On Tuesday March 21st, 1995 I was born. Twenty years later I woke up at 8:30 in the morning laughing in a hotel in Morocco (sometimes when I have funny dreams I wake myself up laughing). It was my first time in Africa and even though I was only there for less than three days I was able to see three different beautiful cities in Morocco.
We got to Morocco on Friday night and we were all very tired from the horrible boat ride from Spain (it lasted under an hour but the rain made the ride awful!). But Saturday morning I woke up giggling and feeling a whole year older with a whole lot of energy. We started the day going to Chef Chauen- the blue city. We had a hilarious guide who led us through the city on a walking tour. Many of the buildings are painted blue which keeps the mosquitos away from people during the summer.
We toured a store that makes woven rugs and scarfs and things of that nature. It was really interesting to see them weaving, since my mom has a loom back home and used to weave as well.
Afterwards we had some free time to shop for ourselves. This was one of my first times haggling and it was kind of intimidating, you have to pretend that you don’t really want whatever it is, but you are interested enough for them to try and sell it to you. I ended up getting a few things for a very good price.
After all of the shopping and haggling we ate a lunch of chicken and vegetables and so much bread. Seriously, every time we finished the basket of bread on our table, it was instantly refilled. After the meal we were served Moroccan mint tea, which seemed to be just mint leaves, sugar and hot water but it was delicious!
We headed back on the bus and drove to Tetouan. The view while driving was beautiful, unfortunately my iPhone camera isn’t all that great when it comes to taking pictures while moving, but I did my best.
The next morning we saw the beach where the Atlantic ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea. There, we had a short camel ride on the sand.
Then we had another walking tour of Tetouan. The streets were a lot smaller and more packed than those of Chef Chauen but it was just as beautiful to see. We went to a pharmacy-type place where we learned about Moroccan spices and got to try a bunch of samples. For lunch we ate couscous with chicken which was my favorite meal of the weekend.
The boat ride home wasn’t nearly as bad as the first one and since it was in the evening I slept the entire ride. I really loved Morocco and I can definitely see myself coming back to Chef Chauen one day in the future.
Allegra Lost in Spain 