Day 15 - Switching Continents

Not sure how, but I managed to get completely lost in Tangier, even thought the seafront should have guided me. My hotel was up the hill, so I thought riding downhill will take me to the port - it did not, the road suddenly curved and started rising again. Confused, I followed it and after about 20 minutes, I managed to get back to the place I had started from. All of this was at around 6:30, when I was in a hurry to catch the 7:00 am boat. I did find the correct road through the medina and soon was on the boat - it was quite delayed, think it sailed at 8:00. Not only was the landscape not as pretty, also the weather was quite gloomy, with only small patches of sunshine.

Looking back at Morocco from the ferry - the mountains quickly fading

The ride was a quick one - think about 35 minutes, disembarking was without any problems, a quick passport check and I was in the Spanish city of Tarifa. Yes, there is definitely a difference between Africa and Europe, everything was so much more orderly and neat - but maybe also a bit boring. It being a Sunday morning, hardly anyone was on the street.

Back to Europe - Port of Tarifa

I tried hitchhiking the few vehicles that rolled off the ferry, no one would stop - so I found the bus station, where there was no older guy loading the bike, it was all me, with the bus driver and the couple of passengers impatiently watching as I was loading all my stuff. We got to Algericas, where I had boarded the ferry two weeks earlier, me having no idea of the wonderful adventure I was about to have. After half an hour, I boarded another bus bound for Malaga.

The bus needed quite a while to make it there - it had a lot of stops on the Costa del Sol. While there were nice beaches, altogether it is not a place I would want to spend my holidays at - lots of tightly packed hotels, bungalows, houses - it must have been a beautiful place some fifty years ago (BTW, the same is true for Marrakesh), now it is far too crowded.

In Malaga there was a marathon earlier that morning - with lots of road closures. The bus driver wanted to ask a policeman about the directions, he told him to move on - they ended up getting into a huge, cursing fight - which the bus driver lost (think he got a ticket).

My flight was only the next day, so I booked a very nice apartment via AirBnB. After leaving my stuff at the accommodation, I returned the bike to the shop and spent the rest of the afternoon in Malaga, visiting the Picasso museum and wandering the streets, still under the memories of Morocco. The feeling of being back in Europe came during my first restaurant visit - not only did I wait well oven an hour for my food, the bill for a soup and salad with a beer came to over Eur 20 (OK, tourist tax included, it was a rather popular place with visitors).

Malaga

This is how I made the final 200 kilometers, by ferry and bus.