My 145 Day Journey: 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.