A Day Trip from Southern Spain to Morocco

While planning my recent vacation to Spain, I found out that it was doable to do a day trip to Morocco from the southern Spanish area of Malaga.

Getting a taste of Africa almost didn’t happen due to my cell phone breaking the first day we were in Spain. The idea of going nearly 2 weeks without a phone wasn’t appealing to me, and we wound up spending an entire day of our vacation journeying to an Apple store to get it fixed. Since we missed out on a day of adventuring and had some things already planned, we had to make a choice between a really cool hike I wanted to do, and a trip to Morocco.

I really went back and forth on what to do, but I couldn’t pass up the rare opportunity for us to hop over to another continent and see Tangier, Morocco. So, we had the most unconventional Thanksgiving that Americans can probably have… We completely ignored the holiday and headed from Europe to Africa to experience Moroccan culture!

In doing some research before booking, we decided that traveling to Tangier via a tour group was our best bet since we had no idea where we were going. There was pretty much only one tour option that I could find, so we booked the Morocco Day Trip from Malaga via Viator.

We got picked up at a nearby hotel bright and early. The ride to the ferry was about 90 minutes, and during that time, the tour guide told us about Tangier, filled us in on what they had in store for us, and collected our passports to gather the info he had to provide to security at the border.

We boarded a ferry, got out passports stamped, and took in the sights around us by boat. It was a windy 45-minute ride into the port of Tangier via the Straight of Gibraltar!

Within our tour group, we met a couple of young single American women traveling by themselves, which I thought was pretty cool. One of them had first traveled to Indonesia, then was just sightseeing around southern Spain. We also met a Buddhist monk from the Pacific Northwest who has written several books about Buddhism (I definitely picked his brain!), and was spending a few months in Spain, then heading over to India to spend a few months there. One of my favorite things about traveling is meeting people from all different interests and backgrounds!

Once we arrived in Tangier, we boarded another bus, and were driven through the modern European-built part of the city, known as the Ville Nouvelle. We learned from our tour guide that since Tangier is the nearest location in Africa from Europe, it has a pretty interesting history. During WWII, it was under joint international control by diplomats from 29 countries, including Portugal, Italy, the U.S. and Belgium. After that it went back to Moroccan control, but Tangier and much of Northern Africa still have a lot of French and Spanish influences.

Due to its multi-cultural history, Tangier has schools taught in many languages. There are French, Spanish, Arabic, and American schools there, and learning multiple languages is something that’s stressed to the kids of Tangier. I think that’s pretty neat!

After touring through the city, we drove up to the Barbary Coast to see where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean.

At this time, the tour group was given the chance to ride camels. It should come as no surprise to anyone that reads my blog often, but I was by no means a fan of tying up camels to an area alongside the highway to wait for tourists to ride them for 5 minutes in a parking lot for a photo opportunity…

So, my hubby and I instead took in the sights of the sea, snapped some photos, and found a lonely camel to pet while we waited for the group.

Afterwards, we hopped back in the bus to head to a city souk, or Arab marketplace. We walked through the bazaar to get to lunch. We unfortunately didn’t have time to shop here – I would have loved to get a pair of little flat shoes!

Lunch was held at a place called Restaurant Hammadi – a busy eatery with a live band.

The tour guide had asked about dietary restrictions beforehand and I had specified that I was a vegetarian, so my lunch started off with a salad, while the others had some sort of soup.

For my main entree, I had a vegetable couscous dish, while everyone else had some sort of meat. No one had any idea what they were eating. Is it lamb? Is it chicken? Hard to say! I was happy to stick with (somewhat) known quantities of veggies and grains.

We also obviously had to try local wine! Morocco is considered to have the best environment for producing wine in North Africa due to its mountainous terrain and cooling influence from the Atlantic.

After lunch, we walked through the bazaar, which was a part of Tangier that I was really interested in. I expected it to be different than markets in America, but whoa, it was overwhelming!

Something different is being offered up everywhere you turn. Food is being sold from pretty much the ground. The street hustlers were pushy – and that’s coming from a girl that grew up going to New York City’s famous Canal Street for knock-off purses. At one point we were walking through the street haggling with a guy about scarves (I got three gorgeous ones & gave two to loved ones for Christmas gifts!), and he was yelling numbers and my husband was haggling back as there were probably three other guys shoving jewelry and trinkets in my face trying to entice me. At one point a man pushing a wheelbarrow full of goat heads passed right next to me – probably the only vegetarian in the group – and I nearly lost my lunch.

It was quite the bizarre bazaar experience! See what I did there?

We visited a carpet maker trying to sell us expensive rugs. Some people bought them, but that is not at all our thing, so we checked out the store full of fancy plates, kaftans (would have gotten one had it not been so pricey) and handicrafts.

We also visited a spice shop, where the sales guy did a presentation about the spices, oils, and lotions used in Morocco. I found it interesting since I’m into holistic health remedies. A few tidbits:

• Saffron is used in Morocco to lower cholesterol. People place a tiny bit of saffron in a glass of water and drink it daily.
• Argan oil originates only from Morocco. It’s used for the skin, hair and in cooking in Moroccan culture.

I bought some of both to take home with me – one for cooking, and one to prevent wrinkles!

Afterwards, it was time to head back to the port to hop on the ferry and get back to Spain.

To give you a full picture of my thoughts on the tour, here were a few cons:

• Lunch felt a bit rushed.
• We waited awhile for our bus after getting back to Spain, which was annoying because it was a super long day already!
• I understand that the tour group, Julia Travel, has partnerships with local vendors, but the sales tactics of it all was a bit much.
• The camel ride part of the day seemed like THE definition of a touristy thing to do in Morocco. If I was going to ride a camel there, it’d be in a sand dune where the camel is free to roam around, and I’d go on a legit ride.
• The tour was supposed to take us to a local bakery, which never happened… After all, you can’t tell a foodie that they’re going to get to experience Moroccan sweets, not deliver & expect them to forget! 

While the day wasn’t all positive, our goal in taking a trip to Tangier was to do something completely out of the box and get a taste of Morocco. I’d say it was mission accomplished! I kept saying to my husband during the day, “I can’t believe we’re in Africa right now!” and it was a pretty unique experience for us.

Tell me… Have you ever been to Africa? Have you ever booked a last minute trip while on vacation that turned out to be a memorable part of your trip? 

We have South Africa on our list of places to see. I’ve also always thought that volunteering to better communities in one of the more impoverished areas of Africa would be an amazing experience… so hopefully in some capacity I’ll get to visit the continent again some day!