The six of us took this trip with a tour company called European Vibe, and there were 15 of us all together. We all changed a little money (which turned out to be unnecessary, as everywhere we went seemed willing to accept euros) and were met at the airport by our local Moroccan tour guide and immediately set off for Hercules Cave, which is a real cave that looks out on the water.
The quick stop at the cave was followed by a short drive toward Tanger and then a stop off to ride camels. Yes, within two hours of being in Africa, we got to ride camels! When we got there the bus pulled over and our guide said, "We go to the camels now, please. The camels. Yes," which became a joke among our group for the rest of the weekend. It was a little terrifying at first because the camels are very jerky getting up and sitting down, but the ride was fine, and the guys who took care of the camels were funny. Lots of great pictures coming from that adventure.
After the camels we went to the Hotel Continental, which is where Casablanca was filmed. It's not a particularly fancy hotel now, but it has a lot of character. Nidhi, Leigha, and I shared a room and the boys had the room directly above us. We all settled in, regrouped, and then the six of us decided to go out exploring a little bit before we were picked up by another tour guide later for dinner.
It was already dark and a little hard to navigate the tiny twisting streets of the city, but we worked our way down towards the water and found some small restaurants where we decided to have a little something to eat, as we were all quite hungry. (This turned into a tradition we now call pregaming dinner with dinner.) The place we went to was extremely cheap. I had a bowl of soup and a soda and the whole thing was 12 dirham, equivalent to 1.2 euros, which is still less than two US dollars. If only the rest of our meals could have been that cheap. Our waiter didn't speak English, though we did have menus in English and Spanish, and the food wasn't too bad, considering we didn't really know what anything was.
Then we went back to the hotel and met up with the rest of the group to go to the tour dinner, where we got a three-course meal and baklava for dessert for ten euros. There was also live Moroccan music played, and at the end we all danced. It was a little strange, like everything about the trip, but it was fun. When we left the restaurant, our night tour guide (who liked flamboyant shirts) made sure we all spoke Spanish and then told us (in Spanish) that people don't normally go out on Friday nights in Morocco but that if anyone wanted to go out, they wouldn't have to go alone. I don't know what anybody else did but my group decided to hang out in our room, watch TV and relax, as we were all still a little tired from Thanksgiving the night before.
Saturday morning we had breakfast in the hotel (several kinds of bread, cheese, juice, coffee, and cereal) and then met our tour guide from the day before to go on a walking tour of Tanger. I finally learned that the Kasbah (as in "Rock the") is the old part of town in Arabic countries. We walked through impossibly tiny streets and saw miniscule shops, taking in daily life in Tanger. We stopped at a store where they made Moroccan carpets and were given a show of all the different types, and then some people bought some. Nidhi and I worked hard to refuse, but managed to get out of the store without buying anything. We also stopped at a place with lots of typical Moroccan goods, jewelry, mirrors, glass and metal objects, etc.
But the real selling happened in the streets, where we were actually chased by people trying to sell us stuff. I put on my "don't talk to me" sunglasses and a stony New Yorker face and didn't pay any attention to them and they mostly left me alone. Others of my group made the mistake of showing them the least bit of attention, which meant they then usually couldn't get away until they had bought something.
Also on our tour we stopped at a Moroccan pharmacy, where we were shown all the different herbs and things they had for various ailments. I bought some Moroccan tea to take home to share with my family, because we had had it the night before at the restaurant and it was quite delicious.
After the tour finished, we got on the bus and headed for a side trip to Asilah, a beautiful coastal town. Our first stop was lunch at what seemed to be a nice restaurant, but none of us were big fans of Moroccan food, as it turned out, so it was a little disappointing. After lunch we took a walking tour of Asilah, which was much cleaner than Tanger, and saw all the white washed buildings and some amazing graffiti. Then we had a little free time to shop and explore, and Nidhi and Leigha got henna.
We took the bus back to Tanger and had some free time before we went out for the night with the group. It was unclear if the place we were going had dinner, so we pregamed dinner with dinner again, this time at the hotel restaurant. Then we ended up going to a bar which also served food, and we ate with the group and watched a soccer game - Barça against a minor Madrid team, which happened to beat FCB, a big coup.
After the game was over our tour guide took us to his friend's bar, a place that would stay open past midnight. Everywhere else was closing at midnight because of some big holiday; I'm not really sure about all that. The bar was pretty empty when we got there but got crowded quickly (we ourselves were 15 people) and was extremely smoky. I tried to enjoy myself but it was hot and hard to breathe.
I don't remember what time it was when we left, but after a slightly scary ride through the streets of Tanger we made it back to our hotel. I wanted to shower because everything was so smoky, but there was no hot water so I fell into bed instead.
We had breakfast the next morning in the hotel again and then went out for more exploring and shopping. Originally a shuttle was supposed to take us all to the airport at 9:30 in the morning, but no one had a flight before 2:30 so we arranged to be picked up at 1 instead. My friends and I went in search of a few more souvenirs. I found a necklace at a small shop where I talked with the owner in Spanish and he complimented my language skills. Probably to get me to buy things, but it was nice to hear anyway. I also picked up some pretty little glasses painted with moroccan looking designs on them as gifts.
I wasn't hungry but my friends were so we grabbed some food to go as we headed back to the hotel to pack up before the shuttle. We met up with the rest of the group and watched from the terrace for a van that looked like ours to arrive in the parking lot. One finally showed up at around 1:30, and we went down to it. It wasn't our van. Fortunately there was a French girl with us who could talk to the driver and figure out what was going on. He made a call and we eventually got taken to the airport. It was admittedly a little weird, like everything else on the trip.
At security in the airport we were separated by gender into lines because after you went through security they did a pat-down of everyone, period. Interesting. The Tanger airport is kind of funny because it only has 3 gates, and they're so close together that the planes don't actually pull up to them. You walk out to the plane on the tarmac. When you walk into the airport you can see the other side of the building. It's probably the size of about 3 high school gyms put together.
We all slept on the way back to Madrid (an hour long flight) and then went our separate ways. Nidhi and I took the subway home together, and then I headed off to get some schoolwork done with friends.
And that leaves only one trip... London! Coming soon.
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