Morocco

After Spain we took a ferry over to northern Morocco, Tangier for a few days. One of my best friends on my study abroad [remember my "floating university?"] was from Morocco. His name is Taha and we stayed with him and his family in their house in Tangier. He was an amazing tour guide showing us all around town and his family was so wonderful to us. Taha took us to all his favorite places and acted like a tourist with us :)

Taha greeted us at the ferry wearing a BYU soccer shirt I had bought him before so he was easy to spot! That day we explored the medina [old part of the city] and had an AMAZING lunch at this awesome little Moroccan restaurant.

Taha / Local mosque/ cool door

 This is the back of the restaurant where the owner gave me lots of gifts and showed me how he makes this amazing fruit wine that everyone drinks with dinner. 

That pot smelled so good and the man was as cute as can be!

That afternoon Taha let us be tourists and ride camels. I have to admit, even if its not authentic, it was awesome. Taha says when he meets people from outside Morocco people always ask him "Do you ride camels everywhere?" he laughs and says no. Its like people asking Texans if they ride horses everywhere. Although, people in the desert parts of Morocco really do use camels for transportation and goods transport. 

Anyways, camels are huge! It was so fun to just ride around the beach and enjoy the beautiful scenery. Definitely worth the 6 dollars each we paid!

And of course in true Scholar Ship form, we had to do jumping pictures:

Then we went to the Hercules Caves. Doesn't the cave hole look like a backwards Africa?

 We also dressed like the traditional Moroccan mountain people which was fun for one picture. We actually saw a lot of the mountain people daily selling their vegetables or goat cheese at the markets. 

 I was also lucky enough to get to cook with Taha's mom! [she asked that I not post her picture] She speaks only Arabic but through sight and taste and Taha's occasional interpretation I learned a ton! She taught me how to make several traditional Moroccan dishes, which of course, I will be sharing with you on my food blog, The Apron Gal! Here is a look into the food we ate that weekend both from my cooking lessons and from eating out! Every single thing we ate was delicious!

Part 2 of Morocco will be tomorrow!