Back into the World!

 

I have been in Tangier now for nearly 3 weeks, and very keen to share my experiences & insights of this interesting city. Especially, staying here for a longer time than before. But before I write about my time here, I feel a blog of my journey to get here is needed.

Since returning to Australia at the end of June 2020, from being trapped in the Dominican Republic with the covid lockdowns, my travels had basically been on hold. The return to Australia, I wrote about in a blog back in 2020, but suffice to say, the whole situation had been a stressful one to say the least. It was never clear what had been wrong with me in late May & June, possibly some bug, but I suspect severe dehydration had me passing out & needing to go to hospital in that country three times. As people often say, the developing world is a great place to be when everything is going well in the world… but when it is not, well that can be very different! Dodgy is a kind word to use for my stays in that hospital with exposed electrical wires under the bed, being given the wrong medications, being defined as schizophrenic because I had developed anxiety! Water pouring into the bathroom from a flooded floor above, staff sleeping at night & not responding to calls for assistance, a hospital trying to get 13,000 USD for 8 days total in their below par hospital.  

Let me just say that when I returned to the NZ/AU region & had to do two weeks isolation in a hotel, my attitude was to be willing to do whatever was asked. I was even willing to fly through Trump USA with BLM protests & right-wing fanatics fuelled by Trump as Covid spread out of control. When I flew into New Zealand & then on to Sydney, I was just so relieved to be back in countries where I had a sense that I would be cared for if any problem emerged.

For the rest of 2020, I had been happy to stay low key in Sydney & with no vaccines yet available, my interest to go into classrooms, teaching was nil. I went back to teaching for the first half of 2021 as Covid was not in Australia at that point. Vaccines started to be rolled out mid-year, just as Australia had a new outbreak. In Sydney, we had lockdowns from the end of June to about October, and with vaccine effectiveness unclear, I gave teaching a skip for the rest of that year.

By the beginning of 2022, I had been well vaccinated & Covid had become a faster spreading but less severe version, so I went back teaching doing relief work, caught Covid after 3 days work, but was basically ok. I taught almost everyday in 2022, and became pickier about which schools I was willing to work in & generally had a really good time. Some of my best teaching days occurred in 2022, generally teaching awesome students who loved learning & I was working with lots of other great teachers who mostly had high standards for expected behaviour. I figured if I worked full time 2022, I would travel in 2023 again, but focus on places more affordable to make the year affordable.

My first flight since late June 2020, was in mid-December 2022 over to New Zealand where I stayed in Nelson, with my friend Ady. Going back to Nelson, where I was born & raised, is a little different these days as my parents have passed on & no family remains in my home town. I stayed with Ady in Nelson for just over 3 months. Nice to be back in a region that I know well, but that’s already been mentioned in a previous blog.

When I had left Sydney for New Zealand in December, a lot of people had stopped wearing face masks, but I was certainly doing it on the planes & in the shops. Flying to NZ was a good pre-test for international travel, getting on planes, being close to lots of other people, but still being in a country with fairly good public health & organisation.

I have had anxiety at times before covid, but I think living in a world with lots of fearful conversations, put a lot of people on edge, including me.

Prior to Covid, I had left Sydney in mid-December 2019, with my ex-partner Raff and we had flown up through Singapore to Athens, explored Athens, had a stopover in Rome then he went onto Malta to visit his parents & spend time in the country he had been born. I had then flown to Amsterdam & Morocco before January 2^nd flying Brussels to Dominican Republic once airfares had reduced from the extremely high fares in late December. Raff had been stuck in Malta when Covid hit & has remained there since. Knowing that Raff is in Malta, has made the idea of exploring around Europe better, as I do have some anxiety about being out in the world again. So far, so good, touch wood!

So, my journey to Europe & Morocco began April 1^st flying from Nelson through Auckland to Sydney. Friends John & Alison told me months before that I would be welcome to stay with them during my 2 nights in Sydney, so that was great. I had enough time to see a few friends & get ready for some big flights. I have always been a bit edgy about flying, but there are gains from traveling too, so you just need to take some risks. My biggest worry this time was being late & missing a flight which would have a domino effect on other flights. And travel has become more expensive, so missing a flight and wanting to buy another with short notice will cost you a lot. The better prices for flights & places to stay come with advanced bookings & also finding places for longer stays, part of the reason I am staying a month in Tangier.

