Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima

We woke up as we were pulling into port. As we were partially unpacking from our trip to Marrakesh, we listened to the port talk for both Tangier and Cadiz. Our stateroom is a total mess but it will have to stay like it is for the foreseeable future.

We headed to the World Cafe. Dale joined us and we briefly compared highlights of our trips over the last two days.

I forgot our Quietvox devices so I ran down to the stateroom while Bob finished his breakfast.

Our tour for today is Highlights of Tetouan which is a 5.5 hour tour. We are hoping that there will not be a lot of walking.

We should have taken the initial 5 minutes on the bus as a harbinger of what was to come for this tour. We got on the bus there was a diminutive elderly gentleman, who we believed to be our guide, sitting in the front of the bus. We overheard him being told by the shore excursion personnel to do a sound check with the Quietvox. He got on the bus and did a sound check with the bus's microphone. The shore excursion personnel then told him that he had to use the Quietvox device when we were off the bus. He adamantly said that he was not going to use the Quietvox. I chuckled because I get a kick out of contrarians but I also realized that this was going to be an interesting tour to say the least.

Next thing we know there is a different guide on the bus.

We began our drive from Tangiers to Tetouan.

Tangiers appears to be a prosperous city with many beaches, parks and walking/biking trails. It has a blend of an ancient fortress, traditional architecture and modern buildings.

As we left Tangiers behind, we entered beautiful green farmland. It was refreshing to be out of the desert. The temperature has also cooled so significantly that I had to finally breakout my sweaters.

We continued our drive into the Atlas Mountains where the scenery kept getting more and more beautiful. We saw sheep, cows, donkeys and goats. There were also many fields with pink, purple, yellow and white wild flowers.

We arrived in Tetouan, exited the bus and had to instruct the new guide how to use the Quietvox.

Our guide introduced us to a "local guide" as we began our walking tour of Tetouan. The local guide was a bit annoying talking to us when our guide was speaking over the Quietvox. The local guide also kept herding us like we were total idiots.

Next thing we know, we have picked up an additional "guide". Now we had 3 people telling us where to go and many times they directed us in totally different directions.

Tetouan is a lovely mountain town.

We walked through the local market where fish, chicken, vegetables, herbs and almost anything else that the local population would need was on offer. It was wonderful to be in a local market and observe local life. We would have liked time to visit with the locals but we were hurriedly herded through the market by our official guide and two unofficial guides.

I volunteered to have a precious elderly lady dress me up in tradition clothing which women wear to work in the fields. She reluctantly agreed to have her picture taken with me.

We walked by the Royal Palace before heading to the Jewish area. We were disappointed that we were too early for most of the shops in this area to be open so we just walked by closed shops. It would have been wise of our guide to rearrange the order of our visit so that we could have visited the Jewish area when the shops were actually open. I guess that this didn't occur to any of our guides-maybe we should have picked up an additional one or two guides.

We walked through many residental streets. Since we were at the back of the group we had more interaction with the guide who was the final one to join our group. I think he was just an elderly man with nothing else to do and was proud of his city. He had a quick wit and was hilarious. He reminded me of a sheepdog as he would run up to a corner, instruct us where to go, he would then wait to make sure that everyone made the corner, and then run to the next corner. What made this so comical was that this was a tiny town and we were single file in a row. No one was getting lost. In the end, we ended up giving him a tip because he was so amusing.

We stopped for about 45 minutes at a Riad that had been converted into a restaurant for tea and a biscuit. This was a total waste of time-ten minutes would have been more than sufficient.

Next we visited a carpet showroom where we were practically held hostage. When it was clear that no one was going to buy a rug, we were ushered downstairs to the somewhat less expensive souvenir shop. Here we were surrounded by 7 men who began to pressure our group to purchase items. We walked out and waited outside.

We then walked by the door to a mosque. It would have been nice to tour the mosque. This tour has really gone downhill.

Our next intriguing (heavy sarcasm) is an art school. Our guide tried to explain the art courses. I highly question if this is an actual school as all that is evident are pots of dried paint, coping saws with no blades, and an overall deserted feeling.

After the visit to the art school, we were supposed to have free time. But nope, we were loaded onto the bus by the three guides (each of which had their hands out for a tip).

We then drove back to the ship. We arrived back to the ship much earlier than scheduled due to not having free time in Tetouan.

Upon exiting the bus, there was a gentleman who we believed worked for the local tour company. He asked how our tour was. We explained our total dissatisfaction with the tour. We also reported this tour to guest services.

The fact that Tetouan is such a beautiful city with so much history added to our dissatisfaction with this day's tour. We felt like we missed so much.

Pictures to be added soon. Czytaj więcej