After my exams, I took a well-earned 10 day break in Gibraltar to unwind and begin contemplating my next move. It was my first visit so I seized the rare opportunity to spend time with the plethora of my cousins and other relatives that I had not seen for years, if ever at all.The place itself is a bizarre fusion of Spain and Britain: there is something truly unique about seeing two British bobbies, complete with mandatory funny helmets, chattering away in thick Andalucian Spanish in the full heat of the blazing Mediterranean sun whilst outside Mothercare.
The people there are fantastically friendly and hospitable: when you first meet them it really feels like they have to consciously stop themselves from asking you round to dinner. The imposing majesty of the Rock, the tranquillity of the little marinas and the secret alleys that wind between quaint side streets inside the city walls make up for the messy herds of cruise-ship tourists that disembark to clog up Main Street each day.As a city boy, I must say that I do find the size of the place a bit uncomfortable. The couple of trips over the border into Spain were quite welcome, as being confined to a 0.5 mile x 1.5 mile strip of sand and limestone bordered by sea and fenced in by EU border patrols stirred up mild claustrophobia. I find it fascinating is the way that the locals speak of the various places on the Rock as if each one was a shrine; as if the Rock really is the centre of the Universe and that anything outside is foreign, strange and irrelevant.
It is possible that I just imagined this (pen)insular attitude as I live in a city of 7 million + and consider myself to be some slick, cultured, jet-setting urbanite. It then dawned on me that it could actually be a nice microcosm of mainland Britain itself, as I imagine many visitors would find it difficult to understand how we can differentiate the accents of places as close to each other as Liverpool and Manchester with such detail.
No trip to Gibraltar would be complete without a textbook trip over to Morocco for the weekend. Staying in "Gib" with locals meant that I had the luxury of being able to stow-away on a typical visit to their villa just outside Assilah (half an hour's drive from Tangiers).
This was my first visit to an Arab nation; indeed, it was also my first to what we Westerners refer to as the "developing world". It occurred to me that it was going to be an interesting trip when I realised that we had to temporarily import the car at the border, as they have to keep a tight reign on the amount of vehicles (presumably due to the high cost of importing fuel). There were scores of cars waiting to leave while their owners frantically tried to haggle with the various official scribes harassing them for tips as they help them fill out the import forms. I soon noted how normal it was in this part of the world to see an outstretched hand waiting to be appeased with a few dirhams. The high temperatures frayed a few tempers and a fist fight broke out a few cars behind, attracting the attention of every border guard, scribe and vehicle owner, all rushing over to voice their informed opinion on the matter.
The first port of call, past a man with his entire family hanging off his motorcycle that he was wisely steering the wrong way up the dual carriageway, was the bakery to pick up some bread and cakes for the weekend. What I saw next was a real shock but when I think back to it now, is really not a big deal. In the bakery, the cakes were all uncovered and as a result were covered with clouds of bees. When a customer pointed to the morsel they fancied, the bakers assistants simply scraped off the bees and plonked the cake into a box before any others could jump back onto it. The sight of all those bees crawling over the cakes was the most vivid image for me that the rules for the UK didn't really apply here.
Cue camel ride on the beach (touristy I know but I couldn't resist), sampling of the national cuisine cooked in a tagine, trip to haggle for a new mattress from a local bazaar, wander around the old town of Assilah and visit to a hammam (public baths/sauna). All very conducive to the act of relaxation. The weather was equally marvellous, a scorching sun every day works wonders on the post-exam zombie skin tone.
This was my first visit to an Arab nation; indeed, it was also my first to what we Westerners refer to as the "developing world". It occurred to me that it was going to be an interesting trip when I realised that we had to temporarily import the car at the border, as they have to keep a tight reign on the amount of vehicles (presumably due to the high cost of importing fuel). There were scores of cars waiting to leave while their owners frantically tried to haggle with the various official scribes harassing them for tips as they help them fill out the import forms. I soon noted how normal it was in this part of the world to see an outstretched hand waiting to be appeased with a few dirhams. The high temperatures frayed a few tempers and a fist fight broke out a few cars behind, attracting the attention of every border guard, scribe and vehicle owner, all rushing over to voice their informed opinion on the matter.
The first port of call, past a man with his entire family hanging off his motorcycle that he was wisely steering the wrong way up the dual carriageway, was the bakery to pick up some bread and cakes for the weekend. What I saw next was a real shock but when I think back to it now, is really not a big deal. In the bakery, the cakes were all uncovered and as a result were covered with clouds of bees. When a customer pointed to the morsel they fancied, the bakers assistants simply scraped off the bees and plonked the cake into a box before any others could jump back onto it. The sight of all those bees crawling over the cakes was the most vivid image for me that the rules for the UK didn't really apply here.
Cue camel ride on the beach (touristy I know but I couldn't resist), sampling of the national cuisine cooked in a tagine, trip to haggle for a new mattress from a local bazaar, wander around the old town of Assilah and visit to a hammam (public baths/sauna). All very conducive to the act of relaxation. The weather was equally marvellous, a scorching sun every day works wonders on the post-exam zombie skin tone.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment