Wave at Casablanca on the Way to Tangier

After a few years’ hiatus due to a mix of family drama and on account of the world shutting down for Covid, The Scholarly Professor and the Raunchy Truck Driver have finally embarked on another adventure; this time to Morocco.

The flight from Dulles to Casablanca was pretty uneventful and surprisingly short (just over 6.5 hrs), getting us to Casablanca in the mid morning. Due to limited time and wanting to see as much as possible, Em and I decided early on to head directly from Casablanca to Tangier in the north. We’ll be coming back down to the capital city in a few days, before the start of the two week guided tour that we booked, and will explore the capital more then. But for now, we have a few days and two other cities to explore.

Our first port of call is Tangier, a coastal city in the north of the country that sits at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean, off Cape Spartel. The city started as a Phoenician colony sometime between the 10th and 8th centuries BCE. Since that time, it has been a Carthaginian port city, Roman colony, and home of the Berber people; as well as in the temporary custody of many other nations.

Of interesting note, from 1923 to 1956, Tangier was an international zone. The city, and surrounding area, was promoted as a cosmopolitan society where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together with reciprocal respect and tolerance. A town where men and women, with many different political and ideological tendencies, found refuge, including Spaniards from the right or from the left, Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and Moroccan dissidents. With very liberal economic and fiscal laws, Tangier became - in an international environment full of restrictions, prohibitions and monopolies - a tax haven with absolute freedom of trade. The city flourished as a multicultural, multiethnic, free spirited haven. In 1956, the zone was abolished and the city reintegrated with Morocco, but many acceptances of that era remain.

Getting from the airport to Tangier is really simple, only requiring two trains: one from the airport to the main Casablanca train station, and one from the Main Station to the Main Station in Tangier. Em had booked us first class tickets online and they came with the added perk of a 30 minute lounge visit during the wait between the two trains. This was a welcome surprise that included a nice cup of free espresso. Then after wandering the first class train car for a bit looking for our seat assignments, we realized that we’d been assigned the handicap seats. After ensuring that there were no actual wheel-chaired passengers in need of the space, we enjoyed the oodles of foot room and shouted our conversations across the great divide that separated us from one another.

Our hostel, Bayt Alice, is in the Medina. The Medina is a labyrinthine series of alleyways filled with stalls and shops selling vibrant wares and tasty treats, cafes, clubs, apartments, and hotels. All of this is located within the 700 year old Portuguese walls that make up the exterior perimeter of a city that once housed the entire 5000 residents of the city.

In true Em and Robby fashion, we picked up a “friendly helper” within minutes of beginning our explorations. It started with admiring some street food (a type of chickpea and egg savory dish that looked like custard pie and was not really to our liking) and a local student tour guide who decided to chat us up. He convinced us to follow him as he gave fast placed tour of the old town and the marketplace. Of course we told him we didn’t need a guide and we were not interested in buying anything, but that didn’t really deter our new friend, who found many excuses to continue to herald us in the direction he wanted, a Berber shop, with the hopes of making a commission on a large rug sale or some such. 

I’ll give him props for his persistence, but we made him work really hard to drag us to that shop. We got our fast paced tour of the marketplace on the way to see the Kasbah (the city’s historic Royal citadel at the heart of the Medina and where we intended to go when we started out exploration for the evening), ditched him a few times only to have him pop back up and then finally part ways when we insisted we wanted to wander aimlessly through the alleyways of the Kasbah with the intention of going to Cafe Hafa. We parted ways amicably, enjoyed a meander and some delicious overly sweet mint tea at Cafe Hafa while overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, and had a gander back through the central Medina marketplace sans the rapid pace. 

We were only mildly surprised (and half expecting) when our new friend, Muhammad, popped up again next to us as we wandered the colorful stalls filled with spices, olives, and the many protein options locals enjoy. Muhammad picked up again where he’d left off with his tour guiding and not so subtle hints we come check out the Berber shop. We made him work for his troubles and got to try some local fare out of the deal. Muhammad introduced us to chock (my interpretation of what he called it in English) milk - a sweet yogurt (raib) based drink that’s similar to kefir or a lassi; as well as a honey drenched almond dessert that’s reminiscent of baklava (but with almonds instead of pistachios). 

