Around The World – Somewhere on the Mediterranean
My goal on this leg of the trip is to make my way from Tangier to Italy. I chose a ferry that stops off in Barcelona with a final destination of Livorno on the north-west coast of Italy.
On my last morning in Tangier I went up for breakfast and met the other couple staying at the Airbnb. A young Mexican man and a Polish woman, currently living in Germany but travelling and working over the Internet. He’s got a software development company so we talked about that life for a while.
My hosts called their taxi driver for me and we walked to the closest point where he could get his car into the medina. For D250 / $25 I had a one-hour private taxi ride right to the front gate of the port, very happy with that. Strangely, train and bus service is almost non-existent, you have to take the long-distance taxi with the associated 7-people-in-a-Mercedes thing I dealt with earlier. The email I got from the ferry company said very clearly that I had to be fully checked in 3 hours in advance or risk losing my ticket, so I was there right around 4 hours before sailing.
Inside the port building, which looks brand new and nearly deserted, I found the Garibaldi ticket counter, checked in and got my boarding pass within 10 minutes. I went through customs and down an escalator to a huge waiting room that was still under construction. There were bricklayers working on a wall and a painter up on a 3-story high scaffold. Luckily I was sitting at the back of the room getting a charge on my laptop when a 5 gallon paint bucket plummeted through the air, hit the floor and splattered white paint in a 10 foot raduis. There were only about 10 people in the whole room and nobody close to the splash zone.
After 30 minutes we were all waved through a door to an outdoor waiting area, which was cold and very windy. Total lack of communication about what was going on until I found a helpful guy. Everyone but me was waved onto a shuttle bus as they were going to another ship. I had to wait another 30 minutes so I went back inside to the warmth and chairs. Another shuttle bus came to take me and only one other guy to our ship. I walked on board and up to the reception desk where I was given a key and a porter took my bag and showed me to my room. I’m on the 4th deck which is about halfway up the ship, with half vehicle parking and half porthole-less cabins. I now realize that this area was originally designed for crew, as my door is labelled Ass. Bosun. How did they know in advance that I’m an Ass Bosun? Not sure. I’m across from the Ass. Porter and the Wiper and next to the Plumber. But I’m the only person in this whole area, so they must have cut way back on the crew and started renting the rooms. The room is about the size of a normal bedroom, with a single bed with a soft mattress against the wall, a seating bench, a small table and an Ikea-like wardrobe bolted to the wall. It has a bathroom with sink, toilet and shower. And it has several power plugs! All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. Now this might not be your idea of a perfect room but I’m not claustraphobic at all, I could sleep in a coffin. And I’m cheap. So I’m OK on both criteria.
I went to explore the ship and found that Level 5 is also parking and cabins but also has recliner seats for the budget traveller. Level 6 has cabins, the reception desk, a bar and a large open deck area at the stern. Level 7 has two restaurants, a shop with duty-free, a Muslim prayer room and a large open deck area at the stern with a pool and hot tub, both of which are roped off now that it’s winter. Level 8 is basically a walkway around the smokestack and a small indoor area they call the discoteque.
In keeping with the general run-down-ness of the ship, the Children’s Play Area is closed, a clothing shop is closed, despite a sign the Internet Cafe’s PCs are gone, there’s no Wifi (paid or not) and a sign for a cellular-satellite service taunts me by not actually existing. The disco’s DJ area is covered in plywood. I’m guessing when something is broken they put no money into trying to start it up again.
As I walked around, I saw people staking out their areas for sleeping – this is clearly not their first voyage. They make up a little bedding area against the wall between chairs in one of the lounge areas or against the wall in a hallway. I’m surprised the crew doesn’t manage this but maybe the company just doesn’t care anymore. These people must have purchased a ticket for the chairs on Level 5 but decided it was better to sleep on the floor elsewhere.
I asked at the bar if I could pay for things with the Moroccan Dirham I had left, he said no, only Euros. Luckily I had about 200 euros left when I left Spain. I asked if there was a currency change office and he said to check with Reception. I asked at Reception and he said no. Hmmm. Sucks for people leaving Morocco with leftover Dirham, eh? He asked how much I had, I told him about 400 and he said maybe I can do you a favour and exchange for you. I counted my money and showed him how much it’s worth in Euros via the Google exchange calculator. I rounded down to offer him an incentive and he said yes, come back later and we can make a deal. Works out to be better than I would get with deflated exchange rates and transaction fees at a real exchange office once I arrive in Italy so a good deal for both of us. I also ask when the restaurants open, 7:30 he says.
We pull away from the dock about an hour late. I don’t know why, because there can’t be more than 200 people and 20 vehicles on the ship, no stragglers trying to get on. After a couple of laps around the ship I buy a Diet Coke for E2.50 (ouch) in some kind of decorated can style, a cheese and tomato sandwich at the bar and check out the formal restaurants. Despite the previously-mentioned reviewer’s comments, they look pretty good to me. I think it must have been packed with people when he was on the ship which always makes everything worse. I go back to the room and binge watch some videos then back up again to make one more trip topside about 10:30 PM. We’re now off the coast of Spain around Granada. The ship is moving right along but we’ve got a lot of sea to cover.
I woke up about 8:30 AM, pitch black in my room of course. Listened to a couple of podcasts to pass some time then got ready. I installed my old Spanish Orange SIM card in my phone, got my leftover Euro bills and coins from my suitcase and went topside.
At 10:30 AM we were off the coast of Benidorm Spain, about halfway from Tangier to Barcelona where we’ll stop for about 4 hours. I don’t know if we’re allowed to get off but I think it will be about midnight so little point and probably too difficult to get out and in through customs. I managed to get a spotty cellular connection from what I think was about 20 miles offshore, and pulled some email down.
