Showing posts with label Tangier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tangier. Show all posts

Friday, January 22, 2010

Tangier, Part Four

Our tour was quite satisfactory, the same price as the ferry itself. We were the only members of the tour, so we had the driver and guide (superb English; and French, and Spanish; and Arabic) to ourselves. They couldn't depart from the "program," very much, so we still had to endure the visit to the rug showroom, the spice store, the leather store, etc. That's OK. We have learned how to enjoy even these. We did get to skip the camel ride/photo opp. And the lunch was really quite good. At least in low season like this, I'd certainly recommend it for anyone whose goals were as modest as ours...merely to set foot in Africa. Tangier itself seemed quite foreign and exotic at times...the old city...quite new and European elsewhere.
Another mosque




















And tower


















Old and new Morocco

Adieu, Tangier

So now I have been to Africa. OK, I did not penetrate very far into Africa, African cultures. No pyramids, no Tarzan, no lions/tigers/bears, no Lucy, no Kilimanjiro. But it's a start...

Tangier, Part Three

Our little 55 euro tour included lunch at a pretty nice
restaurant, four courses; it's dead season here; we were the
only customers in the restaurant

One of many rooms

That's Moroccan Arabic for "Coca Cola"

Lentil soup and the best black olives I've ever had

Great beef shish-kabob, on killer skewers

Couscous and chicken main

And the band serenaded us; I asked them to play
"Midnight at the Oasis" but they didn't know it


OK, the dessert was forgettable.

Tangier, Part Two

Entrance to medina, old city

Another large mosque

In a market

Ditto

Spanish Morocco, French Morocco, now, just Morocco;
of course, it was Roman, Carthaginian, etc., before it
was Morocco; but I digress...

Spice store; they really do spices here








Another street scene

Store







Tangier, Part One

From the harbor









Marcus Africanus; Vicki had been to Egypt
in 1982; I am just catching up












Big mosque tower; alas,
infidels are not permitted within
the mosques













Oilibya; don't worry, the Shell station was right across
the street

Scenic vista, Spain across the Straits








One of the royal palaces; it's a constitutional monarchy







Take me to the Kasba! Vicki said










In the old city, a personal tomb











Street scene











Boulangerie, patisserie...pizza; it's a very international city,
with Moorish, Spanish, and French ancestry (most recently)

Straits of Gibraltar

I have always wanted to see Africa, especially if I could
be back home for dinner; from Tarifa, you can do just
this...the fast ferry to Tangier, a six hour day tour, and back
in Tarifa by cocktail hour; so here's our ship, the Tarifa Jet,
a catamaran ferry






Most of what was on the ferry were RVs, heading for
warm Morocco for the winter; maybe next time

Goodbye Tarifa, Spain, and Europe

The sea traffic in the Straits is impressive

Big ships

Container City

Hello Africa

And Tangier, a city of about a million
Old and new Tangier