I tended to show up 3-4 hours before flights. What it means is that I am not one of those people who falls asleep on flights!

On Monday April 3^rd afternoon, I flew from Sydney to Singapore arriving about 7pm local time. The flight to Singapore was with Scoot, a budget airline of Singapore Airlines. It took about 7 hours, but was really just the lead in for the next flight. I remember the sights of Australia and the red terrain. It was a fairly long flight, but it is what it is. Because flying most places from NZ & Australia can take so long, many of my compatriots tend to take longer journeys, as flying to the other side of the world is not the nicest experience unless you are in the posh part of the plane!

I had booked a capsule for a rest in Singapore. I managed to get the train into the city, got off at the correct station, but then managed to get lost! I was still in preparation phase, not having learnt again how to download maps on google maps for offline use. Eventually I found the hostel which was pretty slummy, but that’s Singapore for you. The extremes are there for all who wish to see. It was very humid, but also exciting to be out in the world again! I took a risk and left some things in my unlocked capsule and kept my wallet, passport & ticket with me, so that even if someone stole my bag, I could still board the next flight in a few hours. That’s part of traveling too. Strategising, plotting, planning, compromising, having Plan B ready to implement in case something goes wrong with Plan A. Across the road from the hostel was a bunch of outside food stalls which all only accepted cash, but there was a machine nearby willing to give me some money for a fee! But eating Thai noodles in Singapore along with some laksa was pretty good! Sitting in that slummy area with the evening heat & humidity, eating noodles that needed no additional chilli! felt like welcome back to the world!

A shower was the next priority. After this I settled into my capsule. I had hoped to get a few hours sleep before the next flight. But I was just too edgy about falling asleep & sleeping through my alarms. So, I accepted this and just focused on resting. Being in a little space that is cool & dark is better than the glare of waiting at the airport, that’s for sure! I had managed to download an app to get transport to the airport for the next flight. The flight was due to depart at 5.30am Singapore time which was something like 7.30am Sydney or 9.30am NZ! Those time zones can really muck you around! I spoke to the ‘taxi’ guy and arranged to be picked up at 3am. So, I was ready there by 3am in the back lane as I had messaged, but there was no car! As soon as I left the hostel, the wifi failed & the taxi driver assumed he could text me on my AU number, but as I do not have esim on my phone, I could not text or call back. I had fears of him cancelling the booking and me unable to get to the airport. This felt like a repeat of getting to LAX airport in late June 2020! Fortunately, he was waiting around the front and so the fear moved to a state of relief. A short journey & I was dropped at the airport, went through security and then waited two hours or so for this next flight. I had studied the seating on the plane months before & it appeared that the seats at the back of the plane only had two spots rather than three. It looked like my spot would allow some leg space which is always my concern. And I was right. And because I was at the back of the plane, the spot next to me had been left free. Woohoo! And it was good that this was the situation too as that 11.5 hours to Athens on top of the Sydney -Singapore flight plus no sleep is a challenge. It was over the Afghanistan region that my legs really wanted to get out & walk. I did lots of stretching which helped. From high above, that part of the planet just looks so dry & arid.

As they say all good things must come to an end, but I am not sure if they mean this about flying for 11 hours ++.

Flying into Athens is always a great experience. The airport is away from the city & fairly low key but good standard. A train connects to the city. So exciting to be welcomed back to Europe after this period of absence & upheaval in the world. My train stop had me exiting near the acropolis and a short walk with a little getting lost, and I found my way to the hotel Raff & I had stayed at in December 2019. Being back in Athens felt like being back home again, one of my favourite cities, not the cleanest, but affordable, pretty friendly & such history! I managed to stay active until nightfall. It was still kind of cold being early April. It was nice to find my favourite kebab store near the hotel. Being Ramadan still, many in this part of Athens are Muslim & were fasting, but shops were open to sell food.

My sleep was awesome, but it took about a week to get in synch with the hours of Europe. Its about 12 hours different, so it takes the body clock some time to adjust. The first night I managed to sleep until 3am which was like 3pm where I had come from. Each night it got better.

