29 in Morocco!

25/02/24

My birthday!

After spending my 27th and 28th birthdays abroad in Jordan and Ecuador, I decided I should be away for my 29th, too! I booked an early flight and headed over to Gibraltar 🇬🇮 where I would cross into Spain and meet Aisling before catching a ferry over to Morocco. We had always talked about getting a boat to Morocco from Spain, so we figured we may as well just do it. ☑️ The Spanish were only a little iffy about me entering Spain from a British territory, but after some discussion in my shit Spanish, they wished me ‘happy birthday’ and waved me through.

The next ferry was leaving soon when we scoped out the port so we bought tickets and the vender hurried us along when I enquired about a good coffee shop. No time for that! We boarded the ferry after a quick ticket check and settled in to what was a luxurious boat, featuring a cafe with a large, shiny coffee machine and a young barista keen to crack out his English.

We ordered coffee and chose nice window seats before Aisling showered me with cake, a large variety and quantity. Glorious. We chatted and ate and watched the small waves as we inched over the sea to the African continent. We landed in Ceuta, the Spanish equivalent of Gibraltar and mooched about the gorgeous colonial town (Colombian vibes), before settling into a busy tapas bar. We sat on the street with two cups of tinto de verano and our food. How divine!

After lunch, we got a bus to the border and walked through. It was pretty straightforward. Then we got a taxi to Tetouan, where we were staying.  The driver dropped us at one of the seven gates of the old medina, and we weaved our way through the maze of bustling alleys to our riad. It went surprisingly well, and we arrived easily to receive a warm welcome and some Moroccan tea on the rooftop as the sun was setting over the town and behind the mountains. Unfortunately, the view was a little too good, and various Z list celebrities came to make music videos. One pale Moroccan guy with a very bushy ginger beard pretended to sing the same ballad in Arabic at least 3 times while we sipped our tea. After each one, a girl went to pat his face and touch up his makeup, and then they would go again. They kindly gave is a moment to snap the view before they carried on with the filming. At the time, we assumed it was some kind of uni project and not someone actually famous!! Oops!

We headed out into the medina for dinner and went to a restaurant called La Union for a cheap but delicious tagine dinner, recommended to us by Mohammed, the manager of our riad. We ordered a lamb tagine and a chicken tagine – it was glorious. On returning to the hostel, Mohammed wished me a happy birthday and gave us cake.

26/02/24

Welcome to Morocco! 🌧🌧🌧

We were shocked to wake up to pouring rain. Some may even say torrential!!

After a nippy rooftop breakfast, I decided to venture out to get my nails done, a rare treat for a nurse! I was soaked in the first 5 minutes of walking, but after someone offered me an umbrella for €30, I decided I’d rather be wet! I had pinned a place on Google called Sarah’s Salon with good reviews, but when I ‘arrived’, there was no sign of the salon. I walked up the hill past it and was coming back down again when an old man came to meet me. He asked if I was okay, and I asked if Spanish or English was better. We switched to Spanish. I told him I was looking for a salon to do my nails. He took me to a closed door and called inside. The door opened a fraction, and he spoke to two women in Arabic. The salon was closed for renovation, but since I only wanted my nails doing and not my hair, they could do it anyway. I thanked Mohammed, and declined his offer of waiting for me outside – he would’ve been waiting ages!!

Sarah’s salon had been and gone, but now Haja was setting up her own salon with the help of her mother. I got gel nails (oops) for $5, a bargain I’d say! We communicated through minimal English and Google translate. Once the nails were done, she even offered to dry my rain soaked hair, but I declined. What was the point?! 🤣🤣 I headed back to the riad to meet Aisling.

