morocco: tetuan, tanger, chef chouen

March 16-18:

once again, I blink my eyes and realize how fast time is going…every time I log on here to blog, I can’t believe how much ive done since I last posted. And thus is the case here, but im gonna try to chop it up into two posts, and just tell yall about morocco right now…

first off, my time in morocco was slightly tainted because not only did I break my camera half way through the first day, I also lost my credit card. Everything is worked out now, thanks to a few loving parents and a patient credit union employee, but at the time it was a bit difficult to look past. However, Morocco proved to be one of the most eye opening and “different” places id ever been.

a bunch of kids from our program and I all signed up through this program which does weekend tours to three cities in Morocco for a fairly reasonable, all inclusive price of 180 euros. We left straight from Granada on March 16 and headed to our ferry out of the Spanish port city which im currently drawing a blank on. The ferry is only a little over an hour to Africa, and we made it there by Friday evening, exchanged our euros for some durum spending money, and headed straight to our hotel in Tetuan. All of our meals for the trip were in our hotels and they turned out to be really good (its too sketchy too eat anything else off the streets). After breakfast we headed into downtown Tetuan, and like all of our city tours, we pretty much just walked around the cities which proved to be an excellent way to get a feel for things. We began walking through the main drag of town and the markets before I had my fateful encounter of peeking into a muslim mosque and dropping my camera. I did get some great pics that were later salvaged, so here they are, all from Tetuan…

the main drag

a mosque

market

man on the market strip; not happy with my photo

moroccan men chillin

i like this one

our nutty tour guide showin us some fine African merchandise

Well, that is it for all the pics I was able to take after my clumsy camera fiasco, but luckily I was accompanied with plenty of picture-snappin friends who I stole a few photos from to show you the rest of the cities we visited.

The middle city we saw was Tanger, and was actually the most disappointing, simply because it was a bigger, industrial city. We walked all around the market and actually bought a few trinkets (get stoked mom and ben), and then went on to check out a sweet view of the ocean. Here’s the pic…

Jamie, Rob, Me, and Lauren

our final city in Morocco was Chef Chouen, the less poverished of the three, although that’s a relative term when you are in Africa. Chef Chouen is a tiny little city further south and inland from the other two cities, and is known for its gorgeous location in the foothills of the mountains and for its abundance of blue painted doors.

one of the token blue doors

…and me in an alley

well, I feel as if that should give yall a bit of a peek into what Africa was like, definitely an opportunity I am glad I took advantage of since Granada is so close.

I hope to have up my spring break adventures (Netherlands and Sweden) here shortly as well, so until then, enjoy the pics, and leave some comments like usual, Id love to hear from you. Until then, take care.

Love. pete