A few friends and I made plans to travel to Tangier, Morocco right after spring break. I knew I had always wanted to go to Africa and I figured studying in Spain was the best time to do it. Tangier is at the very top of Africa right in the coast, so all we had to do was take a flight from Bilbao to Madrid and transfer from Madrid to Tangier. (Some people take a ferry over from the south of Spain, but this was less expensive.) Of course, nothing is ever that easy.
Right before we left, on Wednesday a volcano in Iceland emitted tons of volcanic ash throughout the skies of Northern and Easter Europe and it was slowly making its way down to Spain. I was worried our flight was going to be canceled, but we were in the clear. However, our flight left at 8:30am from Santander which is a town over, so we needed to get a bus to Santander and then a shuttle to the airport. What we didn't realize until last minute was that the only bus that would get us to our flight in time was at 1:45am that morning. We took it, but then got stranded at the Santander bus station at 3am because the shuttles don't start running again until 6:30. We were afraid we were going to get kicked out of the station at any time ebcause that's what happened to our friend Mike once, but we were able to stay inside the whole time. And we had free WiFi (but one computer).And no one could really sleep on the rock hard benches or in the freezing cold anyway. Well finally at 6:30 we got on the shuttle and to the airport and boarded our flight all in time. But then when we got to Madrid we had another four hour layover. Everyone slept but me and I have to pay 10euro for a sandwich and some fruit! You should have seen the lines due to flight cancellations though... It was crazy, news reporters and media everywhere.
Finally we got to Tangier around 2pm (time change knocked us back two hours) and met up with our tour guide Said in the airport. I found Said, like I said, online. Reviews and websites raved about him. He offered to pick us up from the airport and take us to our hotel for free. Then after we checked in we had one of his employees Mohammed show us around the city a bit and show us to a delicious Moroccan lunch. We had some bread with some kind of salsa (almost like the toppings for California Pizza Kitchen Greek pizza), soup or salad as the first course (I has soup), and then giants dishes of vegetables, chicken and couscous. It was all sooo good. And we got Moroccan Baklava and mint tea for dessert. They always drink tea at the end of their meals to help digestion. After that we headed back to the hotel to nap and realized we weren't really all that hungry for dinner, so we just stayed in the rest of the night to get a good night's sleep.
The nest day was our all day tour with Said. First, we had a Moroccan breakfast that was included with our hotel. There were these crepe-like pancakes that a Moroccan lady sat on the ground and made in front of you, and all kinds of pastries and things too. They had yogurt, but I think they like their ygurt warm in Morocco, so I skipped that. Said picked us up at 9:30 and first we headed toward the coast. We drove up a huge hill with all these million dollar houses that mainly belonged to the King or Morocco or some Saudi Arabian royalty and what not... He brought us to the point where there was a lighthouse and you could see where the Mediterranean and Atlantic met and you could see Spain in the distance too. After that he drove us over to go ride camels! We were all hoping to ride them on the beach, but it was more like we were taken in circles around a dirt parking lot above the beach. And there were only three so we had to take turns. But it was still fun! And we got to see a baby camel that was only two months old! I even tried kissing him!! After that we went to the Cave of hercules. We had a guide tell us about it, but we could hardly understand anything he was saying! Something about the cave being mapped out like the continent of Africa and the other surrounding continents and bodies of water...? There was this one cool part though that looked out into the ocean and if you looked at the outline of the opening and flipped it, it was in the shape of the African continent! There was also a little boy in the parking lot with a hat on a dragging around a baby donkey and when i took a picture of him he smiled... but I think he expected money... Nina and I realized he wasn't so cute as we were about to leave and saw him kicking a yelling at the poor little donkey!
Then we headed back to the city. Said led us to the Kasbah, the older part of the city. Where he explained how the poorer people live with no electricty and water... And it really made us realzie how underdeveloped this place was. We were led into a little room where two Moroccan men were playing instruments. Said offered us to smoke with them, but we declined. Now we were told we were going to be Rockin' the Kasbah with these guys. We were all handed funny hats (like Abu's in Aladdin) and different instruments and were told to play along with their songs. Thankfully I had the tambourine, so my job wasn't too hard. It was actually really funny. After that, right outside there were the snake charmers! We went up to them and one old guy started playing a drum while the other pulled three snakes out of this potato sack! Then before you knew it the snakes weren't even moving and he was able to put them around our necks, it was really strange, but really cool at the same time. Said told us sometimes they have a black cobra, but when they use him they can only put it around people's legs.. just in case... ah!!
