Tanger "The gates of Africa"

Hey everybody! Amanda here and Guess what? We got up when the alarm went off first try! We got ready ten minutes faster then yesterday, unfortunately that still put us late for the 45 minute drive to Tarifa. Amazingly enough we made it all the way there without getting lost!!! The problem was, we were already late for the ferry and parking was impossible! Finally we found a spot we thought we might have a chance at not getting towed in :) Running as fast as we could down a steep hill and through alleys Cheryl suddenly realized she was missing one minor little thing... HER PASSPORT!!!!! Back up the hill she ran while the rest of us waited at the bottom. Uggs turned out to be great running shoes for Amanda! ha! Running the rest of the way there (1\2 mile maybe???) we made it gasping for breath to find a long line. Apparently the ferry isn´t always real timely! We got our first passport stamp of the day and enjoyed the 45 minute ride over the Mediterranean sea to Tanger. Upon arriving we exited the ship soon to be escorted right back on the ship to get our passports stamped AGAIN! only problem was that the stamper guy was on an extended siesta break! We were sure we had missed our tour but the cute german guys (love at first sight!!! guess who...ok all of us!!!) and a few other people forgot to stamp their passports too so we were in luck! We toured the city in a big tour bus and now Char is here to tell you some facts that our guide shared with us.

Hey everyone! As the title states Tanger/Morocco is called the "Gates of Africa" seeing as it is the closest point to Europe. As we rode the bus through the city it was nothing like I had expected. For the most part it was very modern and there were women everywhere, not just men. Most of them women had headscarves on but not all and they usually weren´t accompanied. The city is divided into two parts, the old city (called Medina) and the new city. The old city has very narrow streets and can handle no cars at all. The new city is where we first drove through and it has very wide streets with tons of cars and people everywhere. We passed by beautiful mosques, flower beds and lots of cemetaries. Some of the cemetaries have above ground cement coffins just sitting there. That was kind of wierd to see. The women walking around in all white are widows. They must mourn and dress like that for 4 months and 10 days before they can go back to normal life. Another thing he told us about women is that they must wait 3 months after divorce to get remarried to make sure they are not with child from their first husband. I thought that was interesting, I can´t imagine anyone in the States even caring or thinking about that. The guide said they have three Sundays here.... Friday for the Muslims, Saturday for the Jews and Sundays for the Christians and everyone else. The majority of people here are Muslims but there are a few Jews, Christians and Catholics. We also drove by a street filled with rich peoples homes- rulers from Saudi Arabia and other places have their summer homes here. Natalie and I were excited to hand out the special tracts my Dad gave me but didn´t remember we had them until we were digging in our bags for our passports at time of departure. :( Sorry Dad. Ok, here´s Amanda again.

Our first stop was....camel rides, pictures, and crazy barter people! Cheryl was quickly overwhelmed by the crazy people and opted to run back onto the bus for safety and well being!!! Char, Amanda, and Leanne, and Natalie all took a quick camel ride and scored with some moroccan bracelets. After Amanda explained some bartering techniques to Cheryl, she became more at peace with the whole experience and became quite the expert herself by the end of the day :) After the Camel stop came lunch with a crazy moroccan band and interesting food to say in the least. We ended up learning some german from our cute german guys. Cheryl can now tell you how to ask for a guys phone number in german :) We also admitted to following them most of the day to avoid the more persistant freaks! Although some were offering us stuff for free we were so cute! Next stop the rug shop! Amanda was pretty sure it was a snake charmer place and Cheryl flipped out at that idea!!! hahah. just beautiful rugs. None of us could afford these so we moved on to the very "authentic" spice market. Here we viewed a demonstration of the many wonderful things they had to offer and cure everything. Yes we bought some.
Last stop, one more little shop. Here Char and Amanda were rushed upstairs to once again look at some rugs etc! We were able to barter enough to get some small decor to bring along with us. yay! Not to be rushed but we were once again late for the ferry! And...one minor detail...we lost the papers that allowed us back on the ship!!! freaking out we frantically searched through all of our belongings to thankfully find them. We made it through security again...another stamp and rode the ferry back. Getting off...oh wait...i know...lets go through security AGAIN! 4 stamps in our passports just to go to morocco for a day. wow. Next stop...Rock of Gibraltar. This is British territory so once again...more security! No stamps either. We were ticked! Quick driving tour to see the rock from the road and then an hour wait in the car to get back out....can you guess? security: Leanne and Char were feeling right at home due to the canadian border that they travel across on a regular basis. We were all starving at this point and Mc Donalds was just the place to fix this need. Can you say papas fritas? French fries tasted wonderful after the earlier Moroccan food. We finally got back to our temporary home and did some more shopping and a quick pizza stop. That leads up to now where we sit here eating ice cream. Cheryl and Amanda have officially claimed themselves food junkies :) who can resist tirimisu ice cream? Ok well thats all for now!
Amanda