After our hour-long Ryanair flight we landed in Tangier, Morocco we took a cab into the city where our hostel was located. We were greeted by a little French housekeeper who handed us a note saying the owner would be gone for the first day & a half of our stay - turns out neither my friend or I speak much French or Arabic so the next two days turned into a hilarious game of charades while we tried to communicate with her.
We went first to exchange our Euros for Dirahams. The banker, who apparently was about to go on a lunch break, offered to give us a small tour of the area while taking us to a local restaurant to eat with him. How welcoming, don't you think? This is just the beginning of a long chain of events that ended up engulfing our time for the rest of the afternoon.
The Moroccans had an interesting way of welcoming us. The banker led us to a restaurant to eat that, consequently, was owned by a friend of his. After we sat he apologized and said he had to get back to work - the two were obviously in cahoots with each other. It doesn't end there, our sever graciously took us to an "authentic Moroccan store" (as if any store in Morocco wouldn't be authentically Moroccan). Here we were treated to an awesome view of the city, treated to Moroccan tea, and given a tour of the store with Moroccan rugs & other souvenirs for sale. Apparently being American ultimately means a person can afford 300 Euro rugs - wrong! We left the store empty handed and tired from getting the run around all day but at least got to see some sweet views of Tangier.
After spending a day walking up and down the winding streets of the medina of Tangier we decided to check out the neighboring coastal city, Asilah. We had gotten pretty used to the people on the street trying to sell us various things and offering a tour of the area for a small price - even people who couldn't speak Spanish or English attempted to tour us around the city by pointing and grunting to gain a few Euros. One guy in Tangier was so persistent in showing us where to go that after we lost him he showed up right before we left for our hostel.
That afternoon we met a few locals of Asilah who gave us a tour of their neighborhood, the city, and a few art shops around the area. One of the Moroccans offered to take us to his sister's house where they were making dinner for the New Year (the Muslim calendar is different than our Christian calendar - New Years was the 7th of December). The sister and her family were stuffing some sort of goat stomach (I'm pretty sure it was a goat) and getting their food ready for the festivities. Drinking isn't common in the Muslim culture and normally when they celebrate their new year it's an early dinner and then off to bed - no midnight countdown.
One of the side streets in Asilah:
Our new friends invited us to have dinner with them and a few of their friends - not going to lie, I was pretty hesitant of this but my friend convinced me to stay & I'm glad we did. The Moroccans cooked us an amazing dish called Tajine with Moroccan flatbread. After prepping the dish we found out that it would be cooked outside the house - in a public oven! We dropped the food off, went back to the apartment for less than an hour, and then returned to pick up the dish that was ready to eat. Apparently this must be how Anthony Bourdain feels while taping No Reservations - I wonder if The Travel Channel is hiring? Below is a picture of our meal and the public oven where we dropped off our food:
Asilah had some of the most interesting culture I have been able to see so far. I loved the white walls and the art covering almost every apartment in the Medina. I left Morocco with, I'm sure, more than 200 pictures of doors, walls, and windows - maybe a bit excessive but I feel like life would be a lot more enjoyable if more towns and cities were as colorful & creative as Asilah.
Un beso, Rachel
