Greetings dear friends and family,
We have one more full day of adventuring to go, that leaves me starting to feel uncomfortable. Transitioning from a trip is always tough. But alas, I’d like to tell you about our day today.
We had another super relaxing morning with our typical start to the day, enjoying breakfast at 11am. I had reserved the pool again this morning and enjoyed another session of water exercises with some additional pool tricep dips and shoulder dips. One has to get creative!
We wanted to get to our final destination and reluctantly departed the stunning Chefchaouen. While we were eager to see the final leg of the journey I couldn’t help but miss the peace in blue when we drove into the chaos of this North African city. The first sighting of the city is a sprawling neighborhood which seems to consume a wide and vast landscape. These are homes for people with very low income, a neighborhood so large it couldn’t almost be a city into itself. As we drove along the main road, N2, it’s flanked by green patches of grass upon which many people were sitting, almost in a picnic style. This was certainly a less than picturesque setting for a social scene with thousands of cars streaming past, trucks carrying gravel and other natural resources minned from the surrounding mountains, motor bikes, local buses and taxis, so many taxis. While we couldn’t look into the neighborhoods they were densely arranged though it might be that there are no green spaces for the residents. Therefore, heading out the road side where the grass is green works.
Luckily the drive was simple and we had no issues, Obi has become a real expert at navigating these lawless streets. He’d probably say otherwise, but compared to the first day he’s become much more confident. Boldly entering the roundabouts and can manage the many people walking out into the middle of the roads. We did start the day with fresh air in the tires and sent a picture of the dashboard symbol to the car rental place. We have only one more drive to go, a 21 minute drive to the airport incredibly early on Sunday morning. We’re counting on the blue rental Renault to get us there!
Driving has been, as you know, a point of stress for us, however it serves the most wonderful purpose of really allowing you to see the country. My favorite part of today’s ride was seeing the road side products for sale change as we drove along. It seems the prickly pear is a staple throughout Morocco. They are sold everywhere along every road and in every city. Today’s ride began with so many stands selling clay bowls and tagines. Some of the bowlo are painted with beautiful patterns and designs but more often than not, almost all of the products are the natural clay color. A rich brown. These stands were over flowing with molded and kiln fired pottery to purchase. The tables they rested on looked tired and buckled in the center from the weight. Every stand also utilized the surrounding ground and pilled high the ware for display. It reminded me of a pumpkin stand one that is fresh with the new harvest. So many pumpkins in similar shades of color but different in sizes everywhere. I remember as a kid wanting to find the most perfect one, but with so many to choose from it was difficult. These stands have hundreds of options of the same exact item. Sometimes hanging on the wooden slats behind the pottery are woven blankets also with a similar pattern of white and a stripe of color. Comon colors are red and blue. As we drove onward I started to see buckets of limes being sold. Small but bright green limes with elder women and men seated behind them. They were just selling limes. Then we passed a large section where hay was being sold in rectangular brick like blocks. Near the hay were horses nibling on the pieces scattered around. The most visually exciting product for sale were the knotted onion ropes. These were heavy strings with onions strung on like a beaded necklace. Some of them draped over tall walls and could have easily been 8-10 feet long. I’ve never seen so many onions before! The bands were different in size ad they sorted the onions from small, medium and large. Each size was organized on its own string. The stands were endless, and the onions looked amazing. Each with a soft reddish brown flaky skin. I do love a good onion dish.
Our hotel is grand in size with a pool nicely designed with a mosiac flower in blue tiles so under the water it’s visually appealing. The hotel is also well situated in the town center and will allow us to walk around easily tomorrow. This afternoon instead of venturing into the Medina and seeing the cultural sights we decided to take a 50 minute walk to what the guide books described as a green hill where the locals walk up and sit to overlook Tangier. The guide book said it is the only place you can go for a view of the city. I had a lot of energy and so off we went. The walk was relatively enjoyable in that we got to see a main thuoroughfare and saw a young man on roller blades hook onto a car as it drove up the hill. He saw us watching and gave us a “rock on” finger sign. We had expected the walk to not be too pleasant but were excited for a view. The higher we climbed the sooner we realized there was no greenery here and unfortunately the view of the water was highly obstructed by trees, and new waterfront buildings reaching high. The area at the top was beyond trashed, the ground was littered with broken glass and other small garbage debris. I noticed a lot of sheep scat and then we saw a small flock of sheep hearded around. I’m not sure what they were eating. There were a few young men seated in some flat cardboard boxes. We walked around to the other end and found a large Muslim cemetery. This was the foreground to the poorer neighborhoods which spread far. The grave markers were white with Arabic writing, the plants were all dehydrated and dried up. Some were thorny and others were sticks and roots. From this angle we were able to see pretty far into the distance and even spotted the windmills we’d seen driving in. By now we were very sweaty but the wind was strong and nearly took my glasses from the top of my head. We saw a grounds keeper digging a whole which he was measuring for a giant plastic bucket. Chickens were scattered around as well. So it wasn’t what we expected but it was a moment to remember.
We decided to head towards the ocean, on the Tangier Bay, which is unfortunately the most polluted ocean in Morocco given the amount of cargo ships and boats which head to the port directly next to it. This didn’t stop the hundreds of beach goers we saw. Along the beach are also many young boys and men with horses for you to ride. They speed up and down the beach, hitting the horses legs looking for someone to want a ride. The horses were also a broad range of types from a standard size horse, miniature horse, standard ponies and even miniature ponies. The animals were fully saddled and often standing like a stone statue with their eyes closed. I was struck by how stoic they were amidst the beach chaos as if they had developed some type of coping mechanism to deal with their destiny. Just as Obi and I had walked out to the ocean and snapped a few pictures, see below :), we spotted the first camels we’d seen also available for rides. Three camels seated in the sand, looking more at home than the horses. No one was riding them but they were prepared with seats and mouth pieces tied to ropes.
At this point I was very hungry and so our final event of the evening was looking for a restaurant. Not always such an easy task, so we decided to keep walking towards the hotel. We wanted falafels but had not seen one advertised this whole trip and then like magic a Syrian sandwich shop appeared which sold falafels, yum! Just as we were about to enter an employee said they were closed and in a genuine and kind manner said he knows a restaurant around the corner with vegetarian food, couscous and vegetable tagine. We trusted him and he led us to a place that offered food. He ordered for us, (way too much food) but we ate our full and felt satisfied. I had to sample a few more Moroccan cookies and so we stopped in two pastry shops for dessert. I enjoyed my treats while Obi ate some less than thrilling Oreo flavor ice cream.
Tomorrow I booked us a two hour tour to see Cap Spartel and the Hercules caves. Legend has it Hercules himself rested in these caves. You know I love a good Greek myth. In order to see these places you would need to drive, I wanted to avoid more driving for Obi and thought a tour guide might be nice. I’ll fill you in tomorrow.
For now, goodnight from Tangier.
With care, Franziska
PS. These two girls were having so much fun in the water!
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