After we left yesterday, almost punctually at 0:20, we were back on European time after about 45 minutes. And it was already an hour later, around 2:00am.
Our first night was quite pleasant. Every now and then we woke up during the night. Then we peeped out of the window. Sometimes you could see the lights of the cities on land, sometimes just other ships.
We were rudely awakened at 8 o’clock on the dot by an announcement. There are several loudspeakers in the cabin. It informed us that breakfast was about to be served.
We were currently somewhere between Malaga and Almeria.
Alex was sure that breakfast was included. But we realized that it wasn’t. So we had a typical Italian breakfast. Coffee and cornetto (chocolate croissants).
Livio was still sitting sleepily at a table, so we joined him. A short time later we went on deck, but the view was unspectacular. So we decided to go back to our room and enjoyed the view of the sea from there.
In addition to the many jellyfish, we also saw a cute turtle swimming.
But it is frightening to see how much garbage there is in the sea.
Alex was in a much better mood this morning than the last few days. He finally felt better again. He didn’t like Morocco very much. The landscape is beautiful. Once you have contact with the people, they are actually very nice. But we saw very few people laughing. Most of them looked very serious, no expression of friends and you can’t miss the fact that a lot of marijuana is consumed here and you can smell it very strongly.
We don’t think we can quite get to grips with the mentality and beliefs of these people here. The way women are treated here is blatant. Men largely ignore me as a woman and only seek contact with Alex. When I am alone with women, they are friendly and we try to communicate. As soon as Alex or another man is around, they don’t look up, don’t say hello, just go about their business. This separate eating of men and women and this loud talking is very extreme to experience.
We never expected this reaction from us, because we knew about this mentality and the Muslim faith. But once you have experienced and seen it for yourself, it is frightening, sad and fascinating at the same time. If you book a trip to Morocco or anywhere else for your vacation, you probably won’t have this extreme, direct contact with the people living there and will only get to see what a tourist wants to see. This is actually a real shame and often distorts the image of a country.
The food was very tasty but our stomachs didn’t always tolerate it so well. Alex very rarely eats sweet food. But Morocco cooks a lot of sweet food.
The heat also gave us a hard time. It was often only 30 degrees but it was a very strange, oppressive heat.
We were very reassured that we had met some other people who had the same thoughts about Morocco as we did.
Many write to us on our Instagram account about how great it is to be free. Just having great experiences and seeing so many beautiful things.
We have indeed had many wonderful experiences and special adventures. But our answer is always the same: it’s an adventure, our new life. But we also have ups and downs on this adventure.
And it’s exhausting to travel like this. Always checking where I can sleep, where it’s safe, what there is to eat. But that’s just part of it.
For us, being free means that we can decide day by day what we want to do or where we want to go. Whether we continue our journey or stay there for a while.
The rest is really hard. Nevertheless, we decided to go this way. Somehow, life as a whole is hard and often exhausting.
As we have now realized, a lot of things on Instagram are not so realistic (our personal opinion). You can post super beautiful pictures. The right angle, a snapshot and great pictures are created. But you can’t see what it really looks like there, the real atmosphere, your own real impressions and feelings in these pictures. That’s probably why we had the wrong idea of Morocco.
We would not have wanted to miss this experience. It was an experience, an adventure that no one can take away from us.
At the very back, the penultimate room on the left, is our cabin.
The restaurant. 30 euros for 2 lumpy pizzas.
There are people lying everywhere in the aisles without a cabin or seat ticket.
3-hour stopover in Barcelona. Unfortunately, we have to stay on board.
We joined Hasan and Livio in the bar.
Hasan was busy taking care of the damage to his bike.
Of course, no one is responsible for this.
The Crow had problems securing the bikes and Alex’s bike tipped over onto Hasan’s. Hasan was still there and was able to prevent worse by saving Alex’s bike from a complete overturn.
There were scratches on Hasan’s suitcase.
For us, the damage is not relevant to the complaint. It is what it is.
Our motorcycles are no longer new vehicles and the mirror can be replaced.
In our case, the cost of a complaint would probably be greater than the damage itself.
A few other bikers joined us in Barcelona.
Although we are on an Italian ferry, there are still a lot of Moroccans on board. We don’t really feel comfortable outside our cabin. This Moroccan mentality is very prevalent here.
You get the feeling that these people have absolutely no regard for anyone or anything except their own kind. Women also walk around here in tank tops and shorts. Even though I’m a woman, I still enjoy the beer. But the constant stares are getting really annoying.
Livio, Hasan and we are having fun. Everyone else is sitting around with serious faces. It’s also scary how these people treat their children. And you sit there and have to refrain from making any comments. There’s a family with 3 children in the cabin next to ours. Everything here is very quiet and it’s scary to imagine what might be going on in this room sometimes. We got to know a different world. Even more so in the last few days. As beautiful as the landscape of Morocco may be. Maybe we’ll come back again, but first we need countries where people are friendly, treat each other well, laugh, are cheerful and eat food that our stomachs can handle.
That’s why we’re looking forward to being in Italy soon.
We really like Spain. We will definitely travel a lot more in Spain and its various regions.
The many other European countries are also interesting for us. The north, the east, the south and possibly also the west.
So we will be spending the next few months in Europe.
Towards the evening there were various announcements, normally the announcements are made in Italian, French, English and Arabic. This time in all languages except English.
They told us when the ferry would arrive in Genoa and when to leave the cabins. As far as we understood it in Italian. We just couldn’t understand the exact times.
So around half past nine in the evening we thought we’d have a look around the bar or restaurant, maybe we’d meet Livio. As an Italian, he should be able to help us.
When we arrived at the bar, there were lots of people sitting around. Moroccan music was playing and indeed, Livio, Hasan and another biker were sitting there drinking Jägermeister, which Hasan had bought for us.
Of course Livio knew the answer to our question. We stayed for a while and had fun with the other three.
Of course, the five of us stood out again, because Livio, at 73, made sure of that. Most of the people in the bar, almost all of Moroccan origin, sat in their seats and didn’t make a face. No tapping their feet to the rhythm of the music, no smiles, no clapping. Even when live music was played later on, only a few people got into the mood.
When we went back to our cabin later, we were just in time to watch the fireworks from our cabin window on the French coast.