We were in Tangier ten days, most of which Dad was sick, which is quite a bugger really as I usually use his blogs to remind myself of what we did. So for this one I will just have to strain my brain to remember a period that was seven months ago, or make things up. I have been told the latter is a good idea. Perhaps this blog post will be about how I was kidnapped by pirates, but escaped, only to be eaten by a sea monster. I survived of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this post.
So onto what I do remember. That first day there we stood on a street corner after our taxi had dropped us off. We were in the middle of town, and we weren’t sure if the driver had even known where to drop us off as there was a bit of a language barrier, or had just left us where was convenient. However we were lucky, and although he had tried to kill us, he had dropped us right around the corner from where we were staying.
The apartment was surprisingly very beautiful despite the street below, with elegant furnishings and two lounge rooms. The kitchen was quite basic though and the stove was just a bench top gas cooker, which we found is typical for Morocco. The woman who owned the apartment was very friendly and dropped in one day to bring us a huge tray of Moroccan sweets. That first night we went out to a restaurant down near the waterfront, where we had an alright meal, and were served the worst mint tea we had tried thus far. It was complimentary at least, although this meant we felt obliged to drink it. It was quite nasty.
The next day we got a sense of the enormity of the city. Tangier is very large, and for the most part has fairly good infrastructure around the city. We walked an hour each way to a shopping centre for something to do, walking different ways each time. On the way back we stopped in at a market, which had live chickens in tiny cages with their legs tied together. I found it a little distressing.
While Dad stayed in bed with his life-threatening man flu, Mum and I decided to take a walk to a shopping centre, and walked along the waterfront. A lot of money had clearly been invested into modernising it, and there is a wide board walk that covers the expanse of the main part of the coast line. Along it there are parks, people selling food and even some offering horse rides. Otherwise Mum and I kept ourselves entertained going for grocery trips, and I spent some time on the roof playing with the baby husky I had found living up there. It was only there a few days, we assumed someone was visiting and had brought their puppy with. I was very sad one day to find it gone.
Speaking of puppies, we went on a walk to a local market selling vegetables; you could get bags full of stuff for a few dollars, and went to the Church of Saint Andrews. There is a Moroccan style garden outside and we found a bounding puppy running to and fro. I played with it for a while and took a few photos, it was clearly posing for me, then we went inside the church, which was surprisingly interesting. Morocco is a very religiously tolerant country, despite being overwhelmingly Muslim, and this is reflected in the Christian church, which had a mix of mix of Christian and Qur’anic inscriptions on the walls.
My parents had considered staying in the historic Hotel Continental, although decided against it and instead we dropped in for tea one day. The drinks themselves were nothing special, although the building really was a sight to behold. We walked around afterwards almost as long as it had taken us to have drinks, just taking photos of the beautiful walls and archways.
We often walked around the Medina; visiting the souks, as well as the American Legation (now a museum) and Kasbah Museum. I learned a legation is essentially an embassy, and this one is relevant as Morocco was the first country to recognise America as a country, so the Moroccans believe the two countries have a special friendship. Whether America feels the same I’m not sure. I didn’t enjoy walking around the Kasbah, as I was getting wolf whistled and there were groups of guys saying stuff to me. Some of what they said was in English, some I thankfully didn’t understand. It made me feel super uncomfortable, and I stayed pretty close to my parents. I was happy to get into the museum, which was in the old palace and houses many cultural artefacts and has a pretty garden. I also found some turtles wandering about, which I was quite happy about. Turtles are much easier to photograph than most animals.
A short walk away there is the Cafe Hafa, which is a famous spot as it has a beautiful view overlooking the coast. We were sitting there for about 20 minutes and no one served us, so we took some photos and then headed off to the Phoenician tombs next door. Carved into the cliff side there are these coffin shaped holes in the rock. There are dozens of them, it’s hard to believe anyone would have taken the time to carve them all. Furthermore there aren’t any guard rails. So my best advice if you’re ever to visit is watch your step, otherwise you might step backwards into a hole and fall off a cliff.
On our final two days we decided to get hop on hop off bus tickets, which had two routes available. On the first day we took the bus to do a tour around town, which gave me an appreciation for just how much ground we had covered on our walks. It seemed every second street I was saying, “We walked there!” and it made me feel quite satisfied that we had seen everything worth seeing. On the second day we took the route up to Cape Spartel, which has a lighthouse and is the most northern point of Africa. We decided to stop in at a restaurant and have lunch, even though we expected it would probably be over-priced and touristy due to its brilliant location. We were however very happy to find this was not the case, and the food was both affordable and delicious. We have since even thought that it might have been the best meal of the entire trip.
Afterwards we walked along a path on the cliff side, until we reached a beach where we thought we’d cut across. We were heading towards the Cave of Hercules, which legend dictates was where Hercules slept before doing his 11th labour, getting the golden apples from Hespirides Garden. Once we’d reached the end of the beach a few hours later, we attempted to climb over some rocks to get up into the cave. We couldn’t find a way through, and then Dad tried to walk over a wire fence, at which point he was yelled at by a security guard with a big dog. We decided this was not the way to go and had to back track a little bit, before finally finding the road again.
The cave was hollowed out by the Berber people, who cut out circular pieces of rock to use as wheels. There is a gap in the cave looking out to the sea, which resembles the shape of Africa. It’s a huge tourist attraction so there were lots of people there, and in the cave it was fairly low light. I was paranoid I was going to run into someone or something. After we made it out of the cave we stopped for a quick drink then took the bus back.
That was it for Tangier, except for wrestling a sea monster and finding some long lost treasure at the bottom of the sea. Next we were off to Chefchaouen, otherwise known as the blue city.
Anna Fay On Holiday 