Friday evening, June 15, we rode three hours on a bus, one hour on a ferry, and then another hour and a half to our hotel in M'Diq. Despite the long trip, we were finally in Africa!!
Quick sidenote about our group leaders
Our tour group was lead by four guys: Oscar, Benny, Terry, and Toba
Oscar: A Cordoba native who is actually an actor but goes on these trips because he speaks French and knows First Aid
Terry: An American and University of Maryland graduate, but he looks like and sounds like he's 16. Until he told us about the Maryland thing, I thought he was younger than all of us.
Benny: A Portugal native who speaks with an English accent (both of his parents were British) we bonded a bit when I dissed English food because he had to argue with me about that, but I quickly redeemed myself and talked about how delicious English breakfasts are, so we're friends now.
Toba: I am actually not sure if words can describe this man. There is a Seinfeld episode when George mentions Kramer and Jerry responds, "now, he's a character." Well, that's Toba for you. He's essentially the younger and Spanish version of Kramer. He stands up on camels, creates Spanglish phrases with English swear words, and on top of that he looks like Jack Sparrow.
A solo shot of Toba
Back to the trip. So, Friday night was rather uneventful since we had been traveling all day. We were served a nice dinner at our hotel and then went straight to bed since we were tired and had a long day ahead of us. We were up at 7 Saturday morning and grabbed a quick breakfast at our hotel before heading to Chefchaouen. It was a three hour bus ride to get there, but it was well worth it because I found the town to be quite charming. It is a rather remote town so there is not a very strong urban influence. The town is painted entirely in blue and white in order to keep insects away. We started off with a tour of the town by a local guide named Muhamad, and then took a lunch break. After lunch, it was time for shopping! Chefchaouen has lots of small shops to find trinkets in, so this is where the bargaining comes in. Our guides told us that they will teach us how to bargain "if we teach them how to dougie." So, we held up our end of the bargain, meaning that they had to hold up theirs. Apparently, the best way to bargain is to find an item and decide how much you are willing to pay for that, and then start your negotiating at a third of that price and work your way to finding middle ground with the vendor. Some people were better at this than others, but regardless of that, everyone still had a great time. We returned to our hotel in the afternoon and had some beach time (since our hotel was beachfront). Our guides made some sangria and we all lounged in the Moroccan sun for the rest of the afternoon. That night, we were served dinner at our hotel again, but one of the girls on our trip had a birthday. You would think that everyone would just sing her "happy birthday" and be done with it right? Well, that's not how they do things in Morocco. The hotel staff served us all cake and there were a bunch of dancers who came in and performed a cool number in honor of her birthday. It was quite a show an I'm so glad I got to see that. After dinner, we all went to the hotel lounge and sipped some drinks, played music, and chatted for the rest of the night.
Toba giving us bread from a bakery in Chefchouan. They make it in ovens and the women must come pick it up.
The next day we travelled to the city of Tetouan. This city was a much more urban environment that Chefchaouen. While in this city, a guide gave us a tour and then we stopped at a local pharmacy where the pharmacist told us about all of the various products they offer. There was some "de-stress" oil that you could put on your temples to help you relax when you are feeling overwhelmed. There was also a bag of seeds that supposedly helped you to stop snoring. As long as you took a whiff of the seeds before you go to bed, you should be good to go. I was tempted to purchase these, since I have been told in the past that I have a problem with snoring, but I decided against it.
Our last stop on this trip was the port city of Tangiers, where we got to ride camels. I'm not going to lie, this was the main reason that a lot of us went on this trip. The experience was definitely something that I will carry for the rest of my life; I enjoyed it very much. After our camel rides, it was time to ride the bus back to the ferry and return to Spain.
I have many wonderful remarks about my trip to Morocco, but I must say that while it was a neat experience to see the country, I don't feel the need to return there anytime soon. It is definitely a trip that I can check off my bucket list though, and I have nothing but good sentiments regarding the trip. Since this was my last trip before returning to the states, I was glad that it went so smoothly.
xoxo,
Sarah
