Making up for lost time
Saturday, September 30th, 2006It seems the last 2 months or so of posts have been deleted due to a server error or something like that. So I’m going to try to do a recap of what has been up since august.
I am writing this from Morocco, my second visit. Its Ramadan here, so its pretty wild to see how the Muslims are living. I’ll get into that later…
Early August I came back to Southern Spain from Morocco. I was in Southern Spain for a while, visiting alot of citied in Andalucia. Malaga, Almeria, Mijas, Feugirloa, Sevilla, Chiclana, Algeciras, Murcia. I was staying with people that we knew the whole time, so I got to learn alot of Spanish and really get what is going on in Southern Spain. I can’t really sum up everything that happened in all those cities, but it was an awsome experiece overall.
One of the best spots was Mijas, a little village up in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean. I stayed with a friend there who was working on this house, probably a multi million dollar property. He was helping the owner fix it up, but in the meantime had the whole place to himself, so we crashed there for about a week.
Mijas is a big tourist spot for the English. Its a really amazing place. Alot of character. Whitewashed buildings overlooking the sea.
After Southern Spain I flew out to Ibiza island. Now this place is really amazing. The biggest and best clubs in the world, with the best DJs. Carl Cox on Tuesdays, Paul Oakenfold wednesdays. Its a massive party island. I only ended up going out to the clubs for 1 night. The rest of the time I was chilling out on the beaches, which are superb. The water is beautiful. I was trying to do as much swimming as possible. Also got alot of sun. heres a picture of one of the beaches.
We were at 3 beaches on Ibiza – Salines, Tarida, and Vadella. All had their own character. Probably one of the best setups was on Tarida where we had an apartment overlooking the sea. Sunsets shimmering off the water every night. The sun set behind the rocks. Really nice place to chill out.
After Ibiza I flew to Madrid and checked out the city for a few nights. Stayed in a crazy part of the city full of crazy people and prostitutes. Got out of there in about 3 days and went to Toledo, which was a really really cool place.
Toledo is about an hour south of Madrid and is an old Medieval city. Walking through the narrow cobble stone streets is a trip. You really feel like you could be back in time. Shops on the corner sell Toledo blades, which the city is famous for. Swords, knives, etc. Its a mix of 3 cultures, Christian, Muslim, and Jew. The main cathedral in Spain is in Toledo and is truly grand. Its awe inspiring. Massive amount of wealth. Its mindblowing.
After Toledo I decided to head back down to Morocco. So after a few days of heavy travel, here I am in Marrakech. Its cool because I have some friends that live here that I met last time, so I got in touch with them as soon as I arrived and they came out to meet me. So i’ve been hanging out with Abdou and Khalid, as well as Ismael and a bunch of other people. Just hanging out talking, meeting people ect.
Its the Muslim time of Ramadan here so people are fasting from sunrise to sunup. They blast calls for prayer over the loudspeakers 5 times a day. First a heavy siren.. then people almost screaming at the top of their lungs over loudspeakrs.. “ALLAH – AKBAR” …”ALLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH AKKKKBAARRRRRRR”. It means something like “Allah is the greatest” (or so Abdou says).
Alot of people were wondering what is going on during the day, people are a bit on edge, then they kind of mellow out, then around 4:30 or so they start to get excited , which works itself up till about 6:00 because at 6:20 when the sun goes down everyone breaks their fast and is happy again. Its really strange. Abdou says that most everyone smokes hashish here and smokes cigarettes, which is forbidden during the day. So what you have is a bunch of irritated Moroccans going through withdrawal till 6:20.
I got to break the fast over my friend Khalids house with his family. Traditional food, the whole deal. it was really cool. The next day I did the same at Abdou’s house. I feel blessed because I dont think alot of people, especially Americans would get this experience..
Right now I’m about to head over to the west coast where there is a little surf town I want to check out. Supposed to be a really magical place. It was discovered by the Beat generation of the fifties and followed up by the hippies during the 60s. Oscar Wilde lived there for a season, and Jimi Hendrix as well drew some inspiration from chilling in the place for a little while. There are international surfing competitions there, so the waves should be pretty sweet. Hoping to relax out, surf, check some music, swim alot during the day and chill at night.
So thanks for everyone thats been keeping up with me, it means alot to me. – Ryan
J