Tanger aka: Tangier

We visited in 2005 with no real plan. We met a guy on the ferry, and ended up hanging out with him most of the time. Our trip consisted of wandering about looking at stuff and drinking gallons mint tea.

I really want to go back.

If you go by boat from Spain, I recommend getting out of the port as quickly as you can, and finding a tour guide once outside (or having them find you!). The tour guides are actually pretty friendly, seriously cheap, and they keep everyone away from you… anyone who might try to sell you things or bother you. They take you to the nice places, and, of course, recommend shops where they get a cut from what you buy, but hey, better than having people bugging you during your entire stay!

hehe, another fun place to visit. hotel manager will try to rip you off though. if you can’t speak arabic, then your spanish might come in handy. visitng hercules cave was quite adventurous. also discovering the partition between the atlantic and mediterranean was a moment when time stood still. camel-backriding was fun too :)

I don’t think commenters are giving Tangier enough credit. Elsewhere in Morocco is surely better, but if you only have the option of a daytrip (like I did), this place can be a great experience and a taste of life in North Africa.

I was with a private guide, and other people weren’t too too pushy. Sometimes it actually was kind of entertaining, like when a boy tried to sell me his tiny pet turtle. The kids in the street were very cute and polite (a lot of “hola”s).

I loved wandering in the market area—the whole booths filled with piles and piles of olives were incredible, though I was a bit troubled by goats’ heads sitting unrefrigerated on butchers’ counters… Another commenter said the city smelled horrible, but I have actually never been anywhere better-smelling than the old medina. The whole place was fragrant of all the herbs being sold.

It was also interesting to see the contrast between our guide’s efforts to point out everything cosmopolitan about his city (where foreigners lived, where churches/synagogues were, how many languages kids learned in school) and day-to-day life in a developing country (lonely donkeys chained up in dry fields, half-built structures, public bakeries so that women without ovens could cook their bread).

Having read up on Tangier, we knew what we were in for. For the sake of setting foot in the country we figured a day trip was worth it anyway; going with the guided tour offered by our Spanish hotel seemed like the easiest way to deflect the local guides and vendors of cheap crap. It felt like it should be reliable.

What we didn’t expect was that tour guide handing us off to a series of sales pitches of increasing pressure, topped off with a walk through the casbah back to the tour bus being accosted every 3 steps by random guys selling fake watches, cheap tin bracelets, wallets, and other junk.

Okay, so once you come to terms with the fact that the locals feed on tourists, what’s left? A dirty smelly city, but a very different culture and lifestyle. It certainly IS enough to get a taste of how very different Morocco must be from anywhere else in the western world.

The visit left me without desire to return to Tangier, but an increased desire to head inland further and visit Marakech, Fez, and the other likely destinations.