Oh Morocco....

Oh Morocco...what other way is there to describe morocco...no other way.  I don't even know where to begin when it comes to describing this trip.  So I guess I'll start at the top, like always.

Me on the boat, and Africa's in the background!

Friday morning, we wake up and peaced out at 8.  Well, when Paula said our adventure for Morocco starts immediately she wasn't kidding.  We hit our first speed bump about 30 min into the trip when one of the kids realized that he forgot his passport.  He only had a copy of his passport and for some reason didn't think to tell anyone until we were about 30 min outside of Granada.  Well naturally he couldn't leave the country and get into another one without his passport, so we dropped him off, and he got a ride back to Granada from Paula.  No worries, he ended up showing up the second night after returning, grabbing his passport and finding his own way to Morocco. Our second speed bump happened when we stopped for our mandatory bathroom break and rest stop for the driver.  We pushed back our departure time an hour because they moved the ferry times on Wednesday.  Well, things in Morocco are pretty disorganized so we stopped for our break, and Edu got a call from Imna saying "they moved the ferry time up an hour".  So naturally we all scrambled back on the bus and didn't get our break.  We hurried over to the port to make our ferry on time, only for the ferry to not actually be leaving when they said it was.  So we rushed for nothing.  Moroccan time is even slower than Spanish time, and I didn't think that could happen....but we didn't even leave the port until at least 30 min, if not an hour after we were supposed to.  We were on a small little ferry that was kind of crappy and not very comfortable.  But we finally arrived in Morocco at about 3, more like 2 Moroccan time because they don't do the time change.

My friends at our table

The weather wasn't the greatest, but we made it and when we got off the ferry in Tangier safely, headed to meet our tour guide and he immediately brought us for our lunch.  Moroccan food!  Yup, I ate Moroccan food, unfortunately, it wasn't my favorite.  But the venue was pretty cool.  It was this little hole in the wall and inside were people playing some cool instruments, and we got to sit on couches and low chairs to eat at low tables.  Our meal consisted of a slightly weird tasting soup, chicken on sish kebabs, cous cous, baklava and mint tea.  Most of it I liked, but all the spices were certainly interesting.  The lunch was fun, but right then is when we realized that they weren't kidding when they said you have to tip for everything.  These people expect a tip for everything they do, especially entertainment, even just standing in the bathroom doing nothing.  So we had to tip the guys playing music.

After that we walked around a bit.  We showed up on a Friday, which is the holy day for the Muslims, so there weren't many people out and about when we were walking around.  We quickly walked around some main parts of Tangier, but the markets were pretty dead.  There were some people out though, mostly men just smoking and drinking though.  We stopped at a local spices store where we got our own private infomercial!  Basically this doctor guy talked to us for about 30 min showing us all these things that were made from natural herbs and what not.
  He had his minions come out from around the corner and shove smelly things up our nose to "clear sinus" and rub lotions and perfumes on our hands.  It was certainly fun, and at the end he then had a auction style sale where we all had to raise our hand if you wanted everything.  He certainly knew how to sell stuff because many people walked out of there with more things than they need.  I only got some lotion and sweet smelling perfume.  By the end though, he was quite mad when people started realizing how stupid his deals were and that they didn't need all these things, so people stopped buying.  But hey, sorry you can't scam us smart Americans. :)  After that we left got a quick bus tour of the city.  Since it was cloudy and icky we didn't go outside after our bus tour and we just were dropped off at the hotel and waited around for dinner at 8.  Dinner was good, again, typical Moroccan food with all the spices and such.  Nothing special, just like the hotel....which was in fact less than special.  But what can you do.  After that I just went to my friends room and we watched Batman Begins!  It was on t.v. in English with Arabic subtitles, so it was a very easy movie to watch, and I've never seen it so it was excellent.  Then it was bed time for our adventures for the next day.


