Malaga, Spain

26 September 2012

Our Morocco stop won’t happen. ISE—the Institute for Shipboard Education, owners of the SAS program—has decided that giving potential terrorists a target of opportunity like 500 mostly US college students and a highly visible ship like the MV Explorer isn’t sound policy. The recent demonstrations outside US embassies around the Arab world made ISE (and many parents) nervous, but demonstrations a few days ago outside the embassy in Casablanca were the telling blow. So we’re spending two extra days in Spain—not the worst place in the world to find oneself with time to kill—then sailing to Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Canary Islands for an overnight before continuing on to Ghana.

The loss of Morocco is a huge blow to the itinerary. It would have been our first true “foreign port.” Now we have only one: Ghana.

This past month, with stop after stop in various European ports interrupted only briefly by the distraction of a day of classes at sea, has seemed far more like a “cruise” than a “voyage”—anathema to Semester at Sea and U of VA. And since arriving in sunny Lisbon, where we had 3 days of uninterrupted sun and warm weather, it’s been a beach cruise for the students. Of course, the on-shore field-lab trips to museums, archeological sites, and geographic wonders (e.g., Gibraltar), have lent an air of academic respectability. But, like the class days, these have been momentary distractions to many: delays from joining friends on the sand and surf. As one faculty colleague said a few days ago, “Many of our students are seeing Europe through the bottom of a beer glass.”

With an itinerary like this fall’s—a circumnavigation of the Atlantic with several stops in Europe—I don’t know how to avoid the cruise feel. But this one feels very different from the voyage (a true “voyage”) three years ago, where each multi-day port call was framed by 4 to 6 days at sea, with accompanying classes. That one felt like an academic voyage interspersed with labs in port. This one feels like . . . well, like a cruise. I know this fall is saving ISE fuel costs. Sailing around the world is expensive. But the cost in academic credibility may prove to be much higher.

Having said all that, the past week has certainly been enjoyable for me. We arrived in Lisbon a week ago today, sailing under a bridge that made the arrival feel like entering Oakland Bay. The bridge was designed by the same architect who designed the Golden Gate, its twin. We tied up midway between the center of Lisbon—about a kilometer east—and the port of Belem, about a kilometer west.

On Wednesday, Jim Cooper and I had a 13:30 (1:30pm) tee time at Oitavos Dunes Golf Club, on the Atlantic coast about a 30-minute drive west from the ship. This time, we were joined by Jay Orris, one of our lifelong learners. Jay and his wife, Christy, are traveling with their two young sons and Jay’s dad, Milton. They were all onboard three years ago for the round-the-world trip, when Jim Cooper was surrogate teacher for the Orris sons. Christy and Jay are Dartmouth Biz MBAs. Christy buys, builds, and sells manufacturing companies, the first of which she purchased from her father. Jay accompanies Christy and watches the boys, aided my Milton. They’re a wonderful, still-young family. And Jay is a close-to-scratch golfer. What a life!

The day at Oitavos Dunes was perfect: sunny, light breeze, beautiful course. And my golf was typical: erratic. At Oitavos, my fairway play (when I was on the fairway) and short game were ok; my drives were all over the place. Other days, my drives are absolutely consistent, but my short game falls apart. The result continues to be scores in the mid 90s, especially when we play longer courses, as we’re doing so far.

Golf, for me, is a personal sport. I play against myself. Jim is highly competitive, delighting publically and often in his successes, which are frequent. He has shot and beaten his age several times, the equivalent of a no-hitter in baseball. For me, I’ll need to be an active, athletic, skilled octogenarian to have even a faint chance of achieving the same milestone. I’m a battered spouse to golf. I keep coming back because the occasional good days give me hope that one day my 13 clubs—my abusers—will reform.

On the second day in Lisbon, I had one of those moments that will be an icon of this trip. I took the tram from our dock to Lisbon central with the intention of scouting the city. Lisbon, like Rome, is built on 7 hills—the city was founded by the Phoenicians and the area has been continuously inhabited for 9,000 years—and atop one of the hills is St George’s Castle (Castilo de Sao Jorge). The castle was once a military base and now provides a stunning view of Lisbon and its magnificent, huge harbor.

As I was exploring the castle, I passed a small group of tourists going from one of the keeps to another. As I passed, I heard a familiar voice behind me: “Just walk on past without saying hello, Bangs.” I turned around, and in front of me was Tom Murawski, colleague from my days on the Air Force Academy faculty, life-long friend, and, most recently, owner of the business (The Murawski Group) that hired me for my Washington DC training stints earlier this year. I had absolutely no idea he and his wife Emily were going to be in Portugal at the same time. They were traveling with a group of friends from Tom’s days as a student (cadet) at the Academy, a group that has taken several trips together over the years as a way of staying in touch.

