Spring started and stopped in the High Atlas as we came into April. A month ago it was warm, sunny and starting to be great hiking and biking weather. Then the weather changed to end the Moroccan drought and it has been getting colder and raining for three weeks, UUGGHH. It is good for the country and agricultural products but not for the short time PCV. It snowed in the mountains the day I left for Seville. I took the souk bus to Meknes where I met Justin, then the train to Tangier and the Ferry to Tarifa, Spain. Justin is going up from his home in Mrirt to meet college students enrolled in the Morocco Exchange program to bring students studying abroad to Morocco for a week.
Tarifa is the kite surfing capital of Europe. There are surf shops all over town. It is a very nice beach community but always windy because of its location as the break between Mediterranean and Atlantic. You can see Morocco from town and at night the lights on the coasts of both countries are visible.
At times you can see over 100 kites of all different colors in the sky, with more on the beach staging to go out. If I want to kite fly this would be an option, except the water is COLD.
Seville was fabulous. The weather was warm, clear and the festival provided an added bonus to our experience. We stayed at a hostel in the center of the old town. The town has lots of parks. Seville was the center of Europe during Spain's time of pillage in the New World. All goods on ships had to come to Seville upon returning to Europe and pay taxes before unloading cargo.
We arrived in the middle of the processions for Easter. Each procession
(more than 60 churches each have a separate parade) may have a thousand
participants from little kids passing out candy to the older folks
carrying long candles. Each procession also has one or two floats that depict a Christ scene.
There are about 30 big guys under the float and they carry the thing on their shoulders. They are dressed similar to each other and have a patch of the church on their shirt. The float goes 50 yards then they stop, rest, then go again. The floats are very ornate.
The marches go into the night, ending around midnight when the float is carried into the church and everyone piles in and goes through the ritual they do to honor the church. Some of the parades start at 4 in the AM and go to 2 PM. Others start in the afternoon and go into the night.
After Easter Sunday the crowds thinned out and we got to appreciate the rest of the city. The Moorish influence is evident in some of the architecture. The cathedral was built on the foundation of a Muslim Mosque. You can see the bell tower built on top of the old minaret.
How many steps do you think are in the bell tower from top to bottom? The Imam of the Mosque would have to go up the tower 5 times a day for the call to prayer. The tower was built with a ramp so that he could ride a donkey up and down. The cathedral is the largest by Sq Meter in Spain. The bell tower height was the limit for any building built in town until this year when a building across the river was allowed to be taller. You can see the building to the left of the Brazilian girls.
We took a "Pancho Tour" around the city. It is a "free" tour with a local guide. We got to see things we would not have known about without it, the library where all the ship captains had to report after returning to Spain from the New World, the Seamans hospital, the Columbus Memorial, treasury where all the gold was stored, etc.
The old Jewish Quarter was very nice. It is in a walled section of the city and has very narrow streets. There are a lot of galleries, small cafes and boutiques here now. It is supposedly 4 degrees cooler here than the rest of the city because of the way it was built and the tree lines alleys.
The architecture around town with the old doors and stone buildings, all well taken care of made Seville one of my favorite places in Spain. The Tapas were always great from Paella to home made potato chips, with a beer or wine of course.
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