I made a couple of laps around the ship, little kids are playing in the hallways, people are lounging, sleeping in their floor bed cubbies, playing cards or watching the wall mounted TVs, either in Arabic or Italian. It seems the staff is mostly Italian and all speak several languages.
Last night the motion of the ship was barely noticeable in the calm seas, but now I can feel more motion and an occasional “bang” sound and vibration as we hit a wave. It’s nowhere near barf-inducing though, more like a gentle rocking. Being pretty deep in the bowels of the ship but centered between bow and stern (see I’m a seasoned sailor already), maybe I can feel it more down here.
I went topside at 1 PM to find we’re off the coast of Valencia and we’re in some big rolling waves. Not whitecaps but deep troughs and peaks, maybe 2m, and the ship is rolling a bit. Walking down the hallway makes me feel like I’m drunk. And that’s not a bad idea after not seeing any liquor for almost a month! I found the Reception man and exchanged money, then had another mozzarela and tomato sandwich for lunch.
By 4:15 PM, the seas had flattened out again but the wind is still strong and cold, so I can’t stay out on the deck for very long. I took another GPS reading, we’re now off the coast of Sant Carles de la Rapita now, only 150 km to go to Barcelona. I asked my new friend at Reception about Barcelona and he said we get there about 8:30 PM, stay for 3 or 4 hours and cannot get off. So that’s that. And that’s what we did, right on time. I had a drippy tuna sandwich and a Fanta for dinner.
After waking a couple of times in the night I finally got up at what my phone said was 10:30 AM. Got ready and went topside. GPS says we’re 200 km directly south of Monaco, but with low clouds and distance I can’t see the shoreline.
Had another cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch. Watched many, many videos.
Off the coast of Italy they made an announcement that we were to pack up and prepare to get off the ferry. Two hours of chugging through the narrow lanes of the port later we touched Italian soil and we were allowed to get off. I think the announcement was a little premature. I was almost first in line to get off, because I follow directions well. I need to stop that… At the door we had to show our passports and ferry ticket to officials standing in the doorway. I showed mine and he just waved me past out onto the dock. No stamp, no nothing. Welcome to Italy.
I walked off, into the 8PM dark and drizzle. Three soldiers with machine guns stood in my way. This port is not where the Love Boat docks. It’s where Satan’s latest shipment of evil gets on and off. It’s a dark, dirty, deserted shithole. No signs, no sign of life other than the soliders. I rolled up to them and shrugged my shoulders and pointed my finger around, like which way Rambo? One guy pointed his gun to the left, I looked over and saw a single light on a pole about a hundred meters away. I rolled my bag to the light and then saw another light to the right so I followed. This was the exit gate. I walked through a gate to a dark and open area where a bunch of people were standing around, not a taxi to be seen. We are somewhere in the backwater of this port with no way out unless you’re getting a pre-arranged pickup. I walk back to the little hut and ask a policeman how to get a taxi. He points to a sign with a phone number on it, I say my phone doesn’t work here yet, he looks at me and walks away. Yes, my works-everywhere-in-Europe-SIM-card doesn’t work here in Italy. It won’t attach to any of the four cellular companies that it can detect. No Wifi either. I am just completely buggered and for really the first time on this trip I feel like I want to scream in frustration. I calmly walk back out through the gate and behold, a taxi minivan drives up and drops someone off! I run over and claim the taxi which isn’t a problem because the other pedestrian ferry passengers have all been picked up and driven away.
I show the address to the taxi driver and after a fair bit of fiddling with her phone’s mapping system, we set off. And man, the Euros are just cranking up on this thing. Less than a mile from the dock and I’m over E10. We pass through dark streets, past an oil refinery and many, many oil storage tanks just to get out of the port. This is just the worst fucking place in the world to be dropped off by a ferry. Way to go, Italy!
The taxi driver goes down some local streets and comes to a stop. Now, it’s dark and drizzling and there are almost no street numbers on the houses. Lovely. I show her the Airbnb phone number and she calls it, no answer. We drive around aimlessly for another 10 minutes. The best we can figure, my Airbnb is in a police station, which is closed for the day. Not kidding. I ask the driver to call again and she finally gets the host who tells her we’re way off. We drive in a big U shape to a street with exactly the same name and this one is my Airbnb, not in a police station at all. It looks like the street was continuous at one time, but is now bisected by a large highway. I’m at E20 on the taxi but just glad to have found it.
I go inside and the host lady doesn’t speak English but her daughter Francesca does, quite well. We get introduced, they show me the room. I ask for the Wifi password and she says it’s broken. I offer to try to fix it, she says they didn’t pay the bill so it stopped working. Fuck! I don’t want to be in this town, it’s just where the ferry ends up and I can get a train south but I need to book my reservation on my Eurail pass. And most importantly my new Visa card has been sent here by FedEx. It was supposed to show up a couple of days before my arrival but wouldn’t you know, no card delivered. I’ll have to figure that out tomorrow.
Francesca describes how I can walk to an Internet cafe to sort out my bookings and track down the card, and then take the bus into the city center to get a SIM card at a phone shop. So those are my goals for tomorrow. Oh yes, and eat some god damned good Italian food. I’ve been looking forward to this leg of the trip so much, just for the food. I settle into my room and realize it’s freezing cold, nothing coming off the radiator and everyone has gone to bed. I find another blanket in the closet and fold both in half, giving me 4 layers. That should help me survive till the morning without frostbite.
