Days 4 & 5- Tangiers

To elaborate on my last post, we took an overnight bus from Madrid to Algecira (about 8 hours), from Algecira we took a 2.5 hour ferry ride to Tangiers. We were immediately approached, upon getting off the boat, by a man who claimed to be from the tourism office, who wanted to take us to a hotel and then give us a tour of the city. We managed to fend off the first couple of offers along these lines, but eventually we got suckered intp a 5 euro taxi ride to a hotel. The hotel they took us to was decent enough, the bathroom isn't the best and the matresses are a little stiff, but it was only 35 euro for all three of us.

After settling in to the hotel we went out to explore the market, where we again constantly approached by people who wanted to give us directions and take us places for a tip. We're getting better and better at fending them off, Sean discovered that if you say no money enough times they'll eventually give up and leave you alone. We spent most of yesterday afternoon and this morning shopping in the open air markets. It is definitely a barter market, yesterday I bought a pair of leather slippers/shoes for 5 euro, down from an initial price of 40, haha.

We were all really tired from the overnight bus ride (which was the opposite of condusive to sleeping) so we went back to the hotel pretty early last night and only made it back out long enough to go to a McDonald's. It's ok though, Sean and I both got the McArabia, so it still counts as ethnic food.

Tonight we'll be taking an overnight train (which for an extra 5 euro has beds intead of seats) to Marrakesh, which is supposed to be much prettier than Tangiers. I'll hopefully be able to post more easily from there, I think our hostel there has internet access.