Tangier, Morocco

While living in Spain my family came to visit.  My dad, mom, brother and granny all flew from Texas to spend two weeks seeing Spain.  While they were there we visited Tangier, Morocco in North Africa.  To reach Tangier from Southern Spain you take a one hour ferry ride from the Spanish city of Algeciras across the Strait of Gibraltar.  At the port we met our guide Haj Shebaba, he took us through the old town to the Kasbah; something larger than a castle, more like a small walled village that was older than the city around it.  This was really the first time I had been in what would be considered a third world country, other than Mexico and that does not count.  I was fascinated with the electrical lines that had been run along the outside of the buildings and along the underside of the archways; this part of the city was built long before there was electricity. 

In the courtyard of the Kasbah was a snake charmer.  I was excited to get the chance to watch as he played his flute and made the snake dance just like you see on TV.  But NOOOO, what did this guy do?  He just stood there holding the snake for pictures, but deal my Dad can do that at the ranch with a rattle snake any day of the week.  It was a complete tourist trap!!  From there we went to Restaurant Hammadi where we had vegetable soup, beef shish k-bobs, couscous, mint tea and baklava.  My journal describes the couscous as chicken with a cabbage & grits mixture.  I know today the “grits” part was the couscous so they must have used it in a delicious mixture with chicken and cabbage.  Back then I had never heard of couscous.  I described the baklava as a sweet dessert that tasted like melted suckers poured over fried bread stuffed with some sweet spice.  While at the restaurant there was a Moroccan band playing and a lady doing a belly dance, again it was pretty touristy, but fun to watch.

After lunch we wandered through the open market, where the locals bought meats, fruits and vegetables; I think these are fascinating places to walk around looking for unfamiliar types of food.  Our guide kept walking at breakneck speed.  We also walked through a shopping market but our guide would not stop until we got to a “designated” store; AKA a store that gave him a kick back for bringing tourists.  I did not like anything in the store and it was very expensive, all the good stuff was out in the market.  The designated store actually sold gorilla hands and stools made from an elephant’s foot so I would not have bought anything there even if I found something I wanted.  After that we walked to a place where men had camels we could ride.  Again a total tourist trap but it was worth trying, when else would we get a chance to get on a camel.  Steven was the first to ride; he got on, walked only about 5 steps before the guide made the camel sit down and told them to get off.  He put Granny and me on the camel and we walked around in a big circle.  When he commanded the camel to sit down I almost fell forward into the camel’s neck but caught myself.  It was short but fun to try! From there Haj Shebaba lead us back to the port and we caught the ferry back to Spain.  

It would have been nice to spend a bit more time seeing what we wanted to see and stopping in the stores we wanted to stop in but that is the risk you take with a packaged tour.  Even today I still struggle with to buy or not to buy a package tour.  In unfamiliar places they can really help you get the lay of the land and see a lot in a short time but they always comes with those stupid tourist restaurants and “special’ shopping places.  I went back to Tangier one last time before leaving Spain with a group of girls, that will be the next post….TRAVEL ON!