Thé a la Menthe

Sipping hot mint tea in cafe Hafa looking across the strait to Gibraltar and Spain.
Hafa is an old, run down, blue painted brick shack. A series of about 10 rough terraces ladder down the cliff facing the strait, dotted with tables and chairs.
My fingers are sticky as I type, a symptom of the sugary glass of tea I am holding. A group of men across from me are smoking Kif, joking, listening to catchy Arabic pop music and laughing. They have a very good life.

Here Truman Capote, Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles hung out, doing much as I am doing now ... Gazing across the sea brushing the bees away from their sticky glasses of thé Menthe.
Groups of tourists come, drink tea and go. The locals hardly raise an eyebrow with each invasion and retreat, although if I understood Arabic I would probably have a different story to tell.
My second glass exceeds the first, I know why they spend all day sipping it, just as it cools to drinking temperature ... You want another fragrant hit.