Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

We left our place in Ferreiras uncharacteristically early. We woke the kids at 545, piled them in the car and set off for the Tarifa-Tangier ferry. The scenery was beautiful. I didn’t realize we were going to wind through hills and mountains on our way down to the Strait of Gibraltar. Nora didn’t either and since she wouldn’t give up her phone ended up getting carsick in the last fifteen minutes. It’s not a family road trip without a little carsickness!

We got to the ferry with some time to spare which was handy since the parking lot at the terminal was full. We eventually left our car in the city lot so we will just cross our fingers it’s still there in a few days. It wasn’t exactly tight security.

We polished off the rest of our snacks and boarded the hydro foil ferry. For probably the first time ever I didn’t get seasick – thanks Jo! And the hour long ferry ride was fairly enjoyable. When we disembarked Jacob explained to the kids that this was their third country of the day and second continent. Charlie responded quite excitedly “we are real world travellers.” I’m glad he’s catching on.

We left the essentially vacant terminal slightly unprepared for the rest of the adventure. We had wrongfully assumed that we would be able to access an ATM inside the building or maybe replace our Moroccan SIM cards. Incorrect. We eventually found some cash being dispensed from a van outside the terminal but had no phone access. That wouldn’t be a problem except that we needed to call our Airbnb host to meet us at the Kasbah gates. We eventually sorted it after declining several aggressive offers of help, a little yelling at the kids to stop launching themselves off of the parking barriers and convincing our new taxi driver to call Mustapha for us.

We wound our way through the streets until we were dropped to our waiting host. We shortchanged the driver at Mustapha’s insistence which I only feel bad about after he found Jacobs phone in the back seat. He wanted too much for the ride anyway.

The rest of the afternoon happened in a bit of a blur. We dropped our bags and then headed out with Abdul who apparently was our guide for the afternoon. We wandered through the kasbah occasionally being deposited in different shops – carpets, spices, fabrics. It’s been a long time since Jacob and I have travelled like this – haggling with “guides” but we eventually found our footing. The “tour” was not really my thing, we had no intention of buying anything and being delivered to these stores makes me feel very touristy but we made it through and it helped us get our bearings. We managed to shake off Abdul at the end of the day and will head out on our own tomorrow.