By the time I returned, the rain had stopped, so we headed out into the riad. We were keen to go to the hammam to wash, as we thought the hostel didn’t have hot water. We weaved through the medina,  stopping to be led up a series of stairs to a rooftop view, before finding the traditional hammam we were looking for. A man sat in a kiosk piled high with toiletries and sweets called for the hammam woman to come and tend to us, and she explained how it worked. Luckily, we had caught the hammam at the correct time for women – women had the daytime, and men had it early and late. We stocked up on toiletries before going inside to pay two ladies to give us a good scrub each. We paid $8 each for the experience, and while the scrubbing was a little painful at the time, my skin was very soft afterwards! I think it would be excruciating with sunburn, so I guess it’s lucky there’s no sun in North Morocco in February!! 🤣🤣 While there was no nail clipping in this hammam (like in Georgia), there was lots of scrubbing while laying entirely naked on the floor. Everyone was chilling, minding their own business, sharing the odd smile. I tried to imagine how it would work at home with everyone blushing, avoiding all eye contact, and trying to cover their bits!!

After the hammam, we wandered about. I got a Moroccan pancake with honey, and then we wandered up a hill to find an excellent coffee vender and a nice viewpoint.  We sat out on a bench in the sun with the rest of the birthday cake and a coffee watching some teens play football, with a backdrop of the city, the  mountains, and the sea. How lovely. Afterwards, we went back into the medina, passing a shepherd with his sheep, probably taking them to market. We found the traditional goods market, and we’re welcomed first by an older man, a teacher, and then by Ali, who first showed us round the shops and then just chatted with us in Spanish. He gave us earrings and gave us some liver baguette to try while we chatted. He told us he would take us for tagine with his brother Ahmed, and he would show us the discotheque of Tetouan. The thought of a disco in Tetouan seemed very surprising to us and we wanted to ask the manager of our riad, Mohammed, about it. Apparently, Ali and him knew each other. Eventually,  we headed home.

We hung out downstairs and chatted to Mohammed and then Anas, ‘like Ananas’, a businessman from Seville. Anas left, and we headed out, back to La Union for dinner. I got a spicy prawn tagine this time, and it was glorious again. We returned to the riad to find Mohammed waiting for a large Frnech group to finish eating dinner.  Once they were finished,  he would be free to hang out. We went to the terrace and chatted before, the three of us went to a sister riad, Anas’ riad, to drink wine. We chatted and drank a delicious bottle of Syrah before we said bye to Anas, and Mohammed walked us home.

27/02/24

Today was leaving day, but the weather was OH SO GLORIOUS!! We had a final rooftop breakfast before we said bye to Mohammed and headed to the bus station via a wee detour through the main square to snap some pretty pics. It was so pretty! We were aiming to find a collectivo taxi to the infamous, blue Chefchouen, but failed and got a bus.

We arrived in Chefchouen about two hours later after a stunning journey through the mountains. The landscape looked a bit Spanish, French, and Welsh at different times. We passed a few lakes and dams along the way, too. By the time we arrived, I was dying for a wee (classic bus struggles)! We thought we hadn’t saved our riad on the map, so we wandered about stopping to ask random people where our riad was. No-one really knew in the main town. We found our way to the old medina and asked again inside. A few people offered to guide us there but we declined them, until it seemed like we would never arrive. We asked a teen in a pale green tracksuit and when he offered to guide is there, we accepted. I needed to wee! We weaved through the bustling alleys filled with locals and motorbikes, scooters and donkeys, as well as tourists until we arrived. We paid a $2 propina, and the boy left. I weed, we ditched the stuff, and then we headed out, up the alley, to find a beautiful square. Weirdly, it reminded me of Albufeira, so full of tourists and tourist tat! It was cute though. We chose a rooftop cafe and sat there looking out at the square and castle behind it. I got a tea, Ais a tagine and we chilled.

Later, we left and wandered the medina. We ended up by the river and walked out of the town. We stopped for a coffee and cake with a view before heading out of the town once more to watch the sunset from a Spanish mosque. A lot of the town’s tourists were there. We chatted to a Dutch couple who had been travelling Morocco for three months already, starting in the south – they were tanned!!

Afterwards, we stopped by a restaurant with traditional live music and I had a tagine, Ais a tea. The musicians didn’t have a full set of teeth between them, but that didn’t affect their sound. They were fab and very friendly too. Somehow, we ended up sat on the table  right in front of the band, and when the song was catchy and Ais sang along, they loved it!! We headed back to our icy riad afterwards! It would’ve been nice and cool on the heat!