Essaouira, moving to new place

Today we moved for an apartment to another. The new one is a bit cheaper, nicer and better fridge and kitchen.
Stairs to go up to the apartment are very narrow and steep – scary!

Living room

View from the terrace

We will be here for one more week; we didn’t really want to, but we were kind of being sweet talked by this guy and agreed to stay; now, we will see….

About “sweet talk” – what we find frustrating is that we can never tell if someone in being just friendly or want something from us, or taking advantage of us. Also Mark and I are very poor “negotiators”; we don’t know how to bargain and we feel uncomfortable. The very few times we wanted to buy something, we end up by giving up just because we didn’t want to be bother.

We are wondering why people here don’t realize that putting pressure on foreigners is not a good sales tactic.

Essaouira, end of the festival

Today was the last day of the Gnaoua festival.

In the morning I went for my walk along the ocean. I like to get up in the morning and go for a walk; I enjoyed the first hours, when the stores are not yet open, streets almost deserted and few people around. It is not too hot, there is a cool brezze from the ocean. In other words a good time to be out on the beach.

But for the last 3 days because of the festival in the morning there are tons of people around; lots of young guys sleep on the becah and they are just waking up; also there is a area where the city has set up huge tents for people to sleep. People are coming out of the tent, stretching, going out for a walk as well.

I guess for people for here is an event to come out to this festival; also maybe some of them have never seen the ocean, sometimes I can tell by the excitement on the faces when they rush for a dip in the ocean.

This Sunday morning is really busy, I didn’t enjoy my walk too much, lots of young guys sitting around and saying stuff when I walked by. I know they don’t mean harm, they are just young guys trying to play cool when a foreign woman walks by, but still tends to get annoying….

At noon I went back to Alliance Francaise Marocaine to watch “Return to Goore”. It was an interesting movie as well, a musical documentary in regards to slavery and how some famous black people living in United States tried to trace their ancestry through music.

In the evening we went to watch the closing concerts. First band was a Moroccan band, we got there almost at the end of their show.

Second band was the National Orchestra des Barbes; we didn’t know what to expect, but we decided to stay and watch just to see what is all about, and to our surprise we really liked this band and the music. We were there for couple of hours dancing or tapping away; it was hard to stay still with all people around dancing and having fun.

Altogether I enjoyed the festival. We watched concerts every night for a couple of hours. However I had a hard time to manage and be in the crowd. Apparently 200,000 people were in Essaouira for the festival. This city is very small, indeed we were absolutely overwhelmed by the number of people!

We were happy that the festival was over and looking forward for city to go back to “normal life” for our last week.

Essaouira

Essouira is a fairly small city, by now we know the place pretty well, this is the main plaza.

Lots of coffee shops

The medina

The nicest part about the medina, beside that is cleaner than any other medians, is that merchant here are less aggressive than anywhere else, we can actually look at the stores. Stores are wonderful, leather goods, bags, shoes, scarf, dresses, silver jewelries, cosmetics, spices….It is very hard not to buy anything. At the beginning I said that I am not going to buy anything on this trip, but now I kind of change my mind, so I will see……
By the tourist information centre

Alliance Françoise Moroccan

As part of the Festival Gnaoua there are films at the Alliance Francoise Moroccan ; we have seen 2 movies so far :
“ Ali Farka Toure, le miel n’est jamais bon dans une seule bouche » life story of the african singer nick named Bluesman du desert.

Made in Jamaica – documentary movie about reggae music and its importance in Jamaican life from hunderds years ago to today.

In the evening we watched outdoors concerts ; there were mostly Maroccan bands playing morcoon folklore music. Around 11 pm Wayne Shorter Quartet started palying but by then we were tired of standing up for a long time, also I couln’dt stand the crowd moving continuasly around us. The music was beautiful we would have enjoyed a lot in a different setting, maybe a jazz longe sitting on low confortable chairs and sipping on Martinis 

Essaouira

We have been in Essaouira for a few days. There was a black out in the city for almost 3 days. We were OK with the black out because the days are very long, we don’t really need light. However the reason we have rented an apartment was to be able to cook at home and if there is no power, therefore no electricity and no fridge :( we were not happy about that.

Mark walked all over the city looking for generators and signs that electricity people are working on the problem. He checked almost every single electricity box at the buildings, to the point that I was afraid that we may get arrested for suspicious activity!

He didn’t have any faith in the Moroccan electricity office that the problem will be solved in a few days. He dragged me all over the city to ask tourist information, electricity office and others the time frame when the power will be restored. I felt like a fool, but I went along just not to make trouble. The only answer we got is that “we are working on it”. On the other hand Mark keeps reminding me all the time that here we are dealing with “African time” – go figure!

I was a bit more optimistic that eventually power will be back before the festival starts, at the end we end up by having a bet as when the power will be on. I won the bet! the power was back before the festival. The bet was a scarf, now I have a brand new beautiful scarf.

Power is back on and the fridge is working, everyone is happy!

There is a festival in Essaouira for 4 days, June 26 to 29; it is called “Festival Gnaoua” (www.festival-gnaoua.net); we are looking forward to see the concerts.

Essaouira

Hotel Maison des Coleurs is wonderful!

We got up in the morning refresh and ready to explore new city; but first here I am in the hotel lobby enjoying the colors and pictures.

We found an apartment, it this on the last floor in a building in the medina, it has a downstairs and upstairs, a big terrace with the roofs view and the ocean.


The apartment is 30 Euros per day. It is old and a bit moldy, I guess the German owner doesn’t come here too often. But here all the buildings are very old, sometimes it is unsettling when I look up the stairs case.
This is our street

This is our building

The apartment was very dusty, we had to clean and wash dishes but didn’t take too long; same morning we were already installed in our new place!

Essaouira is a former port town, now a fishing town resort, very different than other places in Morocco that we have seen so far.


Town is small and relatively clean, medina is clean, pollution free.

We will be here for 2 weeks, plenty of time to explore the city and around.

Leaving Casablanca and arrival in Essaouira

To travel from Casablanca to Essaouira there are trains and buses: tourist buses and regular buses. The schedule for the train and the tourist bus wasn’t good for us, so we decided to take the “regular bus”. This was an interesting adventure that is good Only Once in the life time.

We took a taxi from the hotel to the bus station; I guess the traffic in Casablanca runs only by one rule: try not to get killed by anything around you. I am really happy that I am in a good health, otherwise I would have got a heart attack by the time we got to the bus station. But at the bus station there is more to take; lots of men running towards us speaking extremely loud trying to sell us bus tickets. Mark is much braver than me, he is quite calm and managed to buy 2 bus tickets for 7 Euros each.

It is 10:30 am, the bus is leaving at 12:00 (noon). There are already people on the bus! Oh, we start to understand, in order to have a seat you have to come early and sit on the bus, it is not even enough to leave something on your seat to reserve.

Mark was sitting on the bus, I was standing outside by the bus because I couldn’t handle the heat and smell. I felt like crying, this trip is 6 hour long! I was panicking thinking “Am I going to last 6 hours on this bus?” In the mean time lots of people are walking around on the bus and by the bus trying to sell all kind of stuff, water, candies, bread, gum, watches, radios, belts, sunglasses, you name it. It bothered me only because they came so close to us, they almost stick the merchandise in front of our noses.

Well, at noon we were off. It was hot and smelly. I am trying really hard not to think about he bus and the trip and enjoy the scenery. The scenery is interesting, but quite depressing, there are little villages with tiny run down houses in the middle of nowhere. It is another world!

The bus stopped at few villages to let people off. In fact the bus didn’t really stopped, just slowed down and people have to get off while bus still moving. There is a guy on the bus in charge of a announcing the name of the villages and the stations and getting people off. Every time the bus slows down he is jumping up, running by the bus and jumping back in; he is wearing flip flops!

The last part of the trip is a bit more enjoyable, the bus is half empty and it seemed that we were getting a bit more air; also the scenery is nicer, there are rugged reddish mountains and wide valleys with green vegetations, small trees, bushes, cactus.

We made it to Essaouira by 6:30 pm.

As soon as we got off the bus we were surroundered by people that offer accommodation. I was scared again, it seems that I get not get used to crowds and people speaking so loud.

The town and the medina are close to the bus station, and no cars are allowed into the medina which is great! The medina is clean and pollution free.

There are “push carts guys”, men that have a little cart and serve the role of the taxi for tourists. We put our languages on the cart and few minutes later we stopped in front of a hotel.

It was a difficult trip, this hotel is beautiful, is called “La maison des coleurs”. Every floor and room is painted in a different color . We made the decision on the spot, we were staying there for the night.

We were very tired, we had a very good night’s sleep.

Leaving Fez and arrival in Casablanca

We left Fez at noon; first class train ride between Fez and Casablanca is 4 hours and costs about 16 Euros.

Train ride was uneventful, at times the air conditioning didn’t work and it was very hot, otherwise the ride was quiet and fast.

Well…… Casablanca … We all have cities, places that we want to visit. Also we have sometimes imaginary pictures in our mind about places that we want to visit. Casablanca was on my list of “must see cities”. Also I had a picture in mind of the city: white buildings with blue windows frames, colorful flowers, blue ocean waves washing sandy beaches…….

We arrived in Casablanca at 5pm. In front of me there is real Casablanca: busy, crowded, dirty, smelly, polluted.

As soon as we came of the rail station we were surrounded by all the taxi drivers offering a ride to the hotel. We finally picked a driver that seems a bit less eager to rip us off (even though he still charged us 2 Euros more than the actual cost) and went to a hotel recommended by the Routard guide.

Every time we moved from one city to an other we learned more and more about travelling, arriving in new places and booking a hotel. For now our strategy is to choose a hotel from the guide, go there for the first night and next day, if hotel is good to stay there if not to find a better hotel. It is very difficult (especially in Morocco) to decide what hotel we would like just from information from the guide book or even Internet. Real life is different than descriptions. We stayed one night in Galia hotel, wasn’t too bad except that hotel was on the very busy street, therefore extremely noisy, on top of that there was a repair shop right in front of our window and the repair shops emanates really bad smells and pollution.

We changed this hotel to hotel “Mon reve”; Mark and I agreed that the correct name to this hotel should be “Mon couchemar”. Hotel was bad and we lasted there 2 nights. We barely slept and I was almost eaten by the mosquitoes.

In two days in Casablanca we tried to visit the city as much as possible. Some of the buildings, boulevards are nice but worned down, old, decayed, streets are dirty. It is strange that there are lots of people washing the streets, but still there is garbage and dirt everywhere.

We visited “Sacre Coeur” church (nothing like Sacre Coeur in Paris”, Arabe League Park, City hall, mosque, all city centre, the port.

It was intersting, but I failed in my efforts to like and understand the “charm” of the city.

Tourism information centre in Casablanca belongs to a “comedie noir” movie. The lady at the tourism office knew nothing about the city or city events. All she wanted to do is to sell us this “amazing city tour” for 45 Euros in a Mercedes. By the way in Morocco are lots of old Mercedes, it seems that Mercedes = status.

The highlights of our visit in Casablanca; one evening we went to famous Rick’s café. It is a beautiful old white buildings by the port. It has 3 open floors, the last one is a terrace overlooking the ocean. The inside of the café is beautifully decorated, the atmosphere is wonderful, waiters are wearing formal Moroccan outfits.

