This Time for Africa!

Hello!

So I just got back from a 3-day, jam-packed trip to the Southern tip of Spain and Morocco!  When I say jam-packed, I really, truly mean it.  We visited FIVE cities in three days!  Quite an adventure.  :-)

A few of my friends and I found this three-day trip with a local company "We Love Spain."  We decided to travel to Morocco with a travel group because Morocco is not really the place you want to go to alone and wander around.  SO we met the We Love Spain bus in Granada early Friday morning and started driving!

Our first stop was Gibraltar!  Now, I don't know how much you know about Gibraltar, but I am ashamed to say that I did not know ANYTHING about this English territory on the tip of Spain.  I actually didn't even know until about 30 minutes before we got there that is was an English territory!  So I learned a lot during our brief trip there.

We walked across the Spanish/Gibraltar border (where only had to flash our passports!) and the first thing we saw was an old, typical British telephone booth!  Everything was in English and our tour guide had a British accent.  Going right from Spain into practically England was pretty strange.  We took a bus tour up the Rock of Gibraltar, stopping to check out sights such as the place where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean, St. Michael's Caves, and some cool lookouts of the city!  The best part about Gibraltar, though, was the 300 wild monkeys that live on the Rock.  These monkeys are super social and fearless!  Not only do they hang out around the stores and cars, they actually hang out with the people.

The Rock of Gibraltar

Now we're in England?

Lighthouse on the tip of Spain (in Gibraltar)

Mediterranean meets Atlantic!

St. Michael's Caves

 

New best friend!

After our tour of Gibraltar, we crossed back over the Spanish/Gibraltar border, boarded the bus, and drove to the ferry port, conveniently located 20 minutes away.  I'm usually a big fan of ferry rides (fond memories of the Cape May/Lewis ferry over Labor Day weekends!), so I was pretty excited!  Well, I don't know if it was pretty windy that afternoon or what, but that boat was ROCKING.  I am proud to say that I have not gotten motion sickness in well over a decade, but boy did I come close during that ride, and I wasn't the only one!  Fortunately the ride was only about 40 minutes and soon we docked in Ceuta, a Spanish city in Africa.

We were all pretty confused because we did not realize that Ceuta was a Spanish city, so when we saw all the Spanish signs and stores and no Arabic, we were sort of disappointed.  We were pumped, though, that we didn't have to go through customs!  Well, that excitement faded fast once we reached the Ceuta/Morocco boundary and sat at the border for OVER AN HOUR while our guide took our passports (which wasn't my favorite thing to do--I've got a serious case of passport paranoia) to get stamped.

It was already dark when we finally crossed the border, so we drove straight to our hotel in the city of Tetuan.  The hotel was very nice, but the city was SO dark!  I've never seen such a dark city before.  Anyway, we checked into our rooms and then had dinner in the hotel.  Dinner was pretty good, although probably not too Moroccan.  We did have fish, though, which is out of the ordinary for me!

On Saturday morning, we left the hotel at 8:30 and started our Moroccan adventures!  We drove through some very curvy roads in the mountains for about an hour and a half and passed some very rural towns and houses.  Some houses probably didn't even have electricity or running water!  It was very interesting to see, though, that even in those tiny towns there was always a mosque.

Around 10:00am we arrived at ChefChaouen aka The Blue City.  It was a very cool little city in the middle of the mountains where everything was painted blue!  We walked through a ton of little streets, passing apartments and markets, pottery and woven blankets.  We even got to see African cats!  We got to end our visit with a little shopping in Morocco :-)

Moroccan Mountains

ChefChaouen!

Moroccan rugs

African cat!

"The Blue City"

Powdered dyes in the market!

Wearing a fez!

After ChefChaouen, we drove back to Tetuan to have lunch in an authentic (aka touristy) Moroccan restaurant!  The lunch was pretty delicious (which really is something coming from me!).  We had Moroccan soup, some beef, and this like pastry thing filled with veggies and meat.  The meal ended with a little cookie and some mint tea aka Moroccan whiskey!

After the meal, we walked the streets of Tetuan.  Tetuan was very different from ChefChaouen, even though it was only 1.5 hours away!  The city seemed way more rundown and there were TONS of people following us around, trying to sell us things.  It was a very cool experience but somewhat shocking.  We did get to learn about some Moroccan herbs and spices, though!

Moroccan dish

Mint tea and cookie

Tetuan

Spices and herbs!

The king's summer palace

We left Tetuan and drove toward the coast to the city of Tanger!  Instead of going straight into the city, we went to the beach and rode camels!!!!  The sunset was BEAUTIFUL and the camels were so fun.

After riding the camels, we drove into Tanger to our hotel!  Then we went to dinner, which was also a show!  The whole night was really fun and we got to eat more typical Moroccan food like cous cous!  The entertainment included acrobats, musicians, a guy who did tricks while balancing candles on his head, and a belly dancer!  What a fun night :-)

Sunday morning we left Tanger and headed to the Caves of Hercules.  They were pretty cool, although I never did find out why they were named after Hercules.  We then basically drove back to the coast, crossed back into Ceuta, waited for the ferry, took the ferry, and drove back to Granada.  It was a lot of traveling!  But we did get to stop in Ceuta and see the breathtaking view of the sea and the city!

Inside the cave

Ceuta

Ceuta

Ceuta!

WOW! That was quite a long post.  Hope ya'll read til the end!!