12 Days in Morocco

Excited for some sun in the Sahara

Africa- check. After spending nearly two weeks in Morocco we can officially add a new continent to our travels. And I can honestly say that it was the most amazing and completely unique place that we have visited in 6 months on the road, where we met some great people and had experiences like nothing we've ever seen before.

To describe our time in Morocco in a couple of sentences is no mean feat, and even writing this post taken some time since there is just so much to put down. It is a country characterised by diversity: crazy cities with the trademark motorbikes as a sign of its developing status, small villages with houses made from mud and clay, snow capped mountains in the middle of the country, the arid landscape of the Sahara desert in the South East and then sunny beaches and coastal towns to the West.

Morocco has this fantastic blend of Islamic culture (and the architecture, traditions and way of life that goes with it) along with developing cities and maze-like medinas that really made us realise that we were traveling somewhere completely different. We were no longer in the comfort and ease of Europe and because of that it meant we got to see a country that felt new, exciting and exotic.

In our 12 days in Morocco we managed to see and do a lot of new things- we slept in the Sahara Desert and trekked on camels, we visited tiny little villages and drank mint tea in a mud house, we picnicked in a desert oasis and went jeep riding across sand dunes, we went hunting for scorpions and saw goats climb trees (yes, they actually do climb a particular type of tree that produces argan oil- the Moroccan oil used for hair), we went to sunny coastal towns and soaked up some sun, we trekked in the Rif mountains in a day, and we tried our luck haggling in the big city souks. And best of all, we managed to escape the cold of winter in Europe and spend our days in a place where the temperature hovered around 20 degrees during the day.

Yep, that's a scorpion..

And that's a goat climbing a tree

We started off our trip to Morocco by joining an 8 day tour with a company called Travel Talk. We paid just under £400 for all accommodation (all the hotels were super fancy places), transport and connections to and from the tour, most meals, as well as desert experiences in the Sahara including camel trekking for a day and a 4WD safari. We weren't quite sure what to expect and after finally making it to Marrakech (our flight was delayed for 3 hours coming from Switzerland because it was so cold that the toilets on the plane froze up!) we were surprised to realise there were only 5 of us on the tour. Along with Mike and I everyone on the tour was an Aussie: Elle, a WA girl who was on exchange in Manchester, and Greg and Chantelle, a couple from country NSW who are working in London. It was a great group to travel Morocco with and we made some good friends over the trip-we have already visited Chantelle and Greg who offered up their house when we got back to London over the weekend. They cooked us amazing food (he's a chef) and asked us to come meet again when we go back to London before flying home...I hope one day they can come to Newcastle when they get back to Australia so we can repay the favour.

THE PLACES
During our first 8 days we stayed in five different places and visited a lot more little towns on the way. After our tour finished we stayed for another 5 days and met up with our friend Annabelle to see a little more of Morocco on our own. Here's the places we got to visit during our trip:

*The Sahara Desert

Our tour started off spending three nights camping in the Sahara desert- two nights in the rocky kind of desert near Zagora, and one night in the sandy desert near a town called M'hamid. On the first day driving on the way to the desert we first passed through the High Atlas mountains, which were covered in snow:

A few hours and some winding roads later, we were in the desert and the change of landscape was extreme- we went from tall, white mountains to a flat, dry and rocky desert. Being able to say we have slept in the Sahara is something you don't get to claim everyday, and so the nights we spent in the desert were definitely a unique experience. When I say we camped in the desert, it wasn't exactly roughing it: we slept in permanently erected tents, with proper beds; we had flushing toilets and a (lukewarm) shower; plus we had a 'restaurant' where the workers would serve us three course meals consisting of soups, tagine and fresh fruit. (Mike decided to write a post about the Moroccan food, so check out his appearance on the blog here!). The nights did get very cold once the sun went down (it was the desert after all, and we still managed to be cold wearing all of our thermals and sleeping under a layer of about 3 blankets), but it was great to be able to sit around the fire at night and listen to some traditional music from the Berbers playing drums and singing.

The camp in M'hamid

The 'luxury tents

The camp restaurant

While we were in the rocky desert near Zagora, we also had the chance to go on a CAMEL TREK for about 5 hours. This was a great experience, even if the novelty of being on a camel soon wore off once the sore butt kicked in. Camels are a very slow method of transport and the guides walking along with the camels could actually walk faster, but I think we were all thankful we weren't hitting any great speeds as that would have made the ride a lot more jerkier. We rode to a farm in the middle of the desert where we had lunch in an oasis, and had an afternoon siesta stretched out on the rugs, before taking our slightly sore bodies back on the hump for the ride home.

