This was the first day of "Blue Cities Weekend" in Morocco. We booked this tour through a company called We Love Spain. Full disclosure at the beginning: we liked Morocco but would never do a tour group like this again. Basically, this trip was geared towards college students and was dirt cheap. We paid about $220 USD for the entire weekend that included all transport (being bussed everywhere, round trip ferry), 2 nights of lodging in relatively nice hotels, all our meals, guided tours, activities, etc. So money wise, we got the value and probably more. However, the tradeoff was the group was **hugeeeee** and we felt like very bad tourists tromping around these villages with so many people and at times it felt like a staring game between us and the Moroccan villagers. But I blame us. Another component was that we really were taken to the most tourist trap places and that WeLoveSpain appeared to have the most non-subtle partnerships with places they took us to that they purposely never disclosed. An example of this was when they took us to a fabric co-op and the scarves were 20euro which was crazy because on the street they were 5 euro. Additionally, hanging in this very "authentic" fabric co-op was a quilt that said We Love Spain. That was one of many examples. Despite our disappointment (or naivety) of doing this with a group, we had a very fun weekend and I would definitely go back to Morocco in a proper fashion.
To get to Morocco, they arranged a private car at 10am to take us to Algeciras, Spain where the ferry departed to Ceuta, Spain around 1:30pm. The ferry ride was very short. Our tour bus waited at the border for a very long time and then we made our way towards Tétouan around 4pm. We ate a rather ridiculous restaurant with performers and such. I say ridiculous because it was a large restaurant with only tour groups in it. After we went on a guided tour of the old city of Tétouan which felt highly inappropriate the entire time with such a big group of us. They then took us to a pharmacy (another non-disclosed partnership). Morocco is really known for inexpensive Saffron and their mint tea and argon oil. Afterwards we were given free time in a very defined area to go shopping. We had been advised to barter but quickly learned that you avoid the very first bazaar as it will be incredibly overpriced. My friend and I both bought small leather bags (which ironically we still think we overpaid for despite negotiating; c'est la vie). That night they served us dinner in the hotel restaurant and we crashed.
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| ferry |
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| mosque |
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| the ferry was HUGE |
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