Mediterranean Cruise, Log Two: Casablanca and Morocco

I was always surprised by the superior quality of the tour buses in northern Africa. And the guides were well-spoken and well-educated local men who wore the Arab-dress of white flowing robes and turbans.


Casablanca showed us magnificent palaces guarded by handsome, tall men, and clean wide streets lined with beautiful palm trees and flowers.


It was the city that gave me my first taste of Africa on the Mediterranean cruise, even though it sat on the balmy coast of the Atlantic ocean.


The air was soft and sweet and made me think of movies.


When we sailed to Tangier, a whole new world opened up. It was a place of exotic heat, of golden amber beads the size of a robin's egg, and nightclubs with belly dancers and smokey audiences.


The club I went to was small. The seats had cup holders for drinks. The dancers were women in their forties who'd trained and danced even as teenagers and took their work seriously.


There were cobras and snake charmers and eerie music on the small stage. Very beautiful.


Near the sea, I climbed aboard a camel, wondering if I'd go flying over its head when it rose from its hind legs first, from the squat. The size of its knee pads amazed me.


It was an irritated camel that bucked before the guide could haul its head back down.


Sand dust flew everywhere, and in the distance, the blue of the ocean below the cliffs was dark and even.

Arabs wrapped a thick cobra around my shoulders so I could experience that. It took two men to control the huge snake on either end of it, even though it was relatively docile. I don't even like snakes, but that was fun.


There were so many ways for Moroccans to make money off tourists, because they knew we'd want to do it all.


When our ship docked at these massive ports, beautiful buses would be lined up and waiting on the cement pier, like shiny white friends waiting to whisk us away into another world.