7 August 2026 – Tangier, Morocco
What a very cool and totally different place to visit! We had a long walk along the pier to reach
the terminal, where we stopped to do very quick messages to our sweeties. J asked one of the staff about WiFi, and
ended up with him putting his staff WiFi on her phone! I guess it worked better than the public
WiFi, but it just seemed so funny!
At any rate, some people were
in European clothing, others in the 
traditional long robes worn by men and
women in North Africa, with many men wearing skullcap sort of hats, and women
with their hair mostly to fully covered.
Conversations were in Arabic, French, English, and sometimes a mix of
all three.
Now, I should back up a
bit. Our cruise ship has lectures or
talks about the various ports we visit, to help people prepare. I never attend, I will admit. I tend to just jump into the middle of things 
without having a clue what’s going on.
However, HAL also posts short
videos about the ports on their in-house TV system, so guests can watch these prior
to going ashore. Some of the videos are
about the port, the history, famous buildings, whatever. But there are always videos where the Holland
America tour coordinator (or some title like 
that) describes options available
at each port. Where to find the market
area, where to find the beaches, how to get around. J and I would watch each video the evening
before a visit to the port, because they turned out to be very helpful.
For Tangier, we were agreed
we wanted to visit one of the traditional markets. In this particular city, one market is in the
Medina, the original city 
within the walls of the oldest part of modern
Tangier. Our tour coordinator mentioned
in the video that the easy way to visit the Medina is to take a taxi or bus to
the highest part of the Medina, and then explore the area while walking
downhill. The lowest portion of the Medina
was very near the entry to the cruise dock, so that seemed like a very
reasonable plan.
We found our friendly
hop-on-off bus just outside the dock, and figured fine, this will help give us
an orientation in Tangier. Even the bus stop seemed classically Moroccan, or maybe just Arab. Islamic design is based on the Biblical commandment to not create graven images of anything "in the heaven above, or that is on the earth below, or the water underneath the 
earth." That's why you don't see images of plants, animals, humans. Absolutely nothing in nature. Islamic design uses geometric shapes to create abstract patterns (although they do tend to look like geometric shining suns to me). Our bus stop pillars were a classic example of this style.
We rode through narrow streets where it felt like the bus would scrape the buildings on
both sides! Past the fish market, 
various shops full of exotic spices perfuming the air (and so much better than
the fish market scents!). Past the beaches, one with camels for tourists to ride!!! Up and down
hills, seeing little vignettes of life in Tangier.
I briefly sat next to the birthday man and his wife, from Ibiza – they both wished me happy birthday again, and of course I wished him the same. Too funny to run into them on the bus!
After our first trip around
the city, and several conversations with both Moroccans and other tourists, we figured
out that bus stop #2 was pretty much the upper section of the Medina. As one person told us, get off the bus, look
for the big gate, and keep walking downhill.
It really turned out to be that simple!
The Medina is basically the
old fortress, and over the centuries people have built shops and 
residences
within the fortress, a labyrinthine complex of interconnected tiny souks (shops)
that seem to go on and on and on. Some
souks had obvious themes, such as essential oils, or facial care products. Or perhaps only dried fruits – figs, dates,
other kinds of figs, ten kinds of dates, and maybe a small bin of dried
apricots. Colorful pyramids of turmeric,
saffron, dried herbs, spices we couldn’t 
identify. Bins and piles of candies, with little bags
so you could put together small gifts.
Other shops were more confusing – some had dried flowers or leaves, and various mesh or brocade bags – and really, nothing else. Our best guess was that people could mix up their own sachet or potpourri blends, but we don’t know for certain. Leather shops, shoe shops, fabric souks, scarf souks – you name it, there was a tiny shop selling only that item.
It was crowded, colorful, busy, fascinating, and smelled divine. Or mostly divine – at least, there wasn’t a fish market within the Medina!
We wound our way around,
zigzagging 
through the market. Vendors
would hawk their wares, people would offer to be our tour guides. Fortunately, we found that saying “no, thank
you” in a firm voice usually worked by the third time. As if there was a rule that someone might
relent, but three refusals was the charm.
We eventually found a little
place that looked like a traditional Moroccan eatery. Not that either of us would recognize such a 
place, but it looked very clean, and had some mosaic on the walls. The menu featured tagines and couscous. They were willing to accept Euros, and the
exchange rate was ten of the Moroccan money (listed as DH, so I’m not sure what
they were called) to each Euro – so prices were great.
We went in, and a young boy, maybe about 11 or 12, helped us. His English was minimal, but he sent us upstairs where we sat and perused the menu. We were the ONLY guests, but at that point we figured fine, we’ll give it a shot. A woman came up, perhaps his mother – she was the chef, and we were able to communicate in French.
We ordered chicken tagine,
and fruit salad – but only after I explained how allergic I am to mango, and
she agreed 
that she could make salade des fruites sans mangue. (This was after I mimed dying from
mango. Some words they never taught us
in French class, such as “allergic.”)
The café eventually filled
up, with both tourists and locals, so we figured it was a good spot. Our chicken tagine was delicious, full of herbs
and spices and toasted almonds among the sauce!
Plus it came with some rustic bread, thicker than pizza crust but much 
denser
and flatter than a Western loaf of bread – but perfect for sopping up all the
spicy sauce! The fruit salad was a
wonderful light course after the filling tagine.
By now we had an adult waiter,
and he insisted we had to have the traditional Moroccan mint tea at the end of
our meal. My camera went through two
batteries by the time our tea was served, so J offered to use her smartphone –
the waiter poured the tea from about three feet above the glass to create a
froth of tea. But J forgot to take
photos – so our laughing waiter poured the tea back into the pot, and posed and
poured again! It really was one of those
hilarious cultural interactions, but the 
waiter was such a good sport laughing
at the two of us, and it all made for great photos!
After our wonderful lunch, we continued downhill, zigzagging around, avoiding the occasional motorcycle tearing around the cobblestone streets, and me trying to not pet every cat after the first one snarled at me. We’d ask for directions, have occasional conversations about things in shops, and bought very little. Oh, and the colorful flowers in the pails turned out to be the flowers from prickly pear cactus! The man described the plant, and I drew a sketch – he agreed, prickly pear! I explained that in the US southwest, the Native Americans make jam and sweets from the actual fruit – but he said in Morocco, they dry the flowers and “paint” them (I think he meant dye). Then essential oils can be drizzled on them, and they help perfume the house. They did smell really good!
Tangier turned out to be about our favorite stop on this cruise – it really was so different and exotic! I think both of us might have been a bit hesitant about venturing into the Medina alone, but together we felt very safe and able to navigate our way around and back to the ship.
At dinner, chatting with other cruise passengers who went on various tours and excursions, we definitely felt like very intrepid independent travellers!!!
