Thursday, May 7, 2009

Morocco Here We Come

Today, we crossed the border into Morocco. The border was a short ride from our hotel. I've only crossed borders in Europe before and often times you can't even tell that you've crossed the border. It's like going between states in the US. Well, that is not the case in Morocco. They have border crossing 'assistants'. Now, these assistants, not too sure if they are working in an official capacity or not..but I digress. The bikes required a lot of paperwork, so it took quite awhile. While the boys were messing with that, I just watched the locals coming across the border with a bunch of junk they'd bought in Spain.

We are finally cleared to go through. When you first enter the country, they've done a lot of roadwork and improvements to make Morocco look good right as you cross the border. We stopped for lunch and had a large seafood platter that we all shared.

After lunch, we hit the road and drove to Chefchaouen. This was our first experience with a 'typical' Moroccan city. It is perched on a mountainside. It had lots of narrow alleys with vendors hawking their goods. These locals were not as aggressive as the others we would encounter later. Our hotel was an old house and it had an open courtyard. I thought it was pretty neat. It was a good day. Here are the highlights...


A rogue picture of the border crossing. Pictures were not allowed.

Coca-Cola in Arabic...we were very familiar with this by the end of the trip.


I got fussed at for taking this picture by a local.


In general, the kids in Morocco were very sweet. They all waved at the bikes. Many would hold their hands out and want you to slap it as you went by. I'll definitely remember the kids we saw all throughout the trip.

Last picture, I promise...this was our bathroom in our hotel in Chefchaoen...pretty neat huh?

3 comments:

Absolutely Kathy said...

Super cool Lisa! I am so jealous! Can't wait to see all the pictures and hear more stories. Talk to you later neighbor hehe

Lisa said...

I am jealous too! Looks like yall had a grand time!

Sue said...

Why did thenatives not want you to take pics?? Pretty neat about the kid's reactions. Make you want to have one of your own????? LOL!!