Sur de Espana y Morocco

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I have to admit that I’ve spent the last three weeks attending school rather intermittently. My week is already only 4 days long and we were given last Monday off because Christmas fell on a Sunday last year. Yes, the Barcelona government felt they didn’t receive enough vacation time during the holidays this year (Christmas is huge here – they were celebrating their biggest part of Christmas when I arrived on January 6th) and was generous enough to declare a city-wide holiday last Monday. I didn’t mind. In the last three weeks I’ve found myself in Africa, Ireland, and the south of Spain. It hasn’t left much time for school, or blogging, but today I find myself back in Barcelona sitting in a café, sipping on my Café Jamaica (yum), watching the rain pound on the street outside (which feels very strange because rain is rare here), and writing about my adventures.
The first trip in this long procession of traveling was to Morocco. It started with a lovely wake-up call of 2:30 am in order to get to the Barcelona airport and catch our 6 am flight to Sevilla. We (all my roommates, Connor, and 5 of the guys in my apartment building) booked this flight because it was only 4 Euros, even though it brought us to Sevilla an entire day early. The day and a half we spent in Sevilla was amazing; I fell in love with the city and even found myself wishing that I was living there instead of Barcelona. The Guadalquivir River is so peaceful and Placa España is arguably the most beautiful square I’ve seen. But what mostly grabbed me was the slow, peaceful atmosphere that seemed settled over the entire city, as opposed to the constant hustle-and-bustle of Barcelona. Not to mention the 80-degree weather and permeating aroma of citrus from the orange trees that line every street.
Morocco involved a whole lot of traveling to reach it. A few hour bus ride down to Tenerife, Spain, an hour ferry ride across the Straight of Gibraltar, a lot of waiting in customs, and another couple hour bus ride from Tangiers to our hotel. As soon as we got back on the bus, a Moroccan woman came onboard to act as one of our tour guides and answer any questions we had about Morocco. She wore the traditional hijab head-covering and dress and worked for the Tourism Ministry. I thought it was interesting how she managed to mention the King of Morocco, Mohammad VI, in nearly every answer to a question. She repeated, “Our King is the best” or, “No one is better than our King Muhammad VI” a suspicious number of times. She also reiterated the fact that “All women in Morocco are free to dress and act as they please.” I was a bit skeptical of that statement at first, but after observing the women during the trip I nearly believe it – most covered their head in traditional or Muslim dress, but some wore jeans and t-shirts and wore their hair flowing down their backs. Our arrival at the hotel entailed about 6 traditional African drummers performing for us as we walked into our waiting dinner of soup, couscous, and ice cream. I felt a little guilty for staying at what was probably one of the nicest hotels in Morocco, but I’ll admit it was reassuring when demonstrations and a few deaths had been reported only a few days earlier.
We spent the next day walking around the Medina (or the old, gated part) of Tetouan. Our guides asked us to keep our feet covered and for girls to keep their legs and shoulders covered, just to make sure there were no problems with a local. The people on the streets seemed so happy to see us. The children usually ran up and said “Hola!!” or “Hello!” and nearly all the people selling things on the streets smiled and greeted us. Besides Ireland, they are probably the friendliest people I’ve encountered. The city was obviously impoverished and was filled with Bedouin people who had brought their goods in from the mountains to sell. One of our guides explained to us that the Bedouin’s live in the mountains and haul their goods in to sell every morning, whatever their items may be – eggs, animal hides, olives, fish, vegetables, chicken, etc. We stopped in a family-run rug shop where we all sat on the edges of a room and a man described in detail how lovely each rug was. The rest of the family scurried about rolling out rugs left and right – they must have shown us 70 rugs. A spice shop was next where a group of men wearing white lab coats pulled spices and oils off their shelves to demonstrate and let us smell. A few people bought rugs, and a lot of us bought different spices and oils to take home. Before we ate lunch at a restaurant in the Medina, we stopped at the tannery. There was hardly a moment in Morocco where there wasn’t some sort of bad scent, but that tannery smelled even worse than an exploded ghost fish in Bristol Bay. Men standing waist deep in pits of water filled with sheep and cow hides. Uhg. Lunch was more couscous and soup. Later this day we got to ride camels, which was pretty great, even if it was a bit smelly and full of frothing animals, and see where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic.
We spent a respectable amount of time driving from city to city or back to our hotel while we were in Morocco. I found myself with my eyes glued to the window every time we got back on the bus. The terrain in the countryside was gorgeous, but the people in the countryside interested me the most. The Bedouin people dot the land– at any given time I could see the rolling hills and mountains and spot the colorful clothing of about 5 people. I’m not exactly sure what they were doing, usually tending to their vegetables or following their sole cow or sheep around, but they were so intriguing. When we drove by in the evenings every few hundred yards I could see a family sitting on a rock or under a tree, watching their goat and munching on something they had grown. I’m really not sure where these people live, I could only see a small hut every once in a while, but they seemed so content and happy in their life in the Moroccan countryside.