After all this we split up with Said and folllowed Mohammed again to the Medina, the main part of the city. He led us throught the fish market (blehhhh, it smelled so bad!!) and the meat market (terrifying... we saw hanging bloody skins, and bloody cow heads!). We walked through some veggie markets too, but it was so crowded it was hard to get around. We were taken into this the huge cfat store. With wooden boxes, vases, jewlery, swords, anything you can think of really... But Mohammed told us to wait to buy anything because this place was rather expensive. We were taken to a herbal pharmacy where we were taight about all different kinds of herbs and spices. They use herbs for everything in Morocco. Whether it's a heachahe or keeping the mosquitoes away! Some of us even bought a few things.Then we went into a Berber rug store. At the top of the store (four floors up) there was an amazing view. That's when Mohammed told us he needed to go really quickly to pray at the mosque and that we would be drinking tea with the shop owner until he came back. This sounded fine, until while we were waiting the shopowner started pulling out rugs and blankets. They were beautiful and Kate and I thought about getting one until he told us one the size of a bathmat at 90euro. Now in Morocco you're supposed to barter. Even if it's a set price. But Kate and I just didn't want one anymore. Except he wouldn't let down! He kept going, "Well for example, what color would you like?" And even if I told him I couldn't afford and kept saying no he kept pushing it.... "What price? You tell me? For example??" So I just threw out 40euro as a price and he practially placed a folded up carpet in my lap! We were all so uncomfortable. And finally Mohammed came back and when he explained for us that we weren't interested the owner almost seemes pissed that he took out all the carperts in the first place, but hey never asked him to do that! Anyway so we ran out of there. I mean it's great we got the rug down from 90 to 30, but I still wasn't paying 30euro for a bathmat. I wonder what would have happened if I said 5euro??
We wandered around a bit more. Kate and I got wooden boxes and the girls and I got the Hand of Fatima charm for a necklace (it's supposed to bring good luck) and then we went to lunch. We got Moroccan shish kebabs, and once again I was entirely satisfied by my meal. Who knew I would love Moroccan food so much? By then, Mohammed had to go, so we made our own way to the beach. It looked pretty from afar, but once you got there it was not nice at all. There was trash everywhere. High-heeled shoes, a bra, plastic bags and bottles, wires, just everything. Nasty. There were little boys playing soccer on the beach too who kept coming up to us and saying, "Hey pretty girl, come give me a kiss!!" We just walked away and laughed. It was finally time for another nap before our dinner with Said that night. He was taking us to a legitimate Moroccan restaurant which we were very excited about. Mohammed picked us up at 9 and we headed to the restaurant, I later found out that after he didn't dine with us that was the last time we really got to see him and we never got a picture with him! How sad :( Dinner was good, but very expensive. And we were supposed to be eating with Said, but he was off making bussiness calls and whatnot so we never really got to see him and it all got us wondering what he really does... He seems much more well-off than a lot of the others in this city, but his tours aren't very expensive. He has given tours to celebrities like Sting and Bruce Springstein, but walking through the streets he practically knows everybody! We all came to the conclusion that he has to be in some kind of Moroccan mob or whatever. Before going to bed we talked with him about doing a day trip the next day. We decided to go to a beach town about and hour away called Asilah. His driver would take us there and we could explore for however long we wanted. And then we would see him on Monday when we needed to leave for the airport.
Asilah was an interesting town. A lot smaller than Tangier obviously and a lot more residencial too. We found our way to the coast though and got down to the beach. There were these realy cool pieces of beached tile everywhere so I took some of those. I waded into the water too, but the tide was coming in so we opted to go find something to eat. We did that just in time because it started to pour. I got a giant mound of couscous for lunch and by the time we were done with that it had stopped raining and after a little more exploring we decided it was time to go. When we got back to Tangier we wanted to do some last minute souvenier shopping. We got postcards and they don't really have shot glasses because drinking in public is somewhat looked down upon in Morocco so we got Moroccan tea glasses instead. We got a really good deal and they're really pretty. After a short nap, all our naps were disrupted by the local soccer games that went on outside on the court across the street from our hotel, we wandered off to go find a cheap dinner consisting of kebabs, french fries and a soda for 30durham (3euro!).
