New Year's Trip in Southern Spain and Morrocco
Tarifa, Spain - 2 days, 1 night
Tangier, Morrocco - 1 (awful) night
Marrakech - 4 days, 4 nights
Merzouga - 2 nights
Night train from Marrakech to Tangier
Our longest trip in Spain so far began shortly after Christmas. This was different for us because we knew we would be without a rental car sometimes. Everyone had to be able to carry all their own clothes and keep track of all their dirty clothes - a first for them. We headed to Tarifa, Spain, the windiest city in the world, for a few days before embarking on the ferry to Tangier, Morrocco. Tarifa is a delightful city! I loved the laid back feeling in the city. We stayed in a beautiful hostal that had private 3 bedroom apartments. The luxurious amenity in this hostal was that it had central heating. We've been freezing since November in our non-insulated and one-heater apartment in Jaen. We were warm in every room in the hostal!!
You can walk the city walls of Tarifa which my kids really loved. The looked for pirate ships about to invade the city while reading about miraculous victories defending the city that occurred over the centuries. You have a great view of the Strait of Gibraltar and can easily see Africa across the 9 mile strait (although not in this picture). There's also a really cool castle, the castle of Guzman, El Bueno. When an invading army said they would kill his son if he didn't surrender the city to them, he threw them his own knife to do the job!
Because Tarifa is considered one of the windiest cities in the world, wind surfing is very popular.
We had lunch with Dan's sister, Michelle, who is a yoga teacher in Seville, but also wanted to visit Morrocco during her Christmas break.
We bought our tickets for the ferry a few weeks before because I guess they can sell out. The tickets for the night train to Marrakech was sold out for the next few days. We ended up finding a place that night on Booking.com. The apartment was beautiful, but there were no towels, no toilet paper, no soap. We were also petitioned for money a lot and felt very hustled.
Note to self: always travel with soap, a small towel, wipes, and toilet paper.
The first night we stayed in a very cheap hostal. It was awful. Plastic covering on the single beds that were stacked 3 high, 12 in a tiny room. There were two bathrooms for way too many people. One highlight was that I had a cooking class with the woman who served breakfast and watched her make a delicious tangine dish. A tangine is the desert's version of a crockpot, except it has a cone-shaped lid not shone in the picture. Dan made some friends with other hostaleers and went shopping with them. Because they were from Morrocco, he did some shopping and got native prices.
The next night, we found this sweet 4 story apartment with a room and bathroom on each floor and an open center. We all had a lot of fun throwing and passing stuff between floors.
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| We had our own church meeting on Sunday |
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| Looking down from the top floor |
The highlights of Marrakesh were the Majorelle Gardens where the desert plants and bamboo forests are decorated with the beautiful majorelle blue,
the Bahia Palace - this is a modern Alhambra and how I imagined the Alhambra used to look (minus electricity)
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| couldn't get enough of these ceilings - not one duplicate and all very intricate! |
the Saadian Tombs,
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| Saadian Tombs |
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| the outside tombs |
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| the major caliphs were buried inside |
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| Spices, nuts and fruits in the souk- this man strategically put his hand in front of his face right as I snapped the picture |
We rented a car after 3 days and left early the next morning for Merzouga, about a 10 hour drive. We stopped at Ait-Ben-Haddou. This is a Berber (like Bedouins in Israel) city that has been restored a lot to be used as a movie set. There are only a few families who actually live in the city of mud and straw homes with terraces and unfinished homes.
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| View of the city before you cross the bridge |
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| A sheep pen |
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| Notice "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Gladiator"? |
We also toured - for a mall fee - a "traditional" Berber home although no one was living in it. (Dan was offered to tour a home where people where living, but he said this one was a lot nicer.)
Interesting views on the way to Marrakesh.
We reached Marrakech - Finally! - that night. Our lodging had a ceiling and walls made of mud and straw which turns out to be pretty dirty, even if the floor is tile. There were some beautiful native birds staying in the hallway and sitting areas. We got two rooms, each with their own bathroom because it was the slow season (after January 1st).
Our long-awaited for trip to Erg Chebbi and the sand dunes began the next morning after a delicious breakfast of Berber bread. This fried, flat bread was so delicious! They served it with fig jam and cream cheese like cheese. Here are our camels.
Our kids absolutely LOVED the camel trek to the Berber camp. They each named their camel. We had the delight of learning what sounds a camel makes - so different than we expected! Our guide, Barak, was great! While we hiked and slid down sand dunes, he fixed I think the most delicious meal I've ever had - all by himself in a tent! He then amazed us with his drum playing/singing skills.
We finally made it to the top!!
The joy of jumping...
We were told about an African tribe that would perform tribal music for us for a small fee. These guys stand around in a house with all their traditional clothing on until some tourists come. Then they dance and sing and you pay 10 Euros for watching them. Check out the guy on the right - stoked, right?
The kids loved the sand dunes so much and since we were only there one day we went back that afternoon and played more. They hiked up another very large dune and did a lot more jumping. They also each found a fossil! Spencer had been wanting to find a fossil ever since a friend found us some when we visited an abandoned castle near Jaen. Spencer was thrilled!
We slept in our cool hotel again and the kids loved running around on the roof. This was our dinner that night - tangine. It is still one of Dan's favorite meals!
The next night we took the long-awaited for night train from Marrakesh to Tangier. The kids loved it so much because they felt like Harry Potter and they had never slept on a train before. We caught the ferry from Tangier to Algeciras the next morning. This is the kids saying goodbye to Africa.
We got to see a Three King's parade in Algeciras the next afternoon. Three men dressed as very different kings came out and handed handfuls of candy to the anxiously awaiting children. Exciting!
We next headed to Gibraltar. We never had to show our passports or anything - just drove right through the check point into British territory. We took this very steep tram to the top of the Rock
As soon as we exited the tram, we were greeted by monkeys. One smelled(?) the candy in Talmage's front pocket from the Three Kings Parade and jumped on him, grabbed the candy out while holding onto to his shoulder (and ripped his pocket in the process)! The above picture is a monkey rapidly shoving the whole handful of candy, wrapper and all, into it's mouth.
That night we ate delicious fish and chips, eating on the sidewalk that gave us front row seats to the amazing Three Kings Parade in Gibraltar with tons of floats. Gibraltar is such a quaint town! I would love to live there someday! This is one of the Three Kings.
A Troll float.
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