Saturday!
We woke up at a wonderfully pleasant time of 8, yay!  And headed out by 9 towards a little city called Tetuan.  Well, to be completely honest with you I didn't learn too much about the city itself when I was there because the tour guides there aren't very good at making sure everyone hears them.  But I have my handy dandy pamphlet that AIFS gave us.  So Tetuan is a city in Northern Morocco, in the past it was occupied twice by the Spanish and has since them occupied by the Jewish and Muslims, so that's it's main influence now.  However, they all speak French and Arabic there, don't ask me why.  So there's a small "jewish quarter" that pretty much every city in Spain has and then there's the Medinas and Mezquitas where all the people gather, and they have their markets.  So we walked around the city and saw their markets.  Here is where you saw a little bit more "classic morocco" that you would expect, although it's nothing like the videos with the grand squares of people singing, dancing and dirt, this part of Morocco is very green and different. 

We also got to see the King's Palace.  He doesn't stay there all the time, mostly just visits in the summer when it's very hot, so he comes to Northern Morocco to cool off.  But we had to ber very careful when taking pictures because if there's police or guards standing in front you're not supposed to take a picture, they're a little testy that way.  I was surprised by how many times I saw the King's face.  I was wondering what he looked like and didn't realize that this dude is like a real king, not a fake one like in Spain.  This guy has all the power, so I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that he had his face plastered everywhere.  But the Palace wasn't all the special, but it was cool looking.

Here was another cool thing we saw when we were leaving!  That's really all there is to the little city of Tetuan.  We just walked around and got to be followed by annoying people selling drums.  Literally, these guys followed us the pretty much the entirety of the tour around the city.  That's what they do there, they latch onto a group of gullible tourists and just try to sell, sell, sell.  So these guys hung around selling their coats, drums, guitars, bracelets, and just talked to us the whole time.  A few people were talked into buying things, and granted they probably practically stole it, but still, I found them annoying.  So we just walked around the city and on our way out we saw these sheep!  Across the street our guide told us was a huuuge field that is for a giant sheep market every Sunday.  So everyone from outside the city brings all their sheep there and they buy and sell.  That was pretty cool to see, and it was certainly startling to see sheep, donkeys, bulls, horses and all other sorts of animals just chillin' around the city and in the grass outside the city.  So after our short walk around the city we were off to the adorable little town of Chef Chaouen!

I think Chef Chaouen was my favorite city, although that might have had something to do with the fact that our tour guide was the cutest little old man I've ever seen Mr. Toto!!!  He wore the fez with the typical Moroccan garb and called everyone Habibi (darling).  He was the coolest guy ever and constantly said hello to people on the street and whipped out his iPhone to talk on it or show us how many friends he has on FB! I don't have a picture of him but he was literally the coolest guy.  He said "hello!" and "hola!" a million times and shook everyone's hand, omg we all loved him.

Anyways.   This was an adorable little city nestled in the hills.  You really can't see it until you are there it's so hidden.  The name of the city means "look at the horns" which directly refers to the two horns that the mountains give the city. You are really close to the Rif Mountains which are gorgeous and inside the city all I wanted to do was look at the mountains.    But alas, there is so much more to see!  This city is known for it's colors, yup, pretty much everything is blue.  They painted the walls blue and white to keep away mosquitoes and to keep the temperature down the in the city.  So after our lunch at that hotel, which was once again, only decent, then we headed out with Mr. Toto for our tour of the blue city.

There's not much else I can say about the blue city other than it was really pretty.  We wandered through their narrow streets, and I'm sure Mr. Toto told us some things about these places but I couldn't hear him.  I learned that if the floor is painted blue too it means it's a dead end, and that when we saw all the women flocking to one spot they were going to the baths.  They all had all their buckets full of stuff to wash themselves and that was interested to see.  Other than that we were able to wander around (guided wandering of course) through the town and marvel at how beautiful it was.  So here's some pictures. 

