Nine Miles

The Strait of Gibraltar: A Border of Beauty and Loss

Reinhilde Gielen, Hans Pauwels, and Aesthetic Nomads

Feb 06, 2025

There aren't many places in the world where you can gaze in awe upon one continent from the other.

Istanbul is a classic. But it doesn't feel like there's any difference between Asia and Europe because Istanbul is one big city connected by bridges and countless ferries to cross the Bosporus. Only Michael Palin has traveled to Little Diomede Island in Alaska to look at Big Diomede in Russia, about three kilometers away in the Bering Sea. These are just islands anyway, a far cry from the big landmasses that continents stand for.

But I remember being mesmerized by the sight of the Moroccan hills across the Strait of Gibraltar from the terrace of the house we once rented in Andalucía. An English couple owned the finca. We discovered it in a magazine and reached out to them through the editors.

Brian Chesky was still popping pimples at that time.

We shared the kidney-shaped pool with a frog. It respectfully jumped out of the pool when we wanted to swim and popped back in when we had finished. Princely.

We shared the living room with the soundtrack of The Lion King, which we'd been careless enough to bring along on a CD for the boys to listen to. And they did—endlessly. I can still sing 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight' by heart. But rest assured that you won't want me to. I haven't got Elton's vocal cords, and I'm about as flamboyant as the stool he plays piano on.

We shared the bedroom with four large Cy Twombly artworks and endlessly opened and closed the doors of the vintage meat lockers in the kitchen, designed to store food for a feast of fifty.

There's nothing like the sound of slamming a meat locker shut with Morocco in the background.

It works both ways.

Looking at the European continent from Tangier is just as mesmerizing. We're on the terrace of Villa Mabrouka, drinking Darjeeling tea served from Conran-designed teapots the size of a Jeroboam, and wonder who in Tarifa, across the Strait, is doing the same—enjoying the late afternoon sun, reflecting on the rare moments when life is truly gentle, while the last kite surfers pack up on the beach.

Life isn't particularly gentle to Umberto Pasti, the Italian author and horticulturist living in Tangier, as he listens to the trees die from successive heat waves in his garden of Rohuna. It happens yearly now. They die with the sound of popcorn popping. A life's work of rescuing indigenous plants from construction sites all over Morocco is under threat. Climate change is disrupting the rhythm of people, plants, and animals that seem to fall into perfect harmony in this horticultural paradise near the ocean.

But not only in this garden of exceptional honesty and love.

Climate change is an issue throughout Africa. The continent is warming faster than the rest of the world. Chad is considered to be the most vulnerable country on the planet. I remember the Maasai herding their cattle into Nairobi’s city parks, their animals foraging among the greenery because the land beyond was dry and cracked from drought. Food prices went up, and there was unrest in Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa.

Africa is on the move—driven north by climate change, political instability, and the uneven distribution of resources. For many, Morocco is the last stop before the final destination: Europe.

It's just nine miles between Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa in Spain. A decent swimmer makes it across.

But most don't.

Our tea has gone cold as the floodlights blaze on the Tarifa shore. We pick up the tab and walk back to our place in the Kasbah.

The Strait is just a black, empty stretch of nothingness. The continent that we call home lies straight ahead—barely nine miles away.

NINE MILES

Mellow and smeared in blue against the blush
of skies is how the Strait settles into night.
Across the sea Tarifa's orange floodlights—
The outlook of success, a glimpse of life serene and plush

And far away. There's only water now,
The last nine miles to get across. But somehow—
As I pace along the Tangier promenade—
It’s only waves I see, with no direction to evade.

The wind speaks out, but not of promised lands,
It echoes wrecks and names the tide has kept
Untold: a shifting surge devouring hope within its roar.

I pace no more; my feet are shackled by the sands,
The shore ahead aglow. Yet here I stay, windswept,
Clogged by tears of bodies drifting back ashore.