I think it is high time I wrote in this thing again. The truth is, March has been pretty routine (except the whole being in Spain thing) so I will sharea few stories from my Morocco trip at the end of February. For those that were unaware of my excitement, I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel to the northern coast of AFRICA. I can now check a fourth continent off my list of travels. Me and almost the same group of girls that went to Madrid, minus Jodi, went on this trip through DiscoverSevilla, a tour agency aimed at students studying abroad out of Sevilla, Spain. Now, I'm usually not the one to hop on board the planned excursions (you can thank my mother for ruining this experience for me when she made me go snorkeling literally three days in a row during one spring break) and would rather explore independently and "do my own thing." However, after reading about recent riots/protests in Morocco and honestly not knowing a lot about how to travel within the country, I decided for my safety and other's peace of mind, I would shell out a few extra Euro to have an organized itinerary. And actually we did have a lot of free time! We arrived in Sevilla on Friday morning and had from about 10 AM until 2:30 PM, when the bus left, to walk around and sightsee. Sevilla is absolutely stunning. It's a picturesque landscape of what most people imagine Spain to look like. We went to the Plaza de España and luckily it was early enough in the morning that there were no crowds. The pictures are in the wrong order so scroll down to the last one, which is the Plaza de España.
Cristobal Columbus's tomb inside the Cathedral en Sevilla
In Plaza de España with the police officers. They asked each of us to get a picture with them!
Plaza de España
After our rapid tour of Sevilla, which honestly, we did get to see all the main points and had time to stop at Starbucks, we headed towards the Consulate de Portugal where we met the rest of our group, about 50 students from surrounding cities in Spain, and our four tour guides. Now, I expected these guys to be older but they were all in their mid to late 20s and really cool! Benni, the hot one, as all of us girls called him, was on our bus and he's from Portugal, lives in Sevilla, and speaks fluent English, Portuguese and Spanish. Another guide, I can't remember his name, is from Alabama! How random! He is teaching English to high school students for the year and works for DiscoverSevilla on the side. What a life! They also plan trips to Portugal, another trip to Morocco for 5 days in the Sahara Desert and other European destinations. Anyway, enough of my promotion for them, basically we could not have asked for better "guides." They informed us, kept us safe but also let us have our own experience. It was about a 2 hour bus ride to Tarifa, the southernmost tip of Spain that is blanketed with rolling, green hills and windmills everywhere you look. And you can see Morocco from here! Our ferry ride across the Strait of Gilbratrar took another hour and then we finally stepped out onto the African soil...well, more like concrete. After exchanging Euros to Dirhams (the currency here) we jumped back on the bus and headed to Hotel Kabila. During this time, we also met our guide for the weekend who was a women from Morocco. She spoke pretty good English and taught us Arabic words like "Waha" which means "OK." It was interesting to start a conversation with people here because it was a hit or miss if they were going to understand you. They spoke either French, Spanish, English, or Arabic or a mixture of these. It was fun experimenting which language to bust out.
Our meal that evening was chicken, vegetables and couscous. It was absolutely amazing, and very filling. My table of four couldn't finished the entire thing! I love Moroccan cuisine.
The first town we traveled to was Tétouan. Our guides spoke broken English, amazing Arabic and decent Spanish. Like I said, it was a big language interpreting weekend but fun at the same time! I learned that the Moroccan flag, which has a 5 point star, represents the number of times in the day for prayer (5). We toured the Medina which is an old, Jewish quarter. Below in a picture of the opening, and once you are in, the streets become narrower the deeper into the medina you wander. It's a very cool sight. There is about 5 feet in between the walls and you have women shopping, kids on their way to school and donkeys with carts trying to get through. It's quite the sight! There are people selling everything from fruits and vegetables (oh, how I wish I could have bought some! They looked delicious and fresh!), to Nike shoes. Many people never leave the Medina. It's where they live, work, eat and play.
The two photos above are from the spice shop where I received a Moroccan massage, green-tea leaves, hair oil, anti-strees oil (3 bottles) and Saffron, which apparently is incredibly expensive in the States and Spain.
This is me dressed as a traditional Berber woman, an indigenous group of North Africa.
Out of order but this picture is of Chefchaouen, a mountain town in Morocco. All the buildings are blue and white; blue is supposed to keep the mosquitos away and the white reflects the sun so the houses aren't sweltering hot in the summertime.
I feel like this photo needs little explanation. We rode camels along the beach in Tangiers, where the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean meet. And no, it is not the same as the Blank Park Zoo.
Although the weekend was an adventure, I would have preferred to stay here for a few more days. The traveling was very taxing on all of us as we left Chefchaouen around 4 PM and didn't arrive back in Alicante until the next day at 10 AM. This includes all the trips by bus, ferry and airplane which was a lot to cram into one weekend. I fell in love with Morocco, the kindness of the people and beautiful, breathtaking scenery. It's definitely on my list of countries to return to.
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