Morocco is a very interesting, but very foreign country!....

Our last update was a couple of weeks ago when we were in Almerimar. From there we moved on to Marina d'Este near Almunecar. We stopped at Marina d'Este because it was a convenient place from which to travel to Nerja where we had been told there were some fabulous caves. It can sometimes be a bit underwhelming when you make the effort to visit sights that have been recommended - but not in this case.....the caves were amazing!! I have posted some photos below, but they don't really do the caves justice, you can't really get any idea of their scale. They were huge and the stalactites and stalagmites were astounding. Well worth a visit if you are ever in the area. 

Our next stop was Puerto de Velez and to be fair, it didn't have a great write up in our Pilot Book. In spite of this it still managed to disappoint us. It was a fishing port and definitely one of the grimmest marinas we have visited so far. It was plagued with seagulls, presumably because of the fish offal that was regularly being deposited in the water there. We left early the next morning for Benalmadena with quite a few seagull souvenirs on our previously pristine decks.

Seagulls flocking round in Puerto de Velez as the offal is ejected.....

Don't get a dark cover on your boat!

Benalmadena is quite a pretty spot, much nicer than Puerto de Velez. In fact it claims to be the Trip Advisor Marina of the Year - I presume this is because of the votes from the trippers who visit the bars and tourist shops around the marina because I don't think it can be based on the votes of the yacht owners who use the marina. 

Benalmadena was a pretty spot, but........

It certainly didn't get my vote. I had several criticisms of the place:
1. They had a non-standard plug socket for their shore power, but instead of providing an adaptor as other marinas with unusual connections do, it was necessary to take off our plug and wire in theirs. Not a huge issue perhaps, but irritating and unnecessary.
2. Their Wi-Fi was useless! A few places get it right but the wi-fi in most marinas is pretty poor, I can't understand why it is so difficult. Anyway in Benalmadena it was appalling.
3. The security was non-existent and this was my biggest issue. Generally there is a gate preventing access to the pontoons unless you have a keycard or the access code. Not here!! At 01:00 we were woken by the sound of people climbing onto Viridian. I presume they were trying to steal our bikes, which were stored on the aft deck. Fortunately they ran off without taking anything after we disturbed them but it tainted the marina for me. We left the next morning.

From there we went to Fuengirola which was a good place to visit the hilltop town of Mijas. Strangely, there were some interesting pieces of Salvador Dali artwork in the Picasso museum here.

Dali's iconic work, Swans reflecting Elephants

We next stopped in Estepona. 

I liked this mural in Estepona

I liked the old town in Estepona, which was splendidly decorated with flowers.

The highlight of this passage was that we were visited by some dolphins who came to play with the boat. This was a nice surprise because we hadn't seen any dolphins for a long time, I guess they may be a bit more common nearer to the Atlantic. 

We are now back in La Linea next to Gibraltar, which is where we are leaving Viridian whilst we return to the UK for Christmas. Since we are staying here for a while we decided to take a trip to Tangier, which is only a short distance across the Straits of Gibraltar. Well, it was a fascinating trip because although it is only a short distance geographically it is a huge distance culturally.

We booked a very reasonably priced hotel, the Dar Jameel, in the Medina. However actually finding it was slightly more complicated than we had expected - the old town was a maze of narrow streets filled with houses and little shops selling all the goods imaginable. 

Whilst we were searching for the hotel it was a bit of a hassle because we were continually accosted by locals who wanted to guide us; sell to us; or just wanted money, but when we eventually found the hotel we loved it.

We went exploring and found it was a very pretty city. 

The market was fascinating, the plethora of exotic fish, meats and vegetables was stunning. 

That evening we went out for a wander and discovered that crossing the road is a very different experience from Spain, where the drivers are very considerate to pedestrians. In Morocco zebra crossings were merely road decoration and you play a game of chicken with the car drivers, taking your life in your hands every time you tried to cross.

Alcohol is difficult, but not impossible to find. Since we had OD'd on mint tea during the day we searched for a bar serving alcohol and spent an enjoyable evening being fed an unending stream of free tapas whilst we drank.

I like free food with my beer.....

The strangest thing we found was the separation of men and women. The bars were full of groups of men, chatting; drinking mint tea, watching the football - whatever, but there were no women there at all! It seemed very peculiar......