As soon as I heard of this place, I had to go and check it out! What was most interesting to me is the boarder it shares with Muslim Morocco, Nador to be specific. This border made the news several times in the past few months, mainly because all the Moroccans try to get through, to obtain what their lacking in their own country (it's one of 5 gateways to Spain).Here's a Youtube video which is similar to what I've seen on the news here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaNZ5t75Y1g&NR=1
So I went with the only other person living here that would be interested in this: MEL!
Us on the way to Africa from Spain... (still happy, but a little sea sick)
When we got there, we found a beautiful, small and .......... DESERTED city! We walked and walked, and saw no people or cars, we had lunch and were the only ones in the restaurants, we had coffee and no one was in the cafe, we passed by a huge park and we didn't see any children... it gave me a weird feeling!
So-- once we realized we might be the only people in the whole city, we decided to take advantage of it and go exploring on our own! First we hit up the beach. The water was A LOT warmer than Malaga's water, but the problem is, it was too windy to swim, otherwise I would have. Instead my inner child came out in other ways...
So, while we were wandering all by our lonesomes, we tumbled upon a hidden natural treasure and we were mesmerized. Ballerina shoes and all, I climbed the salt water worn sea side rocks to experience the beauty of the Mediteranian Sea meeting the land.
That same night as we were still wandering looking for a place to eat, we hear music and laughing coming from afar... we followed the sound and it lead us to a restaurant called Tavern Andaluz, we went in, drank, ate, sang karaoke and found out the the owner (who declared us his best friend every 5 minutes with the microphone) is the father of a famous Spansh singer, se llama mimi! After closing time, we all danced for a few more hours, he kept the place open for us. CRAZY!
Finally, after all this strange activity or should I say, lack of activity, we made it to the boarder. Mel was scared to walk pass all the people, she thought they might rob her or something, I don't know... I looked at them like anyone else. I didn't want to be the ignorant North American, so I didn't take any pictures. It was the best idea because we passed a few people preparing their bodies for smuggling things through the boarder. We saw woman taping bags around mens waists and layering them with sweat shirts, woman, hanging bags from their belts, and a few people far away digging holes, or what looked like they were digging holes. a half mile up the road, we made it to the boarder. I took pictures of the boarder and the dividing fence until an angry Spanish man came up to me and told me I couldn't take pictures of the guards, as soon as I started talking (with my accent) he softened up and started a 15 minute conversation with me about the dangers of being here. He said that the people cross the boarder to shop for food and bring it back to their families. He also said that there is a high robbery rate in the area, none of this surprised me until I asked if the people stay and live in Europe, his answer was NO! OK, maybe his profession, he has to say that, but the truth is that the Moroccans make up a good part of the migrant workers Spain. Either way, it was quite an experience, but nothing like what I saw on TV, or what I found on youtube.
This 3 day trip was one of the most strangest experiences I've ever had. The lack of people, and desperation I saw was hard to handle. This is one of the experiences I will never forget, its places like this that are left unexplored that need to be visited in order to understand what is really going on, even if we understand it in our own way...
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