were rising! It was dark out and all you could really see was this big boat lit up and with the addition of the smell the salty air and the feel a warm-cool breeze I could have probably just sat right down on a curb and been a happy camper. But we had to keep moving and actually board the ferry!
All aboard! Climbing aboard I was shocked to see how incredibly nice it was. It was almost like a cruise ship with tons of seating, nice staircases up to the second floor with pretty railings all around. The chairs were plush and placed facing each other or around little tables for convenience. I absolutely loved it! I had thoughts of the Titanic before I realized we were about to go out to sea in rainy weather and quickly changed my thought process. There was a bit of a delay while they considered the conditions of the water etc but we ended up pulling away from the dock. I couldn’t see anything due to the darkness, which to this day I cannot decide if it was a curse or a blessing, but I’m leaning towards the latter. The ride was about an hour or so long and we tried to play a few games of cards but ended up just talking. I was afraid I would get seasick or something but managed to arrive in Africa with no major hitches. Let me say that again for you so it can sink in, I arrived in AFRICA.
Nick on the ferry pretending not to belong with us.
Wasting time while waiting to step off into AfricaI truly can’t even believe that I just typed that and that it is now a fact. I was in Africa and that is something I never in a million years thought I would do. So, when we scrambled off the ferry after waiting onboard for what was literally probably about an additional hour I was more than ready to soak up everything I saw. When we were walking up the hill from the ferry towards the station we had to have our passports checked. It was a pretty informal check, which was a bit sketchy, and I kept thinking wow, anyone could sneak in here. Then again, we are very American looking students traveling in a pack of 100 so they probably wanted to get us out of the way.
Getting off the ferry. Say hello to my new blonde friend from Finland!
We're here! Tricia wants to know where the animals areOn the short walk towards the ferry station I looked at all the other boats to my left and glanced to the large wall to my right. That is when I realized there were military men patrolling on top of the walls with huge guns. I literally almost stopped in my tracks. Was there something big that might happen this weekend that I was unaware of? Why did these guys need such huge guns and why were they literally pacing on these huge walls? As we got closer to the station there were more policemen with dogs stopping the cars pulling out from the ferries. Were these drug or bomb sniffing dogs? Was this normal? However, this was no time for questions because we were late to check into our hotel and we still had a long bus ride there ahead of us. So I kept up my pace and went through some mild security that consisted of a metal detector (these people were pretty inconsistent) and made our way towards where the bus was going to pick us up.
We had to wait out in the parking lot for actually what seemed like a long time. Maybe it was because I was a bit on edge after the military presence and since there were people sitting in cars staring at us, some even appeared to be living in their cars and a few taxis pulled up to look at us as well but I just felt sort of vulnerable. I had no idea what to expect in this new country nor did I know the language. Then I looked up at the full moon I had spotted earlier to see that there was a big road sign in the way and it was in Arabic. This struck me in an odd way. I was in an incredibly different country and sure it was strange and different but here was a green road sign that very well could have been plucked from highway 70. It was then that a switch flipped for me. I promised myself to soak up every aspect of the trip with a complete open mind because after all, these people were probably very similar to you and me.
And that is what kept me wide-awake for the hour or so long bus ride to the hotel. I watched just about everyone blink into slumber but my eyes were glued to the window. Sure it was late and very dark out but there was so much to see. I saw lots of people out for such a late hour. They were sitting outside on little sidewalks in front of their stores, leaning against walls under streetlights, sitting in doorways with a friend or alone, some even slouched in sleep despite the glow from the restaurant windows, others were sitting on the stoop of their store with a pig carcass hanging outside, walking on the sidewalks, walking next to the street in the dark, pushing their cars on the street in the dark (I actually saw numerous people doing that) and there were kids out doing these things as well. While some of the people were wearing regular clothing, or I guess American/Spanish type clothes, others were wearing the traditional “hijab” which is a dress for men. I was intrigued. The buildings all looked rough but I was used to that in Spain however here it was even more un-kept looking. The main road was nicely paved but looking out past the road there would be just miles of dirt then a haphazard building. I even saw a village of tents, which is an image that will stay with me forever.
You can imagine then, my feelings as we made a left into our resort area of Kabila. Not only were the streets beautifully manicured but there were decorative lights, some even flashing or changing colors. It wasn’t necessarily an obnoxious Vegas look, it looked more like they had decorated for a holiday but when I asked later I was told that is how it always is. I had a weird surge of emotions that consisted of embarrassment and shame. I don’t know where I thought we would be staying, and I can’t honestly say that I wanted to stay upstairs in one of the buildings we passed but this just felt, wrong.
As we slowed into arriving at the hotel my fellow travelers started rustle around. Everyone was groggy and I wanted to talk, typical. Had anyone else seen any of what I had just experienced for the last hour? The general consensus was no so I quit trying which was also largely due to the fact that as soon as we walked in the doors we were ushered to the dining area. Food is a quick way to shut me up. We felt bad because the entire staff was waiting for us and it was almost 2 am but we were hungry! All meals were included with the trip we took and we were excited to see what they were going to put in front of us. They served us “family style” with a big bowl of couscous (little small balls of rice) piled with different forms of meat and veggies. However, the drinks were not included so we had to order water and pay for it.
This is where we realized that we needed to exchange money since they have a different currency called “Dirham.” Luckily the hotel could exchange money for us and it was really weird because for 20 euros you would get a 200 dirham bill and a bit of change since the euro is worth more. It was bizarre to head back to the table with “hundreds of dollars” in my pocket. I paid for my giant bottle of water and then Katrina and I went to the desk to get our room key.
We stumbled through the darkness trying to find our room, which was not close to Laura and Tricia’s, until a man working for the hotel beckoned for us to follow him. He was short and grungy and somehow reminded me of a Disney cartoon character. No words, just leading and pointing and when he pointed all the way town to the end of a building where the light above the door was out I got a little nervous. All of the rooms had doors opened straight to the outside so there were not hallways. When we managed to open our room and turn the lights on we were more than ready to dive into bed. There was a somewhat funky smell permeating the air and it had a bit of a “zoo” hint to it but we ignored it, did our nighttime routines quickly out of pure exhaustion and hopped into bed. We had to be up early for breakfast and a very fully day so I drifted off easily with thoughts of baby elephants in my head…
No comments:
Post a Comment