From: wlim@gdstech.GRUMMAN.COM (Willie Lim)
Newsgroups: rec.travel
Subject: Travelogue: Portugal, Southern Spain, Gibraltar, & Morocco (long).
Date: 10 Jan 93 20:29:16 GMT
Organization: Grumman Corporation, Bethpage, New York, USA.


GENERAL:

My family (wife, 2 small boys, and I) just returned from a trip
Portugal.  The trip lasted about 2 weeks.

Flight: We took off from JFK, New York on Christmas eve, arrived at
Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, Holland on Christmas day for a connecting
flight to Lisboa (Lisbon), Portugal (after a brief stop at Oporto).
Total elasped time (from departure at JFK, 7pm EDT, to arrival at
Lisboa, 1:25pm local time) is about 12 and a half hours.  We would
save about 4 hours of flying had we had a direct flight (but our
travel agent screwed up our flights and departure/arrival dates).  Our
return flight was about the same except that we avoided the Oporto
stop by flying back a day earlier.  Since one of my kid was air sick
(from the taking off and landing) KLM was nice enough to let us
changed our flights without any penalty (even when we had restrictions
on our tickets).  (Some of KLM's Amsterdam-Lisboa stop over at Oporto.
I think they do that 2-3 times a week, depending on the day of the
flight.)

Time: New York (with daylight saving) is 6 hours behind Portugal and
Spain and 5 hours behind Morocco.  Portugal and Spain do not have
daylight saving time anymore (to follow many of the Northern European
countries).  Hence the sun rises around 8am (Southern coast of
Portugal/Spain) or 9am (in Lisboa) and sets around 6-7pm.  It took me
a while to seeing the sun rising so late in the morning.

Weather: The high temperature throughout the trip was in the high 50's
(F) to low 60's (F) range.  Night time temperature was in the 40-50
(F) range.  We had sunny days almost the whole trip (there were a
couple of foggy mornings and near misses where the rain just preceeded
our arrival at some places).
 

Lisboa 1:

We stayed at a very good hotel on Av. Liberdade right in front of a
subway stop and about 3-4 blocks from the train station.  (Since there
were the four of us, we had two adjoining rooms.  We found out later
that we can cut down on the hotel bill by getting a triple and then
adding a cot.  After our first stay at Lisboa we had triple or junior
suite with an extra, fourth, cot/bed.  Since our kids are small we
find this arrangement very suitable for us.)

For our Christmas dinner we ate at a Portuguese restaurant.  The food
was great (we had grilled shrimp, roast goat, vegetable soup, and
cream of shrimp soup).  Throughout the trip we found that the local
food (Portugal, Southern Spain, and Morocco) has a lot of salt but
good in general.  If you like seafood or pork or mutton, you'll like
local food.  Also there is a great variety of Portuguese coffee drinks,
my favorite is cafe com leite (sort of like expresso with steamed
milk).  I, being a sugar person, usually add at least a bag of sugar
to whatever coffee I'm drinking (the family joke is that I should say
how much coffee I want with my sugar rather than the other way
round.:-)  Other kinds of coffee drinks we tried: uma bica (a small cup
of black coffee sort of like "Arabic coffee") and um galao (cafe com
leite in a glass).

We spent the next day taking a private tour (using a private taxi with
an English speaking driver) of Lisboa and the surrounding areas.  We
figured that it is about as expensive as paying for a regular city
tour for the four of us.  Since it is a Saturday (of the long
Christmas weekend), there was little traffic in the city and
surrounding areas.  We get to tour Lisboa, Cascais, and Sintra all in
one day.  In Lisboa, we get to see the Castelo Sao Jorge (St. George
Castle), the Alfama district (sort of medieval looking type of
neighborhood), the Coach museum, the navigator's monument, Mosteiro
dos Jeronimos (and cloisters), and Torre de Belem.  We had lunch in
Cascais near the western most point of Europe.  The seafood cataplana
was great.  We avoided the lobsters throughout the trip since they
cost over US$50.00 a kilo (you can eat several Maine lobsters in New
York City at that price).  We then went downtown Sintra and saw the
Palacio Real (former summer residence of Moorish sultans) and its huge
conical chimneys.  After that we visited the Palacio Real de Queluz
(where Ronald Reagan stayed during his visit to Portugal).  On our
return to Lisboa, we stopped at the park, Parque Eduardo VII, where
there was a Christmas circus and kid's fair going on.