Tom, Emily, their friends, and I spent an hour or so together talking about the wonders of Lisbon and “this small world” in a garden café outside the castle. They had arrived in Lisbon just that morning so were suffering from jet lag a little. And I needed to get back to the ship to meet Jim and Shamim for a planned dinner date. But seeing the Murawskis was a welcome link back to home and reality.

That night, Jim, Shamim, and I returned to the castle to watch the sunset over Lisbon then enjoyed a wonderful dinner at the restaurant in the castle—Café de Leao. Nice view, good food, fun friends.

I spent the final day in Portugal exploring Belem: the monastery where Vasco da Gama is entombed, the maritime museum (amazingly detailed ship models going back to the days of the Portuguese explorers), the enormous monument to the long-ago glory days of the Portuguese explorations—and the horrors of their role in the slave trade—and the embassies surrounding the presidential palace. But mostly, I was searching for a McDonalds and its good internet connection. I found both. The internet was very strong—like taking a hot shower after the grueling hike of limited on-board access—and the quarter-pounder with cheese was magnificent!

With two extra days in Spain, I scrambled after classes on Saturday to figure what to do.  I faced two big challenges: the limited bandwidth on the ship, making browsing Trip Advisor or other web sites next-to-impossible; and the fact that we arrived in Cadiz on a Sunday. Spain is still a Catholic country, and it shuts down on Sundays. So I postponed my heavy-duty planning for Sunday, when I stayed on board the Explorer, got a few papers graded, did a little lesson planning, and focused on figuring what I would do with the remaining 5 days in Espana. I decided to head to the Costa del Sol.

Sunday night, I went to dinner in Cadiz with Colin and Sandra White, Aussies from Melbourne. They were on the ship in ’09. Colin teaches international business at university in Melbourne, though he’s now retired, and the two of them take frequent teaching gigs at universities around the world and onboard educational cruises. This is their 3^rd SAS voyage. They’re fun, enthusiastic, energetic. We laugh together . . . a lot. And Sunday evening we shared a terrific paella meal at an outdoor café in Cadiz.

On Monday, I picked up my rental car at the Cadiz train station and headed east toward the Costa del Sol. Jim and Shamim had decided that they would spend 3 days with friends in Madrid then would join me this afternoon here in Malaga for sightseeing, art museums, and golf. So, in addition to my luggage and clubs, I’m also schlepping Jim’s clubs. I pick them up at the train station at 13:07 (1:07pm).

I drove along the coast east to Gibraltar, where I intended to stop for lunch. But when I arrived in the Spanish town at the entrance to the Gibraltar peninsula, I was greeted by a line of cars snaking at least 2 kilometers north from the border crossing.

Spain isn’t happy that the British continue to control this tiny but strategic corner of the Iberian Peninsula. So they make traveling back and forth between La Linea de la Conception and Gibraltar not easy. Everywhere else in Europe, the border crossings have fallen away, but not here. Gibraltar isn’t formally a part of the EU, and Spain makes sure we know we’re entering a foreign country. Moreover—I understand from my Malaga hostess, Ana, a professor of international law at Malaga University—the British keep flouting their ownership. They just completed a beautiful new airport terminal on the Spanish-owned easement connecting the Gibraltar peninsula with Spain. How did they get away with that. I don’t have the answer.

I managed to skirt most of the long wait by going first to the small town on the Spanish side of the border, where I stopped for a desperately needed relief. Then I entered the border queue from the south, cutting the hour-long wait to about 15 minutes.  Cheating? I suppose.

Gibraltar is a little Hong Kong Island. On the western shore of the peninsula is the city of Gibraltar, slammed against the rocky outcroppings just as the city of Victoria is slammed against Victoria Peak across from Kowloon. And the Gibraltar harbor and bay, like Hong Kong Harbor, is full of international ships waiting for fuel or awaiting the order for their next port call. The east side of Gibraltar—the Mediterranean side—is like the southern shore of Hong Kong Island: the Repulse Bay side. It’s pristine, beach-lined, and very lovely. All this is like Hong Kong in miniature.

I drove around the peninsula, an easy navigation given the small size of the area and the one-way streets. I stopped first at the southern-most end of Gibraltar and looked across at Morocco, our lost port. Then I continued around the peninsula to Catalan Bay—Gibraltar’s answer to Repulse Bay—where I stopped for lunch: seafood soup (delicious and zippy) and a very welcome cerveza.

I left Gibraltar after stopping at a petrol station to spend my remaining 8 British pounds on a few liters of diesel-gas. And I continued the drive east to Costa del Sol and Malaga.

More later. For now, I need to head off to provide taxi service to the arriving Cooper couple.