DAY 1: [left from Sevilla 9am for Gibraltar (British colony), then drove to southern most point of Spain in Europe to board a ferry to take us to Ceuta, Spain (in Africa) where we then drove immediately to M'Diq, Morocco and spent the night.
UNC does St. Michael's Caves
Oh and then we met the monkeys of Gibraltar, known for stealing wallets, cameras, food, and jumping out of nowhere onto your head. You wouldn't believe it til you've seen it.
Let me just tell you, it's real.
No photo-shopping here, folks
We did touristy things like get into the red phone booths and pretend to make calls, order full English breakfasts (with baked beans?) and fish and chips, and take pictures with big dogs that just looked like they might have British accents if they could talk.
After waiting for an hour for all of our passports to be checked (I have to add we took this trip with a large group, probably 40 study abroad students in total with 2 guides; UNC kids only made up 7 of the 40), arriving at our hotel in Morocco, and finally sitting down to a dinner at 11pm, our meal "wasn't anything to write home about" to say the least. A potato soup that couldn't have tasted more like warm, thick water and loads and loads of bread.
DAY 2: Early morning wake-up call, a hot shower (thank goodness, I slept in my fur-lined coat and 2 scarves all night long), an hour bus ride to Chefchaouen, a lesson in hand-made silks and time to bargain shop, another bus ride to Tetuan, a lesson in home remedies, herbs, and spices and lunch in an Arabian "palace", and a final bus ride to Tangier where we had a midnight dinner, an "authentic" Moroccan belly dance/acrobatic performance, and later a party in an "American" discoteca.
Every wall and door of the city is painted this blue color to keep the mosquitoes away
Trinkets galore
Just add water and you've got the paint for all the city walls
Our appetizer for the lunch in Tetuan- bread with a pepper sauce that I only ate because I was so tired of the taste of plain bread
Mom you would be all about this place
We sampled natural herbs, lotions, scrubs, teas, and spices. This eucalyptus is meant to clear your sinuses and help with snoring
DAY 3: Another early wake-up call, this time without a hot shower since ours was broken, another bread-filled breakfast, a short bus-ride to the caves of Hercules, a visit to the beach where the Atlantic and the Mediterranean sea meet, and camel rides before the bus ride back to the ferry port, the ferry ride back to Europe, and the 3-hour drive back to Sevilla. We were back at Cristina's by 8.
The opening of the cave looks like Africa, or so our guide said I think
Selfies with the locals
In a nutshell, that's all that I did this weekend in Africa. Soon I want to write about what I experienced.
Monkeys and camels - SO COOL!!!
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