We had dinner near the Rossio area of Lisboa.  Great area for tourist
since there are lots of good restaurants in that area.  The displays
in front of the restaurants are pretty interesting (though some people
may find them unsettling): squids, crabs, lobsters, prawns, skinned
baby goat, parts of an unskinned wild boar, eels (hanging with their
mouths wide opened), lots of salted and dried cattle thighs, etc. etc.
We also took a stroll through the streets in the Rossio area and saw
the Christmas lights and displays.



THE ALGARVE REGION:

On Sunday we drove South to the Algarve region (southern coast of
Portugal).  The bridge leading out of Lisboa gave us a magnificent
view of the city and environs.  From the bridge south to Setubal
(about 30 minutes away) it was all highway (Autostrada).  After that
it was main road (one lane each direction and undivided) all the way.
The drive took about 4 hours (that was because we were taking it
easy).  The traffic was light (at least in our direction, the other
direction was busier since it was the last day of a long weekend and
people are driving home to the Lisboa area).  We stopped by Portimao
just to take a look and discovered a shopping mall with a Pizza Hut in
it.  The kids were overjoyed, they missed "American" food.  The Pizza
Hut had very interesting pizzas though (e.g. seafood mix or pork and
ham).

Later that day we drove to our time share vacation condo (obtained
through RCI) near Albufeira (about 20 minutes from Faro, yes the Faro
where a KLM crashed just a few days earlier).  The vacation condo was
luxurious (we had a 2-bedroom apartment with a great view of the
ocean).  However it was too cold to swim at the ocean or the large
outdoor pool.

On Monday we drove on the main road west towards the western most part
of the Algarve region.  We took a short detour to Silves to see a
Moorish castle via an interesting country road.  The road gave us a
great view of the Moorish castle.  We toured the castle, climbed up
every all wall they let us and it was great.  The kids had a great
time.  We then had lunch at Cafe Inglesia (English Cafe) next to the
cathedral (Gothic) at the entrance to the castle.  We had our best
grilled squids and grilled sardines there.  The squids were small but
cooked whole.  They were yummy.  So were the grilled sardines (small).
(Check that cafe out the next time you are visiting the Moorish castle
in Silves.)  The area next to the castle and church was very quaint.
Typical Portuguese town.  Great for pictures.  We visited the church
and two very kind women at the church gave us (actually for our kids)
some oranges (there are lots of orange trees throughout our trip).
Those oranges were great!

We then drove back to the main road and westward.  The road condition
got rougher as we go further west.  On many parts, a main road was
being built and we had to drive on country-type roads most of the way.
We stopped by a mini-market in a small town to pick up some agua
mineral natural for the kids and took some pictures of a quaint
looking church and neighborhood nearby.  Then on we went until we
reached the lighthouse at Cabo de Sao Vincent.  The view of the ocean
and the surrounding cliffs was impressive.  We bought some really neat
looking "knitware" knitted by some local women at the lighthouse
compound.  The surrounding cliffs were really impressive including an
"island" (rock formation) about 2 hundred yards from the cliffs.  They
were some locals fishing by standing on small ledges off the side of
the cliffs.  The fish better not pull too hard otherwise it will be
the fisherman who will get dragged into the water below and "fished"
by the fish. :-)

While heading back to Albufeira, just a short distance down the road
from the lighthouse we stopped at an old ruin and walked down a rocky
path almost to the water.  It was rocky and steep but fun for the
kids.  We then drove on eastward and stop at Portimao for dinner.  We
had grilled squids and sardines.  But this time the squids and
sardines were large and not so good as those in Silves.  Portimao is a
pretty big town with narrow winding and hilly roads (typical for the
towns and villages in this region).

