Casablanco Tarifa

... of the North African coastline . There's a look out point along the way but we continue driving our eyes scanning the horizon. We pass Tarifa and continue on another 5 kilometers to Rio Jara...our campsite for the next 2 nights. Its the first of a number of campsites on the road from Tarifa - in my opinion the most beautiful stretch of coastline in mainland Spain. Miles and miles of white sand beaches, unadulterated by the gross and ugly urbanizations of the south. Most ...

... would have ended frozen and insane like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining." I had Magda and since I was, me-Tim, me, I am the one who can-hiccup- I'm the one who can read it, not you, not you, get away, I'll get us there, don't worr-hiccup, stop, wait, right, no, god this GPshhh is dumph. Carrie? Where did'chu go? Caarrrieh. carrie? After a few miles of this, instead of walking towards somewhere, we went only deeper into hell ...

... over a hundred years ago and that was about it. Although walking through the narrow side streets I heard a woman screaming. A horrific kind of screaming that I'd never heard before. I thought someone was being raped and tried to find what drection it was coming from, but then people started leaning out of windows to see what was going on. I asked my ad hoc tour guide what everyone was saying, and it turns out a woman had just found her husband dead ...

... more Spanish pirates who were up to mischief and asked us to take their picture.We drank coffee in a cafe and posted some postcards to the kids then enjoyed wandering around the towns little alleyways and moorish ruins before buying tickets on the fast Tarifa to Tangier ferry. The best part of Tarifa was the rapunzel-let-down-your-golden-hair looking castle on the beach and, as the Portugese living statue had correctly informed us, we could see the coast ...

My second last night on European soil was spent at a little (and "historical" according to their street signs..) hostal called La Calzada in the old town of Tarifa. Once again Claire and I wanted to treat ourselves before we part ways for the next 30 days. Needless to say it was vey nice and all, and sleeping in a real bed after a few weeks on the road was restoring. We had delicious food and drinks the ...

... to digest ( there was some great middle Eastern music also playing), Saad asked us to go into the parlor for Mint tea and Moroccan baked goods. We were joined by Rachel who provided us some great discussion on Moroccan customs, politics, and hosting. The Dar or house was built by his father who worked in the government. They imported the tiles from Fez and had special craftsmen spend 6 months putting in the walls by "eye ...

... out misanthropy still exists today, though we didn´t see much of that. The city is, in fact, being cleaned up for the 2012 World Expo. Despite this, all the travel literature would have you believe that it is still full of miscreants, spies, human traffickers, Texans and all other types of scamps, skanks and scalawags. I wish we´d had more than one night to stay there. But, as we left northern Africa for good three days ago, Lisa and I had ...

... He says seven, you say nope. He complains, you don't care. He says five, and you got a deal. This process happens a million times a day. No one's good are better than anyone else's and they come at the same cost for all of the vendors. If you think you're getting a bad deal, you literally walk down the street. It can be exhausting and frustrating. By the way, the Moroccan currency is the Dirham, but everyone accepts Euros too. The exchange rate when we went was ...

... that you really appreciate when you're travelling alone. Especially when its 11pm and you're starving.
By and large the drivers have been courteous here, giving me plenty of space when passing. At night time some of them say thank-you, by indicating when I pull in to let them pass.
Today I am really tired. Sitting here in a comfy chair, my eyelids are dropping and I am seeing double.

... station to buy my ticket. Unfortunately the station is some 3km away through whats best describes as mainly baren building site, I will be getting a taxi there tomorrow with my bag. After purchasing my ticket I stopped in a nice little cafe for crepe coffee and orange juice. It was as I wandered back that an old little man started talking to me. I did the usual friendly chat and semi ignoring however his English was good and he seemed ...