Eventually, we made it to the Berber shop, which had many beautiful handcrafted pieces. Moroccan (and seller’s) tradition insisted we stay and have some more sweet mint tea while an older gentleman, Ali, attempted to entice us to buy things we didn’t want. I think Em’s constant “we don’t want to buy anything, but please tell me all about your life” line of questioning finally got through, and we finished our tea, said goodbye to Ali and Muhammad (for the fourth time that day) and retreated from the shop. Thus ended our first evening in Tangier and our first day in Morocco.

For all his machinations to get us to the Berber shop, Muhammad was overall a nice young gentleman and a decent tour guide. He did show us some interesting sites in the Medina (a tomb, a few roof top vistas, alleyways named after important historical characters, etc.) and introduced us to some of the local cuisine. Other than fulfilling his obligation to bring us to the shop, he didn’t try to sell us anything or trick us out of money.

Our second and last day in Tangier started with crepes and a hello to Muhammad. The same Muhammad from our adventures the day before. It seems he haunts the same corners of the Medina we do or we just have the exceptional ability to be in the same place at the same time as him. Tangier crepes are not quite the same as the crepes we’re used to back home, but tasty enough. Here they are more of a wheat like thin bread, heated, and then brushed with butter and jam or honey.

After breakfast and a short wander of the Medina in hopes of capturing some photographs before the stalls opened and brought the crowds with them, we returned to the hostel and met up with Emily and her sister (didn’t catch her name), two Madagascan sisters currently living in France, to venture to the Lighthouse at Cape Spartel and the Cave of Hercules. We had arranged with the hostel to get a shared taxi to take us to the sites.

Cape Spartel is the the most northern tip of mainland Africa and sits on the Strait of Gibraltar at the divide between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Here is located a beautiful lighthouse within a small building complex and surrounding garden. The complex contained a small exhibit about the lighthouse’s history, but the information was only in French and Arabic so we kind of only looked at the pictures.

The Cave of Hercules was once thought to be bottomless, but now is believed to be a subterranean ley tunnel that travels 24km (15mi) under the Strait of Gibraltar to St. Michael’s Cave in Gibraltar. The Cave of Hercules contains two entrances: one to land and one to sea (said to have been created by the Phoenicians in the shape of Africa), and is part natural and part man made. There are a few myths that go along with its name. As excerpted from Wikipedia they are: 

According to some Roman sources, while on his way to the garden of the Hesperides, Hercules had to cross the mountain that was once Atlas. Instead of climbing the great mountain, Hercules used his superhuman strength to smash through it. By doing so, he connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and formed the Strait of Gibraltar. One part of the split mountain is Gibraltar and the other is either Monte Hacho in Ceuta or Jebel Musa (known as the Mons Abyla in classical times) in Morocco. These two mountains taken together have since then been known as the Pillars of Hercules, though other natural features have been associated with the name. Diodorus Siculus, however, held that instead of smashing through an isthmus to create the Straits of Gibraltar, Hercules narrowed an already existing strait to prevent monsters from the Atlantic Ocean from entering the Mediterranean Sea.

The Greek mythology version is that Heracles went to Atlas and offered to hold up the heavens while Atlas got the apples from the garden of his daughters, the Hesperides which was also guarded by the dragon Ladon. Upon his return with the apples, however, Atlas attempted to trick Heracles into carrying the sky permanently by offering to deliver the apples himself, as anyone who purposely took the burden must carry it forever, or until someone else took it away. Heracles, suspecting Atlas did not intend to return, pretended to agree to Atlas' offer, asking only that Atlas take the sky again for a few minutes so Heracles could rearrange his cloak as padding on his shoulders. When Atlas set down the apples and took the heavens upon his shoulders again, Heracles took the apples and ran away.

While we went to the cave, we didn’t end up actually seeing the entrance. There were hordes of people and what we found out later to be illegal ticket chargers at the front collecting entrance fees. We tried to get in but ultimately decided the view wouldn’t be great with the amount of other tourists and spent our money on some ice cream instead. Guess we’ll just have to rely on pictures from the internet.

A little more wandering of the Medina and along the promenade rounded out the rest of our stay in Tangier. Tomorrow we head bright and early for Chefchaouen, aka the Blue City.