Day: March 17, 2014
Selfies with Camels, and Other Moroccan Adventures
I’m proud to announce that I can now say I’ve been to three continents! The weekend before last, I went with a group of my friends to Morocco, as in, you know, a country in AFRICA!
We traveled with a tour company based in Seville called Discover Excursions, which, even though we had some difficulties getting to Morocco and back (more on that later), I think was still the best decision we could have made.
So, geography refresher: Morocco is located in northwest Africa, and Spain is located in southwestern Europe. The two countries are separated by the Strait of Gibraltar with the Mediterranean Sea on the east side and the Atlantic ocean on the west side. Because of Morocco’s proximity to southern Spain, many people that live in Andalucía travel to Morocco for vacation regularly. It’s not a very long trip, and visiting Morocco offers a nice glimpse into another culture and way of life.
Discover Excursions was a company that I had read a lot about online, as it is very popular among foreign students in Seville. They offer overnight and day trips to places like Morocco, Portugal, Gibraltar, etc. They also heavily target foreign students and do a lot of advertising on Facebook and social media, so they’re hard to ignore, haha. What I thought was cool was that there were a lot of students on the trip (it was all 20-somethings, and pretty much all women) that weren’t from Seville! I met students that had traveled to Seville from Lisbon, Oviedo, Madrid, and even Rome! So that was cool to get to meet other study abroad students. I even met a girl who is from Columbia, Missouri (where Mizzou is), and it turns out we have mutual friends! “Small world!”
Now, about the “difficulties” I mentioned earlier… We left Seville with Discover Excursions on a bus at 5PM on Friday afternoon. We were originally supposed to drive to Tarifa, Spain and take the ferry to Tangier, Morocco. However, because of some very windy weather, the port in Tarifa was closed! Our guide told us that we would be taking a later ferry leaving out of Algeciras, Spain and heading to Tangier-Med, Morocco. The ferry we ended up taking was a much larger cargo ferry (used primarily for trucking routes and transporting cars), and it traveled on the Mediterranean side of the Strait, so the wind wouldn’t affect it as much. Our guide even pointed out that Tangier-Med is actually closer to Tetouan, where our hotel was, so we would hopefully make up for lost time by having a shorter drive.
…this turned out not to be the case. Because the cargo ferries take much longer to load, and because the weather was bad, we ended up getting to Morocco much later than planned. We arrived in Morocco around 1AM, and since the port was technically closed because it was so late, customs and getting passports checked was a bit of a mess. My “welcome to Africa” moment involved being sleep-deprived and standing on an extremely windy Moroccan cargo port while waiting in line for a security officer to look at my passport. (The Morocco-Spain border seemed to have fairly strict security, as Morocco is often used as an entry point for getting illegal things into Europe. Illegal immigration across the Strait is also a reasonably big problem.) We finally made it to our hotel and sat down to eat dinner somewhere between 3 and 4AM. (Morocco is one hour behind Spain, so with the time change and being tired in the moment, my memory is a bit fuzzy.) The poor wait staff at the hotel had stayed up so they could serve us! We all felt bad for them, and felt completely exhausted.
However, the hotel we stayed at in Tetouan, Hotel La Paloma, was very nice. It’s only a few years old, and I think it has a four-star rating! So that was fun. And the next day, Saturday, was definitely a good time. We had a delicious buffet-style breakfast (so many pastries!!) at the hotel, and then took a bus to Chefchaouen, “The Blue City”. We took a tour with a local guide to see some various parts of the city and learn more about the area, had lunch, and then had free time to do some shopping!
In Chefchaouen, at all of the small stores, haggling/bargaining is the way things are done. I had never really “haggled” before, but our Discover Excursion guides gave us a brief introduction. The only thing I was really interested in purchasing was a scarf. I know some people who also bought rugs and even leather backpacks, but I’m trying to remember that I have to pack for the trip home in June, so I kept it small. The official currency in Morocco is the Dirham, though in touristy cities like Chefchaouen in the northern part of the country, Euros are also usually accepted. 11 Dirham is about equivalent to 1 Euro, so whenever I paid for something with Dirham I always felt like I was paying way too much (“This water bottle costs 20€?! Oh, wait, that’s listed in Dirham.”) I did manage to walk away with a very nice scarf that I really like. The shopkeeper started at 28€, so I proposed 7€ (which he scoffed at; part of the “game”, or so I’ve been told), and I think I ended up paying about 13€ for it? (I don’t quite remember.) Maybe I got ripped off? I’m not an expert at haggling, nor do I know that much about scarves, but it was still fun and I walked away from the purchase feeling like a champ.
Other fun facts/anecdotes:
- In Chefchaouen, almost all of the buildings are painted blue and white. This is partially because of the city’s Jewish heritage, but also serves a practical purpose: the white keeps the buildings cool, and the blue apparently wards off mosquitos! It also looks really pretty and makes for great photography for the tourists, haha.
