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Friday, January 7, 2011

Morocco: Day 1

Sunday morning we woke up early and left downtown Ceuta from our hostel and walked a few blocks to the bus stop. We made it just in time and caught the 8:30 bus to the Ceuta-Morocco border. They dropped us off just before the border entrance. It was right along the Mediterranean and as we walked to the customs gate a man approached us with a pen and paper. He stuffed the papers into my hand which were the same one we had to fill out at the crossing. Ingy told me to give them back and we walked to the border to hand our passports to the guard and to fill out the same paper that the Moroccan man was trying to give me a minute earlier.  I learn how common this kind of interaction would be during our day. Moroccan man being genuinely nice and offering a service to you in exchange for whatever amount of money you had to offer them.


We crossed the border which was heavily guarded and secure. It had barb wire fences out to the ocean water and a boat right off in the near distance. In 2005 the Ceuta-Morocco border was a headline news story when the border-fence was swarmed by hundreds of migrants trying to cross into Spanish territory. A number of migrants were injured and around a dozen were killed when between the Spanish guard’s rubber bullets and Moroccan gunfire. Some of the dead were wounded by live ammunition; from those, two died at the Spanish side of the fence, apparently shot from the Moroccan side.


Once on the other side we had to get the town Teatoun which was about 15 miles away. Ingy practiced her Arabic language skills and bartered with the men for a price in taxi to Teatoun. This is another very common occurrence we witnessed throughout the day. The men would say a high price and we would have to talk them down to a more reasonable one. We didn’t have the Moroccan Dirham, which is their currency, so they were eager to take our Euros in exchange for a ride. We crammed into an old beat up taxi with 4 other passengers and the driver, which didn’t leave much room. He did manage to get every single one of our bags into the trunk which seemed impossible only 10 minutes before. He charged us 7 Euro for a 30 minute ride to the bus station


At the bus station is where it got a little hectic. As soon as we cross the street onto the side of the station a group of people began asking us where we were going and to follow them to the counter to purchase our bus ticket. They were saying hello in French, Spanish, English, Arabic; all to grab our attention to purchase tickets from them. We got our bus tickets to the town of Chaouen for 30 Moroccan Dirham. One nice advantage was the exchange rate. 100 Euro gets you over 1,100 Dirham.  With the Euro being 11 times more valuable than the Moroccan Dirham we didn’t mind paying less than 3 Euro for a 2 hour bus ride into the Rif Mountains. The bus was barley functional. It looked like it had been used everyday back and forth across Morocco for the past 20 years. The trip was very rough, well from what I heard. I managed to fall asleep for nearly the whole trip so I would avoid getting motion sickness. Ingy, on the other hand, couldn’t fall asleep and said it was the worst ride of any kind she had been on. Luckily no one got sick and we made it to the small town with no problems


Almost every street in the medina looks like this


We got dropped off at a very desolate dirt road with a few shops. We had no idea where to go. Immediately a man approached us and pointed us in the direction of the “medina” which is the old Arab quarter of a North African city. He also offered us Hash and Marijuana almost right away. This was the third event that we found to happen literally every day no matter where we were.

We walked up the hill and got to a large plaza where a group of kids played soccer. A man approached us and asked us where we were going. We said the center and he told us he would take us to a nice hostel.  I tried to speak mainly Spanish because most Moroccans speak the language. He could tell from my voice I wasn’t a native Spaniard and asked us where we were from. We told him the US and he responded, “I know a great place, with hot shower and nice rooms. English speaking staff, Very cheap. I take you there my friend.” As we were walking he asked us a few questions and told us how pretty the town was. He brought us to the place and handed us off to the lady. I didn’t notice Ingy was behind still in the main room talking to the guy. He wanted a little tip for taking us to the hostel. She gave him 2 Euro, which he complained wasn’t enough and left the hostel. The hostel was 240 Dirham a night which was just over 20 Euro.


The town was very pretty. It is situated between the very high Rif Mountain Ranges with a river that runs through the city. The whole old part of the town, the medina, was cemented to the side first part of the hill leading up to the mountain. All the buildings are painted the same bright blue color and white.

Entrance to our Hostel 
River cutting through the side of town
On the way to the river and mountains

Our hostel owner was from England and was really helpful. She told us a good place to eat right by our place and Ingy and I got a 3 course meal for less than 10 Euro combined. As we walked through the city we were constantly being pulled into shops so the owners could give us a demonstration on how they made their leather products or to come in and have tea as they showed us their machines to make rugs.


Coke is everywhere 

Dinner

We both bought a few things and then headed up a small hill to a lookout over the valley and city of Chaouen. The clouds never left the peaks of the mountains in the distance, but it was pretty sunny and clear most of the day. We stopped and watch some baby goats try and make it up a small cliff/hill on the way back to our hostel and at sunset we headed back down into the city to have dinner.


Ingy bartering in a ceramic shop

The cats waited paitently for some part of the chickens

baby turtle

So many cats

On the way to the mosque

Heading back down





I asked the owner of the hostel about hiking up in the mountain near the town. She told us she had a guy we could trust who, if we paid him, would take us up on a tour. We got back to the hostel and talked to him about a plan for tomorrow. He offered to take us to the top and show us around some areas of interest for 600 Dirham. We were able to talk him down to 400 for around a four hour trip. A private five hour guided trip through the mountains for under 40 Euro sounded worth it. We got ready for bed and planned to be up around 9 am to eat breakfast and leave on our hike at 10 am.

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