Morocco: An African Adventure

In came the month of the April and along with it a visit from my momma. She came with her trusty sidekick Cynthia to visit me and explore Spain. They were in Madrid for the first four days of their trip and I got to be their tour guide, showing them all my favorite places in my new favorite city. Some of the highlights were our trip to the Prado Museum where I got to show off all I had learned in Art History class, the lunch with my Spanish family and American mom and our first bullfight. I didn't take too may pictures that weekend but if you'd like to see, my mom has a ton on her facebook.

Then Monday rolled around and I headed to class while Gil y Cintia (how Spanish folk pronounced their names) drove down to the south of Spain. I had planned on flying down on Thursday to Tangier, Morocco to meet up with my mom and got all the way to the gate at the airport before she called and said she couldn't take the ferry across to Morocco because of dangerously high winds. So, I left the airport (it's pretty hard to get back out of security--probably tougher than getting in!) and headed to the train station to take the bullet train to Malaga in southern Spain. Here's the story of our trip in pictures.

The train platform at Atocha Station.

The street corner in Malaga where I waited for Gil y Cintia.  They got a little lost...

Malaga is the sixth largest city in Spain and one of the oldest in the world. It's been a big time port for a long time.

Mom on the ferry. Pretty nice, big boat. Almost felt like a cruise ship.

We docked in Tangier and found a guide named Ben. We didn't think we needed one at first but he offered us a pretty good deal and kept the beggars and aggressive salesmen away. First, he took us up to a hill outside the city to get an idea of where we were. That's the Strait of Gibraltar.

Lamb!

Old bullfighting ring. The guide said they don't do bullfights in Morocco anymore. Too civilized now I guess.

Tangier is the fifth largest city in Morocco with about 700,000 people. It's a pretty international place based on its location close to Europe and the people speak a bunch of languages. French, Arabic, English and Spanish are the most prevalent.

It was pretty good to see my momma.

We then went down into town (after the cab driver ran the car pretty hard into a large rock) to see some of the merchants.

The fruit and veggies looked pretty good.

Live chickens in a cage next to the store.

Not so live chickens in the store. At least you know its fresh!

Now we're into the Kasbah--the area that used to be a fortress and is basically the old part of the city. It's filled with tiny streets going in about every direction--it's a maze basically. I liked the Luis Figo jersey here--soccer really is the world's game.

Snails anyone?

Now out into the town square type place. Lots of activity here.

I think this is a Christian church of some sort. The tour guide made it out to be a very free-religion country but while Christianity is legal, it's illegal to evangelize. Morocco is predominantly Muslim.

The little blue taxis scurry all about the city.

A monument to Morocco's independence. The celebration was the next day and so this guy was cleaning the monument.

This part gets super hilly.

Cool windows.

More Kasbah and tiny streets.

Great views of the Strait of Gibraltar.

You can see Spain on the horizon. The distance between Spain and Morocco is a little less than nine miles at its closest point.

A street sign in Arabic and French.

Cool tile work.

Ben! He was a pretty cool dude. Definitely was in it just for the money but he showed us some good stuff. Also, led us to the merchants and restaurants where he would get a little kick back. But that's alright--you've gotta make a living somehow.

The dress was pretty varied. Some of the more traditional stuff (as seen here) mixed in with jeans and t-shirts. The rest of Morocco is more traditional but Tangier's location makes it more liberal socially.

Back to the Kasbah.

One of Benny's tourist traps--a carpet maker.

Mom got suckered into buying this blue one. She got like 80% off though and we got it for about 20 bucks. Pretty nice too. The woman can bargain.

The door to the Mosque--painted green, the color of Islam.

Some traditional Moroccan food that my mom was afraid to eat. I thought it was pretty good. Some chicken with couscous, an interesting soup with tasty bread and my favorite, this kind of sweet, kind of meaty/veggie tasting pastry deal. It was really good.

We had a minor freak out when we thought the last ferry had left for the day. Alas, it was alright.

Yup, that's a yacht club.

The port-side Mosque. Prayer was just letting out when we walked to the ferry. They have separate Mosques for the men and women.

Now back to Malaga for the next night.

Pretty cool little area with lots of restaurants. Had some alright food--I think I had a salmon crepe. Also, tried to order apple juice and got a nasty, thick dessert wine. Apparently, mosto doesn't mean the same thing in Malaga that it does in Madrid.

Malaga's cathedral.

These giant bulls are all around Spain--actually mostly in the bullfight-loving south. I think at first it started as an advertisement but now it's more of a national symbol. The flying of a Spanish flag outside a sporting event is seen as a right wing political statement so many people just wanting to support Spain put a sticker with this bull logo on the back of their cars. Only in Spain. 

 

It turned out to be a pretty good first voyage to Africa. I'd love to go back. Also, another cool note: We visited the Alhambra on the Saturday of that weekend. We didn't have tickets or reservations but showed up anyway. There were no general tickets left (to see the whole place, palaces included) but some random lady just came up to us, speaking English, and asked if we wanted two free tickets. I had already seen the palaces on our earlier class trip so I was content with a ticket to just see the gardens. We saw the lady and her husband later--they're from Ireland--and they said a family member had recently broken her leg and couldn't come with her Dad. She also had my mom and Cynthia say, "Sorry you broke your leg but thanks for the tickets" to her relative on the phone. Pretty cool stuff. As my mom always say, "It's a God thing."