Okay well this weekend I went to London. Before I bore you with all of that business I must share what I did two weekends ago. I went to Africa. Yes, Africa. You know the last continent to be de-colonized, with that huge desert, where the World Cup was this year, the birthplace of humanity, and whatever other reference you can think of. Morocco to be exact. While it wasn't the "lion's and tigers and giraffes oh my" Africa that most people think of, I did see a monkey (named Michael), and overall my trip to Morocco was awesome. I have never experienced anything like it. In case you didn't know Morocco is an Islamic country. They speak Arabic. Well, they also speak French, and in the north Spanish, and also a lot of English...but still. I have never felt like such a minority in my life. I guess it didn't help that I was walking in a humongous group of white people (plus Adrian, who was both mistaken for a Moroccan, and correctly labeled a Mexican), but everywhere that I went everyone's eyes seemed to follow. To be honest it was a little bit scary at times, and I kind of felt bad for being scared, but I think the bodyguards that followed us around served to both fuel and calm my fears. In reality everyone that wasn't trying to sell my anything there was really nice, and the only time I actually felt somewhat in danger was when the drug (mainly hash) dealers that are everywhere in the markets were breathing down my neck trying to get me to come back to their house 40 meters down that dark alley.
For my last few trips I have kind of followed a set outline (each day) in my post-trip de-briefing, so I might as well act like this is my fingernails and not break the habit...
[Warning: I really was bad at keeping this blog in chronologically order, sorry if I confuse you]
Friday:
First of all I stayed up way too late following my fantasy team [this six to nine (haha) hour NBA scheduling difference is killing my game!] and writing my Amsterdam blog. Went to bed around 3:00 and woke up around 6:15. The itinerary said the bus was leaving at 7:25 so I followed the directions, "DEBES SER PUNTUAL Y NO OLVIDAR TU PASAPORTE." (guess). Turns out the bus wasn't leaving until like 7:45 or so. Not sure if that was planned or not, but everyone made it on time so I guess they knew what they were doing. Two hour bus ride to Algeciras. On the way saw some Spanish countryside, including the huge bull billboard-type thing that is on so many postcards (you probably have no idea what I'm talking about). From Algeciras we boarded a pretty nice ferry (see below) and took off like a...boat to Cueta (a Spanish territory on the African mainland).
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| Pretty nice ferry. Spent the boat rides on the back with one of my friends who is allergic to boat rides...they make her throw up! |
Well, after reaching Cueta, and getting a stamp from Morocco in my passport!!! (Kind of a big deal). We boarded another, more spacious, bus that would take us to our three-star hotel in Tetuán. I'd say the ride was somewhere between half an hour and two hours, so you can't really listen to anything I have to say about that bus ride. I'm pretty sure I was asleep...I do remember the cool wedding chapel and gas station below though!
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| Wedding chapel. Pretty cooooooo. |
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| The gas stations in Africa..."Afriquia"...A-freaky-a. The man in orange is yelling at me, "No photo!" (Happened a lot). |
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Hotel El Yacouta, what kind of a hotel advertises it's three-star rating right above its door? (I guess it could have been out of four stars, but if so they have really low-standards to give this place a 75%) |
We had like 10 minutes to drop our things of in our hotel room and go back down to the bus in order to get a tour of the city of Tetuán, but our maids were performing as swiftly as my "who" (from the Grinch) look-a-like maid that I have in Sevilla so we were a solid fifteen minutes late to the bus. Thankfully some girls were twenty minutes late, so I escaped any lateness hatred that would have ensued otherwise. Once we finally arrived in the city we were dropped off at what seemed to be the main tourist drop off location in town (where the stares began). Tons of $$$ exchange sites and plenty of little kids trying to sell me tissues. Like seriously bro, do I look sick? Are you trying to tell me I look sick? Is this an insult--you trying to give me kleenex? Screw you, I'm not going to give you money for telling me that I look sick.
Well, after the kleenex debacle(s), we made our way to la Escuela Taller de Tetuán where we were given the chance to view the works of various students working in different forms of Arabic/Muslim/Moroccan art (not sure which one of the slashes is correct). These included: woodwork, painting, ceramics, metal-work (what is the proper term, anyone?), and many other forms of artisanianishiness. It was actually a pretty cool place. Tons of detail in the work. One of the school's goals is to preserve Moroccan culture. The attendance at the school has apparently declined greatly in recent years. Less people have come to learn the arts because of the focus on earning a living. Maybe if they didn't sell everything so cheap in Morocco they'd make a living selling all of these beautiful things!
