On our final full day in Sevilla, Lori took the boys to an indoor science exhibition. The weather’s turned pretty stormy, so not much outside for the kids these days.
It turned out to be a pretty interesting exhibit.
Our Euro-African Journey (So Far...)
We really enjoyed our two months in Portugal, but don’t quite feel the same about our month in Sevilla.
Lori studied here in undergrad and has good memories from her semester. But times have changed and Sevilla is a different place than it was 23 years ago—socially and economically.
In a nutshell, it’s just a bit too trendy, commercial, and fast-paced for us. While there were certainly exceptions, people in general struck us as pushy, self-absorbed, and cold—the polar opposite of our experience with people in Portugal.
It’s also been the most expensive place we’ve stayed in many, many years (with the obvious exception of visits back to the U.S.).
In the end, we got to see some worthwhile places and had a positive month on the whole. But we were all very much ready to leave when the time came.
The next day (which also happened to be Lori’s birthday), we awoke bright and early to catch the bus from Sevilla to Tarifa (the southernmost point of Spain), where we were due to hop a quick ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco.
This should have been a fairly easy travel day. But Storm Francis blew in at the last minute, making the journey more harrowing and stressful than we bargained for.
The nasty three-hour bus ride (on a nice, brand-new bus) down to Tarifa.
We managed to make it to Tarifa with no problems. But I’d been eying the weather forecast the entire bus ride and things weren’t looking so good for our impending ferry crossing.
Tarifa is one of the windiest coastal towns on earth (it’s in the top three for kite surfing), and the Strait of Gibraltar on a good day is no joke (the entire tidal volume and force of the Mediterranean Sea is pushed through a 15-mile gap four times every day).
Today, however, was turning out to be anything but a good weather day.
Storm Francis was due to dump around 200mm (8″) of rain across the region over the next 24 hours, produce gale-force winds, and generate 4-meter (12-foot) swells in the Strait of Gibraltar—the worst of which was expected to arrive right as our ferry was scheduled to depart.
Usually we have enough flexibility in our travel plans to allow for delays of this sort. But not really this time. We needed to be out of Europe within the next 36 hours.
U.S. citizens are allowed 90 days in the Schengen Zone (that’s most of the European Union) in a 180-day period, and our 90 days were up at the end of tomorrow.
Consequences for overstaying can range from fines (on a good day) to being banned from re-entering the EU altogether (which we certainly did not want).
Fortunately, I’d built in an extra day in case we had a delay of this sort, but that’s all the wiggle room we had.
There are two ferry companies that ply the route from Tarifa to Tangier. Two hours before departure, our ferry company hadn’t canceled any of their sailings, but the other ferry had canceled ALL of theirs for the rest of the day.
Hmm.
Tomorrow’s forecast showed a return to normal conditions (three-foot seas instead of 12-foot seas and 9 knots of wind instead of 30).
Changing our tickets to the next day clearly appeared to be the better option, but that meant losing money on our Tangier booking for the night and making other arrangements.
Lori wanted to avoid the logistical gymnastics and get it over with today. It was, after all, her birthday and she was hoping to spend it in a new country. I had even booked a nice dinner at a restaurant in Tangier.
Looking out at the water, the sea state didn’t seem too bad at this point. In addition to that, Lori was also concerned that the forecast would worsen tomorrow and we might end up getting stranded in Tarifa for longer, causing us to overstay our 90-day allowance.
And the fact that dozens of passengers were already lining up for the 3pm sailing wasn’t helping my case.
Still, I just didn’t feel good about taking the ferry today.
Lori didn’t take long to convince. I think deep down, she knew it was the right choice.
She headed over to the ticket window to change our tickets for the next day, and when she did, the lady working the counter leaned over and told her, “Yes, that’s what I would do,” which helped to allay any doubts we still had.
With that settled, we left the ferry terminal behind and made the long, uphill slog into town.
We found a room at a kiteboarding hostel and suddenly found ourselves with unplanned time on our hands in Tarifa with a storm approaching.
Staying at Lion Hostel & Kitesurfing School turned out to be a fun experience for the boys (and a fun trip down memory lane for Lori and me).
Initially, I was surprised how cheap the room was, until I realized it didn’t have an ensuite bathroom (it was shared, which is not unusual with hostels). So the boys ended up getting more of a true hostel experience than we initially thought.
After settling in to our bunk room, we explored old town Tarifa in the rain, trying to make the most of Lori’s birthday.
It felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.
Our original departure time of 3:30pm finally rolled around, and Just like clockwork the storm roared in, the wind kicked up to well over 30 mph, and the rain came down in buckets.
Our ferry was out there somewhere, with all those people onboard…
Absolutely soaked, we ducked into the only place still open (a sports bar called La Chalada) for a couple glasses of wine to dry off and let the worst of the storm pass.
Just for fun, I tracked the vessel on my AIS (ship positioning) app. This same journey the previous day had taken just 40 minutes with the ship averaging 30 mph.
An hour into today’s voyage, the vessel was currently traveling at a speed of just 7 mph and not even halfway across the Strait.
Not a good sign.
The “speed ferry” did eventually arrive in Tangier, taking 90 minutes to make the short voyage.
I can only imagine what the ride must’ve been like. Thankfully, we’ll only have to imagine.
Our first glimmer of sunshine after days of rain and dark clouds.
Later that night, we celebrated Lori’s birthday with dinner at a vegetarian restaurant, the only place with food open in town today.
Chilimosa turned out to be very tasty, and we got our last beers in who knows how long (Morocco is a [mostly] dry country).
I’d put in quite a bit of time researching a nice spot in Tangier for Lori’s birthday, but had to apologize tonight:
Sorry honey, seems I booked your birthday dinner on the wrong continent.
To be continued…
