Happy birthday to me!

That's it, so no post today. I'm sleeping in and celebrating tomorrow night with all you can eat sushi and assorted Asian deliciousness.

I went to Africa and rode a camel.

If anyone told me this time last year I would visit Morocco I would have laughed in their face. I mean really, Africa?

Apparently so.

We totally picked the wrong day to do this, by the way. We got up super early and drove to the port in the POURING rain, and on the way I jokingly said that I was excited for a rough ferry ride. And my goodness, it was the roughest I've ever been on, and for everyone else. Everyone was green. And they were totally passing out baggies for anyone who wanted one.

We aren't talking about a dinky little thing, either. It was quite spacious.

Since it was so bad, it took longer to get there, and we were pleased when we did. For any land, really.

(I don't think it was worth getting my first passport stamp with a boat on it, but it's in there now, along with an entry/exit stamp with Arabic on it.)

I digress. Our arranged tour was with Said, who had exceptional reviews on Tripadvisor. (So many in fact that I was skeptical they could all be real). This guy was smooth though, and seemed to have everyone in Tangier under his thumb. He met us while we were coming off the boat (as in, we were walking down the stairs from the upper level and he was walking up with a sign). He also TOLD one of the police officers to check our passports so we could cut the line getting off the boat.

We're not in Europe anymore, the land of law and order are a bumpy ferry ride away.

Anyway, we were handed over to our morning guide who would show us around a bit before lunch with Said.

Apparently pops of blue we saw is really popular. It's thought that it keeps insects away.

 This door is for an old bakery that's no longer operational.

 Cats were everywhere.

He took us to the Casbah. To rock of course.

And then we stopped by the (Atlantic) ocean/(Mediterranean) sea. It's actually where the two meet.

 Us with our trip planner extraordinaire, Chris.

Still breezy, but so happy the sun was out! Had we only brought our sunglasses...

And then for the coolest part of the day. CAMELS!

Susan was the first to catch her ride...

 Then Joyce, fearful no more of monkeys.

 John...

 Matt....

 And me! Now I'm on my camel and holding on and taking pictures!

 Oh you know, just out for a camel ride on the beach next to the Atlantic Ocean. No big. I'm surprised I got such a straight photo whilst maintaining my position on the camel.

 Obligatory group picture

 Some of the camels got to chill out and watch.

They start and end kneeling down, making it much easier to get on/off. Otherwise, these guys are super tall and there's no way we could ever get on.

 THEY ALWAYS SEEM TO BE SMILING!!

 Still breezy.

 You're so cool, camel.

 I think this is my favorite picture. It's like he knew he was getting his picture taken.

 Such a ham for the camera.

Oh boy! I even got a few wobbly videos. I added the tunes since otherwise you can't hear anything except the wind.



So. much. fun. Nobody cared they smelled mildly of camel. We briefly stopped at the Caves of Hercules...

Next we headed back into town, got a little history, walked through the market, sampled some olives, and sat down for lunch.

Yum and yum.

 Main course: chicken, potatoes, olives.

This was the appetizer. And yes, that is powdered sugar on top. Who knew what we've been missing by not having powdered sugar on our savory dishes?

 Uh, this is coke.

I should mention however, that a few days after this, just about everyone in our group got sick. Some worse than others, so we think it may have been some food poisoning of some kind. The likely candidate was our food in Morocco since we were all eating the same thing, but it could have been anywhere.

After lunch, we had to move fast because Said informed us they were canceling the later ferry back because more bad weather was expected (and they weren't even going to run the thing the next day, yikes) so we had to fit in everything before heading back to the dock.

We were given the hard sell at the spice shop. Like really pushy and everyone ended up getting more spices than we wanted. Matt and I ended up with curry, saffron, a nice hand lotion, some orange blossom oil, and one or two other things. Oh well.

We also visited a rug shop, more hard selling but no takers. During the walk back through the market, we were accosted by more than a few people trying to get us to buy things. Matt caved eventually but nobody bothered me. In fact, none of the girls were addressed by the merchants. Sexist? Sure. A welcome break? Yeah, I guess you could call it that.

Soon it was time to get on the ferry. Said was traveling back with us, and he again was pushy with the border authority, literally handing over all of our passports and told the guy to stamp them and jump the line. VIP treatment indeed.

