Cordoba, Southern Spain

With every day we come closer to Africa, Cordoba shrinking behind and an unknown continent looming ahead. To be on the road again feels uncomfortable, calmly moving towns, swapping hotel rooms and generally moving on like a couple of spies. Now we are on our final train, olive plantations passing on the left and freshly plowed fields on the right. A small-whitewashed farmhouse offers visual relief from a stark environment and a hovering bird of prey makes me smile as the sun glints off its dark feathers.

I was watching Motorcycle diaries on my way to Granada and a line of Che’s struck me, “ Por esa vagar sin rumbo por nuestra mayuscula America me ha cambiado mas que queria. Yo ya no soy yo. Por lo menos, no soy el mismo yo interior.” Loosely translated by Steve it reads “But this journey lacking a fixed course through the greater America has changed me more than I intended. I am no longer I. At least I am not the same I on the inside.”

As we continue our journey down through Spain, the more I can relate to the statement you just read. Those who fret about my political stability shouldn’t worry; it is not likely that I will become a communist revolutionary any time soon, at least until I can grow a beard.
I am changing though; my ideas altering from the months spent studying with a fervent idealist like Steve. I am becoming more readily eloquent, able to express ideas in words that used to be confined solely to paper. Combine this skill with something new to say and I feel unstoppable as I turn my attention to things currently bothering me. The major vent for my scorn has been the Christian eradication of Islamic thought in Spain and the negative affect it produced.

We just seen the second of the three Islamic wonders of Spain and like the first it has been converted religiously. Standing in the many-pillared hall of the Mezquita mosque in Cordoba I felt awed at the simple continuation of the whole structure, red and white topped pillars extending like a forest of poplars in every direction. Later, walking into its center I found a church, an edifice of pink marble and candles that was at odds with the surrounding structure and that had obviously been transplanted there.

Why this massive plagiarism, building a church inside a mosque and thereby taking claim to something that is not theirs? The Islamic court in Spain welcomed people of any faith and Christians, Jews and Muslims studied side by side to achieve higher learning. The fact that this, one of histories most tolerant institutions were replaced by an Christian inquisition that would inspire fear from all of Europe for hundreds of years is purely shocking and something for anyone who reads this to think about. I am not saying that you, the reader should change your core beliefs and I am certainly not Muslim, but please do not infringe upon others, however foreign and threatening they may seem.

Granada, Southern Spain

Imagine a Spanish Palace, its towers soaring into the blue void of space. This is a place of tranquility, where the sound of trickling water greets visitors, where cats lounge on tiled floors upon which, Spain’s ruling caliphs once trod. Walking over a mottled bridge above Granada I found such a place in the Alhambra, a fortress-city and gateway to another time. Stepping through the gateway and wandering through light flecked halls, detailed patterns eye catching with every step, I have found something beautiful and calm.

Nothing like this is untouched, and as I explore, so do maybe a thousand other tourists, moving past each other to snap pictures like ants foraging through a kitchen. I may join them in their journey but I still feel shame as I stand under an arch to have my picture taken, feeling like Hitler posing before the Eiffel tower. This feeling of guilt comes not from something I did but of acts committed by others hundreds of years ago.

The Spanish did not build these halls, this palace and the university of Cordoba. These are Muslim buildings, the Arabic on the colored tiles faded but still visible. And where are they, the men who built this palace, whose creative scope flows from every wall and surface? They are gone, their mosque flattened and a monstrosity of a church built over it. They are gone, thrown out, evicted not from a town but from a country, for the simple crime of being Muslim. In today’s media driven world many tend to look at Islam as a religion of hate followed by fanatics ready to die for any cause. How can we forget the learning that5 Islamic scholars introduced into Europe? How can we forget the royal courts of the Caliphs where Jews Christians and Muslims intermingled freely?

Now I am on a bus, heading through a land of olive and palm, of wandering goats and hardened shepherds, the heart land of Spain around me. This is Andalusia and ahead is Cordoba and after that the straights of Gibraltar and all of Africa. This is a history book of terrain, a land marched by Moors and Carthaginians, roads that have seen Hannibal’s elephants and Franco’s shock troops. This then is Spain and I am traveling through it towards Morocco, following the trail of Islamic influence towards its source, keen to find some meaning in all I have already seen.

Nice, France

“Ask for the number nine” Steve presses, urging me towards the bus which is preparing to depart the underpass where we have been sheltering. “nine, I don’t know nine” I insist “Une, Deu, Twua, Cat, Sanc, Sies, ummm, Nope”. As the bus departs Steve glares at me and together we search the gloomy streets for a taxi.

Had it just been the case of a missing bus at a Nice underpass(The city was Nice, the underpass was anything but) this trip might have looked normal, but amusingly the past two days have been those of confused backpacking as we made our way to France for the ACT.

Two nights ago and we first reached France and the coastal town of Cebere aboard a battered commuter train. Our brief three hour stay was quite boring and mentionable only for the sheer dodgyness we encountered upon exiting from the darkened station. From brightly lit train it was but twenty steps before a darkness of flickering street lights and murmuring shadows took over. For ages we navigated through foul tunnels and water filled streets to the waterfront and a bench. With no sea view to speak of and the bars shooing out their last patrons we retreated. Later in the station and with my laptop offering salvation from the doldrums, we watched Good Morning Vietnam in the fringes of freight yards while Doberman pinchers looked at our shins with longing.

All this effort and the ACT exam hall looks deserted, thin sheets of rainwater forming in the carpark and no possible test takers in sight. After five minutes the rusted steel gates popped automatically open and a mousy looking teacher hurried us inside, the garish pink of the painted concrete making me feel like a child in Disney land. And it almost was for I was the only student enrolled for the ACT and enjoyed the relaxed test taking environment in which I flourish. Alone in the schools I.T room the whole production to get there seemed such a anticlimax and I felt almost relaxed with the test (until I came to the math section, of course).
Now we are heading through Italy, the sea cloudy as our train ploughs along the Riviera the test done and my stomach rumbling in time to the beat of train against track.

Barcelona, North East Spain

The minutes tick quickly out of my reach and I am still lost within the test. My hair has lengthened and hangs shaggily over the collar of the clubbing shirt recruited for the S.A.T. Surprisingly even with this unorthodox look I am not out of place, as I might be in some cold American test facility in New England. The Spanish students surrounding me wear clothes that make them look good rather than excessively formal. The atmosphere is tense (of course some things never change) but friendly and we seem more like good friends sitting down for dinner in a trendy restaurant rather than strangers in a dusty conference room taking the S.A.T.

It is the proving ground, this exam that can secure you a place within the walls of academia or bar you from the same. Steve has helped me prepare to combat this test, coached me through the many math sections until the gibberish started to make sense. Unfortunately nothing prepares for the real thing and my fingers tap restlessly against the desk, my eyes riveted to the square wall clock. Its like a starters gun, the moderator up at the front calmly saying ‘you can begin’ as we scramble to open the booklets and start writing.

Later I stand up feeling bruised and sore, finish the last tick box, hand in the paper and walk slowly down the stairs as shaky as if I had escaped Lorcas, ‘Shipwreck of blood’. In the test centre restaurant Steve sits and waits for me, then together we escape the Orwellian looking test center and exit onto the street, the trees a leafy green above us.