We finally made it to Algeciras and caught the 2:30 ferry to Tangiers. At this point we realized that we had been far too ambitious in our original plan to catch the earlier train. Things operate on a different schedule here. It took us forever to go through customs to even get on the ferry, and then we had to line up again once the ferry was ,oving to go through passport control again. In the meantime we met an American named Zach who was traveling by himself while on spring break from his college in Edinburgh Scotland/ The three of us decided to take turns watching eachother’s bags so that we could expedite our process through passport control. I was fortunate enough to be standing in front of two pretty funny (not on purpose) old hippy hash dealers. How do I know they were hash dealers? Because they were openly talking about it. But more on that later…
After we arrived in Tangiers Jon, Zach and I went to find authentic Morrocan food. We stumbled upon what might have been the grossest place to eat in all of Tangiers and promptly ordered three plates of chicken and rice. When I spotted the cochroach openly running around to no one’s concern… that was about it for me. Thankfully it seems that was the exception, not the rule as we’ve had GREAT food since then.
After that we parted ways because Zach was heading straight to Marrakech and we were going to Fes first. Jon and I boarded our train and a young Morrocan woman came and sat with us. Turns out she is an English teacher at a middle school and spoke perfectly! She was absolutely lovely and we chatted nonstop for the three hour train ride, until we had to switch trains. Her name was Majouba and she spoke candidly about Morrocan culture and things that might help us on our travels. Our goodbye was filled with hugs all around and talk of a visit from her to the US.
Ok, as a final word I’m going to leave you with a bit of hippy wisdom I overheard from those American hash dealers standing behind me on the ferry.
Hippy 1- Europe would be great if not for all the Europeans.
Hippy 2- The world would be great if not for all the human beings!
Hippy 1- Nah, because then we wouldn’t get to see it…
This Way Maybe 