Since we were staying in Marbella, and it was only a little over an hour drive down to the southern most tip of Spain, which has a ferry that crosses over to Africa, it was kind of a no brainer that we would be making that happen.
So Monday morning we got up and headed to Morocco. It was such an amazing experience, I don't even know what to say about it. We really only got a taste, we only got to spend about five hours there, but it was definitely enough to give us a little jolt of culture shock, and also to make us wish we had a bit more time there.
Here is Jesse getting ready to board the ferry:
Inside the ferry:
Heading away from Spain:
Our first view of Africa, off in the distance:
Pulling into Tangier, here is new town:
and old town:
We had read in Rick Steves (God bless Rick Steves) that we would be swarmed with "guides" (ie hustlers) from the minute we stepped off the boat, which was absolutely true. We were still walking through the parking lot towards town in this picture, and this was I think the third guy that we were turning down. They tell you "You will be swarmed with mosquitos all day, you need to hire me, I will protect you, and one mosquito is better than many." And they are seriously as annoying as mosquitos buzzing in your ears, too.
And so, to get the other mosquitos to leave us alone, we finally hired Samere (no idea if that is spelled right, sorry, buddy). He was a nice enough dude, but he definitely showed us the part of Tangier that will make him money. We only paid him a couple euro to show us around, but as a "guide", he gets a cut of anything that we buy. We had been warned of this, and warned that they will mostly show you places where you will buy things. I told Samere of two places that I wanted him to show us, and the first we just kinda glided by (he said there wasn't really anything to see, and I didn't realize until later that he was in a hurry to get us off to the shops), and the second he never even got us to, we finally got there later in the day by ourselves. He did however, take us to a carpet store and let us look at lots of different kinds of rugs with a very knowledgeable salesman. And he definitely encouraged us to look at certain little stores, while seeming annoyed when we wanted to stop at others (it was obvious which stores were his buddies). But like he told us, he is "like Coca Cola, everyone know me". Which was true, and he was friendly, and he did show us around a bit, so it was all good.
There are houses in old town (the only part that Samere showed us) that have been purchased by Europeans and fixed up. It is very obvious walking around which ones they are:
Chatting:
Walking the streets:
These houses were actually touching:
At the edge of Africa, Spain is somewhere behind us:
We paid a couple euro to the tourist trap snake charmers, but it was kinda fun to see:
It's hard to tell, but that is a cobra:
The one for the tourists to hold is harmless :) :
Some kids in traditional dress:
At the top of the carpet store, surveying old town:
Old town was very interesting as far as the mixture of culture. A lot of people still wear the full traditional garments, with women's heads covered, but you see Moroccans dressed very westernized, too. The old town was obviously the biggest culture shock, as it is where the poorest inhabitants live, and there is such blatant poverty. There are sickly looking cats everywhere, and garbage in the streets. At one point we passed this little water fountain thing, and just as I was thinking that I was thirsty but there was no way I would drink out of that thing, Samere informed us that that was where people who didn't have water in their house came to fill up buckets and jugs. And sure enough, we saw a guy filling up buckets and hauling them back to his house.
We bought several things in old town, some clothes for the kids and we each got leather sandals. Everything is negotiable, and already cheap, so we really hardly spent any money and got quite a bit of clothing, and lunch. For two entrees, four bottles of water, and dessert, we paid about 10 euro. Here are some pics of the shopping area:
(this guy was really bothered that I photographed his shop):
The spanish mission:
About that time, we realized that Samere was just going to keep us wandering the streets of old town all day, so that we could keep buying things from his buddies, so we paid him and set off on our own. Here is the Grand Square (the second place I had requested to go, it separates old and new town, but it was obvious he was not wanting to take us there). This side is old town:
This side is new town:
It was still nothing like we would expect in our country, but it was definitely newer and more modern that the other side of town. Here is the mosque on the square:
An entrance to a garden where they were praying:
When we left the square, we went out through the market, which are these tiny, narrow, enclosed streets lined with booths. There are no pictures of the market, as the smells were overwhelming, and it was all I could do to concentrate on walking quickly and getting myself out of there without throwing up.
When we came out the other side, I was able to photograph some more :) :
We bought a couple more things from this lady, in a comparatively huge shop in new town:
The street that lines the beach:
I had really wanted to see a camel, and literally as we were turning to head back to the boat I spotted this off in the distance:
So I convinced Jess that we had just enough time for me to hop on!
It was a bit crazy when he stood, I was definitely holding on to not go flying off:
This was one of the highlights of our day for me.
The petite taxi we had to jump in to get back to the boat, since we took the little detour for my camel ride:
Again, the contrast in housing:
Another mosque:
And back to the southern tip of Spain:
So, we were pretty warn out physically and mentally from our time in Africa, but I had researched Gibraltar before hand, and was interested to see it. We went back and forth, and finally decided, we were there, it would be a shame to not at least try to drive through. Man, what an unexpected, and very cool place. If you don't know the background behind Gibraltar, google it. It's basically a little chunk of land, mostly a huge rock, that is connected to Spain, but is owned by the British. There is a lot of animosity between the two countries over this little tiny piece of land, and the inhabitants are super proud to be British, so it is literally like being in England.
The Spanish pretend that it doesn't exist, so there are very few signs for it. Here is one of I think only three that we saw, with the actual rock and town in the background:
The first thing we did was to drive up as high as we could on the rock. This is looking down over the town of Gibraltar:
There are monkeys that live on the rock, and they are of course completely used to humans, with all the tourists and what not. We were told that they can touch you, but don't touch them, which we found to be true. They are not afraid of humans at all, but if you get too close to them, they were a bit aggressive. But so darn cute!!!
Just catching a ride down the road on our car:
Checking for food:
Jesse was trying to get him to jump on his shoulder:
But no luck:
There were lots and lots of babies, and they were darling:
Pretty cool place to live:
The Gibraltar flag, British flag, and EU flag (with monkeys):
They have a runway (in the past, Spain has closed the border, and the only way for Gilbraltarians to get water and supplies was by plane) which crosses the only road into and out of Gibraltar.
That road that runs between the white and yellow buildings is the border. Everything beyond those yellow buildings and trees is Spain:
Looking down over town:
The Moorish castle (really just a tower basically):
We found a little Rick recommended pub for dinner. Again, you would never know that you were close to Spain, they are so separated:
Bangers and mash:
