The Adventures of Doug and Bec: Spain (Tarifa) to Morocco (Tangier)

We headed across the strait between Spain and Tangier, Morocco on one of the FRS high speed ferries. The ride took only about half an hour, and was on a massive catamaran ship with hundreds of people on it. They had a duty free shop, cafe and a first class lounge area. At the back of the boat there was also a large bar area. The ship headed west along the strait through very rough seas, and the whole boat had a bit of a roll on it. Couldn't help but compare it to the boat ride to Heron Island where a heap of people got ill. Sure enough after a few minutes of this there were people laying down all over the boat and people walking around with paper bags! Neither Bec or I felt any ill effects of it however which was great! The ferry was 30 Euro each and they do all the entry stamps to Morocco on-board, so when you get to the dock at the other end there are no immigration areas that you have to go through. As soon as we exited the ship we were met by many 'travel guides' and taxi drivers.

After spending some time putting off the many "Muhammad's" trying to show us around the city for huge prices, we found a taxi driver who took us to our hotel a few kilometres away for 5 Euro. We were staying at a huge old hotel called the Chellah Hotel which would have been an amazing place a few decades ago. It had massive meeting rooms and lounges, a massive restaurant and 2 bars. We stayed here for about $25 a night. The room was a bit old but was relatively clean and big enough.

On our first afternoon we headed off to find an internet cafe so we could print out a few things we needed, and got harassed into taking tour of the Medina (old city area full of markets) with a guide named Mufasa... had a quiet laugh to myself at his name from the Lion King! We didn't mind too much about the tour as we had planned to do one anyway. The tour took us through an intricate web of markets including spices, carpets, fresh food, clothing and basically anything you could possibly want to find. We ended up buying a hand made massive blanket made from cactus silk which was originally 2700 Dirhams ($300) for a half size one (half size about the size of a queen doona), but ended up getting a full size one for 600 Dirhams ($65). A little more than we wanted to spend that day but it was an amazing blanket. After being shown around for about 2 hours we were taken to a local restaurant where we got a sample of some amazing Moroccan dishes including chicken pastry, chicken Tagine, Cous Cous and various other things that either I cannot remember or did no know what they were!

That afternoon I headed out for a walk to the train station which was about 3km from our hotel, which took me through some interesting parts of the city! We had hoped to catch the night train the following night to Marrakesh, and unfortunately in Morocco you have to buy your tickets from the departing station... which means no advance booking or online bookings. Luckily there were a few tickets left for the trip which is very popular.

On our second day in Tangier we headed back down to the markets to have a look around and ended up having a very nice meal of mixed fried fish (which actually was several fish, calamari, prawns etc) which cost 45 Dirhams ($5) before heading back to our Hotel to collect our bags. We once again got harassed many times by people wanting to take us on tours, many of which just started walking with us and asking our names etc, but after a while you learn what to say to them to get rid of them quickly!

The train station in Tangier (and indeed all in Morocco) was amazing, new and clean. By far the best train stations we had experienced so far, and all had good facilities, which was surprising. The trains were also some of the best. The sleeper trains had bunks that were about 30cm longer than the ones throughout Asia, so we had a reasonable night sleep and traveled about 1000km for cheaper than the price of a hostel.