Having already learned so much about world travelers already in Tangier, we were all set to keep visiting more museums but then we got distracted by lunch. We by happenstance ran across Le Salon Bleu and decided to stop in. It was fantastic. We got seven small bowls of various things and each and every one was great, and the biggest discovery of the day was that putting cinnamon on orange slices is the way to go, dessert-wise. The café is perched up on the top of the building so you got these great views of the harbor and off in the distance Spain. There were also some funny seagulls which was cool and all, but my super amazing wife had been excited by the reviews which noted “heaps of cats.” We didn’t see any while we were there so they must have all been off doing something. In Tangier though there were certainly a whole bunch of cats, which seemed mostly well cared for and were definitely extremely cute. There was also a snake charmer outside, charming a snake, which is a thing I thought they only did in movies.

Anyways after lunch we then popped across the courtyard to our original destination, the Kasbah Museum! Even when lunch distracts us you can’t keep us away from museums for long. It is not technically the Kasbah museum (I have resisted calling this entry “Rock the Kasbah,” by the way, for your benefit), it is technically the Museum of Mediterranean Cultures, but it’s in the Kasbah so it’s the Kasbah museum. It’s a cute little museum at that. It proceeds lightly through the many many cultures that have called Tangier home, with a few interesting artifacts. Since it is built into the Sultan of Morocco’s old palace, it continues the theme we had been seeing of beautiful ceilings and peaceful courtyards. And there is a big ole’ Roman mural to boot with a boat in it. So that is neat.

Speaking of courtyards, this is where we first noticed Morocco’s fondness for tortoises. In one of the several courtyards of the Kasbah museum I noticed there was a tortoise wandering around, and then noticed there were a bunch of tortoises wandering around, including cute little baby tortoises. We took lots and lots of pictures. Maybe in some ways not as cute as cats but much more unique. Thinking back, there had been a tortoise at the American Legation Museum too and then as we proceeded through the rest of our trip in Morocco it seemed like every courtyard had one. I guess it is just the thing to do in Morocco. Where do they come from? Hard to tell, but a nice feature and keep an eye out for it.

After the delight in meeting the tortoises, the next thing we set out to do was visit the Contemporary Art Museum that was supposed to be nearby the Kasbah Museum. Turns out it is in the same compound as the Kasbah Museum, like you didn’t have to even go outside to get to it, so we wandered on through. They had some interesting works, and a lot of works at the time by Palestinian artists. Nice stuff!

At this point, we were unfortunately running a bit low on museums we could visit in Tangier, leaving us only able to enjoy the ambiance and culture of our surroundings. This meant wandering through the medina and trying to do some light haggling as a warm-up. We are not very good at haggling, and furthermore we were a little paralyzed in our souvenir buying because we weren’t sure if there was going to be nicer stuff elsewhere in Morocco. But one place our medina wanderings did bring us to was Cafe Baba. If you’ve never heard of Cafe Baba I hadn’t either, but my super amazing wife had. It is famed as being a place that the Rolling Stones hung out. There is little my super amazing wife loves more than a good cafe, and if Cafe Baba was good enough for the Rolling Stones it was good enough for us. Or so we thought. I can see why they liked it! It was not a place for us. The tea was good and the views pretty but the best part about the table they sat us at is that the window was broken so fresh air came in to displace the cigarette smoke. So we enjoyed our tea and departed, having been a little closer to rock n’ roll history and a little happier for having subsequently gotten farther away from rock n’ roll history. And with that our first full day in Morocco largely came to a close.