The next day we packed up and said our goodbyes to Said and Mohammed. Right before we left we found out that our second flight (the one from Madrid to Santander) was cancelled due to the volcanic ash from the volcano that erupted in Iceland on Thursday. Well our flight leaving Tangier was delayed, so we were better off with the cancellation because we probably would have missed the nest flight anyway. We found a bus to Bilbao instead and waited around for two hours to leave at 8. We took a five hour bus ride home where a lady behind me kept singing outloud to her iPod and made it home by 1am. I love travelling, but I feel like every time I get home I am kissing the ground I walk on. Home sweet Bilbao :)
Then we headed back to the city. Said led us to the Kasbah, the older part of the city. Where he explained how the poorer people live with no electricty and water... And it really made us realzie how underdeveloped this place was. We were led into a little room where two Moroccan men were playing instruments. Said offered us to smoke with them, but we declined. Now we were told we were going to be Rockin' the Kasbah with these guys. We were all handed funny hats (like Abu's in Aladdin) and different instruments and were told to play along with their songs. Thankfully I had the tambourine, so my job wasn't too hard. It was actually really funny. After that, right outside there were the snake charmers! We went up to them and one old guy started playing a drum while the other pulled three snakes out of this potato sack! Then before you knew it the snakes weren't even moving and he was able to put them around our necks, it was really strange, but really cool at the same time. Said told us sometimes they have a black cobra, but when they use him they can only put it around people's legs.. just in case... ah!!
We wandered around a bit more. Kate and I got wooden boxes and the girls and I got the Hand of Fatima charm for a necklace (it's supposed to bring good luck) and then we went to lunch. We got Moroccan shish kebabs, and once again I was entirely satisfied by my meal. Who knew I would love Moroccan food so much? By then, Mohammed had to go, so we made our own way to the beach. It looked pretty from afar, but once you got there it was not nice at all. There was trash everywhere. High-heeled shoes, a bra, plastic bags and bottles, wires, just everything. Nasty. There were little boys playing soccer on the beach too who kept coming up to us and saying, "Hey pretty girl, come give me a kiss!!" We just walked away and laughed. It was finally time for another nap before our dinner with Said that night. He was taking us to a legitimate Moroccan restaurant which we were very excited about. Mohammed picked us up at 9 and we headed to the restaurant, I later found out that after he didn't dine with us that was the last time we really got to see him and we never got a picture with him! How sad :( Dinner was good, but very expensive. And we were supposed to be eating with Said, but he was off making bussiness calls and whatnot so we never really got to see him and it all got us wondering what he really does... He seems much more well-off than a lot of the others in this city, but his tours aren't very expensive. He has given tours to celebrities like Sting and Bruce Springstein, but walking through the streets he practically knows everybody! We all came to the conclusion that he has to be in some kind of Moroccan mob or whatever. Before going to bed we talked with him about doing a day trip the next day. We decided to go to a beach town about and hour away called Asilah. His driver would take us there and we could explore for however long we wanted. And then we would see him on Monday when we needed to leave for the airport.
Asilah was an interesting town. A lot smaller than Tangier obviously and a lot more residencial too. We found our way to the coast though and got down to the beach. There were these realy cool pieces of beached tile everywhere so I took some of those. I waded into the water too, but the tide was coming in so we opted to go find something to eat. We did that just in time because it started to pour. I got a giant mound of couscous for lunch and by the time we were done with that it had stopped raining and after a little more exploring we decided it was time to go. When we got back to Tangier we wanted to do some last minute souvenier shopping. We got postcards and they don't really have shot glasses because drinking in public is somewhat looked down upon in Morocco so we got Moroccan tea glasses instead. We got a really good deal and they're really pretty. After a short nap, all our naps were disrupted by the local soccer games that went on outside on the court across the street from our hotel, we wandered off to go find a cheap dinner consisting of kebabs, french fries and a soda for 30durham (3euro!).
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