We debated for a long time about this one...Visiting the most southern part of Spain, we were very close to Africa, in fact only a 40 minute ferry ride away. Should we visit Africa for a day or not? Although we knew that Tangier, Morocco, was not REALLY a true African experience, we thought it would be interesting to see. We heard that Tangier is best done with a guide, so we hired a local guide who is popular among American visitors associated with the Navy base in Spain. Our friends agreed to watch our kids for the day:)
The original plan was to leave on a 9 am ferry out of Tarifa (1.5 hour drive from where we were staying), but as I was checking my email messages at midnight (!), I was notified by our Tangier guide that since it had been so windy all day (that's the day we were in Cadiz), all ferry services were cancelled until 11 am next morning. It's a good thing I checked messages, or we would be driving to Tarifa super early in the morning and then waiting around for nothing.
After that everything went smoothly--we drove to Tarifa, got on the boat and survived quite a choppy ride to Tangier (the ride back was twice as bad). We were met by our "personal" guide Jamal at the port. And right away he explained that because ferry was not going on the day before, he had a group of 5 people to join us, also Americans from base. Not like we had a choice, and it was still fine, but we were expecting a personal tour of the city. Oh well...the prices didn't change either.
The first part of the tour was driving up the coast to the place where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic ocean.
On the way we passed a big area of fancy mansions owned by various princes and kings of the world. Not like we could see much. We also stopped at a good view point of Kasba, the old town. That's where you find true Tangier.
We also drove by one of the mosques, which was beautiful, of course, but we couldn't go in, so we just took a picture.
Tangier is an interesting place. It's Africa, of course, but it's trying to be more tourist friendly and clean. The port area and the sea promenade are under a lot of construction with a lot of promising projects going on. The new parts of the city are becoming more and more commercialized so that's why visitors flock into the old town.
Oh right! One of the highlights of the day tour was a camel ride. It was so touristy and kind of sad...We just pulled up to a sandy area high above the sea where a few guys were hanging out with a bunch of camels. The guy said, "Okay, quick, who is first?"
And we were whisked away for a quick 5 minute camel ride with the camel guide singing "All that you want, I want another baby" or something like that. It was so bad it was funny.
Hanging on for dear life.
Grateful I didn't fall off. The camels behaved well though.
Look! Our "true" African picture!
This little guy is still looking at Robert.
I am not as good with kids as Robert is.
He was cute, but drooling and spitting up like a baby does.
After the camel ride, we drove towards the old part of the city for lunch. The food was good and pretty inexpensive--lots of lentils and meat.
Finally, we made it to Kasba.
That picture above is giving me trouble and doesn't want to move to its proper place. Basically, we stopped by one of the musical shops where an old guy was playing something. He had us all join in, grab an instrument and jam for a few minutes. It was fun for a bit, but probably staged:).For the rest of the afternoon we were walking around the old streets and shopping a bit.
It's amazing that 4 million people live in Tangier.
Tangier has a reputation of being a safe house for international spying activities.
Is this where The Bourne Ultimatum was filmed?
Beautiful ceiling.
Lots of ornate doors.
And an eight hundred year old banyan tree.
Inside the food market.
Lots of varieties of nuts. I wish I wasn't so rushed to just get the ones I want and go.
We wanted to buy something cool to bring home, so Jamal dropped us off at one of the big arts/crafts store while he went to take care of the other people in our group. We spent like an hour in there looking at small furniture (we could mail it back from one military base to our house), leather purses and rugs. We picked out a couple of bags and one Moroccan ottoman (the kind you stuff with newspaper and plastic bags). And I thought I was good at haggling...but I still felt so much pressure for the "professionals". We really didn't have enough time to just roam the streets, shop around and experience life in Kasba. If I were to ever do this again, I would love to just spend more time talking to people and seeing how they live. The whole morning part of driving around the posh area could be omitted:)
So overall, it was a good experience, we are happy we went, but we weren't amazed. It wasn't exotic enough to be memorable and we didn't have enough time to appreciate the shopping part of it. I am grateful for our friends for making this quick adventure possible for us:)
Lyana.
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