Tetuan

Tetuan is a large university town and as soon as we arrived, this fact became obvious with hundreds of students milling around, not only university, but high school and elementary school students as well.

The old walled medina contrasted with the newer part of the city which was 19th/20th century architecture with an Islamic flair. It reminded me of art deco but with Islamic arches and decoration. Similar sights to the other places we visited greeted us, coffee shops with men hanging out, women wearing colorful clothes and scarves, unlike Tangier which felt like a big city, this had a small city kind of feel, I liked it.

After stopping at a bakery to buy sweets (I bought a 1/2 kilo assortment which I have almost finished in a day and a half) we headed to the medina - the oldest medina in northern Morocco, a true labrinth, our guide told us, so much so that we had a 2nd guide who would ensure that no one got lost.

We wound our way through rows of jewelry shops dripping in gold and silver, enormous pieces, many used for weddings, once bought and owned, now rented, into a maze of old streets, cobblers making shoes in little enclosures while watching cartoons, soccer or Arab soap opera type shows, no pictures permitted, led to a souvenir shop and given 30 minutes - same old junk we'd seen elsewhere, but my group mates were grabbing it up, houkas, knives, jilabs, drums, salesmen appeared out of nowhere like flies drawn to you know what, holding fake rolexes, bracelets, clothes, whatever they could carry, complimenting whatever country they found out we were from, insisting we buy from them even after we said no thank you a thousand times. I held out for one shop that was putting out textiles, thinking that it would be the one thing I might bring back, simply because of the weight, size and fact that I love textiles, but none caught my interest.

It was another world, colors, spices, sounds, call to prayer echoing through the narrow, walled maze of streets, until eventually we emerged to our "traditional" Moroccan palace for lunch, Berber musicians stood to greet us banging drums, symbols, playing a guitar like instrument, smiling with rotted teeth, some almost down to the gums, until we were escorted in for our last Moroccan meal, this one the most elaborate, but I realize now, all watered down to suit tourists' taste, which is why they tasted like nothing.