mars 07, 2005

11 Février :: London - Chefchaouen, Morocco

We arrived in the Stansted Airport at 12 am Friday morning, grabbed our bags, and found a place to camp out for 7 hours.

This definately is on my list of top 10 things I never want to do every again. In attempts to fall asleep I woke up numerous times because the people behind me were making out.

Bill Bryson was my savor. He's a witty one I tell you.. this book kept me somewhat sane until everyone became restless...

Katherine started flipping out cause she thought Amanda was shaking the bench she was sleeping on..

Amanda started going crazy after Karin reminded her of all the traveling we had to do just to get to Morocco (you will soon learn)

And Karin got the hiccups.

At least we had Mr. UPS and his whipped cream bowl haircut to keep us entertained.

So this is where things get interesting. Meet Dave. Dave decided last minute to go to Morocco with us but decided that the ticket for our plane ride was too expensive so he would take another plane and meet up with us in Chefchaouen. We didn't have reservations at any hotels in Chefchaouen so we gave Dave the name of three hotels he could find us at, wished him luck, and we boarded our plane to Jerez, Spain.

I just want to take a minute to thank London for thier fabulous weather...

I wouldn't agree with Heather when she decided to put her contacts in at the Jerez airport, Spain being one of the dirtiest countries that I know.

Now here are six students in an airport in southern Spain, that, together, can speak (I think we totaled) 5 different languages, but not one word of Spanish. Telling the cab driver that we needed to get to the bus station was to difficult, so we resorted to moving our arms in the motion of turning a large steering wheel. They finally figured it out.

And I wouldn't say our taxi driver was relgiously at all.

The bus station in Jerez wasn't all that exciting....

So we do what any normal 20 year old girls would do.. make PB&J's while we waited..

So now, fast forward a bit through the two hour bus ride to Algericas.. we get off the bus at the ferry station and go in to buy our tickets only to realize that the ferry leaves in 15 minutes. The 6 of us are hauling ass through the ferry station (with 65 kg of crap on our backs) to get to this boat. Karin and I (because it's necessary) take a second to blog this chaos.

We make it on the ferry just in time.. and what do we do? Sit and wait...

...Take pictures.. and wait..

.. Eat some Crousty Choco, and wait...

.. And finally, after 1 hour 30 minutes of waiting, we leave..
(Katie, Karin, and Heather)

Strait of Gibraltar

And after hours of waiting, we land in Morocco, but before we can get off, we have to wait another hour so that customs can stamp our passports. I mean, come on people, this is getting a bit out of control. In the mean time, Karin used her oversized bag to block the doorway of the bathroom so Amanda could pee.

Finally, our first step onto Moroccan land, the city of Tangier.

Only to find the six of us piling into the back of the "grand taxi" which is really a shit box mercedes that has a stick shift, so even in your are one out of two passangers in the front, you are either smushed against the door or have the stick shift up your ass - I guess you can't win.

We left Tangier as soon as we could, seeing that it isn't that safe, and headed straight to Chefchaouen.

Posted by katie at 06:29 PM | Comments (2)