This time, a month ago, I got back to Berlin, with a Sarah in tow, and a Darren left back in Marrakech. So many photos, so many stories, I haven't known where to start. But let's take this one piece at a time.

We met up in Madrid

I'd left Spain the time before with a sour taste in my mouth. I have no love of Gaudi, and the pickpocket sealed the experience. Madrid is an entirely different experience. The first slab of tortilla is a volley in winning me over. (Tortilla here means a heavy pie slice of potato and egg. It's hearty comfort food, making up in satisfaction what it misses in flavor.) The classical architecture, another. We wander the town for the day, then meet up with a new friend, Avery, who takes us on a tour of his favorite haunts in the city.

He opened with a sherry bar off of Hemingway's old drag. Here we go through a mini-bottle of each of the 5 different grades of sherry they serve, starting with manzanilla (the dryest) through fino to amontillado and beyond. With each bottle the propreitor provided a small plate of snacks; olives or breadlets, or a local kind of ham jerky. The tradition of Tapas was well and strong there.

Cadiz

We took the train the next morning to Cadiz, an ancient seaside town. Quiet. Narrow streets. We spend a single night there to walk and to be nearer the ferry to Africa for the day after.

We left Cadiz the next dawn, tracking back down the Spanish coast by bus to Algericas. Memories on the bus ride of swapping stories with Sarah, not-so-secretively passing a bottle of manzanilla between us as we share stories and Darren naps. Another bus hop later brought us to La Linea, and a 5 more minutes of walking crossed us from Spain into England. That is, Gibraltar.

The main thing I have to mention about Gibraltar, that I was not ready for, was The Rock. Simply, it is Very Large. On a stretch of gently rolling coastline, it juts up without preface or context, a mountainous anomaly with its toe in the Mediterranean. We paused there for lunch on the oldest English pub then walked back out of England, back to Algericas.

There's some confusion with the ferry, but within a pair of hours we're on the water towards Africa. The boat lifts and rocks in all directions. The Moroccan Embassy opens up aboard ship, and we catch our last glimpse of an unappreciated virtue, the orderly queue, as people line up for their passport formalities. Darren takes a first turn in the line while Sarah and I sit with the luggage, and returns a worrisome time later, explaining that things got bad after the third person in line was violently seasick. This becomes a minor blessing for Sarah and I, as the official is ready for it all to be over with when our turn begins, stamping our passports without fuss.

The ferry lands, and I whisper conspiratorally to Sarah, "We're in Africa." Then when we step onto land, "No, NOW we're in Africa...ninty-eight percent." We leave the international zone of the harbor, "OK, now we're really in Africa."

One of the enduring themes of Morocco manifests immediately, as we start changing money. "Don't trust him. I'm looking out for you." Variations on this speech are constant; everyone is a tout on the side, and their first tactic to steering you towards their associates is to steer you away from everyone else.

We have a train to catch from Tangier to Fez, except that we don't. The late train doesn't show on the schedule at Gare Tangier. There is the scramble of changing plans, and we land instead at Dar Jameel, a guest house up the winding single lane streets that overlook the harbor of Tangier.

We step inside to a cool courtyard, intricate tile floors, carved and painted plaster molding. The soft spoken proprietor shows us to our rooms, which continue the beauty of the atrium. We pause to take a glass of heavily sugared mint tea each.

It's coming on midnight, and we're unfed since our British lunch in Gibraltar. So we step outdoors to find a late cafe on the waterfront. We take the first guide who offers to lead us there, and he walks ahead with the exaggerated rolling swagger that I associate with baby gangstas back in the states, calling out to acquaintances as we pass, embracing friends for a moment before leading again. He's being sure to be seen while he's with us, traveling with the high rolling Americans as his charges. He drops us off at a good cafe, where we catch up on dining on tajine - the local style of stew.

It has been a long day.