We were planning to just be beach bums that whole week.  Since it was
too cold to be beach bumming or swimming (with or without clothes) we
decided to cut short our stay in the Algarve region and head for
Southern Spain.  So we looked earnestly for a map of Spain in Portimao
before leaving for Albufeira.  The fun began.

On the next day we drove east towards Huelva in Southern Spain.  We
passed by Faro and that town seemed to be the epitome of all the over
construction in that region.  IMHO, many of the high rise,
condominiums, new homes, and shopping malls are just not well thought
out.  In some places they are more of an eye sore than anything else
(like some areas in Southern California).

We stopped by the town of Tavira, Portugal to take a look at the old
Roman bridge and a Moorish ruin.  It was an interesting town with a
Moorish look.  I like the more Moorish (and relatively undisturbed)
look of that region.  Almost none of those ugly condominiums and
random new constructions.  We took a stroll around the fish and fresh
produce market area.  We also saw lots of Portuguese pottery stuff
including some rather interesting ones (hints: cartooney, male-female,
and positions).  It was too cold to visit the great beaches mentioned
in the guide book.  We bought our first bag of roasted chestnuts (we
saw a lot of roasted chestnut stands in Lisboa but we did not try them
until now) and they were great and cheap (100$00 i.e., 100 escudos
about US $0.70-$0.80).  I decided to post all but one of my postcards
at the Post Office there.  My survival Portuguese helped me understood
how much the celeos (stamps) cost.  I could have spoken in English but
I wanted to learn to speak a little bit of Portuguese.


ON TO SOUTHERN SPAIN:

When we crossed over to Spain, the scenery changed from sea-coast
towns and villages to farmlands.  Almost all the way we travelled on
main roads (there was a couple of short sections of
Autostrada/Autovia; one near the Spanish border and the other near
Sevilla).  We got into Sevilla around 4pm (after about 3-4 hours of
driving from Albufeira) and headed towards the Tourist Office.
Unfortunately the office was closed (even though the guide books said
otherwise).  We spent some time looking for a hotel.  In the process
we stopped at a MacDonald's (near the Cathedral) for the kids' sake
and to calm some anxiety about not having found a hotel yet.  (Part of
the problem was the strict standards of my wife. :-)

We then drove around a little bit in the traffic jam (it was in the
middle of a shopping season; right after Christmas and before January
6, the Day of the Three Kings??).  Many roads in the city center were
closed but we liked the city, nevertheless.  We found a hotel with the
help of a very nice cop who showed us the way by leading us with his
motorcycle.  We knew where it was on the map and could even see it
from a couple of blocks away but getting there was the problem.  The
cop took us through this maze of narrow winding back roads which we
would never have figured out from the map (there were too many one way
streets and some streets were closed for the shopping season).  But
the cop was great, he took us there in "no time."

The hotel was great and very well located.  We checked in and found
out that our room had a a very good close up view of the church right
next door.  The church's top was beautifully lighted and we had a very
good view of the church bells (which fortunately were not used) about
100 feet away.  After finding out that restaurants were not opened for
dinner until 9pm, we headed out to mingle with the crowd and had tapas
(light pre-dinner snacks) at a tapas place.  It was great to be out
there in the midst of all that festivity.  We had roasted chestnuts
too (actually we ate roasted chestnuts almost daily since we left
Tariva).  The chestnuts were more expensive and not so good
(over-cooked) when compared to the ones we had in Tavira.

When it got close to dinner, we walked back to the hotel and asked the
concierge to recommend a good dinner place.  We also bought tickets
for a Flamenco show (10pm).  We walked to the dinner place.  It was a
great restaurant.  The food (a kind of seafood stew) was great and
there were stuffed bull-heads and pictures of matadores on the walls.
(I was told that unlike Spain, the bulls are not killed in bull fights
in Portugal.  They just wrestle them to the ground.  Unfortunately the
bull fighting season was over in Portugal (and Spain) so we didn't get
to see their more humane version of the bull fight.)  After dinner we
walked to the "theater" to see the Flamenco show (as I said before the
hotel was very well located).  The show was great.  Lots of singing
and dancing and foot-stomping, hand-clapping, etc.  The kids enjoyed
the hour and a half show.  The only regret I had is that I forgot to
bring the camera.

