Afriquana Europa Roma

Trip from Portugal through Spain to Morocco

It was a Tuesday morning and I have prepared myself mentally and physically that I am capable to hitch hike on my own that day.  I walked out the door of my host's flat and walked to the metro station to get to the outskirt of town.  The metro was closed, apparently that day they were having a strike.  So I had to wait for an hour amongst other hundreds of people trying to catch the bus.  It was a bit of a hassle, but I finally got to the bus station where it gets me across the bridge out of Lisbon.  I monitored my GPS so that I can stop closest possible to the petrol station beside the highway.

After getting off the bus, I walked 500m to the station and found out it was all fenced off.  I thought 'ok, you can do this!'.  I looked for the safest and most discreet fence to climb over, which I did.  I threw my bags over and climbed after.  With a big smile on my face feeling proud of myself, I took my 'Faro' sign out and walked to every single truck at the station.  Unfortunately none of them were going my way.  Bugger!

So I walked to the start of the exit of the petrol station and hitched from there.  A truck stopped but was going another way but insisted that the way he'll go will eventually get me where I want to go.  I thought to myself, 'gee, he's persistent'.  I didn't like the sound of it at all and said 'nau, i wait, obrigado'.  He was pissed off and climbed back on his truck.  Weird!

A few people stopped but they were only able to give me short rides, so I had to refuse even though I was starting to feel fed up after standing there for 3 hours.  An hour later, Pedro stopped and said, 'I'm not going to Faro but I'm going to Sines.  Which was perfect because I have organised a host a few kilometres south of Sines at Vila Nova de Milfontes.  It was a nice ride, Pedro was a really fluent english speaker so we talked about a lot of things and also congratulated him for being my first ride.

I got to Sines late at night and too late to hitch to Milfontes, so I stayed the night there.  After my experience the previous day, I was losing motivation to hitch hike.  The next day, I took a bus to Milfontes with a big guilt on my shoulder feeling like a total failure.  I wasn't proud at all but I couldn't find a motivation either.  I got to  my host's place in the afternoon.

At night, I cooked dinner for Sylvain who lives in an awesome mediterranean arabic style house with so much decorations from around the world.  We had really good conversations.  Sylvain's a barefoot runner and our talk that night really inspired and motivated me to continue on hitch hiking.

From left to right: A portugese style architecture in Sines; Trees farmed for the barks to be used as wine bottle corks; Beautiful Milfontes; Milfontes beaches, Portugese road; Algarve (Lagos); Sunset in Milfontes where I had dinner; Beautiful Lagos; Beautiful rocky Miilfontes beach; View from Sylvain's roof top; Sylvain on the right and his mate Falco on the left; Sylvain's nicely decorated house; Very simple bus stop in Portugal

After staying for a couple of nights, in the morning Sylvain dropped me off at the round about where people normally hitch. In 5 minutes I got a ride with a really nice couple of Portuguese guys who were heading south.  That day I travelled through almost every town in Algarve and decided to stay the night in Seville. I got to Seville at night and immediately looked for a hostel and got a bed. I spent almost the whole night at a place where all the locals like to hang out.  It was a really nice atmosphere and the fact not many people can speak English but still can have a great conversation with me, goes to show how warm and friendly local Sevillans are.  It also really inspired me to learrn to speak Spanish.

The next day I got up really early in the morning full of energy and walked all over the city all day long and met so many genuinely really friendly and warm people everywhere. I absolutely love Seville, the whole city really made me feel like home. In the afternoon I met with Sandra and Richard who are really good friends from Australia. We spent the whole night enjoying Spanish food and atmosphere. It was such a great night!

From left to right (all taking place in bonito Sevilla) : Flamenco dancers; Me on the tiled 'couch'; Bank Holiday fiesta, parade of drummers in awesome costumes; Cool Spanish Moorish style building which is a theatre;  Ladies banging on pots and pans on sttage for the fiesta; Love this building; Me with my favourite Richard and Sandra (Uncle John and Aunt Yoko); Thick chocolate churros after tapas and gelateria; Another bonito building; Bull fiighter statue; Sevilla view; Bonito architecture; Small  part of the biggest Cathedral in the world; Burger vending machine, very popular in Spain, I dare anyone to try one; The super grande Cathedral, can't get enpugh of it, such a complicated design and sooooo big. 

Early in the morning, I left Seville for Morocco. After a bus, ferry and a stuffed grand taxi ride and also a help from truly superbly nice Spanish and Moroccan friends I met during the trip, Emmanuel and I finally met again in Chefchaoun.  We were planning to spend a few nights there until the end of Eid Adha which is the sacrificing lamb/goat/cow day.  We thought the thick red colour blood everywhere in town would be very dramatic with the blue town.

Two days before Eid Adha, I got a message from Ouma, a host I organised in Fes.  She welcomed us to join her and her family for Eid Adha.   We thought it was a much better option because it is a family celebration and it would be nice to experince the culture with the locals.  So the next morning, we hitch hiked to Fes.   It was my first hitch hike in Morroco and it was easy.  We only waited for a car to come by and straight away we got a ride.  It was very lucky too that Hatim was going to Fes to celebrate Eid Adha with his family.

When we got to Fes, we met Ouma at the bus station and she took us too her family's house.  It was a nice local atmosphere with her family all gathering together for the big day.  In the morning, we saw the sheeps on their stairs.  I tried not to get too attached with the sheeps so that I don't get upset when the time comes.  At 10.30am, the professional slaughterer came and started what they had to do.  It was a really quick process which was great.  Straight away the liver and heart were made into kebabs and barbecued in the living room.  It is a Morrocam tradition to have barbecue inside the house like the nomadic way of cooking in the tent.  We looked around the neighbourhood and everyone was doing the same thing.  It was a very smokey day.

From left to right: Goodbye for now Spain, I miss you already; First landing in Tangier, Morocco; cactus fruit (note to self: never pick it yourself, only buy in market); the blue city of Chefchauon; decor of hotelwe stayed in at Chefchauon;  City view of the blue city in the morning; an amazing view of turquoise lake with red mountain on the way to Fez from Chefchauon; Medina gate in Fez; cool 13 century architecturein Fez Medina (oldest Medina in Morocco); view of Medina; typical Moroccan style building; nice architecture; me and Ouma (our lovely host) in front of sheep slaughtering action on Eid Adha day; me and Emmanuel taking sheep to the butcher to get cut; me making friends with Ouma's cute little cousin who is wearing a Moroccan berber traditional outfit.

After a couple of days stuffing ourselves with food and walks around the city, we head to the Medina and spent the night there.  After dealing with the craziness of the Medina, we hitched south towards Marrakech the next day.  We had a really nice long ride with Meriem and Akhmed up to Casablanca, who also treated us for lunch which was really nice.  After that we had another couple of rides to Settat, where we spent the night because it was getting dark.

Settat is an interesting small city where not many tourists go to, so it was very difficult for us to find a cheap hotel there.  We didn't have any option but to bite the bullet because it's impossible to camp in Morocco, with wild dogs and plenty of homeless people roaming around.

The next day we set out hitching to Marrakech.  Marrakech, here we come!!!