Matkalaukkuelämää, taas

Hassua.

Parin viikon päästä palaan kolmatta kertaa paikkaan, jota en edes ollut ajatellut ennen kesäkuuta.

Sevilla.
Jokin selvästi vetää minua sinne takaisin. Ja hei! Minulla on suunnitelma koko ajalle!

Satunnaisia ajatuksia:
-Matkalaukkuelämä ei kai ole osaltani vieläkään loppumassa..
-En muuten ole ottanut yhtään kuvaa Sevillassa. Siinäkin on nyt järkeä.
-Hymyilyttää.
-Ja minua jännittää lähteminen enemmän kuin aikoihin. Sellaista positiivista jännitystä.
-Vastassa on haasteita.
-Tällä kertaa aion hankkia itselleni kunnon kartan. Sevilla = sokkelo.

(Kuvat Marokosta. Viime kesän kohokohta, ei epäilystäkään.)

***
Funny.

In few weeks I'll return to a place for the third time, a place I hadn't even thought of before June.

Sevilla.
Obviously something is drawing me towards the city. And hey! This time I got a plan for the whole stay!

Random thoughts:
-Living out of a bag doesn't seem to be over for me anytime soon..
-By the way I never took any photos in Sevilla. It also makes sense now.
-Feel like smiling.
-Also feeling a little nervous about leaving, haven't felt like this in a long while. But it's positive excitement.
-There will be challenges.
-This time I'll get myself a proper map of the city. Sevilla = maze.

(Pics from Morocco. The highlight of last summer, no doubt.)

Thank you Morocco

After yet another bus ride, it is the night train from Marrakech to Tanger that awaits us. We invest a bit more in the tickets and get ourselves beds instead of seats.

We get on board, the night falls rapidly. I end up sitting on the sticky floor at the back of the very last wagon, right by the toilet door, feeling ever so soft, feeling like a happy traveller. The train is traversing the desert already and I watch how the railway draws a line into the sand. We are a few nights away from the full moon and the landscape is shining. As I sit there, I can see the moon above us and still, in the horizon, the twinkling lights of Marrakech. Junior is sitting next to me and we both got this stupid big fat smile on our faces, a smile that reflects the general awesomeness of our Moroccan times.

The next morning we're in Tanger again, just a boat trip away from Spain. Time to go.

Thank you Morocco, thank you Twin, thank you Junior. Thank you universe!

Stories from the coast

It is our last night on the coast when we start planning our way back. Twin asks the funniest kid of Essaouira about time tables. This is what we get as a response:

''Oh, you can go anytime you like, twice a day!'' Then he goes on saying there is one bus at seven and one at three and one at five, but maybe nothing at three. Got it? Thought so.

It is also somewhere between the last mouthfulls of the dinner and the talk about how we must go out with the funniest kid and his friends that Junior comes up with something. He puts down his fork, lifts his head and looks at me and Twin, who's half asleep, her legs hanging over the Kiwi. ''So.. It is in Morocco that I could actually marry both of you, right?''

You know the rest. Can't. Stop. Laughing.

And then we had tea

No, I don't smoke, he says. You know, smoking and walking, it's not even good for your heart! He throws in a big smile and goes on about something else. The funniest kid of Essaouira. We spend hours at his beach bar -which is not on the beach, actually, but in the end of one little road inside the village. I love it there. Food is super, the best I've had that far, and nothing beats the ambience.

You, finish!
-Yes yes I am Finnish.
No, finish! Finish the food!

It was the Kiwi who took us there. It was also thanks to him that we found a place to stay: he had spotted us on the street and he thought we looked little lost (which was the truth) and he came over in his wetsuit, carrying his kite. He led us to the backpackers and -after it turned out they were fully booked- took us to the house where he was staying over. The family also had a room to rent for the three of us, perfection for only 5 euros a night per person. And then we had tea.

She has legs

Essaouira.

There must have been something in the air, maybe the breeze coming from the sea: the coastal village of Essaouira made us shop. I got myself three (yes, you heard it right, three) teapots, a leather bag and few books. Junior bought a pair of leather flip-flops, (only) two teapots and some little things, too, and Twin went for all things 'little and colorful'.

Now you may ask, of course, if it is little heavy to carry around three teapots in your backpack for the rest of your travels.

Why three, then? Well the one is simply gorgeous. Beautiful. (And heavy.) The other is just a little one, the ordinary basic everyday-pan. And the third, she has legs, and who could resist a female-teapot with legs?

Take what you can carry

There's a German mother who's watching us as we leave the backpackers in Marrakech. 'Isn't it very hard to carry the backpacks in the heat?' she asks. I raise my eyebrows and I can see Twin holding back yet another laughter. I mean, do we really have an option there?? No man, it's such a joy to carry around a backpack when it's plus 44 outside and yes we totally love taking 6-hour bus-rides every other day and it's like we're in tears when we go for our daily outings and we need to leave our stuff at the backpackers and only carry around some 3 litres of water and cameras!