We went up to the terrace. Mark ordered beer (5 Euros!) and half bottle of wine for 7 Euros. I order a chocolate mousse for 5 Euros. The restaurant offered us little treats, some olive, little pastries, nuts. Everything was delicious! soft music in the background, beautiful scenery, it was a great evening! I will definitely go back to Rick’s café.

Last evening in Casablanca we have discovered the “best” part of town, quariter Gauthier. It was hard to believe that this quartier is a part of Casablanca: beautiful buildings, clean streets, women and men very nice westerly dressed.

These are the twin towers in Casablanca, part of the new town.

We had pasta dinner is a small café.

During dinner out of the blue Mark came up with the idea to go to Essaouira. I quickly glanced and read in the guide book about Essaouira. It took me only a few minutes to say Yes, let’s go to Essaouira!!!

We deserved a treat for all this time spend in Casablanca. We ended the evening by going to the trendiest ice cream place in town; the place had an impressive variety of ice cream and many ice cream combinations as well as very good looking cakes.

We were happy to leave Casablanca as well.

Visiting Fez, day two

Mark got sick yesterday night; he wasn’t felling well and barely slept at night; he figured that he caught a bacteria of some kind. (he is kind of wimpy, I told him to take vitamin C every day)

In the morning I went for breakfast around 8 am; Mark doesn’t want to come and eat, but he did not eat anything since lunch, so I told him to make an effort and come for breakfast. Mark showed up; he looked really pale. He sat down and tried to sip on tea. Few minutes later he passed out. I got off my chair really fast and went to support him, and talked to him. Few seconds later he opened his eyes, he is really white and sweaty.

Together with the waiters we got Mark back to the room and in bed. Mark stayed in bed the whole day, no food just water. I went out to get more water, lemonade, check the internet. I was out just very short time, because I was afraid to let Mark alone. By 5pm he is better, even manage to eat a bit.

As he wasn’t in the situation to go out, and I was home most day I decided to take an official guide n the evening and go and see the medina.

The guide showed up on motorcycle; he said just hop in the back; I am scared, I have seen how people drive the motorcycle and the traffic here; on top of that no helmet! but now what I am going to do, the medina is quite far and I have asked for the guide.

So I get on the motorcycle behind this guy; I am so scared as he drived between the cars, up and down a winding road.

We get to the medina, I am fine – Halleluhlia!!! Medina in Fez is the biggest medina in Morocco, it has 14 gates. Half of Fez population lives in the medina.

There are streets and streets with everything one can imagine; streets only with stores that sale dresses (some are absolutely beautiful), streets with carpets, jewelry, fabrics, copper pots, mirrors, spices and so on.


Some streets smell nice, some are really disgusting; I was getting really nauseated.

There are beautiful mosques where I am allowed to take pictures but not to enter.

At the end I feel overwhelmed, claustrophobic and dizzy. I am glad when we left; back on the motorcycle I feel a bit better than the beginning, I am telling my self “it is just a short ride and I am going to make it”.

I was happy to get to the hotel. Mark is feeling better too, that made me happy too.
We are leaving Fez tomorrow, three days is Fez was good enough.

Visiting Fez

Every time I woke up in a new city I feel eager to go out and explore. First I went to have coffee and breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant. I was sitting there having coffee and reading about Fez with the cool, soft breeze coming for the open windows, mmmm, morning feels so good.

Mark showed up, chatted and eat breakfast, we were ready to explore Fez. We walked on boulevard Hassan II, it is nice, wide, clean, lots of trees and flowers.

There is a huge park on one side, if wasn’t that hot I would have like to go to the park. The park seemed deserted, it is Sunday morning and hot, but I guess that the park would be full in the evening. I am impressed, after Tangier I imagined Fez differently. We stopped at take pictures at the Royal Palace.

By the palace there is one gate to the medina; it is quite early in the morning, shops were just opening up, not too many people yet, great time to visit.

There are 14 gates to the medina, apparently median is huge and it is very easy to get lost. Mark is very good with maps, but even he has a hard time to follow the map. Our goal today is to visit the city and browse around, we will visit medina tomorrow, and we are considering hiring a guide.