On this visit to Athens, I just enjoyed looking in shops. My energy levels were not great yet as I was still sleep deprived, so clambering up to the Acropolis was not in my must do list, and I have already been exploring there twice on other visits to Athens.

Tuesday, I had flown Singapore to Athens. Thursday, I flew to Naples. It was going to cost the same to get to Malta, so I figured I may as well use the opportunity for a stopover & explore a new spot. My preparation for my visit to Naples was very limited, but I had studied where my booking was & that was the priority for starters. The flight was pretty straight forward, and as you discover in Europe, so many nationalities, cultures, people, flights. Its all happening.

And in true Naples style, there was no bus to get from the airport, but a few businesses were running shuttle vans for a similar price. So, I got to experience my first situation of crazy Naples drivers. More on that later…

Arriving at the centre of Naples near the train station, I had got offline maps working by then so was able to navigate my way to my accommodation. There was no buzzer or information as it was an apartment managed by a family. But in Naples fashion, a few calls from one balcony to another and next thing I am being escorted to the place & made welcome. It was a fairly noisy spot & this is something that can be challenging for anyone but especially someone who grew up in a quiet spot like NZ! But it was within walking distance of so many places. Being Easter weekend, Naples was chockers with locals & visitors. And having so many tourists means that some tourist companies & operators will try & grab everything they can off you. Very few stores there advertised prices which makes you feel at their mercy. What they fail to realise is that rather than being potentially fleeced, many walk on until they find a place with listed prices.

There was a lot to see in Naples, but also you either need to have studied up well before hand, or you stay a long time, or you go on guided tours. I decided to see a few things & not stress too much if I did not get to see it all. By this stage I had sore feet from walking so much in Athens anyway. And in Naples it got pretty cold, so keeping warm was a priority rather than seeing everything. Over the few days I was there, I got to see some amazing churches. On the outside the churches look grey & unappealing, but inside... Wow! Spectacular! The highlight was on Good Friday walking into a church just after 5pm & discovering a church service had just begun, such beautiful music!

I was so unprepared for Naples that I did not even know how close Pompeii was. Or Sorrento or Positano.

As I started researching sites to visit in Naples, I noticed that that amazing mountain nearby was Mt Vesuvius and that meant that Pompeii must be nearby too. At first it looked like it was all just too expensive to visit but I did a bit of googling & discovered that there were trains & buses to such places. It was not necessary to go on expensive tours. I was due to leave Naples Sunday afternoon for Malta & had discovered that there was a train to visit Sorrento & a bus from there to Positano & the cost was a few Euro! Awesome. And it gets better. Naples comes alive later in the morning, but I was still operating from a time zone where I woke at 3 or 4am! So, the early bird gets the worm! On the Saturday morning I was at the central train station catching a train to Sorrento at 7.30am 😊 The forecast was for a downpour to occur that day, so I figured early made sense too. As the train travelled down the coast, I got some great shots of Vesuvius. Then the train stopped at Pompeii station. This made me keener to try & visit Pompeii the next morning.

When the train arrived at Sorrento, the weather was definitely looking like rain would come, so I figured get to the end of the line now, see what I can and then do my best to get back in transport as it pours. A bus left 5 minutes later for Positano and I was one of the last passengers to board. I was standing on the beach at Positano at 9.20am! Its an amazing location to visit, but the morning I was standing there, there was no sunshine lighting up the beautiful colours of the buildings. But for me I could say I had been there. Spots of rain were beginning, so I figured keeping moving was the best plan. Getting down to the beach at Positano is much easier than the climb back up to the main road. It’s a narrow road at the top and the bus drivers who do this route really know what they are about. Some spots are one way & any driver holding up the traffic gets a good blast. The nicest view at Positano was the beautiful central church with amazing art work. There is beautiful art all around Positano.

The bus took me back to Sorrento & I managed to see most of the town before the heavens opened. I got to the train station fairly dry, then sat in a train waiting half an hour for it to depart and the downpour was intense. But I was dry thanks to my umbrella, but also forward planning. Sorrento has a beautiful focus on lemons & oranges. Limoncello comes from this part of the world and there are beautiful souvenirs based around colours, designs of lemons & oranges.