The whole of the next day was devoted to touring Sevilla by foot.
Since Southern Spain was unplanned, we figured we spent as much time
as we needed.  We visited the Cathedral (the 3rd largest in Europe
after St. Peter's and St. Paul's).  The Cathedral was about 1 block by
1 block in area.  It was huge and impressive, definitely worth
visiting.  We then went to the Alcazar (large Moorish castle and
garden).  This place is also worth visiting.  It has great rooms,
courtyards, castle walls, and gardens with lots of orange trees loaded
with ripe oranges.  The oranges on the trees make one wonders if they
can be plucked.  We saw half eaten oranges in the trash can.  Anyway
we left the oranges alone on the trees.  After Alcazar we visited the
Indies Library. Then after a brief look at the Giralda (it was closed)
and we started heading back to the hotel.  On the way we checked out
the prices for the horse carriages (for the kids' sake).  My wife
didn't like the way the horses were treated on many of them so we kept
on walking until we saw this driver polishing his carriage and taking
very good care of his horse (very young, active, and healthy).  We
took that horse carriage and had a very good tour of the other major
sites of Seville e.g. the Parque de Maria Luisa, the Place de Espana,
the bull ring, etc.  The tour by horse carriage was really good.  It
was too cold and windy to walk and we wouldn't have covered as much
anyway.  That evening we went back to strolling through the shopping
district right by the hotel.

By night time we decided we have seen enough and we should move on.
Tangier, Morocco was the next destination.  However the logistics of
getting to Tangier was a little more complex.  We had to spend a night
at Algeciras before we can take the ferry to Tangier.


GIBRALTAR, ALGECIRAS, AND TANGIER:

We drove out of Sevilla towards Cadiz on the Autovia.  After Cadiz we
headed south towards Tarifa, Algeciras, and Gibraltar.  The road was a
main road and not an Autovia.  We stopped briefly at Tarifa (the
Southern most European city and the best place to take a ferry to
Tangier) and thought about taking the ferry to Tangier.  It was New
Year's Eve then but we were worried about leavng the luggage in the
car parked in the open parking lot near the dock.  So we decided to
drive to Algeciras (about 20 minutes), checked in to a hotel and
inquired about a day tour to Morocco.  We found out that we would have
to take the ferry from Algeciras (about 2.5 hours ferry ride to Tangier
versus 1.5 hours from Tarifa).  (There was no hydrofoil running during
that time of the year.  The trip to Tangier takes about an hour by
hydrofoil.)  So we decided to drive over to Gibraltar (about 20
minutes away).

The drive to Gibraltar was fast (on an Autovia).  However getting
across the border takes a little while because of the border checks.
We just missed a rain storm and the sky was clearing.  Once crossed
the border (the border guard waved us through on seeing our US
passports) we drove into town after crossing the runway at the
airport.  The main road into town cuts the runway into two.  (I
presume they close that section of the road when a plane is using the
runway.)  The town is fairly small and expensive.  We walked around
and bought a book on Morocco.  Then we drove around the island before
heading back to Algeciras.

After going through the wait at the border where Spanish customs
officials checked the trunks of almost every car (except ours probably
because of our US passports and young kids), we drove back to the
hotel and checked on day trips to Morocco.  It turned out that there
was one for New Year's day (the next day) but it would last about 8
hours and cost about US$80.00 a person.  We decided to do the tour
ourselves.  We spent the evening and night hanging out in downtown
Algeciras.  We visited a mall (for parking our car), walked through
the downtown shopping area and had lots of churros.  It was an
interesting stroll.  We had New Year Eve's dinner at a Chinese
restaurant.