It's guaranteed -we're laughing at this story for the next ''three hours'' on our way to the coast.

About the notion of time

How far is it?
Oh, just walk dis minutes!

How long does the bus ride take?
Oh, three hours!

I had a little smile on my face the first time we heard these two (often repeated) responses. I kind of knew not to expect anything. Soon the others also figured it out. Ten minutes of walking usually meant anything between half an hour and 45 minutes and a three-hour bus ride seemed to be a standard of 6,5 hours on the road. Gotta love the African time.

Marrakech madness

We all fell in love with Chefchauen so that we almost decided to stick to it for the whole 6 days we had. But then, curiosity pushed us onwards and we took a bus to Casa Blanca and then a train down to Marrakech. Marrakech was busy, stressy and, still, funny. By night it went mad, I have never seen such a crowd in my life as what took over the square in the after-sun-hours there. Top it up with couple of monkeys and snakes.

***
Me kaikki rakastuimme Chefchaouenin siniseen maailmaan niin, että melkein päätimme viettää kaikki kuusi päivää siellä. Uteliaisuus vei kuitenkin voiton ja puksutimme ensin bussilla Casa Blancaan josta hyppäsimme Marrakechin junaan. Marrakech oli kiireinen ja stressaava, mutta silti jotenin humoristinen. Pimeällä Marrakech oli villi. En ole ikinä nähnyt sellaista ihmispaljoutta kuin sillä aukiolla auringonlaskun jälkeen. Heitä vielä pari apinaa ja käärmeitä sekaan.

Laughter

First thing in the morning, something funny happens and I wake up laughing. Last thing in the evening, something funny happens and I can hardly fall asleep from the laughter. The others are the same. This trip is already legendary. The close doesn't door!

It's always a good time for some tea

Mint tea and fresh orange juice. Moroccan pancakes with curd cheese, butter and jam. Veggie tagines and couscous. Ate my way through Morocco.

In love

Oh. My. Word. After three hours of waiting in Tanger and various hours spent in a bus wiggling up to the mountains we arrived late -and then woke up in paradise.

Chefchaouen. I'm in love. Everything is painted blue there, it's like ice-cream, like a dream.

Nothing's a coincidence

And then, just like that when you least expect it, the world around you reshapes everything so beautifully that you couldn't have imagined it any better.

I had gone to the beach after 8am for some yoga. There was no one else except the man cleaning up the beach, me with my yoga mat and those gigantic seagulls starting out their daily croaks. I did few rounds of sun salutation and some breathing but the wind was blowing so hard I cut my session off short and walked back to the backpackers, nicely in time for the free breakfast.

She had seen him the day before at the backpackers and she knew immediately she'd travel with him. Then she left to stay over at her couchsurfing spot and the two of them decided to hook up again the next day. That's why she came back that morning. But he was running late and instead of just coming and going, she ended up having a seat at the roof top terrasse of the backpackers while he went to pack his bags. I had just thrown my yoga mat back in the room and climbed up the stairs to get the breakfast. With my toast and a cup of tea, I happened to sit next to her. We start chatting and -litterally- ten minutes later the decision is made: we'd be going to Morocco together. The next day. She said he had been a bit iffy about the plan she had come up with but now that we were two anyway, he'd propably make up his mind and join us.

We change numbers, he shows up and off they go. We plan to meet up the next day in Tarifa. At that point I send a little facebook message to my mom. It is Tuesday. I tell her how Cadiz is lovely and how it's so much better to be on the coast. Then I write I'm going to Morocco on the following day with my traveling buddies. I list their nationalities and her name (I doubt I even knew his by the time) and inform my mother I would be back in Spain the following week Tuesday.

The next day I take a bus ride to Tarifa and meet up with the two again. He's filling in the forms for his Moroccan visa, she has already completed hers. I start to work on mine, checking her already completed form while I go. Name, nationality. Passport number, all the usual stuff. Date of birth. Something on her form catches my eye and I re-study it and, in amazement, I turn to her. Are you born on that day, that month, that year?? She gives me this yes-have-you-got-a-problem-with-that-face and I manage to pronounce so am I before we both burst out laughing. We're born on the exact same day!

Few hours later we -me, my newly found twin-sister and junior- are on a ferry to Morocco. It doesn't happen eveyday you click with people so well as the three of us did. But it might happen at a backpackers in southern Spain one morning because you finished off your yoga because of the wind, because she needed to come to pick him up, because he was running late. And so the conditions were ideal to formulate the best trio ever.

There are no coincidences she says. World's a funny place I say. He gives us a grin.

So, would you go to Morocco with strangers?