We wandered in the hot city, most of times on paved streets, a few times taking short cuts on a dusty paths. One paths went through a cemetery, I don’t like cemetery, I am a bit frisked out, I am just looking in front of me.
We went up on this hill, the view of the city is impressing.

We took a few pictures and this man is approaching us. He seems pleasant, speaks English really well, and no doubt Arabic and French. He tells us a bit about the city and after he tells us that his family barley makes a living selling leather bags. He has a big bag and starts to pull out some leather bags that he has for sell. They are beautiful, I had to be really strong not to buy one; also I felt really sorry for this man, I was looking at him and wonder how can a man so articulate that speaks 3 languages is just making ends meet by selling leather goods? life is harsh to some people, again in a split if the second I am so grateful for my life; I am grateful to Mark to encourage me to come on this trip where we got to learn and experience so much!

Fez is busy city, there are many people around, modern and old cars, motorcycle, motor bikes, traffic is chaotic, pedestrian are crossing everywhere they feel like it; there are men on donkeys and horses.

We walked for hours it is almost noon now, we could not figure out a better, shorter way to get back home, we took a taxi, nice!

Travelling and arrival in Fes (Fez)

We were taking to train to Fez, first class hoping that we will have a pleasant six hour train ride.

We get into out compartment and there are only guys speaking extremely loud – great! this looks like the nightmare kind of a company for a 6 hours ride.

Train starts moving, the men start moving to a different compartment and three pretty women showed up; Mark is happy! the woman sitting right by him is in her twenties and very pretty. Besides Mark there is only one man and he drives me crazy from the beginning; he talks very loud and he is trying to be funny. I decided to stand out on the corridor, looking at the scenery, but in the mean time I was thinking “dam it I am not going to let this guy to spoil my trip”.
I looked around and I find an another compartment; only 2 girls are in the compartment and they are half asleep. I asked permission to sit there, they don’t have a problem with me. I sat there quiet looking out to the Moroccan arid landscape ; there is beauty but it seems to me there is certain sadness in the plains, crops, low mountains, country roads; one in a while solitary figures showed up in the middle of nowhere, going to nowhere…….there is nothing around.

Half way the trip I go back to my compartment; I started talking to one of the girls. She is from Taza, but works in Tangier, she was going home for the weekend. She was westerly dressed, she seems very well educated and modern. I asked her about Morocco, about women status and life in general. She is happy to answer all my questions; as I was noticing on the street there are many women still very traditional and wearing traditional dresses, but the new generation is modern and has a choice between traditional and modern. There is still lots of pressure form society for a woman to have a certain status and behavior but this is more and more changing.

By the end of the trip we are all talking and laughing. Luckily my French and Mark’s French allows us to have a conversation. At one point the Moroccan guy offered us his business card to call him if we want to rent a place in Fez; I took his card just to be polite, but at the end of the trip he asked for his card back saying that he doesn’t want to deal with us “poor people”. I gave his card back saying “merci, ce pas grave” but in fact I wanted to say “I wouldn’t have called you big fat, cocky, stinky bastard (he was smelling really bad).

We got to Fez around 4 pm; I got off the train and I felt like I hit a wall; how I am going to survive in this heat?

We don’t have hotel reservations, so we have to look for a hotel. In Tangier we went to an Internet café and I wanted to book something on the Internet, but a room can not be booked the day before, plus as usually Mark is very impatient when I am trying to look up stuff on the Internet, so I gave up; now in this unbelievable heat I regret that I gave up and I am really mad with Mark, but I keep my mouth shout.

There are taxis in front of the rail station, but the taxi driver really wanted to rip us off by charging almost 10 times more than the correct price! so we got pissed off and decided to walk in the heat; to put it Very Mildly that was NOT fun at all. We found hotel Splendid, hotel that is recommended in Routard book. I was so happy, hotel is located in the new ville, it is nice, clean, has air conditioning and a small pool! Wow!

