Last Morning In Tangier

We woke up again at 3am when the muezzin went off. I guess since it was Saturday--the Muslim holy day of the week--the muezzin went longer than usual. A lot longer. Did I mention it was 3am? As in ante meridian? I guess it's just one of the features of having a pension near the Grande Mosque. Anyway, the part that really sucked was that as soon as he woke me up, I was up. A few mosquitoes had gotten into the room and everytime I started drifting off, I heard the high pitched buzz that we all know so well. I swatted and clapped and occasionally landed a blow, but even after all that, there were still 2 left when it finally was light enough to see in our room.

So we got up and packed a bit. Then we went to see the Kasbah. We found the door leading out onto the plateau overlooking the port. Spain was in the background. We went back and got coffees at another cafe on the Petit Socco. Then we got some juice and pastries. The pastries are hot out of the oven at the patisserie in the gate to the medina at the Grand Socco. The counter is run by friendly young women in headscarfs. More than anywhere, they have the ghost appearance. They speak French, of course, and they charged us 11 dh for 4 pastries (yesterday it was 6 dh for 2). So armed with juice and pastries, we got our luggage, lugged it from the Petit Socco to the Grand Socco and went to the first Petit Taxi. (Sidebar--there are 2 kinds of taxis in Tangier, the light blue Dacia Petit Taxi and the big cream colored Grand Taxi. The Petit Taxis are more controlled since they are for circulating in the city). We asked the first guy how much it is to the Tanger Ville Station. He mumbled something but we couldn't get a straight answer out of him. So we left him. We asked a second taxi and he indicated that he was metered and the meter would determine the price. OK, good enough for us. We got in. In the end it was about 12 dh from the Grande Socco to the Tanger Ville Gare. About US$1.50. Not bad. I gave the guy a couple extra Dirhams.

Then we realized that we got there an hour earlier than we thought. Oh well. We waited. They had no luggage consignment or coin lockers, but they did have a coffee bar and benches. Elena worked on her blog while 3 girls and their mother chatted happiily near us. They seemed intrigued by us. They laughed at me for some reason. Maybe my hat. I have an air about me that is non-threatening and disarming, I guess. Maybe it's because I'm just happy about my trip and our trip to Fez.

At 10:30am boarding started.