And Now for Something Completely Different

I’m not going to mix words. Camel riding involves a degree of testicular pain that is, in a word, uncomfortable. Let me step back: this being my last Copenhagen-based trip, I wanted to go out with a bang. Hence, I found myself traveling to Marrakesh, Bordeaux, and San Sebastian. First off, this has to be the most surreal outward-bound journey of the past four months. Monday morning, I took my last exam of the semester then hopped in a train almost immediately after finishing. The next morning, I woke up in Brussels, had a train transfer that involved walking across Paris as the sun was rising, and that afternoon touched down in Marrakesh, Morocco, officially pushing me past the halfway point in my quest to set foot on all seven continents.

Cosmologically speaking, a singularity is a point so dense and pressurized that nothing, including light or time, can escape (why yes, I did just finish reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Why do you ask?). Now, obviously, since I returned to tell my tale, Marrakesh isn’t a singularity in the strict sense of the word. But it’s a damn close approximation. It took less than three minutes between stepping off the bus and being hassled by a group of kids for money. My fellow travelers and I took to referring to our hostel as “the fortress,” both because the rooftop terrace offered a commanding view of the city and because it was the only place we could let our guard down even slightly. Setting foot outside that door meant an all out sensory (and financial) assault by snake charmers, monkeys, vendors hawking every conceivable form of crap, burqa-clad women pushing macaroons (the macaroons were delicious, actually, so I was happy to have those people around), and swarms of kids offering directions to the main square and demanding “presents” in return. In order to get out of the city, I booked a camel riding trip to a small Berber village the morning of my second day. Loads of fun, actually, except for the one aforementioned drawback. But the swelling has subsided and I’m now able to look back on it favorably.

I’ve never been somewhere that addled me so thoroughly as Marrakesh, so it took about a day to calm down and reconnect with reality (I’ll go into more depth in my next – and last – post since it provides the opportunity to ascribe a grander meaning to events than actually existed and This American Life has taught me that’s how narratives are supposed to end). When I came to, I was in Bordeaux, several hours away from Marseille, which is where I had intended to settle. Bordeaux, however, was smaller, quieter, and the wine flowed like… well, like you’d expect it to in a city that has its name attached to a type of wine.

After a day and a half in Bordeaux, I continued on to San Sebastian, Spain – a necessary stop if for no other reason than I felt the need to visit at least one country where I could speak the local language. Some subjects naturally lend themselves to photography. San Sebastian on a sunny day is one of them. It was nice to end my travels by getting back to my roots: spending more time in the nature around a city than in the city itself.

All in all, not what I’d planned. But I can’t really think of a more fitting last trip.