Morocco, part 3

On our third and final day in Morocco, our day started very similarly to our second, with a wake-up call, breakfast, and getting on the bus with all of our luggage, and taking a 2 hour ride through the beautiful countryside of Morocco. I wanted to sleep through the ride because I was worn out from activities and travel but the scenery was too gorgeous to close my eyes on. Everything was so green and lush, with views of mountains, and small towns, and animals grazing in fields. I would have taken pictures, but taking any picture through a bus window would not do it justice. Therefore, I had to resort to taking a mental picture and remembering the jaw-dropping pure, natural beauty that the land provided.

After the ride, we arrived in Chefchaouen, a small mountain town. For a couple hours, we took a tour that winded in and out of the small alleys and we learned about the history and traditions of the town.  One of the best parts about traveling around the town was getting the chance to see the blue streets and allies around town. Most were blue, but others were white and green. Although it doesn’t hold true very much now, they used to designate which areas the men, women, and both sexes were allowed to go down. Or at least, that’s what I got from the explanation that was given in Spanish.  One hundred photos later, and once the tour had ended, we were given more free time to shop around. This experience was better than the day before, but I say this because it was more successful. I ended up bartering for many different things and all in Spanish. I found it easier to communicate in Spanish than in English, which was fun.  A couple items I would look at because I found them interesting but didn’t want to buy them, and as soon as the shopkeeper saw me looking at it he would immediately throw out a price for me. I told him that I didn’t want it, but then he kept lowering it until it was at a price I really just couldn’t pass up! So yes, bartering and shopping was indeed successful.

We later had lunch in a local hotel and had a few last minutes to take in the beautiful scenery surrounding us and eventually we all boarded the bus for the last time, and headed back to Cueta to take the ferry back across the Gibraltar Straight. Although the travel time back to Sevilla was long and at points nauseating, it was all easily cured by reminiscing with friends and with an iPod and a pound of gummy bears!

Someday I’m sure I will head back to Morocco, and hopefully spread my African experience South, into other countries to see the other sides that the continent offers. However, for now, I’m content with my brief stay. I like to think of it as an appetizer to many trips to come!

A look up at the mountains from Chefchaouen.

A few of our opportunities to shop

A view at Chefchaouen.

Views from the street

The blue streets

An area for friends to spend time together.

Doors are this small so people are forced to bow, they aren't short!

A multitude of colors!

Views from the street, part 2

My friends Michelle, Matt, and I surrounded by blue!

Erin and I

A local bakery. It smelled amazing!

The mountains surrounding the town.

A look back at Chefchaouen.

Laundry time!

Shopping!

More opportunities to shop. They were endless!

Morocco, part 2

On the second day of the trip, each room received a wake up call, which I appreciated and despised all at the same time, and we all moved like zombies to go each breakfast. The breakfast consisted of carbohydrates, in short. There were plenty of pastries, muffins, other bread-like foods we couldn’t identify, but were tasty, and something that looked like a square pancake. I never was able to identify that either, but it tasted great with honey. Just about the only protein we were able to find were hard boiled eggs.

After carb-loading, we hopped back on the bus and took a ride to Tangier,  which included beautiful views of mountains, green fields, and small farms where you could see farmers or herders walking around with their animals. We stopped for a quick break to get coffee, a small snack, and use the bathrooms in Tangier, and then reboarded the bus to go to the Coke factory for a program-wide company visit.

At the Coke bottling plant, we split into 3 different groups and took tours with workers of the plant. My group was with the plant manager, and from what I noticed the only woman at the plant (you go girl!). We weren’t allowed to take pictures because the process was apparently super secret. We got to see how the plastic bottles start the process from start to end: initially the bottles themselves are just small tubes that get whipped through a heated air process that expands them to their end size. They then get washed, filled, stamped, and end up getting shrink-wrapped with a few dozen other bottles. The process is quick and efficient, although I’m sure they would pay plenty of good money to better the process even further. I was amazed at the machinery, and logistics that went into making this whole process flow. It must have been the engineering interest in me that made me want to go into engineering initially when I wet to Purdue.

Once we finished the tour, we were allowed to drink as much free Coke as we wanted, and as a huge Coca-Cola fan, I appreciated this! We left the plant hopped up on caffeine, and headed towards a northern beach outside the city. Here, we spent about a half hour just walking around and enjoying the feel of sand on our feet and the smell of the Gibraltar Straight, which just smells like salt water.

After the beach, we went to lunch outside the city on top of a cliff and had a beautiful view of the water. We ate a salad and what looked like a potpie of sorts. It all tasted very good, and of course to end, we had cookies. This last part of the meal I was getting used to very fast, as every meal ended this way with mint tea. Yum! Lunch was followed up by a tour of the caves of Hercules, which were just very old caves, and ironically had an entrance from the water that looked eerily like the continent of Africa.

Thanks to our good behavior (sort of) during the trip, we were allowed to go and ride camels for fun next to the beach! It wasn’t a camel ride of any substantial amount of time, but hey, I can now say that I’ve ridden a camel!!! Even though we basically just went in a circle, it was still a lot of fun and it made me smile plenty. Riding a camel was one of my main objectives on the trip, so well done me! Mission accomplished!

We were driven back into Tangier, so we could have some free time to shop around and barter with venders. In short, you could imagine. Getting used to bargaining with the shopkeepers was difficult to get used to, but kind of fun at the same time. We were told by our program assistant, Virginia, that we would find the best deals here, so everyone “went to town” on their shopping excursions. I didn’t buy very much there, just the two things I wanted the most: Real Madrid Warm-ups, and Ray Ban sunglasses, with the grand total costing me less than 25 euros. I think I did a pretty good job!