On New Year's day we took the 9:30am ferry to Tangier.  Our passport
got stamped by Spanish immigration before we boarded the ferry.  On
the two and a half hour ferry ride we observed many interesting
things.  First you must get your travel papers in order before you
disembark.  We had to fill up a form which was available from the
ferry operator.  Then you had to get your passport stamped on the
ferry.  This we didn't do and ended having to wait about 15 minutes on
the ferry as everybody (which stamped passports) was getting off.
There were 8 of us who missed the announcement about getting the
passports stamped on board.  All the four of us in the family with US
passports finally got our passport stamped and allowed to disembark.
The other four with European passports were not allowed to and had to
return Algeciras.  I don't know why they were held back.  But
according to the guide book, if you have a Israeli visa in your
passport or looked like a hippie, there is a chance that you will be
denied entry to Morocco.

When we disembarked we were on a "hustler alert."  It turned out that
since we didn't get off with most people we missed most of the
hustlers.  Or it could be that it was off-season for hustlers.  Anyway
as we were walking from the dock to the train station and town square,
we came across a hustler.  We managed to get him off our backs using
various tactics.  When we get into town, we ate at a restaurant.  I
had great Tunisian skewer, spicy and good!  After lunch we took a walk
around the Medina area.  The architecture and structure of the area
was very interesting.  Narrow cobblestone roads with slight
depressions in middle for drainage.  There was an assortment of local
attire: fez, hooded robes, robes, etc. reminded me of some of the
scenes in Star Wars.  When we got near the museum we came across some
hustlers (including the one who just tried to hustle us) but we
managed to get them off our backs.  We then somehow made our way
through the winding Medina complex back to the rail station, including
a stop to pick a fez for one of the kids.  There was a police
check-point when leaving the town area for the dock.  They seem to
only check the ID cards of locals.

Anyway when we get to the dock we had to fill up more forms (note: you
can get all the forms you need from the ferry personnel and hence no
need to pay any hustlers to get them) and wait in line for at least an
hour to get our passport stamped again.  Then our passport got checked
on embarking the ferry.  The 3:30pm ferry didn't leave until 5pm.  By
the time we reached Algeciras it was almost 8pm and we had to go
through Spanish immigration again.  Our US passports seem to make
things easier for us throughout the trip.  (Actually by this time our
passport had been stamped on entry to and exit from Portugal, exit
from Spain, and entry to and exit from Morocco.  We didn't get any
passport stamps getting in and out of Gibraltar.)  After disembarking
we drove back to Sevilla.  We got into Sevilla around 11:15pm and
checked into the same hotel as before.

After a good night sleep, we left Sevilla and headed North-West
towards the Portuguese border.  We stopped at Aracena, Spain to tour
the Marvellous Caves (Gruta de las Maravillas) right under the castle.
We saw a lot of caverns, pillars, lakes, etc. in the 1 hour conducted
tour It was great (even though the tour was conducted in Spanish).  I
would recommend taking the tour of the caves.  Since the trip to
Southern Spain was not planned, we didn't study any Spanish or Arabic
at all (we did pick up some "survival" Portuguese).  We had a very
good but expensive lunch at a classy restaurant near the caves.  The
waiter managed to hustle us into ordering an expensive extra item
(without our knowing and we thought it came with the house).



BACK TO PORTUGAL (EVORA):

The road from Sevilla to Aracena was a main road.  It deteriorated
into a hilly, winding, country road after that.  But the scenery was
beautiful.  We saw lots of farms (and pigs, cattle, and sheep).  The
scenery in that part of Spain reminds me of California (particularly
Southern California before they massive buildup).  It was like
Southern California or the Bay Area about 20-50 years ago.  A new main
road is under construction and we got to use part of the new road here
and there.  Once past the border we were driving on main roads again
all the way to Beja.  We then head north to Evora.  We had to go
through about 30 Km. of country road again.  This drive was the first
time we came across groups of gypsies travelling on their horse carts
(there were some local farmers moving around in their horse carts).

