I Went to Africa!

For the Spanish spring holiday known as "puente" last weekend, Bronwen and I went to Morocco.  Ever since we both realized that we were going to be in Spain for the semester, we've both wanted to go there, so we planned way ahead and it actually happened.  We figured when we planned it that we would find more friends who wanted to come with us, but in the end, nothing came together and we ended up just the two of us traveling Morocco.  Though just a quick plane ride away, Morocco truly is another world and while there were definitely a few missing amenities from what we're used to, I feel that a trip like that is really eye opening to other cultures, religions, and ways of living.

Because it was such a unique and interesting place, my narrative of my entire trip could be a novel, so here are a few memories to give you a general idea of how it went.  If you want to hear more, we can chat over coffee at a later date...

• First crazy experience was the Tangier bus station, in which one second after jumping out of the cab, we realized that almost every person in the semi-crowded bus station was a man, some of whom were yelling at us trying to sell us bus tickets. Got our ticket from the old toothless man at the "higher class" bus company, hopped on the bus three minutes later, arrived in Fez 7 hours later (literally the scenic route through the Moroccan countryside)

• Had an awesome tour guide who took us around Fez (famous for its crafts) for the entire day, showing us a pottery "factory," rug co-op, looming workshop, metalworkers, embroiderers, a medicinal herbs shop, leather tanneries, some yummy fried potato snacks, a beautiful Arab mausoleum, the king's palace, and probably more that I can't remember now.  Tried to bargain hard, but it turns out the Moroccans have us beaten on that one, though the leather man did tell Bronwen that she bargains harder than a Berber, which is apparently a pretty good thing.

  

• The owner of our hostel ran into us in town and took us for mint tea at a hotel overlooking the city (mint tea is like water for those folks)

  

• Had a guide who was about our age in Moulay Idriss, a site where Muslims go to pay Haj (like a mini-Mecca) - pretty sure we were the only non-muslim tourists to roll through in a while.

We couldn't go into the mosque cause we're not cool enough

• Cab driver for the afternoon (whom I was attempting to talk to in French, which he didn't really even speak well) turned out in the end to want to come back to the U.S. with us - I think marriage may have been mentioned.  Tried to explain to him that that wasn't going to work out, thanked him for our drive, and went on our way.

• Arrived in Chefchaouen in the middle of a total downpour, tromped up the big hill toward the town, didn't know where we were going, paid a man 20 dirhams (2€) to take us to the hostel, which turns out I had booked for the wrong night.  Oops. Nice British hostel owner took us to another place which was just fine.

• Chefchaouen is cool.  Hiked up the hill with our new Spanish friend Patricia, then up another hill to a mosque for an awesome view of the blue-tinted city.

 

• Tried to take a bus to Tangier the next day, but it was apparently a holiday and all buses were full.  Took "shared taxis" instead, which involves stuffing 7 people in a normal-sized cab for an hour and half - twice (we had to do it in two legs).  Counted 37 mosques in the rural Moroccan countryside over a span of about 40 km.

 

 for some reason, there are men just standing in the middle of fields everywhere... not working, just standing

• Funny kid about our age shuffled us down the hill to our hotel from where our cab dropped us off in his Moroccan slippers
• Discovered a board game club outside the window of our really nice hotel in Tangier.
• Checked many different sources to determine the actual time of our flight the next day - it seems the entire country of Morocco was quite confused about the time change, including our airline...