Back from Africa

Hello everyone!

Today’s post we are going to talk about our trip to Africa (Morocco). But speaking of Africa reminds me to say hello to our expert on Africa, Armin. I just found out that Armin, Colleen, and Kai have not been included in our blog mailing list. Hope you guys can forgive us. =^)

We will give you a call after we get back to Barcelona. Hopefully we can get in a trip to visit you guys in Munich this winter, we would love to see you.

Besides that, our friend Keith just got back from Africa, although in a very different place (Zanzibar). Hello Keith and Alanna, hope you guys are having fun in San Francisco!

So we are back from Africa, and it was totally different than we expected it to be. I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise, since we didn’t really know what we were getting in to. For one thing, it felt more like the Middle East than Africa, but I guess that is because the country we were in is Arabic and Muslim.

When looking into taking a trip to Morocco our guidebook mentions that “there are many ways to experience Morocco, and a day in Tangiers is probably the worst.” It then goes on to compare Tangiers to Tijuana, and comments about how we need to be wary of all sorts of undesirable things. Because of this, we decided to upgrade our trip to Morocco and skip Tangiers altogether. At the tour office they offered a three day/two night trip to Asilah, a small town about an hour down the coast from Tangiers that offered a truer Moroccan experience without all the big-city, border town problems.

So off we went to Asilah, without any real idea of what to expect. On arrival we met up with our group and started off in a bus, only to be dropped off 10 minutes later and transferred to a small van with the other four people who were headed to Asilah instead of the more common day trip around Tangiers.

The hour long van ride, done as fast as the van could possibly go, passing cars and trucks constantly on the way, was impressive. We drove along the coast line most of the way, and all you could see were miles of pristine beach, totally uninhabited. The land wasn’t too different from Spain, yet the beaches were totally empty. This was pretty exciting, as we imagined spending three whole days just relaxing on the beach without any crowds.

Local beer in Asilah, enjoyed in a restaurant next to the beach

As we neared town though we started to see small groups of people on the beach. The most fun thing was that they actually had camels with them! Now we knew we really were in the Middle East (Africa?), since the people rode their camels to the beach. Then there was another trend we noticed that wasn’t quite so much fun, of all the people on the beach not a single one was female…

This was when one of the side effects of being in a Muslim country started to set in. Since this country has much stricter customs about what women could and couldn’t, we would have to totally change our expectations of what was going to happen.

As we arrived in town everyone was very nice and polite. But as Laura and I walked through town afterwards, all we saw were men, and just about every man stared unpleasantly at Laura. At this point we realized that we would not be laying around in our bathing suits on the beach, since if the men stared when she had a normal shirt on, we couldn’t imagine what it would be like with a bikini.

Asilah's old town

The first day was a bit rough. We felt uncomfortable with the extra attention from the locals, and contemplated staying in our hotel room for the next couple of days until we had to leave. Fortunately we got over the feeling, and Laura made sure to wear clothes that went very high on her neck to avoid the staring (which was pointless, since they stared anyway – but at least we felt better).

The beaches in Asilah

The upside is that we were able to do some very cheap shopping, and saw their old town which is very picturesque. We found some great food, and I developed a new appreciation for couscous. We were really surprised at how good the food was, especially after we had so many disappointments in Spain (most Spanish food has not been very good so far).

The buildings were all done in classic Aribic fashion

Other fun experiences were walking late at night and watching all the people walk by (the woman were mostly covered head to toe – but with their faces showing). We also got to experience one of the prayer calls in the old town. At about four o’clock a loud chant went over a loud speaker and lasted maybe ten minutes. I actually took a video so you could hear it but it somehow got erased. Sorry. We had air conditioning in the rooms, that was nice. And we got to see a bunch of movies (like Gladiator and Pretty Woman). The ocean was pretty, even if we couldn’t relax in our bathing suits.

White washed Portuguese old town

The best part of the trip was when we rode camels on the beach. This was really fun, and we got a lot of great pictures of it. They are very easy to ride, except for when they stand up or sit down! The getting up process is pretty wild when you are sitting on their backs. I almost fell off, but Laura didn’t have a problem with it, so maybe she just has better camel form than I do.

Here is a video of us riding on the camels!!

That’s it for now. We got a lot of great pictures in Morocco, and we hope you enjoy them.

Here is a shot of Asilah at night

One last shot for Manuel (Jr)