Just a cute little dead end

View of the mountain and the beautiful houses

Cute door

Terrible picture of me :P

Just another pretty picture of the houses

So that's pretty much what the entire city looked like.  After wandering around the city we stopped in a rug store, where we once again got our own personal infomercial.  The guys showed us all the different sized rugs they have, sheets, scarves, tapestries..you name it, they've got it.  So after being bombarded again with beautiful work we were given time to look around the shop and buy what we pleased.  I bought two scarves which were very pretty and thick heavy duty scarves too.  I was glad for the chance to buy some of those things, I originally wanted a blanket, but then I realized that I can make warm fuzzy blankets at home so why should I pay that much.  Of course it was corny and we didn't reeeally need to buy any of that stuff, but I was glad that AIFS organized that stop at the shop because it is quite hard to find these things on your own.  We definitely wouldn't have gotten the chance to find a rug store on our own. After that we were given free time to wander around, use the rest rooms, do some bargaining and it was all very great.  I stopped by a shop very close to where they left us, got some earrings and then hung around the for the next 15 min or so until we left.

From there our day was over, it was about 4 so we started our almost 2 hours ride back to Tangier to hang out in the hotel room before our "authentic Moroccan show".  We got back around 7 and we had about an hour to hang around and "get ready" because our guide seemed to think we were all going to change into some elegant outfit or something for this show. haha.  But we arrived at the tent where we would have our show and immediately outside we were greeted by guys on horses.  Of course everyone wanted to take a picture with them, and then we all promptly forgot that they always ask for money.  So me, Holly and Bree took a picture with the horse guy and paid him the 50 cents we had on us.  After that we were herded towards a ring where there were stands to sit down and look at the cute little camels that were sitting in the ring.  Some people paid to get a camel ride, but I knew that we'd get a much better camel ride tomorrow, and it was very dark so what's the point.  Plus, it literally lasted like 2 sec and the camel like stood up, walked 2 steps and sat down again.  It was super hokey.  We all sat around while some Moroccan guy spoke to us in both Spanish and English and we had guys on horses come running towards us to "introduce" the show.  Now...be prepared for my slightly pessimistic view point next up.  THIS is where I realized what kind of night this would be...one full of cheesy phrases, hokey shows and pretty much all around bad performances only meant to "wow" tourists". 

After having horses run at us we were corralled into the tent to sit down and have guys place bad music for us on tambourines, drums, flute things and the presenter sing.  We all bought our 2 euro bottles of water, because of course by that point we were all thirsty again.  And we were given a hokey, touristy show.  First we had the guys singing and playing music.  Then we had some buy come out and balance a tray of candles in glasses on his head.  He spun the tray around, did some tricks using gravity and bowed off stage.  We also had guys playing extremely annoying metal castanet type things and spinning the little pom pom on their hat all around.  I took videos of most of these things so I'll post on post of just the videos I took just so you can truly understand where I'm coming from here.  After that we had probably like 13 year old kids come out and do some gymnastic tricks, again stuff my friend Sara can probably do.  I think, in all honesty, the best part of that night was when the belly dancer came out.  Not because she was good, no she wasn't that good, but because of the fact that she pulled someone from the group on stage with her.  She pulled one of the guys TJ up on stage and promptly removed his shirt, put on a belly dancing skirt and bikini top, stuff it with his shirt and had him dance the belly dance with her.  THAT was hilarious, and TJ was a great sport about it all, he did it all, shimming, shaking his chest, falling on the floor and waving his arms, all of it.  It was hilarious and probably the best part of the night.  After that we had a ridiculously hokey magician (I hate magicians, unless they are genuinely good).  This guy was the worst, he used chemisty, physics, basic stuff like that to do these tricks and I of course did not act surprised, sorry why should I, he's not looking directly at me :)  So I just sat around, politely clapped and mostly ignored his performance.  He also walked on glass, which did honestly look painful.  And that pretty much rounded out our night.  It was over, we all took pictures with the baby camel and the regular camel, edu tried to trade 3 girls for the camels and then we returned back to the hotel room by 11:30.  That was our last night there so I promptly went to bed and packed to head back to Granada the next day.

I'm going to leave it here and start another post about my last day there and our adventures in Morocco because I probably could write another very long post.  Sunday in Morocco was certainly an interesting one, and probably my favorite day, maybe, Chef Chouan was very pretty as well.  Oh well, so that was our first 2 days in Morocco.

Until my next post, love you all.