Between gearing up for National Novel Writing Month and 'supervising' Jeff's photo transfer project, (1) I have been awash in memories. From the wee children when they actually were wee and they were all smidgy bits of red hair and cowlicks, to their first sleepy-eyed days in China, various Halloweens and Christmases, napping-across-the-world photos and reminders of many of the grand places we have been, seen and gotten t-shirts, I have quite thoroughly enjoyed peering back in time.
As it turns out, there are three trips we have taken that I have never written about. The first was our two weeks in New Zealand, second was our second trip to Mongolia and third was a short trip we took to Spain and Morocco last fall. As one of the purposes of this blog is to create a memory for the children in their older years and for me in my dotage, I would be remiss as Family Historian if I never got around to including those particular sojourns. And so, despite my seeming in ability to remain on track for any period of time longer than a few weeks, I am going to attempt to rectify the missing trip situation.
Odds are not good that all three will be finished in the next couple of months: we are leaving for ten days in Turkey on Thursday and we have a three week trip to Patagonia planned for the Christmas holiday. Plus, I am trying to plug out 50,000 original words in the month of November. Likely this latest notion is more of a Q1, 2012 sort of adventure. But in the spirit of "no time like the present!", I'm going to work on the shortest of the three now.
Tarifa, Morocco, and Gibraltar, October 2010
I always find moving unsettling, and given that back in October, 2010, we had just settled in a new country, on a new continent, the planning around this trip was rather less orderly than usual. Which is something like saying we may well have wandered into an airport and asked the nice people at the counter to send us to the first place where an airplane was going with four empty seats.
If I recall, it went something like this:
Jeff: "The children have a week off in October. Where should we go?"
Me: "Let's stay home and they can help me finish unpacking."
Jeff: "Look! Ryan Air has cheap flights to Malaga!"
Me: "Where in the blistering blue barnacles is Malaga?"
Jeff: "It's in Europe."
We bought the tickets. Malaga, which those of you who are more astute in European geography than I, is in Spain. And, in fact, is in the "heart of sunny Costa del Sol." So, tourist central. But, October was off-season, and I had never been to Spain, so, why ever not?
But, the more I read about Malaga, the less I wanted to actually stay there. I mean, yes, it is the birth place of Picasso, but I am a professed Philistine, so, frankly, the idea of spending a week wandering around museums didn't hold much appeal.
A little research lead to two interesting items: (1) You can take a ferry to Morrocco from Tarifa, Spain, (less than a two hour drive from Picasso's birth place) and (2) Gibraltar is between Malaga and Tarifa.
An adventure was born. Who knew? Well, probably lots of people know you can have a host of interesting adventures if you fly into Malanga, Spain, but I wasn't one of them until I was in a full court press to work out what it was we were going to do when we got there.
We arrived on a sunny, hot afternoon, grabbed and rental car and drove south along the Costa del Sol until we arrived at the southern tip of Spain: Tarifa. I had booked us at a hotel that had polarizing reviews: people either loved it or hated it. It was meant to be an "arty" sort of place, and was located right on the beach. With a windssurfing school. This was a huge clue, by the way, and something I made note of before we left: it would be windy. Since we were only parking here for a night before and a night after our Moroccan adventure, I was not so very worried.
Not fancy, not schmancy, but on the beach. We were not detered by the wind.
Alas, the crisis became one of the children refusing to leave.
You can see our arty hotel in the background. Spare, but comfortable. And windy. Yes, really windy.
The water was quite cold in October, and I did not see any windsurfers, although there were a few devoted holiday goers playing in the surf. "Crazy people" I would term them. The water was seriously cold, the weather was warmish, but certainly not hot, and the wind cut right through you. But, some people take their holidays seriously, and if they came to swim, but gum, they were going to swim.
Our crowd, as less stalwart group, practiced their "bending." If you are not familiar with The Avatar: The Last Airbender, I shall elucidate you on the concept of "bending." Or, rather, perhaps I will let Wiki do the work for me:
Avatar: The Last Airbender takes place in a world that is home to humans, fantastic animals, and spirits. Human civilization is divided into four nations: the Water Tribe, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. Each nation has its own natural element, on which it bases its society. Furthermore, people known as Benders have the power and ability to control and manipulate the eponymous element of their nation using the physical motions of martial arts.
Hope fancies herself an Earth Bender and Tom is bending Water. Others have their own ideas of what they would bend, would they could.
The town of Tarifa is old, old, old, located as it is on the Straits of Gibraltar facing Morocco. The town is touristy and charming, set up for the water sport sort, primarily, the windsurfers. And the shifting of people back and forth across the Straits of Gibraltar to Africa. The remains of the old walls still stand, a millennium after they were first built,
and the view is of Africa. Africa. I find that rather exotic, if I do say so myself.
Tomorrow: we visit Africa, well, Morocco. It is on the continent of Africa.
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(1) If you are the sort who keeps track, I had estimated that there were about 60,000 photos to upload. The current number is 56,500 and with 2000-2002 still remaining to be uploaded, plus current months. That's pretty close.
Gorgeous photos.
Wine bending. *chuckle* Love it!
Posted by: Emryss | October 30, 2011 at 05:26 PM