Tangier 2

After lunch we moved on to the vicinity of the Berber outdoor market en route to the medina (the old city), the souk and the bazaar, passing a small Mosque on the way. As mentioned in the earlier Tangier post religious freedom is enshrined in the constitution so, while it is predominantly a Muslim city with many Mosques, there are at least nine Synagogues and several Christian churches. We passed one large Mosque on the bus trip but, unfortunately, it was not otherwise part of the tour.

As mentioned, in centuries past Tangier was a Berber community and even today its population, we were told, is about 60% Berber. The Berbers are an agrarian and craft culture and their market is filled with produce and handicrafts of all kinds. Unfortunately I don't know exactly what, except what we can see in the photos, because we had to walk very quickly past their outdoor market area en route to the souk. In stopping to take these and a few other photos I was almost left behind. These photos were composed very quickly and most were made with a telephoto lens because it would not have been possible otherwise.

A few more photos made on our quick trip past the Berber market.

This table of bread is the first stall we saw when entering the souk. Once again, the passage through this amazing gathering of food was extremely fast so I was lucky to get these few photos. Beyond the bread stall is one displaying several kinds of olives (we were told that there are at least 20 different kinds of olives) and a range of other fruits and vegetables, similar to the stall in the photo below.

We were quickly led out of the souk past all manner of other interesting booths of food but with no time to find out what they were. The young man in this photo was the guide's colleague and the one responsible for keeping us from straying and getting lost, which he did effectively and gently but firmly.

It turned out that we were now on our way to the bazaar and to get there we had to pass through very narrow "streets" and keep saying "no" to no end of street vendors who were very much "in your face" persistently trying to sell you their particular items - jewellery, plates, leather purses, rugs, etc. Follow the Tilley hats, was one of the guide's suggestions.

All of this rush, it seems, was to get to the bazaar in time for an educational and sales presentation about carpets. The presentation was very informative, interesting and extremely well done, and clearly designed to encourage the purchase of a carpet or two.

And as you can see, the place was filled with a wide range of very tempting,very beautiful hand produced carpets, among other things which, unfortunately, you can't see. In the photo above the young man was attempting to demonstrate that the carpets are "fire proof".

This is a stack of some of these beautiful carpets.

And these are equally beautiful leather "poofs" or hollow leather balls that one fills with paper or styrofoam pellets to make a foot stool. We bought two, one medium size and one small.

Then we were off again through another set of narrow streets and the same group of street vendors to reach the spices and oils, etc. purported to make you look 5 years younger or provide that much sought after aphrodisiac. In this photo I am being scolded for taking it.

Here is the group once again listening to an interesting and very engaging presentation/sales pitch for the spices, powders and oils all credited with a range of attributes and powers. It was surprising to me how many sales were made.

Then we slipped out a side door in an effort to avoid the street vendors but without success. More narrow streets and the need to continue to say no.

We were folllowed all the way to the port where we finally did leave the salesmen behind. All of this was a lot of fun as long as you realize that this is their living. They were very persistent but in no way unpleasant or abusive.

From here it was onto the ferry/hydroplane and off on our 40 minute ride back to Algeciras.
Gibraltar next.