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Work in the woodworking room at the artisan school (la Escuela Taller de Tetuán) that we visited. So much detail. So pretty. Oh la la. |
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Our tour guide for the first day, Abdul. People call him Michael Douglas though. Seriously the most popular man in Morocco. You really have no idea. Every ten second he was stopping and greeting another random Moroccan. I aspire to have the influence that this man has. |
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Desk made at the artisan school we visited. The dangly triangle thing in the middle is a lantern. And the whole thing folds up. |
Our day concluded with a trip (including lunch) through la medina de Tetuán. We were there forever and it was pretty sketch if you ask me. We secretly had at least five body guards following us at all times. Even though Michael Douglas knows seemingly everyone within Morocco, it seemed like they hated us. We were never really told of our "protection," and I guess if you hadn't been paying attention you wouldn't have noticed all the men with walkie-talkies communicating around our group, but it made me feel like what I was doing was dangerous. I'm not sure how dangerous it was though since we were kind of kept in the dark.
[Side Note: Michael Douglas was our tour guide for the day. You can call him Michael or Douglas or Michael Douglas or even Abdul (his real name). I swear this man is more well-known than the Moroccan president (who's that?). Apparently he is the vice president of tour guides in Morocco or something. I guess people love you when you bring a bunch of rich people to their stores. This guy was ridiculously nice. Taught us some arabic (like two words) that I would tell you about if I knew how to spell them. He wasn't our guide the next day, but we actually ran into him in a completely different city, and then he showed up again at our hotel on our last night. Amazing]
After the sun went down they kind of sped us out out of the medina and back to our hotel. Three-star dinner wasn't bad. It was late, like all Spanish meals, but a friend and I went to the store called Marjane (haha) and bought a couple Moroccan beers, "Casablanca," (with alcohol) that were very good. The alcohol seen is weird in Morocco. Even though it's forbidden in Islam there were tons of dudes in the alcohol section of the store buying beers. Blah blah blah, the day got darker as the sun disappeared behind the mountains of Morocco and I went to bed...
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So many stares...so much kleenex.
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Ya their throats are cut. |
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La medina
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Tannery in the medina at night. Pretty scary place with all these animal hides soaking in water or whatever the hell that gross liquid was. |
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Saturday:
Woke up bright and early for our 7:30 breakfast buffet and shortly after we took of for Asilah. This city is beautiful. It is filled with nice little shops and walls covered by awesome murals. It also turned me into a shopping machine. Maybe it was all the cheap stuff or maybe Africa has that effect on me or maybe it was that my trip had only costed me 30 euros (all inclusive). I don't know. Let's just say merry christmas. Well Asilah is a town on the coast near the intersection of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. We actually ate lunch at a restaurant on the hills directly above this linking of the two seas near the city of Tánger.
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| Africa has forests! View from the bus window. And renewable energy too! |
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| So many slippers. So comfortable. Hint. |
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| Atlantic Ocean... I think... |
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| There was a lot of cool art on the walls in Asilah... |
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| ...in random places... |
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| ...of random things. |
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| Where the Atlantic and the Mediterranean meet. I want to say its where that line is but I'm pretty sure that would be BS on my part. |
After Asilah and lunch in the hills, we headed down to Tánger and the Hercules Caves. These caves were pretty wild. The myth is that this is where Hercules went to rest after he completed his twelve tasks. More than that that cave served as a map. Not only did the opening to the sea mimic an image of a reversed African continent (see below), but the shape of the cave itself, I guess the floor plan you could say, also resembled the area including the Mediterranean and Africa. Well, this is what our guide told us. I couldn't really decide whether he was full of shit, I just didn't have the vision, or if this was just an extremely abstract map we were talking about. I'm pretty sure it was mixture of the three.
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| Inside la cueva de Hercules. |
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| Supposed to look like a map of Africa reversed. The cave itself also reflects Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean in the way it has formed (supposedly). |
After Hercules, went and rode some camels. Didn't really ride them that far, but it was pretty crazy. Camels are scary and very angry. It was especially nice to be riding camels on cliffs above the beach. After this we made our way into the actual city of Tánger and spent some more time wandering around dark and scary markets. I bought some more stuff. I'm really bad at bargaining. It is just so annoying and I hate having to listen to them talk so I usually don't put too much effort in to it. Oh well, everything in this country is cheaper than everything in Sevilla. It got dark again and this night was as exciting as the first... blah blah blah... ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZ....
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| Yes dad, that is the hump, and no the camel is not just happy to see me. |
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| Nedya (left, my camel) and Ali-babba (right, Adrian's) |
Sunday:
After Chaouen, we boarded the bus and drove two hours back to Cueta, got on the ferry for another for another half-hour to hour, and had another bus ride of two and a half hours from Algeciras back to Sevilla. The trip was long, exhausting, different, crazy, incredible and amazing. While we started the weekend with Shakira - "Waka waka" as our theme song, I definitely left Morocco with a whole bunch of Alladin echoing inside my skull.
Gah this post was poorly written and very un-organized. I hope it made like some sense, and if you have any like question about Morocco that my detail-lacking post didn't cover ask me through your preferred form of inter-continental communication.
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