This past weekend was my incredible trip to Morocco! It was such an amazing experience that this blog won't even be able to cover it. I was worried I wouldn't have the chance to go because of all of the protests going on in Africa, but they fortunately held off for us this weekend :) Although the protests started up again as soon as we left.
Me and my fellow ASA UPO ladies signed up for this trip through We Love Spain, which is an organization in Seville that puts together fun trips at reasonable prices. Everything was included in the price including 4 star hotels, entrances, tours (including tourguides and bodyguards!), 3 meals a day, transportation, and a camel ride! I was very happy with how organized everything was.
We left friday morning around 9 and took a 2 hour busride to Gibraltar. Gibraltar was beautiful!! It is a British territory at the southern tip of Spain and you can see Africa from across the sea! The views were absolutely breathtaking. The water was so blue and it was the only thing in between us and Africa.
We took a bus all the way up to the top of The Rock of Gibraltar. Our bus driver was so fun (and a total pothead). When we reached the top we went inside St. Michael's Cave where we checked out some stalagmites. There was also a random seating area with an aisle and it was playing wedding music. After the cave, it was time for the monkeys!! There were tons of them and they weren't scared if you got too close. In fact, some girls in our group got to have a monkey sit on their heads! They were hogging the monkeys for most of the time though.
I hope that monkey sterilized its hand before touching my shoulder...
From Gibraltar we left to take a ferry over to Ceuta (a Spanish territory in Africa that shares a border with Morocco). When we arrived in Ceuta, I couldn't believe I was actually in AFRICA!!! We sang Shakira's "Waka Waka" the entire time haha. We went to the most beautiful lookout point where we took a ton of pictures.
Then we drove to the Moroccan border! We had to wait there for a while because a girl from our group was bitten by a monkey in Gibraltar so we were waiting for her to get back to the bus from the hospital. When she got back, we finally entered Morocco! Just driving through the streets already felt like it was a completely different world. We arrived at our hotel and it was beautiful! Brittany and I shared a very nice room, the only problem was that it majorly flooded when we showered. The water would have reached our beds if we didn't stop it! So everybody showered and then we had a delicious dinner in the hotel restaurant: bread, a creamy pea soup, and chicken with vegetables. Everyone went straight to bed afterwards because we were all exhausted.
The next day we had breakfast in our hotel (the Moroccans LOVE their breads!) then we took an incredibly scenic busride to Chefchaouen. I can't even describe the landscape. It was so mountainous and green. Just gorgeous. Chefchaouen was also gorgeous in itself. Everything and anything was painted blue (which comes from it's former jewish population). We had a cute little old tourguide who sounded like Yoda and wore an Aladdin hat. Chefchauoen is known for its handmade woven blankets. We went to a place that specializes in these blankets. Most of them are a week's worth of work. Each blanket also differs in the amount of silk that it contains. The blankets were so beautiful, but also very expensive. A guy was trying to sell me the one I wanted for 60 euros. I ended up finding one very similar for 25 euros at a different place.
Everything was blue!
Us and our tourguide, Yoda
Beautiful handmade blankets
Chefchaouen also had really good shopping! In Morocco, you have to bargain with the salesmen. They will give you a price and you say how much you think it's worth/willing to pay. Then he ends up lowering the price and until you are both happy with the price- that's when you buy it. Shopping was like a game! I bought a LOT of stuff and got really good deals on all of it! The blanket I bought, the guy originally was charging 40 euros for it but I brought it down to 25 (I would have made it lower, but I felt bad because he was really nice and my blanket is made with more silk than others). But all of the shop owners were very friendly and spoke english perfectly! Almost all of them spoke spanish as well. I did not think that I would speak spanish when going to Morocco! There were so many crafts, it was like a giant flea market. On our way to the buses, I saw my face wash that I haven't been able to find in Spain- and there it was in a random store in Morocco! So I stopped to buy it (it even has arabic written on it- so cool!), but the guy was sooo slow getting change for me that I got my friends in trouble because we were late for the bus :-/
So much jewelry!
Next, we went to the city of Tetuan for lunch. We ate in this very nice restaurant where we had a band playing Moroccan music while we ate. We started with bread and a huge plate of fresh vegetables. Then we had some meat kabobs. There was also a belly dancer that performed. There was a woman there giving hennas for 3 euros so I got one on my leg but it wasn't with the best ink so it came out very light :(
After lunch, we took a tour of the city. This city is where Morocco's royal palace is. We hardly saw any women in Morocco. Almost only men were out on the streets (and there were a LOT of men). Women don't go anywhere unless they are accompanied by a man and most of them just stay inside their homes. And then here we come, a group of about 60 people, 55 of which are girls, barging through the streets. Not only that, but we were definitely exposing more skin than they're used to and we were obviously not Muslim, so it's not wonder we got a million stares everywhere we went! It felt like we were in a parade walking through the streets because the moroccan men would just be on the side...staring. While in Tetuan, we went to a pharmacy where we met a spice doctor! It was cool, he had herbs and medicines for everything including weight loss, cholesterol, and herpes hahaha. At the end, he let us buy what we wanted that he showed to us and it was basically like an auction (no one bought the herpes remedy...that I know of). Afterwards, we had some free time to shop around.
That night we got to our 2nd hotel where we were welcomed by free cups of the delicious tea that was served to us all around Morocco. We had an hour to shower and get ready for our dinner and show :) We entered through an area that had men on horses- one looked like Aladdin! Then we sat in a bleacher-type seating area and watched the men on horses come running through and shot off guns- so startling! Then we went inside tents where we would eat and watch several different performances. There was a band, a magician, a belly dancer, a man who balanced a tray of candles, and 2 little kids who were crazy acrobats! While we watched this, we ate our massive amounts of bread, soup, couscous with vegetables, and a dish that had a bunch of mini meatballs and eggs.
These kids were insane! And looked about 9 years old.
That night there was a private club party for our group in a club nextdoor to the hotel but I didn't go because I was sick. But it's not like staying in helped because I didn't go to sleep til late anyways. When Brittany came back she found a huge bug in her bed!! So I tried to squash it but it was way too fast. We were sooo freaked out. Luckily our room came with 3 beds so she slept in the other one, but it was still freaky knowing it was there!
The next day we woke up, had breakfast, and took the bus to Tangier where we had a gorgeous view of the sea.
Then it was time to ride a camel!!! Let me just say, getting on those things is NOT easy! I felt like I was going to fall off, but once it stood up I was fine. It was a very short ride, but very fun! And then men who guided the camels were fun too. They kept shouting "OH MY GOD!" and "ABI-BI!" I felt like an Arabian princess :)
Once we were done with our camels, we headed off to the cave of hercules. It was believed that Hercules once slept there. It is also said that an opening from the cave out onto the sea is the outline of Africa. What do you think?
Sadly, that concluded our trip to Morocco. We boarded the buses to go back to Ceuta where we would take the ferry back to Europe. So long Africa :( We then had a 2 and 1/2 hour bus ride back to Sevilla. Overall, Morocco was just incredible. It was such an amazing experience and one that I will most certainly never forget.
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