We arrived at Evora, Portugal in the afternoon.  We stayed in a hotel
located inside the walled city (the old section of the city).  Many of
the city roads were similar to those in Tangier.  That part of Evora
is very medieval with narrow, winding, and hilly roads.  For dinner we
ate at a small but very good Portuguese restaurant near the Parca do
Giraldo (the main square in the center of town).  We tried looking for
a laundromat but after hearing the hotel receptionist said something
about having seen the washer and dryer on TV, we gave up. :-) The
hotel was very nice and homely (more like a converted old home) and it
was filled with Japanese tourists while we were there.  We had a
triplet (more like a suite) with a sizeable balcony (I believe the
only balcony in the hotel).  The view from the balcony was great and
the room might have been a master bedroom of the house before its
conversion.  However one of the hotel boilers broke so we had to have
cool (tolerable) showers that evening and the next morning.  The
showers sure woke us up. :-)

The next morning (Sunday 1/4/93) we decided to take a tour of Evora
before heading back to Lisboa.  We had originally planned to drive to
Coimbra and visiting Fatima and other places.  However we were quite
tired of the driving and decided to spend the remaining 2 days in
Lisboa.  So we walked to the Cathedral area in Evora.  We stopped at
the Roman Temple (Templo de Diana) on the way and enjoyed the view of
the area surrounding Evora.  Then we visited the Museu de Evora right
next to the Cathedral.  It turned out that admission was free for that
morning.  There were several interesting exhibits in that museum.  We
then went next door to visit the Cathedral.  They were having mass
then.  The woman singing the hymns had a very beautiful voice.  We
proceeded upstairs to the exhibits of the old religious treasure of
sacredotal ornaments.  Next, it was downstairs to the cloisters.
Following a narrow circular stairway we climbed to the roof of the
cloisters with a great view of the city.  After a walk around the
compound below, we headed back to the hotel for lunch.  The food was
great but there was a cover charge (the appetizers was on the house
they said. :-) Of course we had our chestnuts just before leaving
Evora.  However they were more expensive (150$00) but they were as
good as those in Tavira.  Actually I could not tell if we had to pay a
tourist "tax" on the chestnuts.  They cost the same in Lisboa too.
The only way to tell is to observe how much the locals pay for each
packet first before buying one.  However we didn't have the time to
make the observations.  Anyway the chestnuts in Portugal (Tariva,
Evora, and Lisboa tasted better than


BACK TO Lisboa:

The drive back to Lisboa was uneventful.  We travelled on main roads
until Setubal, where we took the Autostrada back to Lisboa.  The
traffic was heavy as it was Sunday, the end of a long weekend (New
Year).  There was a 3 Km. traffic jam on the Autostrada crossing the
bridge to Lisboa.  But the view of the city from the bridge was great
this time with the sun shinning in the right direction for picture
taking.  We checked back into the hotel we first stayed in and
returned the car (the rental agency was just a few doors away).

That evening we ate in the Rossio area but this time we found a better
restaurant.  Since the vinho vert (literal translation "green wine")
is so well known we decided to try a half bottle of the white variety.
That was the first time I drank "so much" wine (two small glasses).
Since I don't drink, I can not say how good the wine was.  But for
some reason it seemed to help my digestive system (or it could be that
I was very hungry that evening, but unlikely given the heavy lunch I
had in Evora).  I could eat a lot of the food we ordered (left overs
from the kids and wife and my grilled squids which came after
everybody had eaten plus arroz doce (sweet rice) plus cafe com leite
in my sugar :-).  Is it true that wine helps one to eat more?  May be
that is why the locals can eat so much and not get fat, e.g. Paris.:-)

On our last full day in Portugal we decided to walk up to the Castelo
Sao Jorge through the Alfama neighborhood.  The castle was great and
worth visiting.  In our previous visit we did not get to walk around.
But now we did.  We walked along the castle walls, through the
courtyards and gardens.  The view of Lisboa from the castle walls was
magnificient.  The kids had a lot of fun walking up and down the rocky
steps (warning: there were not much safety barriers in all the castles
we had visited thus far in Portugal and Southern Spain).  The kids, of
course, enjoyed the play ground in the castle.  Going through the
"medieval" Alfama district was fun.

