The trip started out way too early on a Friday morning. We woke up at 6 so that we could catch the 7am bus to Seville. When we arrived in Seville we walked to meet up with the tour group. I expected maybe 15 people to be in our group. We ended up have nearly 50. We loaded up into a big commercial bus and headed to Gibraltar.
Gibraltar was incredibly interesting. Being owned by the United Kingdom still, its official languages are both English and Spanish. Our tour guide says the people of Gibraltar literally speak Spanglish. It was like entering the twilight zone. One second we were in Spain...and then we walked a few steps and we were in the UK. It looked like the UK (or what I imagine it would look like). As soon as we arrived we divided into two small tour buses. Our tour guide drove us through the narrow roads of Gibraltar past all of its most important buildings. Then we stopped at Europa point to take pictures of the Southernmost point of Europe. After that, we drove up the rock of Gibraltar to visit a cave. Driving up the side of Gibraltar was both terrifying (as there is nothing stopping you from tumbling down the side) and beautiful. Looking down over the town of Gibraltar you can also see Spain and Africa. Three different countries all at once! The visit into the cave was amazing. I had never walked into a cave like that. The cave is still alive and growing however Gibraltar has built a stage for concerts in there due to the great natural acoustics. Very interesting. Outside of the cave there were many monkeys. The monkeys are wild but are very used to seeing humans there visiting the caves so we were able to stand next to them for pictures. The people of Gibraltar actually feed the monkeys, as would a zoo, in order to keep the monkeys out of the town below. The monkeys, if left unfed, will go down into the town and enter into people's houses to take food. After our tour we went to the town center where we were set free to shop and eat. First priority was food. We saw many signs for fish and chips and went for the restaurant that was closest to us. Being a tourist town, the fish and chips were over priced but delicious nonetheless. After eating we walked around souvenir hunting. It was so strange walking down the streets hearing people speak English. And it was strange being able to order food in English. I don't know if this is good or bad...but I didn't like it. Sometimes I like being in Spain where I can blab in English and take a strange comfort in knowing that nobody around me can understand what I'm saying.
After Gibraltar we got back on the bus to head to Algeciras where we were to board the ferry. I've never been on a ferry. I had pictured it being rather small...a small ship where everybody stands outside and over looks the water. Our ferry was not small. It was rather large. It had three levels. The middle level, which we had entered on, was for regular passengers. The lower level was for cars and the upper level was for "first class" passengers I assume. I assume this because a lady was guarding the entrance to the upstairs level and looking up the stairs I saw many business-y type men with laptops. Below the forbidden area, and on the main level, was also an eating area and small bar. I should mention that the ferry was a "speed ferry". I'm not sure what that means or how fast it goes, but that did give it a closed front end with no windows and it resembled a torpedo. After realizing where we could and couldn't roam, we found our way out onto the deck. The inside had some plastic public bus type seats and it seemed more wobble-y in there, so we opted to stay outside for the duration of the ride. The view was amazing. As we left Spain we could see the mountains in Spain as well as Gibraltar. Not to mention I love boats in general. The trip took about 1 hour.
After arriving in Ceuta the group stopped momentarily to purchase liquor for the weekend before getting onto another bus. At this point we were entering our (1hr to seville, 2 hrs to Gibraltar, 1hr ferry) 5th hour of travel for the day. As the bus pulled away...I noticed that all of the signs looked eerily familiar. They looked exactly like street signs I had seen in Huelva and the rest of Spain. The building signs were also in Spanish. I didn't know much about Morocco so I initially assumed that a lot of Spanish was spoken here with it being so close to Spain. I was then perturbed at the idea of having paid to travel to a different country and a different continent that mirrored the one I had just left. Our Moroccan tour guide, for the weekend, announced to us that we were still in Spain. Ceuta and its neighboring town were still a part of Spain. Morocco had previously been split in half and owned by Spain and France. I hadn't known this! About 30 minutes later or so, we arrived at the border or Morocco. There, we sat for an hour while our passports were taken from us to a government office to be
Our hotel was in Rincon I believe...Right outside the city of Tetouan. Unfortunately it was dark outside by the time our ferry had landed in Ceuta. I say unfortunately because our hotel was situated on the beach of the Mediterranean and we weren't able to take in the view. Not that night nor the next morning as our bus departed bright and early. The four star hotel was nice. Different from what most people think of when they think four star hotel, but I was very happy with it. It was decorated in typical Moroccan style. Immediately upon our arrival we were required to meet downstairs for dinner. For dinner we had salad, fried fish and flan. Everything was very good except for the flan. I have a big texture issue with flan.
To be continued....
