Blogs from Tangier-Tétouan, Morocco, Africa - page 5

Today we decided to do a short cooking class at one of the local restaurants (in fact the sister restaurant of our first night dinner). So Constance, Becs and I crammed into the small kitchen and learnt how to prepare a chicken cous cous, vegetable salad and a selection of entrees. There was a minor incident with the propane but the chef managed to get everything under control before we were all killed.. The Moroccans use propane for all their cooking and there are donkeys piled high with propane bottles as are the trucks. Death by propane explosion is the second most common way of dying in Morocco after lung cancer. For $10 it was a lot of fun although it may just be a way of getting cheap labour. It was about now that we ... read more

It’s a little chilly, everywhere, all the time – heaters are a luxury that the better part of the third world has agreed against – so we dine in our room. Breakfasts here are bready. Everything is bready. If you sat down in a restaurant to order bread, it would come with bread. Anyway, we rise with the yeast and head out into the Civil War tribute blue streets and grey skies. We have no specific plans for today other than to try and get lost in the medina. The people here are insanely sweet and friendly. The most fierce looking, unshaven, snaggle-toothed, comic book-bad guy Arab, if taunted with a, “Bonjour,” will break into a smile and respond with, “Ca va bien?” The throaty tones of Arabic have been so vilified in our protectionist ears ... read more

Okay, so we’ve made it to Tangier and we’re in the taxi collective. One interesting aspect of the journey was a police road block where they stopped our cab, asked to see the ID of the other passengers (didn’t care about our blue-eye’d-ID) and… arrested an old man! The passenger next to Steve whispered the word, “hashish,” with breath that itself should be a felony. We still don’t know why they chose him or how they knew to arrest him save his resembling the guy from ZigZag packs. Once in Chefchhueuen, we were dropped at the curb and, of course, scoped out by locals. Our French had been coming in very handy since the first petit taxi at the ferry dock, and it didn’t hurt here either. With surprisingly non-invasive help from locals, we found a ... read more

Geo: 35.1716, -5.27069We awoke this morning to the "call to prayer", such a characteristic element of the Muslim world. We enjoyed a nice breakfast of bread, cheese, olives, jams, honey, crepes and coffee, prepared by our Riad host. We then met Morad for a nice, leisurely stroll of the Medina and old town of Chefchaouen. This beautiful, mountain-top city has many buildings which are painted blue, giving the town a cool and unique feel. Unlike places like Egypt, here the shopkeepers do not aggressively try to drag you into their shops, and our walk through the city is most pleasant. We top for a coffee in a cafe on the main square, before heading out to drive back to Tangier.Upon arriving back in Tangier, Morad takes us to one of his favourite old restaurants, with all ... read more

We awoke (Spanish) early after our final night in Spain. We packed the final few things into our bags and then made our way to the port via a sandwich shop. We were able to pick up our pre-booked tickets for the 9am ferry to Morocco without any issues so that left us with about an hour to wait until we could board the ferry. We arrived into the old port of Tangiers about an hour after we departed Tarifa. The journey was calm and, surprisingly, the ferry appeared to be mostly full of day trippers. We were planning to take a grand taxi from Tangiers to Chefchaouen, our first destination in Morocco, and had read that organising one could be quite a full on experience so had spent time researching prices, things to confirm and ... read more