My Time in Tetouan: Day 1--

So Michael got us a pretty sweet deal on a Grande Taxi ride to Tetouan and we got the driver to take us to Hercules Cave, too!  I totally dig caves and other cool natural landmarks like this one, so I was totally pumped to check it out.  The scene was picture-perfect and the sound of the waves in the cave was mesmerizing, but the guys and I decided not to wait for the sunset, rather we continued on so that we could see a bit of Tetouan in the day.  This proved to be a good call, because we had a bit of trouble finding a hotel—but once we did, we struck it rich!  Ok, the pillows were lumpy and there was only a hole in the ground to serve as the hotel’s community toilet, but for an equivalent of 5 euros per person, we got a 3-person room and then a 2-person room which—get this—had a balcony that looked right over the town’s central round-a-bout!  How rocking is that?!  So we went crazy with pictures before checking out the souks for the evening and hunting down some dinner.

Turns out the owner of the hotel was also the city’s Tourism Minister (or so he claimed…) and he had “the best place in town to take us to”, so we followed along but I knew what was coming.  And, sure enough, we were led through the winding maze of the medina’s souk into the carpet store of a funny old man who promised us a good view, some mint tea, and the best price in town.  Well, the view did turn out to be incredible (check out my pictures!!), and he did serve us tea, but only Josh was interested in purchasing goods from this carpet store man.  After the elaborate and informative “presentation” that the storeowner put on for us (did you know that real camel rugs won’t burn??), the group was hoping that we wouldn’t have to leave with him disappointed in us not purchasing anything, but on the contrary, I think we left him rather happy.  Josh ended up haggling his way into buying FOUR small, beautiful rugs to bring back to the U.S. as souvenirs so once his rugs were packed up and in hand, we found a cheap, quick, and delicious schawarma place for dinner.  We were all exhausted from the long day (especially from Assilah, the boys claimed…haha, very funny…) so we put any thoughts of late-night Tetouan night-life out of our minds as we satisfactorily retired to our hotel rooms for the evening.