And Now for Something Completely Different...

Tangiers - situated where the Mediterranean and the Atlantic meet
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Perhaps the first thing that you need to know about Morocco is that it is on a different time zone to Spain - in Summer it is 2 hours earlier which means you can expect to arrive before you have left!! :) Our '35 minute' ferry crossing from Tarifa to Tangier took the better part of an hour and a half - apparently because we were delayed in being granted entry to the port. As we jostled to be amongst the first off the ferry it was with a mixure of excitement (at being back on African soil - albeit at the other end of the continent) and trepidation (we had been repeatedly warned about how badly we should expect to be hassled in Morocco by vendors and locals trying to milk the 'tourist cow').

Tangier's newly built train station
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Morocco was officially our 7th country of the trip so far - and without wanting to preempt our experiences it was one of our favourite stops so far. As Denise put it, Europe was simply too familiar. Yes you enjoy seeing new places and meeting new people, but ultimately it is just too safe, too sanitised, and too normal to be a truly 'Wow' travel destination for us. Morocco injected that element of the unknown that we both knew we were missing but hadn't quite put into words. It is in almost equal parts exotic, challenging, invigorating and exhausting.

Exotic, Challenging, Invigorating and Exhausting

Our taxi driver takes us to an amazing viewing point over Tangier
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Within 60 seconds of stepping off the ferry we learned the truth of two pieces of advice we had picked up: 1. Always walk with purpose and be seen to have a plan - when wandering aimlessly or looking lost you present an irresistable target for locals looking to exploit the latest naive tourist & 2. Learn to be firm...don't say 'No Thanks' in that almost apologetic, Western-guilt manner that invites further discussion - simply say 'La Shukran (No Thanks in Arabic) and very firmly wave your index finger to show your determination to not be bothered. Both techniques set you apart from the crowd and in 90% of cases show that you are simply not worth the effort of further hassling.

This is not to say that we were hassled in Tangier - in fact quite the opposite. When approached for taxis or tours we found the locals to be quite polite and actually very friendly - not what we had been led to expect. After changing some currency (check the rates of the different Bureaux at the port - we got 10.1Dh to the Euro only to find 10.9 offered 10 meters further on) we dodged a few offers of taxis (if you say you are just going to the CTM bus station they leave you alone) and made our way past the marina to the Port enterance. One thing worth noting is that we overheard a Grand Taxi (old Mercedes that cost much more than Petit Taxis) driver offering to drive a girl straight from the port to Fes for a mere 100 Euro. Clearly past tourists have been gullible enough to spend such fortunes and have created a problem for the rest of us.

The CTM bus station was fine - we bought our tickets for Fes and paid the small extra fee to check our bags in as well. With day-packs in hand we took a 45 minute tour of Tangier by Petit Taxi (please read our seperate review under Things to Do Above) - which was worth every cent of the 80Dh (about 8 Euro) we paid. Then it was off to Fes!!!