Day 4 -Tangier Morocco

This was a good day.

Got off to a bit of a Rocky start. We were told to meet our guide on the pier as we got off the ship. He was to be carrying a sign with your name on it. When he got off, there was no one there from our tour company.

In general, we try to get a consensus of at least 3 people when getting directions or finding out information. Two of the people we spoke to said that we were at the only place the tour buses came. So we waited patiently. When we talked to the third person he said, of course Said tours are not here, he meets his groups outside of the port entrance. So off we headed. There we saw our group guide with our sign. In the end they were only half an hour late getting started.

Our tour started off in the Medina or Old City. We walked in small streets that were more like alleys and small alleys that were more like pathways. We also saw the Casbah or Citadel, and the souk or Marketplace. We probably only covered about 3 city blocks, but on our own it would have been a challenge to know where we were. We then had lunch at a restaurant owned by the tour company owner. Was quite delicious consisting of a vegetable soup/stew and chicken served in a tajine.

We then drove out of the city and stopped to have a short little camel ride and then on to the Hercules cave. The legend said that this was where Hercules divided Europe and Africa from each other. The channel at that point - where the Atlantic is to the West and the Mediterranean is to the right, is about 18 kilometres wide. The historical explanation is that the caves were carved by the Romans 1000-2000 CE. In the cave there is small niche in the rock where spring water is collecting. The local Legend says that if a woman looks like she is becoming an Old Maid she goes to that spring, washes in the water, and soon will get married.

Then back into the city and we did a little shopping. The first stop was the top floor of the handy Co-op. We were given a sales show about carpets. No one was interested, and to give credit where due, the salesman did not push. (Much better than the stop in North Africa - Egypt - where the sales people were very pushy and very rude when we were not buying) The Moroccan salesman were very polite and nice. After the first one, we went to one other shop where Troi was able to get new jellaba and the others were able to buy some other trinkets.

Back to the ship well in advance of sailaway at 5.Read more