Northern Morocco

To see our Morocco Photos, Click Here

Men in their Jellabas

The boat from Tarifa, in southern Spain took just 35 minutes to cross the mouth of the Mediterranean to Tangier, Morocco.  Our initial goal is always to find a place to stay, and we were surprised at how little hassle we were greeted with from touts for taxis or hotels or restaurants on arrival. Unfortunately, searching the steep streets for the hostel took over two hours. It didn't help that people thought they knew it and would send us in the wrong direction. We discovered that the hostel was no longer. Tired and exhausted we eventually found a clean, cheapish substitute.

The Moors, Spanish, Portuguese and English have all fought and occupied Tangier at some point in history, and as a result it is such a mixture of cultures that it's not really Moroccan, or African, or European! Now a large industrial city, it still has its old town, or Medina, which was exciting to explore with its cobbled, narrow alleyways and people selling absolutely everything under the sun. I especially liked the egg shop: a man surrounded by large plastic laundry baskets of eggs of different sizes and colours, and then cardboard racks of eggs behind him stacked as high as his head! Crazy.

The people are interesting to watch. Women wear long kaftans in a kaleidoscope of colours, most with scarves over their heads, some covering the mouth and nose, and only very occasionally you'll see a full burka covering the whole face (inc. eyes). As for the men, they sit around in their Jellabas (a type of kaftan with a pointed hood) sitting in front of cafes sipping fresh mint tea, watching the world go by, or bickering loudly over games of Ludo (bit like 'Sorry'), and Drafts.

View from the top of our Asilah guesthouse

Occasionally, they get angry as we experienced getting our bus to Asilah. A bus station employee had helped us buy our ticket, but as we got on the bus, the 'bus boy' decided that we needed to pay extra for our bags. Before he knew it, Martin had two 'bus boys' shouting at him.  Of course, Martin remained firm and calm, until the bus station employee noticed and came over and, we guessed, told them that we had paid everything we needed to. A relief.

Asilah feast

The little beach town of Asilah has a little white-walled Medina, and exploring its narrow streets and alleys we came across the 'cultural centre' where some teenagers were performing singing and drumming. It was pretty cool to be invited in to watch, but the audience were very noisy and just talked and chatted the whole way through.  On the 21st anniversary of 21st Birthday we headed up in to the hills to the Sunday village market at Had Gharbia. The usual stuff for sale: fruit veg, meat, nick-knacks and plenty of schtuff - crap, but good people watching. Later, we celebrated with a tagine feast outside the 1540s Portuguese-built city walls.

Date and fig stall, Tetouan

Tetouan was our next town and its Medina is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We thought it was pretty dirty and rundown, but it definitely felt more busy and labyrinth-like than the other Medinas we'd been to so far. Our Hotel Victoria was basic but clean with a balcony from our room that we could sit protected from the rain to watch the people pass by below. * Mush