Hotel Golden Beach Tetouan

... experience a little taste of La Cultura Morroquí see some places buzzing with la Vida Real.  We briefly visited Tánger, had an entire day in Tetuán, and a rainy morning in Chaouen. To get to Morocco, we took a bus from Sevilla to Algerciras, then took a ferry across the Straights of Gibraltar, arrived in Ceuta, which is a spanish city in northern Morocco, then hopped on another bus, went through customs here and began ...

... streets to explore, and ended up eating some delicious tagine and couscous - our favorite :) Around 4:15am I was half awake listening to the first prayer call of the day when a few drips and and a torrential downpour got us moving inside at lightening speed - backpacks, sleeping bags and shoes flying. We actually had to sleep in the lobby of the hostel because they had no more rooms. madness. We moved to another hostel ...

... to be a bit of trial and error. We spent a total of 47 Euros on the meal so quite under budget.


After the big shop it was the hustle and bustle of the border crossing into Morocco. I had purchased several litres of rum and red wine for the journey. The wine only cost 65c per litre making it cheaper than petrol or water. If the border guard confiscated all the red wine it would be no great loss. I stashed all the liquor in a hard to get ...

... to a campsite near Tetouan instead of Tangier due to time spent at the border, after stocking up the truck at a cash and carry and filling up with 1500L of fuel. Left campsite on the coast to head into the old colonial capital. After changing money from Euro to Dirham; myself, Rob and Martin hired a guide somehow to take us on a tour around the Medina. Without a guide most ...

... the other side the buildings are extremely close together, old, and dirty, which of course was where the rest of our tour took place. Once we were inside the maze of streets we went to an herbal pharmacy where they had herbs and spices that supposedly cured every problem known to man. They had herbs to cure snoring, stress and anxiety, headaches etc. etc. You name the problem they probably had something to fix it. They also had squares of perfume, creams, oils, and "magic lipstick ...

... the scenery is breathtaking and the town quite charming; that positive is negated somewhat by our status as walking wallets. Unless we walk briskly and with a purpose, we get stopped every 10 meters by people wanting to take us to their shop; sell us hasheesh or simply begging for money. We thus learned in a hurry to say 'la shukran' (no thank you); we don't feel unsafe though because there are quite a few cops around and Moroccan men look very small ...

... Michael or Douglas, too. Sometimes he would talk in the third person and say "Michael Douglas thinks that you are his family and wants us all to have a good time. Michael Douglas wants the best for his family." Or after he taught us the word for "thank you", "Shakran" and we used it, he would say "Oh, I love you, my family!" He was genuinely happy that we had chosen his country, Morocco, to visit and ...

... touts either, just a few overly friendly men attempting to lead you into their cousins carpet shop. It's a very crafty town with men working in their tiny windowless rooms. These cells open out onto the street with wooden shutters and act as a work studio cum shop. Often you could see them weaving, making clothes, doing woodwork or decorating frames.

... is apparently grown everywhere in the surrounding mountains, and been blown away by nothing more than the fact that they painted all the buildings here blue. Whoa. However, after a full day here, I get it. The blue tones lend themselves to a mellow vibe, slowing everybody's pace and, in contrast to the cities we've visited, provide for a general sense of calm, with the exception of the kif dealers (who apparently have ...

... No matter how bad things get, we are still British! Well thank god for that!!! We paid the 13.5 euros to take the scariest cable car ride to the top of the Rock of Gilbralter; it was one of those had-to-be-done excesses. My knees turned to jello as we ascended, and I found only marginal respite in reading the sign that stated that the cable car was made in Switzerland. At the top, the Barbary Apes (monkeys) where everywhere, and how cheeky they were ...