Our hotel was on the beach, but we were really only there between the hours of 8 pm and 8 am, so there was no real time to enjoy the sun and waves. I felt it would be a crime to leave Africa without being able to say I had at least jumped in the ocean, so the second night two of my roommates and I decided we should go for a nighttime swim. Connor came with, and after a bit of hesitation and coaxing, Michelle, Brie and I went screeching into the water. Connor had already hopped in and out by the time we jumped in. We must have made a bit of racket and by the time we reached our towels up the beach, two GIANT men with guns strapped to their back had found us. I’m serious. These guys were huge – at least 6’4” with some definite girth to them. I knew it was exactly kosher for three girls to be on the beach in bikinis, so we kept our eyes down and maneuvered around them to grab our towels. We weren’t sure if these guys were officials or police or just giant guys with guns, but Connor talked to them long enough to calm them down and try to tell them we were just visiting their country. Once Connor left them on the beach and caught up to us back near the hotel we were pretty sure they were police or some sort of official and only approached us because they heard girls screaming. Talk about adrenaline and a pounding heart, though.
The next day we took a long bus ride up into a mountain town called Chefchouen. This town is so beautiful – all the walls, buildings and streets are whitewashed and painted with blue trim. Most of it so picturesque it’s hard to believe it’s real. The houses in Chefchouen are all painted different colors depending on whether the residents are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. The town wasn’t as poor as Tetouan appeared, but the people certainly didn’t have much. A guide led us around for a while before we had lunch and then a few hours on our own. The town was filled with great shops where the owners sold their leather bags, woven scarves and blankets, spices, and a huge variety of other things. In order to buy anything we had to bargain or haggle with the owners, which was a little nerve-wracking for me at first because they are very, very persistent. For example I would point at a bag and ask how much, they would respond something like, 400 (their currency is Durhams, and 400 Durhams is equivalent to about 40 Euros). I would respond with 120, to which they give an incredulous, “You’ve got to be kidding me” look and then say 350. Once I got the hang of it I realized I had to give them the same attitude right back and that you definitely have to counter their first offer with a very, very low price, or you’ll get stuck a price that’s too high. I think with this particular bag I bargain to about 280 Durhams.
The day in Chefchouen ended with a bang. We were supposed to meet the whole group at 4:30 in the center square of the city, which happened to be only a few minutes after the afternoon prayers. At about 4:15 most of the group was there, when we began to notice people pouring out of side streets into the square. In front of one of the main buildings the crowd started chanting and clapping; the noise was pretty loud and people were surrounding us by the time what was happening really even registered. Our guides ushered us up and started hurrying us out of the city to the buses as fast as they could – the next half an hour was confusing and stressful because some of the kids hadn’t returned to the square yet and our tour guides were all over the place trying to get the huge crowd of Americans out of the demonstration and find the missing members. Somehow we all get back to the bus and our guide says, “Congratulations! You can call your parents and tell them you survived the Chefchouen protests!”
The rest of the trip was pretty arduous – it involved our buses getting stuck in traffic for a few hours on high mountainous roads, a very rough ferry ride back to Tenerife, and our arrival in Sevilla at 5 am. I woke up at 9 am to catch the flight back to Barcelona only to discover I was horribly sick, as they warned us we would likely be from Morocco.
This weekend I went back to Sevilla – my study abroad program took us. It didn’t quite live up to the experience from the previous day I spent there because our trip was inundated with rain. Rain is very uncommon in Sevilla and unfortunately it made a lot of the trip less pleasant. However, on Saturday we took a bus for about an hour down to Cadiz where it was sunny and hot. It happened to be Carnaval in Cadiz while we were there, so children and people were running around the streets in crazy costumes all day. There were lots of parades and lots of song and dance – it really is a citywide party. I spent a lot of the day on the beach. The same beach where Halle Berry dramatically emerges from the waves in the 007 movie. On Sunday the rain cleared up enough for us to go on the planned bike tour of Sevilla. After an hour or so the whole giant group of us was biking down the street with our guide out in front. All of a sudden he screeched to a halt and started saying “Oh mierda!! Mierda… “ Which is basically “Oh shit!” There were crowds of people everywhere and the police had blocked off the street because the FC Barcelona team was just pulling up in their bus. All of us ditched our bikes and ran to the fence to climb up and watch them go into their hotel. Messi, Iniesta, David Villa… these guys are SO famous over here. That chance encounter was definitely the highlight of the trip.
My original intention was to include my trip to Ireland in this entry… but keeping it short and sweet has always been difficult for me when writing, and sometimes a bit too easy when speaking. I hope you enjoy!

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Comments

[Auntie Dine]

Giant men? Chefchouen protests?
African sickness? Oh my. I imagine your parents are beginning to get more than a little nervous now. Think of what an experienced tour guide you'll be for them when they arrive later :) You can tell Connor he is officially my hero now. Stay safe and keep the stories coming. xxoo

[Uncle Nick]

Like Nat Geo
Holly - Thanks for taking the time to post. What an interesting account of Morocco. Love your photos, like reading National Geographic. Uncle Nick