Day 190-191: Tangier

Tangier was a total bust. The town itself is actually incredibly different from the rest of the towns we've been in. Correction: it's not a town, it's a city. The city is sprawling and built on a series of hills, much like San Francisco. Also, much like San Francisco, it has stairs on its hilltops. We had wanted to check out Tangier because of it's strategic importance on the Straits of Gibraltar and its Free Trade Zone status in the early 20th century. I also thought Tangier would make an economic, great base for day trips. For example, Hercules' rumored home is under 30 kms away from Taniger.

However, that just wasn't meant to be. Tangier is quite an expensive city to stay in. We took a field trip to a place our Moroccan train friends, Nadia, had recommended we visit in Taniger: Cafe Hafa. Cafe Hafa is a restaurant for Moroccans to drink large mint teas set on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean and Spain, just 13 kms across the Straits of Gibraltar. It really is quite beautiful and only a 1.5 km walk...uphill!

We also went to go to the American Legation Museum. Apparently, Morocco was one of the first countries to recognize the US upon it's independence. Morocco was also one of the first countries with a US embassy. Additionally, this museum is the only such museum outside of the US. We went, but ultimately decided not to go in. Seeing George Washington's signature just wasn't worth the whopping $3 for us! I can go see that in DC for free!

Anyway, since we also aren't crossing the Straits to Spain, and weren't feeling Tangier, we decided to settle for a small town just 45 minutes south of Tangier, called Asilah, which was never part of the French Protectorate. Rather, it was part of the Spanish. Time to put my rusty Spanish to the test! 

Day 152-155: Rowad & Alamein

Our friend Heba's family has a beach house in a town called Rowad on the Mediterranean just about 60 kms west of Alexandria. She's been telling us about this beach house for years. She calls it "the happiest place on Earth." The day we arrived in Cairo, she told us to spend the next day, while she and Nayeli were at work suffering from their 2 hours of sleep, packing a backpack for the weekend. She didn't tell us where we were going. She didn't need to. When somebody has a house in the happiest place on Earth, you pack your bag and hope that they are going to take you there!

It was amazing. I'm not the kind of person who tends to have a vision of where I'll be in 5 or 10 years. I have had one constant vision for years: the vision of having dinner on a warm night, by the Mediterranean, drinking wine with friends. I was living that vision.

The beach is so smooth, sandy, and private! This time is the beginning of the post-summer madness. Apparently everybody and their mom in Cairo has a beach house in this area, which is commonly referred to as "The North Shore." Private beaches and housing compounds stretch for 100 kms (and are continuing to stretch further). However, this weekend, we had the beach to ourselves.

The water is gorgeous. Perfect temperature, clarity, and waves (though they tell us that sometimes the waves are so strong that they call it "the washing machine").

A few of Heba's friends, who also have houses on the North Shore, also were in the area and came by to hang out. Every day was spent just enjoying Egyptian bread, cheese, cucumber, and tomato sandwiches, followed by beers, books, and conversation on the beach, and a night under a crystal clear sky. It is an amazing place.

To break up our beach, one of Heba's friends, Aly, took us the The Battle of El Alamein memorials. I wish I'd paid more attention during our WWII courses to better understand the importance of the battle, which took place just 30 kms west of where we were staying in Rowad. What I do know is that it was a turning point for the Allies, who were able to maintain their control over the Suez Canal.

The memorials are broken into 3 groups: Allies, Germans, and Italians. The Allied Memorial is very similar to ones that we've now seen across Southeast Asia. Standard military cemetery. Of course, getting to it isn't like any other memorial we've gone to. Was it marked? Kind of, if you did a U-turn on the highway to get to the other side where you saw a small green road marker. Did the road marker actually point to memorial? It would have if the random military blockade hadn't been put on the road for no apparent reason. Did we have to take some random gravel road after doing a few U-turns to avoid the military blockade? Yup. Why? As Aly repeated, "because they are idiots."

The German Memorial was completely different. It was built with a beautiful combination of Egyptian meets German Gothic architecture. It had 8 naives inside an octagon built of sandstone, without a roof, with an obelisk in the middle. Each naive had a 'tomb' much like in old churches, bearing the coat of arms of a region, like Bavaria, on it. You could also venture out to the roof of the structure to get the view. It was my favorite of all of the memorials.

The Italian Memorial was very.... Italian. Huge marble-like church meets burial vault. The inside looked and smelled like a modern Italian church, with a vaulted ceiling, crucifix in the middle, and huge open windows which replaced the standard stain-glassed crucifixion scene with a view of the ocean. Then the 'cross' section of the memorial was filled, floor to ceiling, with the burial vaults of the Italian soldiers. It was equally moving and yet something completely different.

It's hard to mix something so beautiful as the Mediterranean seascape with something as ugly as the Battle of Alamein. Just chalk up one more WWII battle site to our growing map of the war.

We were sad to leave Rowad, but that sadness lasted maybe the 4 hour journey home through the Nile Delta until we got home, repacked, and got ready for Pallavi's birthday surprise journey.