Tangier, Morocco - Apr 03, 2013

Today we not only cruised into our first rainy port but we also knocked about a thousand years off the calendar as within a few steps into Tangier’s old town you are engulfed into a world of old. Morocco, a country of many wonders: veil covered women, open air bazaars and ancient fortified walled towns. Situated in the north we are in the beautiful old international port of Tangiers. Built on the slopes of a chalky limestone hill, it was first known as a Phoenician trading post with various rulers dominating this area well into the 16th century. Medina, the old town, is enclosed by the 15th century ramparts and is dominated by the Kasbah. After our room move this morning - another whole story in itself, we are now in a Verandah suite where I am writing this from our outdoor verandah, nice. In short, ever since our second visit to Singapore, we had a single young male next to our room and over the past weeks his nocturnal habits and his attitude came to a head causing us to write a letter on complaint. HAL were very quick to respond and for our remaining time on this cruise we will be enjoying all the benefits of this Verandah suite. So, after our move this morning and in a downpour we headed into the craziness of Tangier’s old town - by the way, this is right where the ship docks, so very convenient. Now unless you want to be harassed to death by vendors, the word is “no thank you”. It got to a point where one guy came up to me and said “excuse me sir” and I responded with “No Thank you”, he said, “I haven’t asked you or said anything to you yet” and I said, “yes I know but I have and it is no thank you” - he just walked away. We only have a few pictures today, the rain was just making next to impossible to get some good pictures, that plus, when going into the produce/meat market, which is fascinating, I tried to video tape and was asked by one of the vendors, not too. So no pictures of this crazy market, where like I indicated felt like we dropped back a thousand years, picture narrow covered streets, with vendor after vendor, people everywhere, sacks of what looked like a billion spices, women sitting on the ground peeling vegetables (wearing clothes of old, moving in slow motion, machine like fashion, all with dead staring faces), giving the peeled vegetables to the men for their displays. Then on the meat/fish side, wow what a sight and scent for that matter, you name it and it was being cut up, weighed and sold. My stomach actually started turning when I saw a raw decapitated head of a bull on display for sale (bulls brains anyone?). No wonder they were not thrilled with pictures or video, but with this narrative, I think you get the picture. So because of weather and constantly being followed around by vendors (at one point be had to duck into a coffee shop, yes we did have a cup of Moroccan Coffee - delicious), once you attract one, its like a feeding frenzy, we decided a couples hours was enough and we headed back to the ship to warm up in the hot tub (Jan had a bath in her new jetted tub) and Sauna. So a nice short day here in this land of old - BTW try to figure this out, Morocco is two hours behind the European time zone, so we have had to stay on “ships time” today which did not adjust for the local time as we are heading back to Cadiz and Spain tomorrow. Here are few pictures that we did take today - the weather did improve mid afternoon so we did have a nice sail away. The last few show the mouth of Strait of Gibraltar, pretty cool seeing it from this side - the last time through here was the middle of the night.