Morocco, Day 5 and Gibraltar

Our last day as a group we woke up early to walk through the city center (the Medina), up to an abandoned mosque that gave a beautiful view of the city of Chefchaouen. We ate our breakfast up in the mountain and then went to collect our things and find our van.

We drove through the countryside to cross back into Spain at Ceuta, a city in Africa that is actually a Spanish colony. There are 2 Spanish cities in Northern Africa, Ceuta and Melilla.

Crossing the border was definitely a memorable experience. There were hundreds of Moroccans and other people trying to get into Ceuta, so it was mass chaos…I’m glad we had guides who knew what they were doing! Since we had American passports, we were able to go into a special shorter line than all the Moroccan people trying to get into Ceuta. It was so hectic and chaotic, and I felt so awful that this was how the system works…we shouldn’t have been able to bypass so many people just because we had American passports. You could see the frustration on the faces of the people we bypassed in line.

As hectic as it was, we made it through with no problems, and we got on a ferry from Ceuta back to Algeciras. It was a beautiful day, and the ride went very fast. I couldn’t believe that our Morocco trip was already over! It had been an incredible week.

I was very sad, but also very excited, because a few friends and I still had a few days of traveling ahead of us! We decided that since we were already in the southern tip of Spain, we would stick around to see the British colony of Gibraltar and check out the beach town of Tarifa.

We got a quick bus from the Algeciras bus station to the Gibraltar border for 2 euros, and crossed through customs into Gibraltar. It is a very interesting city that is very proud of its British status. Everyone speaks with a British accent, uses the British currency, and serves British food, rather than Spanish. Since I knew I wasn’t going to get to England this semester, this was my replacement. :)

We walked into the town to our hotel and after we settled in, we went to explore the city. It isn’t a huge place, so it was very nice and easy to make our way around. We first went to the boat harbor, which was very beautiful, especially because you could see the sun and the mountains in the back drop. The water was also beautiful, blue and clear. You could always see pretty fish swimming near the surface.

After a bit of walking by the water, we went to the botanical gardens, which were so beautiful. We spent a lot of time here, since it was so big, and it was a lot of fun to find plants that we knew of, and many that we had never even seen. We tried to find some supper after the sun had set, but we had forgotten that we weren’t technically “in Spain”, so all the restaurants had closed by the time we wanted to eat. There was a Pizza Hut still open though, so we grabbed some American comfort food instead of fish and chips.

By this time, we were pretty much exhausted from our long day, so we all showered and went to bed since we knew we had a busy day the next day. :)