Left our hotel at 7am, went looking for a breakfast cafe on the way to the station, found nothing suitable. So we ended up having a criossant and coffee at one of the many station cafes. Sounds simple but in actuality a very complicated process. By the time you describe to the lady what you want from the array of sweet rolls in the case, then tell her how many and if you want it heated or not, then coffee with or without milk, then trying to figure out all the coin denominations to pay her...all this can take a good 10 minutes! Then went up to the first floor, waited for a while and boarded the train at 8.35am. What a lovely train and train ride through Cordoba and Ronda to Algeciras. As we were nearing Algeciras we saw all these birds' nests on top of electric poles. Some had birds sitting in them and from what we could make out they looked like some sort of cranes. Got to Alg. at 2.10 and found we had just missed the 1.45 bus to Tarifa port. Note - even tho Alg. is a port, one has to go to Tarifa port, a half hour drive away to board the ferry to Tangier. Anyway, it gave us time to have a quick delicious veg sandwich lunch outside the station, then we walked 15 minutes to Alg. port to catch the bus to Tarifa port. There were about 8 buses at the terminal and not one of them had any signs to where they were going. We asked a few people for help trying to figure out which bus we should take but they spoke either French, Arabic or Spanish! Then as luck would have it a Moroccon who spoke English came by to help. The bus arrived, then left to fill gas, came back and left again at 4pm. The conductor on the bus kept asking us something...he tried in all 3 languages and when he realized we spoke only English, he shook his head as if to say....what dumb people, going to Morocco and they don't speak the language!!!! We reached Tarifa at 4.30. We hurried to get in line for the passport control authorities and were in second place or so. The others were all standing in line to buy tickets. We had already bought ours at the train station. Cool we thought. We're so smart! Then as more and more people got in line behind us, we noticed they had some sort of boarding cards. By the time we realized we had had to exchange our tickets for boarding cards, almost everyone was behind us in line. So I stood in place while R rushed back to the ticket counter. Any minute now the passport guys would start checking and I would have to give up my place and move to the very end!!!! In about 15 minutes, just as the counter opened R came back! whew!
Went thru all formalities and boarded ferry at 5.15pm. It was supposed to leave at 5pm by finally left at 5.30pm. Once on board we grabbed the front seats with a nice view outside. There was a constant stream of announcements on the loudspeaker but we could not follow anything. Every now and then we could make out the word "passport". Some time later, we noticed the cabin was almost empty. We figured people had gone to get food or something. R decided to see what was happening and found in the main cabin a long line.......we had to get our passports stamped again by Moroccan authorites on board!! Thats what the announcements were about!!So R was back at the end of the line. The 35 minute ferry crossing took almost an hour and just as the ferry docked at Tangier, R was done. Fortunately Tangier is 2 hours behind Spain so it was still only 4.30pm. We had to go thru more passport formalities. Even tho our hotel was 500 meters from port, we got persuaded by a glib cab driver and paid 5 euros to get to the hotel. FABULOUS five star hotel on the beach! We got checked in by 2 giggly girls who told us how they loved Indain movies and blushed when I asked them their fav hero....SRK of course!! Followed by Big B!! FDumped our luggage in the beautiful room and left for the old city and Medina.
Went thru all formalities and boarded ferry at 5.15pm. It was supposed to leave at 5pm by finally left at 5.30pm. Once on board we grabbed the front seats with a nice view outside. There was a constant stream of announcements on the loudspeaker but we could not follow anything. Every now and then we could make out the word "passport". Some time later, we noticed the cabin was almost empty. We figured people had gone to get food or something. R decided to see what was happening and found in the main cabin a long line.......we had to get our passports stamped again by Moroccan authorites on board!! Thats what the announcements were about!!So R was back at the end of the line. The 35 minute ferry crossing took almost an hour and just as the ferry docked at Tangier, R was done. Fortunately Tangier is 2 hours behind Spain so it was still only 4.30pm. We had to go thru more passport formalities. Even tho our hotel was 500 meters from port, we got persuaded by a glib cab driver and paid 5 euros to get to the hotel. FABULOUS five star hotel on the beach! We got checked in by 2 giggly girls who told us how they loved Indain movies and blushed when I asked them their fav hero....SRK of course!! Followed by Big B!! FDumped our luggage in the beautiful room and left for the old city and Medina.
Tangier reminded us a lot of India....lots of people, noise, traffic, children...but NO animals and cleaner! The shops and stores were noisy and as we walked by spice shops and markets, the heady smell of herbs assailed us. We went in search of the Casbah or bazaar....bought some fresh plump dates on the way. We were not having much luck finding the actual casbah but knew we were in the vicinity according to the map. We must have looked lost, cos suddenly a guy appeared with his son, and told us he would show us the way. We said we didn't need him and he kept saying he was not a guide and didn't want money etc etc. Anyway, he walked us thru the casbah, gave us a history lesson and finally asked for 5 euros!!!
On our way back thru the tiny colorful alleys we stopped and had a paratha sort of thing from a street vendor....a flaky layered bread smothered in honey. It was soooooo yummy!Passed by many souvenier shops selling brassware, pottery, tagines, rugs, hookahs, lanterns, dates. Then later we had an amazing falafel dinner at Ali Baba restaurant for all of 40 dirhams/4 euros/6 dollars!!!!
Came back to the hotel and tried to open our room door with a key but it wouldn't open. It took us a moment to realize we were trying to get into room 516, instaed of 408. All these days of staying at different hotels and the room numbers were all blurring together. Before anyone thought we were trying to break in, we scooted back to the 4th floor!!
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