Morocco on Blast.
I just got back from Tanger, Morocco a few hours ago. Whoa. What a trip. Let me tell you about it, okay?
On Friday, I had to take a bus from Málaga to Algeciras, Spain. I was going to meet up with my roommate Sarah and her family (her parents, sister and grandmother are visiting for a couple of weeks) there. After the 2-hour trip, I met up with them and we waited another two hours to board the ferry that takes us from the Algeciras port to the port of Tanger. Sarah and I were both a little worried about leaving Spain because our visas on our passport show an expiration date of about 24 December 2006, which, obviously, has already past. The thing is that we are legally allowed to be here for more than that, it's just that our paperwork hasn't been fully processed yet. We're waiting on that. But, our passport doesn't show it.
Anyway, we were able to leave Spain just fine, of course. (It would be coming back in that could pose a problem.) The ferry ride was fun. I finally got my passport stamped. I hadn't gotten it stamped when I first entered Europe for some odd reason. Now I've got three stamps! We got to the Tanger port, and Sarah said the company from which we bought our weekend package should provide us with transportation to the hotel. The thing is, though, that there are so many Moroccans at the port trying to con you out of any money they can. Since we don't look Moroccan at all, we had about five or six guys (no kidding) come up to us to say that they would take us to the hotel. We had heard that this would happen so we were distrustful of everyone. I felt kind of bad being so rude to them, but damn, they were persistent. Yet, we couldn't find the legitimate guy who would take us back. We were walking around the port parking lot with all of our luggage at night: perfect targets. Picture it--Sarah's family is from Missouri, so they were white. Amazingly Caucasian, I'd say. I also didn't fit in at all since I was light-skinned and not a Muslim. They were having a field day with us.
Then we remembered that we had to exchange our euros into dirhams. I didn't know how much to exchange because I wasn't sure how much money I'd need. I ended up exchanging 40 euros and got a little more than 400 dirhams. That was a little confusing. Then, we headed back to the parking lot to try to grab a taxi to our hotel. Luckily, the taxi driver we approached was honest and told us we shouldn't take a cab because our hotel provides free transportation. He made a call and after a few minutes wait our hotel transportation arrived. It was a regular car (we had missed the real bus--apparently one of the guys we had ignored earlier was legitimate!), so seven of us had to squeeze into a standard-sized car. Sarah and I shared the front seat, and the four other Americans somehow sat in the back.
When we get to the hotel, the guy who we ignored at the port got mad at us. Well, he said, "I told you. If you don't want to go, that's your problem." Anyway, we checked in, and then decided to go find a place to eat. This turned out to be a bad idea because apparently our guide books were right. Morocco is -not- a place to roam after sunset if you're not a Muslim male because you will be stared at, harassed and probably robbed. All of the locals stared at us, whistled at the women, and we were approached by a few four-year-olds trying to sell us cigarettes and asking for money. Crazy. We ended up walking back and eating at the closest restaurant to the hotel. While we ate, I heard something familiar, looked up, and saw that they were showing Forrest Gump with Arabic subtitles! Crazy. I took a picture.
The next day we decided to take a guided tour because of our experience the previous night. We hadn't planned to take a guided tour, but we realized we probably couldn't take care of ourselves without a Muslim walking with us. Luckily, Sarah's dad told me he'd pay for me. Rock.
Okay, I just realized I need to go. It's New Year's Eve--I'm sure you understand! I plan to finish my Morocco trip stories, though, but I don't want to lose what I've written so far so I will post this.
Happy New Year to everyone and anyone who reads this! I am seven hours ahead of you if you live in Texas, so if you see this today, think of me at 5:00 PM! Or, give me a call, even! I plan to be home at midnight, but will be leaving shortly afterward.