Once everyone was tired out from bartering, we got back on the bus and took our hour long ride back to Tetuán, where we stopped for a little bit to have mint tea and cookies at a restaurant, and then headed back to the hotel for dinner and bed. The day was packed with events and I had the ability to see another side of Morocco. Although Tetuán is also a substantial city, Tangier is even bigger, and much cleaner. As I learned during the day, Tangier has more money and it is where the wealthy live and where different royal families have their houses. Therefore, the city is much cleaner, but it also has a history with deep roots. So, we all headed to bed knowing more, and seeing different parts of northern Africa. 

View of the beach, the Gibraltar Straight, and Europe in the distance.

Some friends and I ready for the day!

A shot at Tangier

The entrance to the Coke plant.

Ready for our super secret tour of the plant. Bring it on!

Free coke bottles.

The beach in Morocco.

A perfect picture for a desktop photo. Feel free to steal it!

And we're excited to be here!

Smile!

Our view from lunch.

The Caves of Hercules.

Camel ride!

Luckily he didn't spit on me.

"Helloooo little one!"

Smile part 2.

Another view of Tangier.

Waka Waka Africa, pt.1

Well, the last month has been a complete rollercoaster whirlwind. So let’s backtrack…

Three weeks ago, half of the program including myself (the other half had already gone) headed to the continent of Africa for a three-day excursion. The trip started on a Thursday, and we were all excused from our classes so we woke up not-so-bright and early and got on a coach bus at 7am. At the early time, the Shakira song “Waka Waka” had already become the anthem for the entire trip since it relates to Africa because of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. (Hence the title) We had to bus to a southern port city in Spain where we got some breakfast at the port and then boarded a ferry for our hour long ride across the Gibraltar Straight. Thanks to being exposed to motion sickness (compliments of the family plane) at an early age, I faired the trip pretty well. Others were not as lucky.

We arrived to Africa, but not in Morocco an hour later. We were in the Spanish territory Cueta, so although I could say I was in Africa, I couldn’t yet say I was in Morocco. We had to hop on a bus and go through customs where we all got our passports stamped and then met our tour guide for our first city. For some reason, he wanted to be called Michael Douglas instead of his real name: Abdul. Maybe he thought it was too difficult to say? Who knows.

We first drove into the city of Tetuán and went on a tour of the local workshop school. Here, selected students had the ability to enhance skills like woodworking, metalwork, ceramics, glasswork, and more. It was Spring Break for the students, so we didn’t see very many around, but still were able to see all the work rooms and their amazingly beautiful pieces of art.

Following this tour, we walked into the Medina (city center) of Tetuán where we passed plenty of people selling fruits, clothes, pans, dead chickens, almost anything you could think while we winded around the city streets to get to our lunch spot. The layout of the city was very confusing, mostly because the city is so old, there wasn’t very much city planning used when things were being built.

Lunch was a traditional Moroccan meal, which consisted of 4 courses: meat, couscous, cookies, and mint tea. Everything was very delicious and it was a fun atmosphere to hang out with cushions on the furniture, and some guy spinning candles on his head, and the ability to get henna tattoos if we wanted. I passed on it though.

After lunch we took our bus back to the hotel where we had just enough time to throw our bags in our room and wash up and then we were headed back out to Tetuán to take a tour of the city. When we got back into the Medina, they gave us a few minutes to change our money if we wanted, and while standing around, my friends and I noticed that there were a handful of men just standing around watching us every once in while. It was somewhat unnerving until I realized that they were our personal “undercover” bodyguards. There was one that was pretending to listen to some music with a video camera case, another was reading a newspaper, and a couple others just talking. Whenever someone would get to close to us trying to sell something, or just generally walking too close to the group, one of the guys would jump up and chase him off.

Our tour of the city took us around the market streets where we saw just about everything, like I mentioned before, and then some. We also took a tour of the local tannery, where we were all given spearmint leaves for the smell—and they were used plenty! We also took a tour of the living quarters of the city and had an explanation of family roles, husband, wife, and children. Also on our tour, we were able to see one of the oldest synagogues in Tetuán, which was only a few hundred meters from multiple mosques, and a church. So the town had some diversity in its walls for sure. Also, a couple times a day we were able to hear the call to prayer given over the city’s loud speakers and people would start to head to their local mosque to go pray. During our tour, we ran into a funeral procession a few times. The procession only had men in it, 4 were carrying the coffin, and they would circle the medina 3 times, twice singing, and once in silence. It was interesting to watch and see the differences in our cultural traditions.

In general, I would say in Tetuán most people welcomed us being there. Obviously we didn’t look like the locals, so people could tell that we were different and either would say “Welcome to Morocco” or “Enjoy your stay” in English or Spanish. There were a couple men who walked by and in Arabic they would say something that would merit the bodyguards to chase them off. I never felt unsafe in the city, especially with the bodyguards around. The city itself was pretty dirty. It is so old that it’s difficult to clean, especially when the alleys and roads are sometimes just dirt.

Dinner was had back at the hotel, and was pretty traditional once again. For every meal over the weekend, we were given bottles of water to split between two people since the water in the city was untreated.

After dinner, we headed to our rooms, were I shared one with Erin and Maria, and took showers, and went to bed after a long day filled with many different experiences.

Michelle, me, Jessica, and Alisa on the ferry

First spotting of Africa!

Cueta

Building on the drive into Tetuán

Wood workings in the workshop

Tile works

Metal works

A desk made by students

Enjoying the workshop!

Walking through the markets in the Medina

First course of lunch

Second course

Enjoying lunch with friends!

"Super secret" bodyguards

The many views of Tetuán

Erin, "Michael Douglas", and me

Inside the synagogue 

Dressing up a classmate in a traditional Moroccan outfit

Smelling the spearmint for the tannery

Inside the tannery

Little boys taking their shoes off before going into the mosque for evening prayer