On the train journey back to Naples, the rain eventually reduced, but still continued. At Pompeii Station, hundreds of tourists who had been rained out joined the train. As we passed Vesuvius, someone was taking photos of the mountain. I looked carefully. It was covered with snow! It had been snowing while I was down at Sorrento Positano. Amazing.

Things got colder that night and fortunately my room had an air conditioner to warm up the room.

The next morning, I found a place to leave my bag & off I raced to Pompeii. Being on the early train had me at the entrance to Pompeii at 9am as it opened. Most people were on guided tours. I’m sure they learnt a lot of information. But I liked moving at my own speed & focusing on sights that were of interest to me. It’s a big place and arriving early was smart as by 11am it was packed. Staying away from the throngs was much nicer to feel the place, the tragedy too.

A return to the city, collecting my bag & back to central station to get a bus to the airport. But it was Sunday & Easter Sunday. The city was on go slow as people went to visit family. I found a queue of people waiting for the airport bus. I spoke to an English couple waiting for the airport bus… How long had they been waiting? 1 hour 20 minutes! A taxi driver appears. Looking for people to go to the airport. 10 Euro each instead of 4 Euro for the bus. When in Rome (or Naples) … face the situation! This guy is on a rort but for 6 euro more he is going to get you there. Meanwhile this queue could still be there tomorrow, the taxi driver explained that the buses would not come. Maybe it was his scam, but I suspected he was only stating a fact. And he raced us to the airport in a death-defying way, showing off his daredevil skills or on a roll to get back to central for another 4 or 5 customers! Many streets in Naples are very narrow and the skill of some drivers of small cars was amazing to see. One guy I saw reversing down a narrow street with cars on one side and a cliff face the other at 30-50 km an hour! Death defying skill! The mopeds & motorbikes must injure many as they race through crowds in the narrow alleyways. Not a fan of that situation.

I waited a while for the flight from Naples to Malta but having seen a city working on half mode with buses out & no internet working in the airport, I figured getting there early had been a good move. Naples was good to experience but a little too crowded for my liking, but I did love the churches & the lemon- orange art designs & various other designs based around religious imagery. And visiting Pompeii was an amazing experience.

Flying down to Malta from Naples was a short journey after those other flights. As soon as the flight landed & I was in the terminal I called Raff & he organised an uber equivalent & was quickly driven to Raff’s place. I stayed with him nearly two weeks, but wow it was still cold. Very cold breezes & getting around in Malta is slow. Too many cars & not enough buses. Its slow. There are some beautiful old buildings to explore. But of course, the highlight was getting to spend time with Raff again. And while I stayed, we did a lot of food exploring at different stores. There is a Bulgarian shop & a Tunisian shop near where he lives. And of course, there are pastizzis being sold in many places too. But getting to sample foods from so many different countries & cultures in the region; that’s one of the things that interests me so much about Europe, and the same applies here in Morocco. But more on Morocco in my next blog. I will return to stay with Raff in late June when Malta will have apparently swung from cold to very hot. There are many things about nature, beauty, beaches etc that so many New Zealanders & Australians take for granted. In this part of the world, people rave about their beaches which are often rocky outcrops with imported sand! Message to Kiwis & Aussies: do not take your nature for granted!

I left Malta after 12 days, flying to Valencia in Spain for the weekend. There were no direct flights from Malta to Morocco, so often to get from one place to another involves two flights. It can be a chance to see a new city, but it often takes time to get to know your way around. People often tend to romanticise travel, especially if they have not done much recently. There are many things to learn & in Europe, things can get expensive quickly. I found the metro complicated & unclear so I got sore tootsies walking a lot! I went on a walking tour & learned a lot about the old parts of the city. The Airbnb I stayed in was near the beach & next to a large supermarket with excellent food. Lots of great cafes in Valencia too & the free art museum is absolutely spectacular. The main markets and old buildings in the centre of Valencia make it worth visiting this city. The churches are incredible. But the art museum is not to be missed.

And at this point, I wish you well. I will write another blog in a few days about my return to Tangier & Morocco!