Last Friday we loaded a bus and drove down to La Linea to board a ferry to Africa. I was even able to see the rock of Gibraltar again (mi amor!). Anyways, once we got off of the ferry we were all really excited because we were finally in Africa!!!! Psych... little did we know we were still in Spain. The ferry drops you off in a city called Ceuta which is Spanish territory; from there we drove about 15 minutes to get to the Spain/Africa border, where we had to wait about an hour and a half to get all of our passports stamped and approved. By the time we got to our hotel, it was late (we left Sevilla at 2:30pm), so we ate dinner and went to bed.
The next morning we first visited the Moroccan city called Tetuan. Tetuan was a very poor city and it was sad to see how little people had. We walked through the main market, which was pretty interesting to see. I was really grossed out because in Tetuan, as well as all the Moroccan cities that we visited, people buy their chickens alive and then have to kill them and stuff at home (no doubt I would be a vegetarian if I lived there)... so there were chickens running around everywhere, which freaked me out even more due to my minor hatred of birds. The markets sold every kind of vegetable imaginable and fruit and bakery items. It was really nauseating, however, to see people buying pastries and baked goods that had 20 flies sitting on them. Most of the people were very friendly and smiled at me. The official language there is Arabic, so I wasn't sure whether to speak Spanish or English (since arabic was clearly out of the question). To my surprise, a lot of the people knew both languages. After the market we walked through an area that had shops exclusively for making Moroccan dresses. The dresses are expensive to make, as the designs are hand embroidered and made of silk. It takes about a month to make a dress and costs about a month's earnings to pay for one (plus you have to provide the dressmaker with fabric). If the dress is for a bride, it is worn for 3 days (weddings last 3 days in Morocco), and then after the wedding she can wear it again for any special occasion. We also went to a spice shop that had spices (obviously), and different types of herbs/teas. We also went to a rug store and got to see a bunch of really beautiful Moroccan rugs and blankets. My friend Jack bought one for 110 euros, although he definitely could have bartered and probably paid half of what he did for it. We had lunch in a very touristy restaurant that had Moroccan dancers and entertainers, which was cool; we had a "Moroccan meal" which consisted of soup, salad (rice, salsa, carrots, lettuce, other vegetables), and cous cous with beef and vegetables.
The next city we visited was Tangier, a port city that was much more modern and developed than Tetuan was. We drove outside of the busy city area to the Atlantic/Mediterranean coast, where we went on the beach to ride camels! It cost one euro for a 2 minute ride... it was fun, but it would have been a lot better if we had been able to go on a longer ride to an actual destination, instead of going in circles. We then drove back to the city center and got a bus tour, which included going up to see the outside of the king's house (well, his house for about a week each year). After the bus tour we checked into the hotel and had dinner, which was fish... if you know how I feel about fish, you could've probably predicted that we ended up at Mc'Donalds shortly after dinner ended. I got a kid's meal for 20 dirhams (less than 2 euros), which even included a dragon light-up toy (every 21 year old's dream)! After the Mc'Donalds adventure we headed back to the hotel because we had to get up at 7 the next morning to go to ChefChaoen. However, it didn't even pay to go back to the hotel early because I literally did not sleep a wink. There was a wedding going on in the streets so literally every 10 minutes there was honking and screaming.
The bus ride to ChefChaoen the next morning was very unpleasant, as the combination of being tired, having a horrible bus driver, and driving on narrow roads through the mountains is not a good one. When we finally made it there, we had a 15 minute break to go to the bathroom (which was a hole in the ground) and breathe in some fresh mountain air. There is nothing really historically significant about ChefChaoen to my knowledge, but it is an awesome city because it is in the mountains and the whole city is painted blue/indigo! It was really beautiful. We spent most of the morning walking around the city and afterwards went to a market where we were able to barter for scarfs, rugs, blankets, jewelry, etc. Before leaving, we had another Moroccan lunch (soup, a salad thinger, and a beef stew dish).
I think visiting Morocco was a great experience. It was amazing to see how different everyday life is there compared to the United States (and even Spain), and it made me appreciate all that I have a lot more.
PS. Dad, you have another rock to add to your collection.
Picture #1: Tetuan, Morocco
Pictures #2-3: Market in Tetuan, Morocco
Picture #4: Riding a camel in Tetuan, Morocco
Picture #5: African scenery
Pictures #6-8: Chefchaoen, Morocco
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