06 March 2011

Morocco, Gibraltar & Ireland

Sorry we haven't blogged in a few days, but it isn't because we don't have anything to write about! On Friday we had a coffee and toast in the town's market. After we had finished, the waiter came up to us and told us that this older man that we had only said "Buenas Dias" to had bought our breakfast for us! He was standing in the background waving at us with his wife. So cute! Then we took a ferry over to Tangier, but made the mistake of taking a tour. At first, it was really great! We were packed into a taxi with Mustapha as our driver and 3 Germans. We had a lot of fun trying to understand each other and Mustapha was a GREAT tour guide! Then we joined the other tour van for a quick camel ride. Definitely didn't know we would be riding camels when we woke up in the morning!

Then we went on a walking tour of the downtown. We were in LOVE with all the colors and styles of the buildings. We had a wonderful lunch of soup, sausage, and Cous Cous (yummy). The next part of the walking tour was not as enjoyable. We were completely surrounded by people trying to sell us things on the street. They knew that we were a tour group and they knew our route, so they followed us the whole way. We were brought to a carpet shop, where they tried to sell us things, and a spice shop, where they tried to sell us things. Then we actually went shopping to various stores. In one store, the salesman literally took our jackets off and put a shirt on us by force trying to get us to buy them. It was a very aggressive approach to sales (to say the least). But, we managed to get out of Morocco in the end!

On the ferry back, we met 4 girls from the states that had been studying in Morocco this year. They were going to Spain for their holiday. We were able to show them the way to the bus station and it felt SO good to help someone in crisis rather than be the ones lost and confused! Then we went back to our hostel for more DELICIOUS tapas. We asked the owner just to bring us sorpresas tonight, and everything tasted delicious! In the morning, we spent some more time in the market...even running into the man that had bought our breakfast the day before! Amy got a churizzo (not quite sure if that's the right spelling) and we even got to go into the food stand and learn how they are made! We didn't know how much a kilo was, and ordered a kilo of strawberries for 1.50 euros. SO MANY STRAWBERRIES!!!
Afterwards, we took a bus to Gibraltar and managed to get to the cable car to head on up. The cable car was quite scary! But, we met 3 guys from Ireland in it and ended up walking around the top of Gibraltar with them! Their names are Liem, Keith, and Andrew and we enjoyed hearing their accents haha. On the top of Gibraltar, there are a bunch of wild apes! They are very used to jumping on top of tourists, and also can bite! So, we were a bit freaked out and ended up hiding behind the Irish guys a lot.

But, it was overall a wonderful experience and a very beautiful view of Spain and Morocco.

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