Well, my Moroccan adventure is over – we are back in money-consuming Spain. And it’s still damn hot.
After getting ourselves a ticket to Tangier, the port town linking Morocco to Spain, Portugal and France, we essentially just retired. It was too damn hot and Fes lacked the beauty and atmosphere of Marrakesh, and hence my need to immerse myself was long, long gone.
I did finally discover that despite the lack of signing, Giardia does indeed exist in Morocco’s tap water. Stupid Giardia. It should infect its own system. See how it likes that. Yeah. Thankfully it had cleared mine by the next day so I didn’t have any troubles on the bus to Tangier.
Another bus that took longer than it should, starting off nice and cool with the pretence of air-conditioning, and by the end of the trip you’re sweating because the sun is attacking the windows of the bus and managing to emanate through the curtains.
But we got into Tangier, and found the hotel quite nicely due to a lot of helpful signs pointing us the way. It was a much nicer hotel than we’ve stayed in – mind you, it would want to be at nearly double the damn price. The front desk was wonderfully cheery and put us into a larger room which had the most beautiful dark wooden furniture and a nice view of the almost-nice port.
We went out to savour the last couple of hours of daylight in Tangier and draw out a bit more cash to pay for the hotel and our ferries the next day. We’d been told that Tangier wasn’t a very nice place and it was quite dangerous – but I like it a lot better than Fes. It was a lot cleaner (Fes was SO dirty) and it had a nice atmosphere. True, there were more tourists, but like always they were vastly outnumbered by locals; taking their kids for a run-around in the park, haggling with the market vendors and sitting down for a cup of coffee. We wandered around for a while before we went back to try the wi-fi that turned out to not work. No matter, Andrew had started me on a book that I couldn’t put down, so I finished that off a couple of hours later and we went out for a late dinner around 10.30. Well, in Spain that’s average, but it still seems late to me.
Couldn’t find the restaurant we wanted and ended up yet again having another meal containing chips. Stupid chips. Off to bed and up early to catch the ferry across to Spain. Buying a ticket was easy – there were probably only about 30 passengers on a ferry that seats at least a couple of hundred. We had to clear customs and what-not, and climbed aboard the ferry to take us across the Gibraltar Strait. I was thrilled to be crossing it, but unfortunately the rocking of the boat made me a little tired/nauseated so I dozed most of the way over. It WAS only 35 minutes though. Then we found our way into Tarifa, Spain’s port town. Tarifa seemed like a nice little place, though we didn’t really do much exploring because we walked straight up to the bus station to get a bus to Seville. We did have to wait for a while, but we climbed easily enough on and made our way through a thunderstorm to Seville.
When we got here it had that wonderful smell of storm brewing and we found a tram (!) to take us most of the way to our hostel. Although Seville is normally around high 30s, low 40s, last night it was a lovely mid-20s because of the cool change. We had a bloody fantastic vegetarian dinner and hopped off to bed.
Today and tomorrow are going to be quite busy because from what I can see, Seville is a gorgeous city full of sights. I can’t wait!
Ciao ciao!
Oops! I almost forgot! Morocco in a nutshell…
Bottom 6:
6. Litter everywhere, particularly Fes
5. Stupid keyboards with the letters switched around that make touch typing near impossible.
4. Unconditioned and perpetually late public transport.
3. The lack of signage about the existence of Giardia and this said existence.
2. Vendors and taxi drivers all too keen to rip off tourists.
1. Annoying, annoying touts eager for a tip.
Top 6:
6. Saving heaps of money to blow in Europe.
5. You know you’re in Morocco. You just can’t be anywhere else
4. The super friendliness of most people.
3. The atmosphere in Marrakech. Amazing.
2. The Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. Stunning.
1. The food stalls and surrounding atmosphere in Marrakech. There’s no place like it.
Gibraltar town photos