We settled is, showered (the shower was soooo good, I haven’t had a shower in a couple of days in the other place we barley had any hot water) and went for a walk. At this point my impressions about Morocco are about to change. Fez new ville is very nice, streets are wide, there are lots of lights, people walking around and having a good time. In the evening is still hot, but pleasant. We had dinner, went for a walk and in bed by 10 pm.

Ugh, I am tired but glad to be here! welcome to Fez to us.

Leaving Tangier

We had a bad sleep; noises, the “music guy” = muezzin is on time at 3 am in the morning screams to pray; it is very loud!!! 15 minutes later it seems that we have a bonus >:-< the muezzin comes on again, hmmm is this a bonus???? because is Saturday morning and we should be grateful for the weekend????

We set the alarm clock for 7:15 am, but we forgot that the clock was still on the “French time”, therefore it was 6:15 am in Tangier. We went out to visit “Kasba” an old fortress on top of a hill that guarded the straight of Gibraltar. We walked out on the street and streets are deserted, I am happy it is for the first time we are here and we can actually walk together on the street without fighting a crowd.

We were up at Kasba overlooking the sea? or the ocean? it is a good time to meditate….

According to our book, Tangier is the place where you can swim in the Mediterranean sea in the morning and Atlantic Ocean at night.

It was a good morning; back to our hotel we finished packing , getting a taxi and going to the rail station.

Wops! when we arrived at the station we realized that is in fact 9am, not 10am as we assumed, and we had two hours to wait for the train our train departs at 11 am. Oh well, the rail station is nice and has good coffee 

Bye, bye Tangier

Tangier, day two

Last night I was tired but I had a hard time falling asleep; I guess the room and the uncomfortable bed did not help. There were noises on the street, people yelling at each other (actually they are not yelling, this is the way they speak), someone running water somewhere, cats noises; at 3 am in the morning the religious guy comes on very loud, I almost felt out of my bed! should we pray now?

I was glad when the sun was out, we went for coffee. Coffee is very good here (I always order café crème), as well as patisseries and food in general; everything is almost as good as in France for a third of the price.

We went along the sea to the rail station to buy tickets to Fez; I like this part of town, there is the sea, new white building, the side walk is nice and wide.

Rail station building is surprisingly modern, it has to be brand new. We got first class tickets to Fez – 14 Euros each. It is 5 hours train ride from Tangier to Fez.

Still I am not sure how I feel about being here and Tangier; sometimes I like it sometimes not. Tangier is a mixture of old and new – this is how I see Tangier.

But mix of old and new isn’t this pretty much everywhere? do we like the old? do we like the new? how can we manage to harmoniously mix them? how do we feel about it? maybe France has the answer….

Back to Tangier…I like the old part, the medina because is old, different, interesting, it has character and originality; I don’t like it because is dirty, smelly, sometimes scary. I like the new part because is clean, functional, practical; I don’t like it because is boring.

Now we are in a hotel in the medina (the worst hotel I ever stayed in) , for Fez I guess we are going to choose a hotel in the new city and just visit the medina.

In our way to the hotel we stopped at a random restaurant to have lunch. We were lucky to find this restaurant; it had a little veranda in the back, was nice and quite, away from the chaotic city; the waiter was like from the ancient times, old and extremely polite with a soft voice. We had traditional Moroccan food which is was very good; we paid 10 Euros including the tip.

In the afternoon we went to an Internet café, check email and update blogs. We walked around some more trying to find a restaurant for dinner. The restaurant recommended by our book was closed. We walked down to the port and just picked a restaurant that serves fish. We got big portions, I had fish and Mark shrimp, but the food wasn’t really that good; well, that is ok, as per Mark “you can not hit a home run at every at bat”.

