Sunday, we decided to head to the beach for an hour, make sure we had our bus tickets out of here on Tuesday and take a drive. Success all around! At 9 am the sun on the beach felt like a blast furnace. Bruce decided to do the ‘polar bear plunge’ – the water was that cold! I walked and even after ¼ mile with only my feet in the water, it still felt cold. So much for ‘it’s nice when you get used to it!’
But the ‘drive’ became a bit of a challenge. Their A7 is their super highway, and with a speed limit of 120, and most cars going 130-140, Bruce was a little frustrated with my desire to go slower than the speed limit. It felt like we were hurtling through Spain! Plus, there really is very little to see from that highway. So, we only went ½ as far as we’d planned, had lunch at a lovely restaurant and headed back. Did I mention that in both Portugal and Spain, Sunday’s are pretty much an enforced rest day – 98% of all shops and restaurants are closed, so we were lucky to find a nice restaurant.
Monday was our day to head out to Morocco. We found a parking space for 13 hours (free – in front of the Hertz office), and headed in for 8:30, to wait until 10:30 to leave. The ferry is a huge catamaran; a/c of course and very comfortable. It takes about 45 min. We met a lovely couple who moved to Gib from England. The wife, Joyce is a Christ follower. Her sons, Jo & JJ (16 & 13) were quite interested in the ages of our 3 youngest granddaughters, especially when I told them how gorgeous, talented and brilliant they are! They might come to Canada for a visit!
We met our guide Mr. Ahmed (who else?) and started on our tour! We were so thankful that we’d taken a tour. The poverty and heat and ancient taxis would have made a trip on our own, at this stage quite unpleasant. We loved the a/c’d bus and it gave us a chance to rest between sightseeing events. We visited 2 cities, Tetouan(sp) and Tangiers. There is quite a difference between the cities. Tangiers is more modern, but the hawkers are much more aggressive. This is where Wendy would have gone quite crazy, because we couldn’t actually shop in the market; so we passed stalls and stalls of gold, silver, fabric, clothes, food, shoes, etc. etc. and weren’t allowed to stop and shop. Mr. Ahmed (who we think gets a cut), herded us down narrow alleys, with hawkers right in the middle of us and all around us! Yuck! He also ‘took’ us to several artisan markets (you were right, Jackie about the carpets; wait till you hear the whopper Bruce told to get them to stop trying to sell us rugs), and once again we were ‘trapped’. The Moroccan lunch provided was delicious and we had a lovely chat with two Chinese young men, who work in Brugge in English! One of the amazing things in Morocco is that the Muslins and Jews and Arabs are ‘brothers and sisters’ and get along with no problems.
The bus ride through the countryside allowed us to see some amazing sights. We arrived back at our hotel at 10:00 pm, very thankful and quite tuckered out!
No comments:
Post a Comment