In the afternoon we took the kids to see "Home Alone 2" in a
Portuguese cinema.  The movie was not dubbed.  They had Portuguese
subtitles instead.  So for us it was as if we were watching a movie
back home except that it was cheaper (about US$2.40 per person).
There was no smoking in the cinema, a surprise given the relatively
high acceptance of smoking in public places in the region (and in
Europe in general).

Since we had to check in at the airport 3 hours before our flight to
Amsterdam, we checked out of the hotel around 10am and headed for the
airport.  After checking in our luggage and getting our boarding
passes, we headed back to Lisboa city center (about 20 minutes away)
for lunch at a Chinese restaurant.  (We were told that they do not
pre-assign seats in Europe.  You get your seat assignment at check in.
Since we were the first to check in for our flight we got good
non-smoking seats from Lisboa to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam to New
York.)  After strolling around the neighborhood we took a taxi back to
the airport about half an hour before departure.

At the airport we had to get our passport stamped again.  However
there was a minor complication.  All foreigners have to fill up a form
before entering Portugal.  We filled up ours on our flight in to
Lisboa.  They took a copy of the form and told us to hand the second
copy when we leave Portugal.  Since we left Portugal briefly for a
tour through Southern Spain and Morocco.  We had to turn in that copy
on leaving Portugal near the Spanish border.  However on our way back
to Portugal from Spain, the Portuguese immigration officer told us to
just go on (after finding out that we hold U.S. passports).  When I
asked him for the forms he said there was no need for them.  Hence
when we at the Lisboa airport, we had no forms to give to the
immigration officer.  He told us to fill up and another one.  That
delayed us for a few minutes.  It was a good thing that we had enough
time for the flight.


IMPRESSIONS AND OPINIONS:

Hustlers: In general, our tour of Tangier was the most tense of all.
The over-anxiety came from reading too much into the warnings about
hustlers (and possible extortioners and robbers) in the tour books.
On hindsight I think the people in Tangier were harmless and I should
have enjoyed the tour a lot more.  I have seen beggars in Asia and
hustlers in New York city.  I think those in New York city are more
devious and vicious.  It is just that I am used to them (New York city
hustlers) and know how to "detect" them.  Everybody hustle to make a
living: used car salesmen, people looking for venture capital, head of
research labs looking for research grants and funding, etc. etc.  It
is the extortioners that I object to.  Actually if you can find
someone you can trust in Tangier you probably will get a very good
guided tour of Tangier.  The tour guide can also double up as
translator.  Perhaps there is an opportunity here for some people to
start a business that matches up "innocent" tourists with decent and
honest hustlers.  Hence instead of the rather antiseptic group tours
on buses, small groups of tourists (groups of 1 to 5 tourists) can
have tours customized to their tastes.  I, as a tourist, would prefer
the individualized tours where I can get to go where I want to go and
stay as long as I want.  If there is a tour guide I can trust to take
me around and act as interpreter, that would be great.  Given the
number of tourists visiting Tangier and the high unemployment rate
there, I think there is a opportunity here to provide more stable
income to the locals as well as make some money.

Gypsies: The nomadic nature of the gypsies (particularly the sight of
their littel children travelling with them) invoked strong emotional
feelings in us.  One wonders how they can break the cycle of poverty
and illiteracy, exacerbated by their nomadic existence (there are
other social and historical factors too).  Actually the trip had been
a great eye opener for us and our kids.  Tangier was particularly
powerful.  At least one of them is beginning to understand the
importance of staying in school and doing the homework. :-) For us,
the adults, we appreciate what we have in America even more.  Kids (or
their parents) who have a stubborn "give-me" or entitlement attitude
should take the ferry ride to Tangier, Morocco and walk around the
Medina area.


Willie

P.S. Due to the heavy traffic on rec.travel, I do not read it
regularly.  Rather I read it only when I about to go on a trip.  So
please email me directly if you want to contact me.