We would have liked to have a nice glass of white wine with the fish and seafood, but most restaurants don’t serve alcohol.
In France and Spain we had something to drink almost every day; since in Morocco we had one beer; I guess Morocco is a good country if you want to slow down on booze.

Well, this was the second day in Tangier; how do I feel? I am still overwhelmed and a bit freighted. There are many people on the street and I am not used to that. In the medina everything is small, there are tons of shops and people hanging out in front of the stores. We don’t want to stop anywhere because as soon as we stopped someone is trying to became “our guide”. I would like to look at some of the stores, there are lots of beautiful Moroccan dresses and outfits, but I am afraid to stop and look because then there is lots of pressure to buy something. If I was going back home maybe I will consider buying something, but I still have a long travel to do.

Coffee shops and restaurants are full of men; I feel intimidated and scared by these men. I think that they are good people, but I am not used to see a full restaurant of men just sitting, drinking tea, watching sports.

It is 11 pm an we are heading home. It seems that Tangier really comes to life at night, the streets, restaurants, parks are packed with chatty and laughing men, women and kids, everyone is having a good time.

I am glad that I choose to travel to Tangier, it is an interesting place, however I will be happy when I leave……..

Tangier, day one

On Thursday morning I woke up in the room in the Continental hotel in Tangier at 7:30 am, 6:30 am Moroccan time! I was too anxious after last night’s arrival and experience.

I knew to expect all was different in Africa, but still I couldn’t notice that the room for 52 Euros in a beautiful building is not very clean, the furniture, carpet, bathroom, everything is run down. There is no soap in the bathroom and we don’t have soap.

The hotel has Wi-Fi so I was eager to check the Internet and find other accommodation and find out more about Tangier, but the Internet connection in our room wasn’t working so I had to go downstairs. I was furious because I was tired, I did not really want to get out of bed, but no choice.

I went downstairs in the lobby – the lobby is beautiful, crafted furniture, painted and tiled walls, Persian rugs.

Actually the hotel looks amazing (was build in 1870) but is run down; according to the guide book some rooms have been renovated and redecorated trying to reflorish the old charm.

I went out on the balcony, the view of the port in the morning was beautiful! wow – everything is so different that what I have seen before! ok, now I calmed down.

I checked the Internet for a bit, Mark showed up and we went for breakfast (the room price included breakfast). The breakfast room has a beautiful décor; breakfast wasn’t the best, mostly bread and I don’t really like bread , but at least had 2 good coffees.

We walked around a bit and we found a room in a hotel for 20 dollars; it is livable, but I think it is the worst room that I ever stayed in.
This is ther view from our window

Mark and I had some disagreement in Europe, however we agreed on most things. In Africa we have the accommodation disagreement. Mark wants to stay in very cheap places, I want to stay in reasonable places, that means a decent room with the bathroom. We think that Africa is cheap and I guess it is (I don’t know, I am about to find out) but here in Tangier, Morocco is not really cheap cheap if you want a decent room. Same goes with food.

We settled in the new hotel, I cleaned up the place a bit to make it more “habitable” for me. Mark is happy doesn’t matter what, except that he has to “fight” to open and close the door, the lock is very old and strange and requires lots of fiddling to open and close.

We walked in the medina, the downtown and a bit along the beach; everything in this city looks very strange to me, I feel a bit freighted, it will take a while to get used. Most women and men are wearing traditional outfits; there are some younger women wearing jeans, knee length dress and head scarf, it is a mix a tradition and modern, I am wondering if they are struggling with this issue in their daily life. I don’t know anything about Morocco but I assume that here as many countries young people want to be trendy, be themselves but also to fit in.

There is Arabic music on the street, men sitting in the cafes, 5 times a day a very loud religious music comes on and covers the city noise.

We had lunch in a restaurant downtown, I had grilled sole that was delicious.

