Located in northern Morocco, Tangier is easily the country's most diverse and international city. Locals speak a combination of Arabic, Spanish, French and Portuguese, while international newspapers and advertisements cater to the diverse crowd.
Despite the assimilation, the city remains vibrantly Middle Eastern. The smell of spices, sweet tea, and cigarette smoke mingles in the air with street vendors hustling at every turn.
The Medina—the old walled city within Tangier—encompasses the city's vibrant spirit. Dating back to the 14th century, this walled area is overflowing with meat and produce stalls and vendors selling everything from spices and flowers to rugs, textiles, silks and more.
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It’s this area of the Kasbah where Morocco comes alive. The noise of negotiation and conversation is drowned out only by motor bikes making deliveries down the narrow, steep and winding streets.
Two days per week, farmers from the outskirts of Tangier proper travel to the Medina with their harvests. These peasants stick together in groups around the Medina’s major intersections, laying out produce on tarps and waiting quietly for six or eight hours to sell out the haul before returning home.
As dark approaches, storefronts shutter, the peasants vanish, and people return to modern houses built on the hills of the city far outside the 700-year-old walls.
The entrance to the Medina is marked by a grand old arch.
Inside the Medina's ancient walls, farmers and peasants lay out their wares—fresh vegetables, fruits, spices, flowers—on tarps.
And they wait patiently for customers.
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