- The main languages spoken in Morocco are Arabic (the Moroccan dialect and the traditional Islamic dialect) and the Berber (indigenous) language (which I believe also has several dialects.) However, I was extremely impressed by how multi-lingual everyone was. French is also taught in schools, and pretty much everyone I ran into also knew at least some English and Spanish! I’m having a hard enough time learning one new language, so I can’t imagine knowing that many! I did learn a few Arabic phrases: “Salam” (“Hello”), “Waha” (basically, “Okay!”), and “Shukran” (“Thank You”)
- On the topic of language, it was funny hearing people use very stilted, clearly memorized English phrases. I heard so many store owners say things like, “Come in here, pretty lady, we have good bargains for you!”, “Come on in, take a look!”, etc. And it was great hearing kids yell out English words and phrases as we walked by. When I was in a group of girls, some teenagers even shouted, “Do you want a husband?” It was all pretty entertaining.
- “Don’t drink the water!” applies in Morocco. It’s not that the water is dirty, it’s just that there are different types of bacteria in the water there compared to the kind in Spain. So just like when you go to Mexico or other foreign countries, it’s better to stick with bottled water. I played it extra safe and even used bottled water for brushing my teeth, as well as avoided fruits I didn’t peel myself. I felt a bit paranoid since none of my friends did these things, but I was worried about getting sick because I knew my family would be in Seville when I got back, and I didn’t want to miss out on spending time with them. However, it was a bit of a surprise that we had to buy bottled water from the hotel. In the price breakdown from Discover Excursions, it states, “Drinks not included”. None of us realized this was to be taken literally! Usually in the US when people say that, they’re referring to alcoholic beverages, not cokes and teas, and especially not water. (It must just be an American thing, since water isn’t free in Spain, either!)
At the hotel that evening, we had dinner, and then enjoyed some entertainment featuring Moroccan music and dancing, as well as an acrobatic-type show where a man balanced candles on his head and hands. It was very fun! Discover Excursions also provided sangria (a treat, since alcohol is hard to come by in an Islamic nation like Morocco).
The next day we went just outside of Tangier for a few activities and some sightseeing. We went to Cabo Spartel (Cape Spartel), the most northwestern point of mainland Africa, and the marker for the beginning of the Strait of Gibraltar. There’s a very picturesque lighthouse, and it was a neat lookout point. Near the Cape are the Caves of Hercules. The Caves of Hercules are a popular tourist destination. The name of the caves is rooted in the legend of Hercules, who supposedly split the continents and created Europe and Africa, as well as made sure the Strait was narrow enough to keep sea monsters from being able to enter the Mediterranean. Another thing that’s cool about the caves is that the opening that looks out to the sea is actually shaped like the continent of Africa! I also read online that there are legends that say there is an underground tunnel that connects the Caves of Hercules to Saint Michael’s Cave in Gibraltar. I actually visited the cave in Gibraltar with my family a few days ago (more on that in a future post), so that was pretty cool!
Possibly one of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to ride a camel!! Everyone got to enjoy a short camel ride on the coast, which was definitely a blast. (Camels are kind of scary, though! They definitely bite, and are very big, so they can be pretty imposing!) Further entertainment was provided in the form of taking selfies with the camels while waiting in line to get to ride one, haha. I took my fair share of selfies, and I wasn’t the only one!
When we got on the bus, we received some bad news. The weather on the Atlantic Ocean side was still extremely windy, so the port was closed again. This meant we had to take the cargo ferry back to Spain. I was kind of bummed because I wanted to get to travel through Tarifa. Additionally, because the guides still had to purchase tickets for all 100 or so of us on the trip, that meant we needed to get to the Tangier-Med port early. Because of this, we didn’t get to visit the city of Assilah, which was originally part of the itinerary.
A lot of people were very upset because of all the changes in plans. It was additionally frustrating because there was a lot more time spent on the bus, and a lot more time spent waiting at the ports and on the ferries going there and back. I’ve since researched a bit about the ferry system online, and it seems like (especially in the case of the cargo ferries), the schedules are much more like loose guidelines. They get there when they get there. This makes it hard for travelers. The ferry ride back to Spain left very late, and the ride itself was very rocky because of the wind and waves. (A lot of passengers got sick, and the crew ran around handing out sick bags!) Our guides told us that in the history of Discover Excursions making this Morocco trip, this was only the first or second time this kind of thing had happened. So we really were just unlucky because of the weather. It was a bit annoying, of course, but it was the weather’s fault, and nothing could be done. I didn’t appreciate a lot of the annoying fellow travelers in our group complaining and whining about things that were beyond anyone’s control. I heard rumors of people demanding refunds, but all things considered, the guides did the best they could do (especially the head guide who seemed to be the one making all of the arrangements). It was a friendly reminder that Mother Nature truly has the power, haha. We made it back to Seville at about 3AM, and I slept very, very well before getting up the next day to go to class and spend time with my family!
All in all, it was a great experience. I was so glad to get to visit such a different place from anywhere I had been to before. I’ve been fascinated by Islam since I took a religious studies course on the Islamic religious tradition a few semesters ago, so visiting a country where the religion is so fully integrated into the lifestyle was really interesting. (For example, hearing the Call to Prayer said over speakers from the minarets of mosques!) Even considering the trouble with the weather, I think I’m still glad I chose to go with a tour company. If I had tried to go alone or with my group of friends, I don’t know what we would have done if we had gone to Tarifa and found the port closed. We probably wouldn’t have realized taking a cargo ferry was even an option! I’m not sure I’ll travel with a big tour company like this again, since I prefer going solo or in small groups, but I think considering the complications and all of the border crossings, going with a company was the best choice for this location.
M’a ssalama! (Goodbye/With peace!)
kelseygoestospain 