In the afternoon we walked again in the medina and downtown. Mark got a Routard book, the French equivalent of the Lonely Planet. For whatever reason Lonely Planet was twice more expensive than the French version, but both books have pretty much same information. We went to have tea and read about Tangier, Fez and Marrakesh our next destinations. We also read about best restaurants in Tangier.

We went for a walk along Mediterranean sea; it is like walking the sea wall on English Bay, except the that are palm trees and cactus, the sea has a very blue color, women dress in robes and wearing a head scarf, people fully dress on the beach; otherwise is like back home, young couple sitting on the benches, kids playing, parents having a chat.

For dinner we went to Agadir, one of the restaurants recommended by Routard. I had chicken, couscous and a beer. Very few restaurants serve beer, so it was nice to have try a Moroccan beer that went really well with my dish.

The weather was a bit hot at noon, but bearable, pleasant in the morning and evening.
This was my first day in Africa; I don’t know yet if I like Tangier or not and what I am going to do next………

Changing continents Europe to Africa

Wednesday morning we woke up in a hotel in Seville and day at night we are sleeping in a hotel in Tangier!

What a day – we woke up in the morning rush around to get a few things that Mark still needed – a lock, sunglasses, wrist watch. I brought too much stuff, but Mark should have been more proactive and get those things either from back home or from Montpellier where we were for 2 months and we had tons of time to go shopping; we both screwed up somehow in trying to prepare for the trip. It is hard to shop in a city that you don’t really know, stores that you don’t know and in a language that you don’t speak. Our little Spanish wasn’t good enough to figure out how to say lock in Spanish; finally we got everything except the wrist watch.

At 1 pm we took a taxi from the hotle to the bus stop; most of the time we would be ok for us to walk but with our language and the heat, no way! the taxi was 7 Euros and it was definitely worth it!

Bus ride from Seville to Tarifa via Cadiz was very pleseant; Spanish music in background, we were just sitting there admiring the beautiful scenery; villages and small cities all with white houses, many colorful flowers.

We arrived in Tarifa at 5:30 pm went and got tickets – 31 Euros each one way. Our ferry was supposed to depart at 7 pm it turned out that the ferry is one hour late.

We waited for the ferry at the terminal, it was interesting to watch people, only a few foreigners.

Finally the ferry arrived, we went to Spanish passport control, we got the exit stamp. My exit stamp is barely visible, the ink did not transfer on my passport!

Ferry departed at 8:10 pm, it takes 35 minutes to cross the Straight of Gibraltar. I was very excited to see the Rock of the Gibraltar and to be on the boat between the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.



Ferry is very nice and modern and Gibrltar crossing was very fast. As soon as we got on the ferry I noticed that a few people were lining up; I assumed that were lining up for the restaurant even though there was a cafeteria in front of us with lots of food and very few customers. When the ferry docked in Tangier, then we realized that people were lining up for passport control, and they were smart. We lined up when the ferry stopped. There was a huge line up and only one Moroccan customs officer. It took 2 hours for us to go through customs and get off the boat. In the mean time there are many arguments between people because some people were trying to get in front of the line. The arguments were in different languages, Spanish, French and Arabic, so it was quite interesting for us to watch.

We finally made it off the boat at 10:30 pm Spain time, and 8:30 pm Moroccan time. I am glad that I got a good customs stamp on my passport (la passport ete tamponee)

It was already dark and we have to walk to the city and find a hotel. I was walking behind Mark just looking in front of me. I was overwhelmed!!! no book could have prepare me for the shock of walking on the streets on Tangier. I was scared….

We had to find a hotel, but as it was dark and I wasn’t sure of the hotels, so I choose a hotel that I read about it on the internet. This hotel is very expensive for Morocco, it is about 50 Euros. Mark is not happy about it, yes I know that I did not make the best decision, but at the time I did not know any better, I was tired and scared, I just wanted to be in a better place. Tomorrow we will look for an other hotel.

This was my first day in Africa, absolute overwhelming! I was glad we had some water, none of us wants to go out in the medina!