why I don't do package tours
Plans began to go awry during the trip south. About 10 minutes from Tetouan, there was an accident on the road. Against all odds, it included our tour guide! She wasn't hurt, but the tour was cancelled. Next, we arrived in the city and found that the museum was closed. By this point, 2 1/2 hours after departure and morning coffee, most of the women on the trip were in pretty desperate need of a restroom. So, we were led to ... a palatial restaurant.
Which was all well and good, except that it soon became clear that we'd have to stay for tea. Another 1/2 hour gone.
In the meantime, the program director--whose qualifications for said post are becoming increasingly suspect--had engaged another "guide." This one had an official badge, but between his incomprehensible English and the fact that, in the narrow streets of the old medina, you have to walk single file, it was less a "tour" and more an enforced march. When we did pause for photos or to glance at a shop, we were attended by impatient security guards who appeared to have been surreptitiously engaged for the purpose of keeping us in line.
Eventually, we were bustled out of the old city to a local handicrafts school. Sounded promising, except it was closed for the summer, so all we saw was this display room and a couple of empty workshops! Finally we were given an hour on our own. Just enough time to get back to the interesting part of the city...and turn around. I think this photo (one of our group in local garb) pretty well expresses my feelings on the afternoon:
Honestly. I'm sympathetic to the logistical challenges of keeping track of thirty students. But, even the youngest and least experienced of us is of voting age and has survived a month in Tangier. If we ask, "can we just wander around on our own and return to the bus at the appointed time?" let us go!
posted by Emily at 4:40 PM
3 Comments:
I'm sure this is the point at which the little libertarian in me decries the creeping nanny state, and how it discourages personal responsibility, and then I would probably go on a screed about liberty vs. security.
But I will just say "lame!"
Eggh, agreed. After getting frog-marched through the hottest part of Yemen (including them not letting us explore the market we had explicitly come to see, because someone 'might rip us off'), I swore to avoid guided tours in general, especially the kind that come with a mandatory military escort.
I was in Tetouan, and believe that it is a picturesque city offering property situated among pomegranate, orange and cypress trees. With one of the oldest old towns in Morocco where local traders sell traditional crafts in the intertwined streets with its marble fountains, royal palace and orange groves.
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