The Strait of Gibraltar! Oh man. As I said last time, we were now wrapping up the Spain portion of our honeymoon and it was on to Part 2: Morocco! But of course those two places are separated by one of the most storied bodies of water on the planet, the Strait of Gibraltar, the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea and boundary to the great Atlantic. I had never been before and I was pumped to go across it.

First we had to get there. There was no convenient way to take a train between Granada and Algeciras so instead of a very fun high-speed ride we took the bus. I suppose it was fine. It was from the bus that I caught the first glimpse in my life of the Mediterranean, so that was very cool. We arrived at the port rather early and were a bit confused and there was an initial mix-up with the tickets and at one point they closed off the gate and it seemed like we had missed the ferry and it was very stressful but it worked out in the end and we got on the ferry. It was much less crowded than I expected, just a smattering of people. Spanish passport control was on land but Moroccan passport control was actually on the boat, so not only did I get the “entry by ship” passport stamp that I coveted, I actually got it on a boat, which just takes the cake.And then it was time for the ferry ride! I was so excited about this. A large part was the mystique of arriving at a new continent via ship. The first and only time I ever went to Australia I went by sea. Bermuda, too, arrival by sea. It’s the best way to travel. This was not my first time in Africa of course but first time I got to arrive by ship. Just the utter magic of it, departing one place and traversing the (narrow strait of an) ocean to land upon a whole world of new experiences.

I have actually thought about this particular Strait a lot. I used to be on submarines and a number of submarines have collided with merchant ships in the Strait. So we hear about it. The reason the Strait is a submarine-magnet is because it is a relatively narrow body of water and all the ships line up. Submarines can’t really “see” well directly behind them, which they overcome by maneuvering. Since you can’t do a whole lot of maneuvering in the strait, and because merchant ships go pretty fast actually, submarines can get pretty literally run over by merchant ships sneaking up behind them. The fact the submarine is underwater doesn’t save them, because they can get sucked up into the merchant ship via Bernoulli’s principle. And then on top of that, the Strait of Gibraltar has the ferries criss-crossing it all the time, and ferries themselves are kinda submarine magnets, because they go in unexpected directions and are faster than you think and if you’re worried about merchant ships sneaking up from behind and running you over then you might miss the ferry coming at you from the starboard quarter. All that to explain that I was very excited to keep an eye out for submarines and maybe crash into one, which I think would have been a lot of fun for me, personally.

So while we were on the ship I spent as much time as possible up on the deck checking everything out. It was a gorgeous day and an easy crossing. The line for the passport stamp was a bit long and I was longing to look out a window. I did get to look out a window for a little bit while in that line and during that time I saw a dolphin jumping about which was just magnifique (a challenge of this part of the journey is we had to switch over from Spanish to French, and while I have been taught both languages I have learned neither and kept mixing them up, though really the whole time we got away with English and just peppered in some poorly pronounced phrases from each other language). Up on deck I was just dazzled. I suppose I knew the Strait was narrow (you know, like a strait), but I had imagined that you might be able to glimpse the distant shores of one continent from the other, not like, you had a really nice clear view of TWO CONTINENTS, each imbued with their own mystery and history, from your comfy viewpoint atop a ferry. I mean wow! I had a blast. I was taking so many different pictures of boats and looking up the AIS data and verifying that the ship I was clearly seeing with my own eyes really was a ship and now that I look at the pictures they look silly because the ships are tiny little dots on a vast horizon but again man! The Strait of Gibraltar! History! And not to mention it was cool seeing Gibraltar itself! Now we want to go someday. It was a great boat ride and took a little longer than expected but really a very luxurious way to travel, in my opinion!

Eventually of course we docked in Morocco, the second country in our honeymoon trip. Since we left from Algeciras we arrived in Tangier Med, requiring us to somehow get to Tangier Proper (this was our next destination). We could have taken the bus but decided to live a little and take a taxi. Being experienced travelers we were going to ensure we had agreed upon a fair price before getting in, but that simply did not happen because the man loaded up our bags and off we went. He charged us a fair price in the end so no harm no foul I guess. And then we got to enjoy the ride to Tangier.

As I got my first glimpse of Morocco my overriding thought was that it was greener than I expected, which is stupid. Clearly I had thought you cross the Strait and suddenly it is men on camels in the Sahara. Instead it was grass and shrubland and a few trees, or maybe big shrubs, I couldn’t tell. There were rolling hills and as we drove along the coastline there were gorgeous views of Spain. I also realized I had seen a couple setups where people had like, espresso machines installed in the back of their cars where they were selling espresso, and, like, neat I guess. We passed a Navy base along the way and the Poste Connexion Electrique Maroc-Espagne, which was really just over-the-top as far as stuffing in all the things I like into one day. We also saw a good number of cows, a horse, and a whole herd of wooly goats so that was neat. And a donkey! Then, finally, after a long day of travel we approached Tangier. Arriving the way we did my first impression is that it resembled more Sarasota than anything else, seeing modern high-rises abutting the water. That impression faded away as we entered the old city to arrive at our hotel, and I guess I also don’t recall people offering pony rides on the beach in Sarasota, as they were doing on the beach in Tangier. For dinner instead of going out we enjoyed a to-die-for I think French fusion restaurant in the hotel and then pretty much collapsed asleep.