When we were planning our trip to Seville, we were also looking at daytours for visiting another city nearby. We decided to step out of our comfort zone and booked a tour to another continent, namely: Tanger in Morocco, which was scary and awesome at the same time.

Thursday morning, we got up early, dressed appropriately (long skirt, shoulders covered. It wasn’t required but I did want to make an effort to respect the culture) and walked towards our meeting place. My belly was rumbling and I admit, I was scared, though we would travel with a group so all would be perfectly safe. Still, this was a huge step since I’ve never been outside of Europe before.

Our bus came to pick us up, along with some other tourists. Couple of hours later we arrived at Tarifa, Spain where we would get onto a boat to Morocco. We went through customs on the boat (which means I FINALLY have stamps in my passport!) and it only took us about an hour to get TO THE AFRICAN BORDER. It was so cool, halfway through we could see Spain on one side of the boat and friggin Africa on the other side. Unbelievable… And to know we would actually set foot there…

I was as excited as a child (actually, I still am when I think about actually having been to Africa…) and funnily enough, by this time, my nerves were gone. We had arrived in Morocco, we were actually there! I couldn’t be more excited! I was curious as to what we were going to see and do and what new experiences we’d get, and I wasn’t scared anymore.

The bus took us through the beautiful city and we could see palaces and villas along the way, before we made our first stop. Not sure where this was exactly but there were some camels you could ride for 2 euros and some vendors that sold things. We took some pictures of the camels but didn’t want to ride them, cause it didn’t feel good. Instead, we walked a bit further towards a spectacular view of the Mediterranean sea.

I don’t know about you guys, but this always gets me. My name means ‘of the sea’ and I swear sometimes I can hear her calling and I just wanna dive in…

Our next stop was the Hercules Caves. Our guide told us a story about how they came to be and some about the city of Tanger. Did you know the name comes from the fruit? Tangerine? I didn’t know that but it makes sense.

Anyway, after his story we explored the caves ourself. They weren’t big, but it was lovely to see how the sea crashed into the stone. The whole thing was mesmerizing and felt like something out of a mermaid movie (mako mermaids, anyone?)

I didn’t take any good pictures of the rest of the caves but it’s something that always makes me quiet, to see what nature can do. There was also this little bat inside that I desperately tried to take a picture of, but none of them were any good. The thing was cute though!

An amazing start of an amazing day in Tanger ♥