After boarding, some of us complained about the spice shop so Said gave everyone a 20% discount, assuring us that it would "never happen again."

I'm fairly certain, that with his influences, it won't be a problem. If you catch my drift.

We were so happy to be back on land and on the continent of Europe. The ride was maybe a slight improvement from the morning, but not entirely great. No more ferries for awhile. In traveling back to our hotel, we stopped briefly to admire the view of Africa in the distance.

So long, Africa!

Gibraltar and its many monkeys.

Gibraltar is a British territory that lies in the south of Spain. It's super small and the Brits just won't give it up. Recently the territory put it to a vote and decided pretty overwhelmingly they'd like to stay a British territory. Take that, Spain.

Anyway, since we were so close to the line, our group parked the cars in a nearby garage to walk into Gibraltar. But not before we saw this awesome sign. If you can't read it, it's at a German restaurant and reads, "Last sausage before Africa"

We were pretty led down when we walked across the border and didn't have to show our passports or anything. We kinda wanted a stamp. Alas. After this border "check" the first thing we saw was a bright red telephone booth. So very British.

(Sadly though, they don't change driving to the right side when you cross in; I think it's the only British place that doesn't.)

So, Gibraltar has this rock. You may recognize it from the Prudential Financial logo, which is actually what it was based off of.

Gibraltar also has monkeys. A. lot. of. monkeys. One person in our group, let's call her Joyce, really doesn't like monkeys at all. In fact, she wasn't too keen her husband insisted on going here at all. We'll come back to her later.

When we walked into town, a cab driver approached us and offered to take us on a tour of the rock. At first we were skeptical but in the end we agreed. We had to go to the bank though, to get some British pounds out of the ATM. Soon we were on our way up the rock.

We stopped first at the southernmost tip of Gibraltar and took some pictures in the wind. That land mass in the distance? That's Africa.

I was having a great hair day, can you tell? (The truth was, I didn't want any monkeys to think it was neat and jump up on me, so I had it tied back most of the day.)

Captain Matt.

Next we stopped at the Pillars of Hercules before going up farther...

Within a few minutes, we were greeted by monkeys.

These were taken from inside the van. Joyce was the least pleased person in the van, if you can believe it. These guys hung on with ease.

Luckily for us, our tour guide was seriously hands-down, the Monkey Whisperer of Gibraltar.

When we got out of the van a little ways up to check out St. Michael's Cave, it took Joyce some convincing to get out, especially when this was happening on the hood of the van.

She stayed inside a bit longer because then this happened:

Inside the cave, it was so so pretty! They use it as a theatre sometimes because of the acoustics, so that's why you can see a stadium style seating and stage area.

 Matt on the stage.

Then it was back in the van time, and up the rock we went. This is where the monkeys got out of control, and Matt was in charge of the camera.

I snagged it back briefly to capture his special moment:

Matt was really into capturing all the different expressions:

This guy was the leader. Can you tell? He's a giant, and we were only there because he was kind enough to allow it.

Anyways, we hung out there for awhile, mostly because we were going to see a plane land at the airport, which is quite a feat. Gibraltar isn't that big to begin with, and to have an airport literally next to a giant rock is ambitious. It's actually on the list of the world's scariest airports. This is the first half of the runway.

Here's a (borrowed) photo from Wikipedia to show the entire thing. That road in the middle cutting across the runway is the road we took in our bus from the border. It's a main road that they obviously shut down whenever a plane comes in or leaves.






After coming back down the rock, our tour was coming to an end. Our guide told us which restaurant served the best fish and chips, so we headed right over. We had, after all, a Kiwi with us who as far as I'm concerned has enough British in her to make sure we were getting the good stuff.

I'd never really had fish and chips before, so I ordered one along with everyone else. I just hung out with monkeys all day in a van that was winding up a huge rock - why not carry on with this adventurous streak?

Here's my plate. I'm sure my mom was jealous.

Pretty tasty indeed. After waiting out the downpour outside, we got up and walked around and stumbled upon a little shop that had a coffee and cake deal in the window for 4.50 pounds. Considering Matt and I had exactly 5 pounds left, we thought it was perfect.

Mmm, cake. Another person got the butterscotch cake and I'm a little sad we didn't, but this was also good.

A fine way to end the day.