My name is Myah Wells and I am a rising junior at Loyola. I am a double major in psychology and Spanish and a double minor in psychology of crime and justice and Arabic. One of my favorite parts of my second study abroad experience was spending a weekend in Morocco with one of my roommates and our friend. I have wanted to go to Africa for years, so when I realized how easy it was for us to travel to Morocco since we were in Granada, Spain, I knew it was a top priority to travel there. I quickly found other people who wanted to go and we split up the tasks to book the trip. I was in charge of booking the bus to the coast and the ferry across the Gibraltar Strait, Gina was in charge of booking our hostels and activities, and I’m not actually sure what Lander did, but he helped us and we loved that he wanted to come with us since it is much safer for girls to travel with a guy in Morocco.
It was very overwhelming when we get to Tangier because it was loud and there were street vendors and a lot of men trying to offer us tours or take us to our hostel. The city was very beautiful and we walked to this square in the center that had a bunch of streets coming off of it. We got some fruit smoothies from a small walk in smoothie shop and then we got dinner at this small restaurant that someone actually ran out of their house. Gina and I had chicken that they served with French fries and Lander ordered fish and it still had the eyeballs in it. As appetizers they gave us naan bread, chickpeas, olives, and a few different spreads. It was all very delicious and very cheap.
The next morning, we all got up and left our hostel to go get in a car that Gina had set up for us. The car brought us to the point where the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean meet. It was so amazing to see the waves crash against each other. After that we were in the car for a couple hours because we went to do a three hour hike to see the Akchour waterfall. It was a gorgeous hike and there was a big pool of water that this very tall waterfall dropped in to. It was way too cold to go swimming, but Lander jumped in anyways. We were all exhausted after that and we happy to nap in the car on our way to Chefchaouen.
Chefchaouen, also known as the Blue City, was the most gorgeous place I had seen. The people were so nice, the food was delicious, and it was a lot quieter than Tangier, which we all liked. We explored the city after checking into our hostel before we decided on a restaurant for dinner. The food was so delicious and our entire table was covered with different dishes that we all wanted to try. After dinner, we went to the center of town to look at all the shops and venders and that is where we got beautiful paintings. Gina and I spoke Arabic to the vendor and then I took over in Spanish, so he actually lowered the price for us since we spoke his language to him.
The next morning, we got up early to go explore the winding streets further up that have all the blue buildings and houses because they were empty at that time. We got yummy pastries from this woman and then we went to get breakfast in the town square. We had Moroccan crepes and I could have eaten so many of them. Native Americans have traditional fry bread, which is delicious, so that could be compared to traditional Moroccan crepes. The Moroccan crepes reminded me of the traditional fry bread that I have at powwows because of how fluffy and oily they were. Delicious!
My weekend trip to Morocco was so amazing and I loved the food and the different culture, and it was interesting to see the different lifestyles just between Tangier and Chefchaouen. Gina, Lander and I are so glad we made it to Africa a couple weeks before we had to go home and I hope that I will get to go again sometime.
