Waka Waka (this time for Africa)
Hey guys! If you don’t understand the title of this blog post, it’s from Shakira’s song! Anyway, this blog post is mostly about how I went to Africa and crossed another continent off my bucket list, but first I’m going to talk about Halloween.
I’m sure you guys all know what day it was 2 weeks ago. If you say Halloween, you are correct! Halloween in Madrid was very interesting. It is definitely not as big of a deal as it is in the states, so I actually forgot about it. I know, how could I forget Halloween? Well, not everything is decorated all spooky and scary. The only reason I actually remembered was because all the Americans I was around kept talking about it. I definitely wanted to have a chill night and watch halloween movies and eat candy, but my friends wouldn’t let me. They told me I would regret it if I didn’t go out and do something fun, so that’s what we did lol. We had a pretty good night, but Halloween in Madrid is kinda crazy. My friend Shrina can verify that it wasn’t that great, but hey, it was an experience right?
Two weekends ago I went to Morocco, and it was an amazing trip! I knew a lot of friends going, so I have been looking forward to it! It was through Discover Excursions, and it was nice because all of our food, transportation, and hotel was paid for in advance. It was nice to have everything planned out for us, but it was a pretty exhausting trip. We first had to take a 7 hour bus from Madrid to Seville to meet up with the tour guides. Once we met up with them we got on another bus, a ferry, and a bus one more time and then finally made it to the hotel. After 12 hours of travelling, we ate dinner at our hotel and then fell asleep. The next day, we took a 2 hour bus ride to Chefchaouen, aka the blue city! Mostly everything is painted blue, and it is really amazing to see. Unfortunately, it was raining a little bit, but I tried to stay optimistic. When we arrived, we had a tour and then some free time. The tour was really interesting because it is an undeveloped city and houses don’t have ovens and there’s also a communal laundry area where they use river water and washboard type things. It was really interesting to see this different way of life and imagine what it would be like to live there.
Of course we wanted to take a million pictures, so we started at the most famous steps in the city. We ran into these two Irish guys who were professional photographers just travelling, and he saw my bright pink umbrella. He asked if he could borrow it, and then went to show me how I could use it as a “prop” to get really good pictures. It was super funny because this guy was doing really girly poses to show me how I can use the prop. (On my instagram you can see that I followed his advice lol). After, we just walked around and ran into a super nice lady doing henna. My friends and I each got a henna on our hand, and then continued walking around the blue city. Overall, it was a really good day and the bus ride back to our hotel had really pretty views!
That night, we had some free time and then ate dinner. The meal was actually gluten free itself, so they forgot that the dessert wasn’t and that I couldn’t eat it. When I asked him if it had gluten, he took my plate away and brought me back an apple on a pretty plate lol. All my friends were laughing, but I was fine with it. It was a pretty good apple! After dinner, our tour guides told us to meet us on the top floor for a “surprise”. When we arrived they told us to sit against the walls and then presented a Moroccan show! It consisted of 5 men in traditional outfits and 3 of them were dancing and the other 2 were banging on drums. One of the guys at one point was dancing with a tray of candles on his head! It was really cool and super interesting to see, plus everyone was super into it! Then we joined in and had our own little dance party, which made it a super fun night!
The next day, we went to Tangier. We had a little bus tour around the city, where our tour guide described how Tangier is a rapidly expanding city. He said that in the last 20 years it has grown so much that the airport used to be 10 km outside the city, but is now included in the city limits. It was interesting to see an underdeveloped city and also a developed city that is continuing to expand in the same country. Our first stop in Tangier was to the cave of Hercules. It has a famous cut out in the shape of Hercules’ face that has a view of the ocean. The cave got its name from the legend that Hercules pushed apart Africa and Europe. Also, the tour guide told us that there is only a few times a year that you can actually see the sunset from inside the cave. It was interesting to see! Our next stop was to ride camels on the beach! It was really fun, but also a little scary and bumpy! I seriously thought I was going to fall off lol. The baby camels were super cute, and it was a really cool experience. When else can you say that you rode a camel in Africa? Yeah exactly!
After our camel ride, we went to the old section of the city and visited a Moroccan pharmacy where they sold all kinds of natural products. Morocco is known for producing argan oil, so it is actually pretty cheap to buy. In America it is so much more expensive. They sold many different lotions and other products that smelled amazing! There was no way I could walk out without buying something. After that, we spent some time walking around and shopping. Then, we had some lunch and made our way to the ferry to embark on our 12 hour trip back home to Madrid! By the time I got back to Madrid at about 7:30am I was exhausted! It was so much traveling, but definitely worth it in the end!
Last weekend, I stayed in Madrid and got some homework and studying done! I didn’t do too much, so there’s nothing really to blog about. Im super excited about this weekend though because my two cousins, Corrin and Shannon, and also my sister Rachel are coming to visit me! I’ve been a little homesick lately, so I can’t wait to see them and show them around the place I have been calling home for the past 2 and a half months!