Tuesday, March 10 // Martes, 10 de marzo
ENGLISH Hotel Tarik had a solid breakfast buffet selection. There was a wide variety of pastries including naan, croissants, and a sweet swirly pastry with chocolate pieces. I made a weird concoction that consisted of naan topped with what I thought was greek yogurt and apricot marmalade. Later I found out the yogurt was actually goat cheese, but still the thing was delicious. Other breakfast highlight was the mango juice. Yes.
We hopped onto the bus and left for Chefchaouen, the blue city. On our way we stopped at a hillside café and many of us tried the famous Moroccan mint tea. It was so sweet and cozy. Check out the insane view in the pictures below:
Chefchaouen also brought a new tour guide - Hasan - who was from the area and had a very thick accent. It was cool to get a personal insight into the city and see how he interacted with the locals. Here are some of the amazing sights of the city:
As you can see, all of the buildings are painted blue. It was believed that the blue color would ward off mosquitoes, and the white color would keep the heat out of the homes. Chefchaouen is a tourist attraction due to these brilliant colors, and we ran into many other tourists while there.
There were also plenty of vendors selling paintings, local products and souvenirs, etc. Morocco is known for tea, spices, rugs, and especially argan oil, so there were lots of cosmetic shops as well. My favorite shop had old lamps - think the genie's lamp from Aladdin - and small hand painted wooden door frames that would open and close. I bought a lamp and a small white lantern with colored windows. The man who owned the shop is pictured with Charissa above. In Morocco, you have to use the bartering system, but it was quite nerve-wrecking seeing as I'm obviously a tourist and I will most likely accept the price they set for me. However, I did get a bit of a deal on the lantern!
Side note: there are tons of stray cats - and a few dogs, most for herding animals - in the cities we visited, so a lot of time was spent waiting for cat lovers to take photos of cats!
The whole group had lunch together at a restaurant in Chefchaouen. I got to have a "Moroccan salad", couscous, and flan - they were all amazing, especially the flan because flan is superior to all. The food is also pictured above!
After our adventures in the blue city, we boarded our bus once again. This time we were told to get on the bus quickly because there would be Moroccan boys trying to board our bus in an attempt to immigrate to Spain with us. We got on with ease, then noticed that there actually was a huge crowd of little boys and teenagers surrounding our bus, poking at it, crawling under it, and climbing about it. Confused, we went to the edges to see what they were doing. Why would someone crawl under a bus that might start moving at any second?
Our guide informed us that this is typical in any developing country. Kids will try anything to get a chance at a better life, whether it be migrating from southern Africa to northern Africa, Morocco to Spain, or even Latin America to the United States. I, along with my peers, had a lot of emotions about this. It's sad because these kids are essentially risking their lives for the "European dream". It made me feel guilty, because I am essentially living their dream because I was born in a different place than they were. It made us feel lucky to even be studying abroad and get the chance to travel to another continent. It woke us up with a slice of humble pie.
Later, though, we found out that one kid stole our bus driver's phone out of the bus window. He had a backup, but I still felt bad that it happened to him.
Moving on from bus related issues, our last stop on Saturday was Tetuán. This city was founded by people from Granada, Spain who were expelled by the Christians in 1492. Granada was the last city inhabited by the Arabs in Al-Andalus, which was the Arab name for the area we now call the Iberian Peninsula. Due to this Spanish-Arab influence, the city resembles a Spanish city just as much as it does an Arab/Moroccan city.
For this city, we had security detail that followed us to make sure we were safe and that none of us were getting pickpocketed. I was so intrigued by the security guy and I just kept watching him; he was an expert at staying hidden and appearing as a random citizen. There is a large market that we walked through together, single file and taking in all of the sights and smells. Fish and raw meat does not smell good - an overall observation from Spain and Morocco.
One cool part about Tetuán is that we got to go in a cosmetics shop. Our group was able to go upstairs and hear a talk about the famous products, including argan oil, safron, various body butters with jasmine, rose, etc. Each time the man would tell us about a product, he would allow us to try a bit of it. It was awesome until he was asking us to put the tenth product on our lotioned-up hands - so we started putting it on our legs! I couldn't help but laugh because the man was being such a good host and I could see his passion for the products. If I would have bought anything, it would have been a green lipstick that changes color to pink/red when you apply it, depending on your body temperature. This lipstick is well known in the region.
Of course, when we left, I had to thank the security guard. I loved him for no reason.
Sunday was the last day in Morocco, so we took a tour of Tangiers, which was where our hotel was. There is a famous market in the city, but when we went it was around nine o'clock in the morning, so the vendors were just opening up - according to our guide, the local people like to start their days very late.
Anyways, I have written as much as I can about Morocco, so if you have any questions about my trip, go ahead and message me on social media or whatsapp!
Have a great week!!