The best part of our desert experience though was when we visited the second camp in the sandy desert near M'hamid. Here the sand dunes are the kind that you picture when you hear the name 'Sahara', and we had our fun running in the dunes, and having our daily mint tea brought up to us by one of the Berbers who climbed all the way to the tip of a dune while carrying a tray laden with hot tea, glasses and snacks. The sunset here was truly remarkable though.

*Agadir
This town on the West coast boasts of having "over 300 days of sunshine a year", and surely enough it didn't disappoint while we were there. While it wasn't warm enough for swimming for the most part, Mike was excited when he realised he could get to the renowned surfing spot Taghezout and get a half day of surfing in while we were there. Meanwhile, I went with Chantelle to get a 2 hour massage which was nice and relaxing (and cheap!). It was a great way to spend the morning, though we couldn't help but leave with the reminder that we where in Africa after all- the picture advertised showed a white stone foot bath filled with flowers included as part of the massage. Instead we got the budget option of bright laundry buckets filled with detergent to wash our feet in. Ahh Morocco.

*Essaouira
About three hours North on the coast from Agadir, Essouira was this charming little fishing village that was one of the most relaxed places we visited. Apparently the town was known as a bit of a hippy hangout in the past, and the likes of Jimmy Hendrix used to hang around with the locals on the beaches on Essaouira. Nowadays it is home to an old town centre encircled with walls, a big stretch of beaches, and a fishing port at the edge of the town filled with little blue boats and some big fishing trawlers that looked just a little less than seaworthy.

Unfortunately I managed to get a bit sick while we were in this town (as usual, I was the only one on the tour), but luckily it didn't stick around too long. While I was on the mend I stuck to a very healthy diet of carbs- bread and chips- because I didn't want to take my chances. We all compared foods we ate and we put it down to a carrot juice I had for breakfast that morning (carrot juice, it wasn't even worth it!). But I'm amazed that nobody else got sick considering everyone else ate the dodgiest chicken ever for lunch while we there- more on that one later.

*Marrakech
The start and end point of our tour, Marrakech was the most vibrant and altogether crazy place we visited during our 8 day adventure. On the night we arrived it had been raining all day, and since we got in too late to explore we had to rely on what our friends from the tour had to say about it: 'we don't want to go back to Marrakech'. Not the greatest vote of confidence there. Altogether they said the rain didnt help, 'from all reports they didnt like the overwhelming feeling of people grabbing at you, vying for your business, or in the case of Chantelle, having a crazy lady grab her hand to put henna on it and then demand a ridiculous amount of money (€60! I managed to get it done in a little village and gave the guy about 20 dirhams- less than €2).'

One week later and our tour ended in Marrakech, and it was time to see for ourselves what the city was like. In Marrakech we experienced sunny skies, so straight away we were off to a better start than the others. By this stage our friend Annabelle had flown in to travel the last few days after the tour with us, and so the group of us 6 Aussies set out to take on Marrakech.

The main square, Djeema el Fna, is probably the most notorious sight in Marrakech and not without reason: the square is filled with snake charmers, berber music groups drumming and chanting along, cross-dressing men shaking their headscarves and jiggling their jewelry in an attempt to fool the unknowing tourists, and even a weird game of fishing that involved trying to pick up coke bottles with fishing rods. There is so much going on in this square that you really don't know which way to look (or point a camera, since as soon as the buskers even see a camera in your hand they try to demand money off you).

Fishing for fanta

Stalls lining the Djeema el Fna

Our last day in Marrakech was the 26th of January, which means just one thing to everyone back home: Australia Day. This year though there wasn't a beer or bogan with a southern cross tattoo in sight, so we celebrated in the most un-Australian way we could: haggling in the souks of Marrakech and trying to bag a bargain (apparently in Marrakech you try and get 1/3 of the price they offer, since the mark up is so huge), visiting Muslim tombs, and then spending the night sleeping on the overnight bus on our way to Chefchouan. Luckily, we still had our fancy hotel from the tour to take refuge in until the bus left at 11pm that night, so at least we got to be slightly Australian and sit by a pool!

The Saadian tombs 

Lunch overlooking the craziness of the square

The souks

Mike and Annabelle, deep in shopping mode

Not a bad place to be put up- Kasbah Zalagh Hotel

*Chefchaouen

A small town perched in the Rif mountains, Chefchaouen was probably my favourite place we visited during our entire Moroccan adventure. Although getting there meant 2 buses, 14 hours travel and a night sleeping in a chair, arriving in this tiny blue town was well worth the effort. The medina of Chaouen is famous for its buildings, which are all washed with this blue rinse that makes for some very impressive photos. Wandering the little hilly streets, we truly felt like we had stumbled across some kind of travelers secret- there were hardly any other tourists around, and the locals all seemed genuinely interested in us, rather than just seeing us as walking wallets.

The view over Chefchaouen from the Monastery on the hill

We stayed at a cool little place called Riad Baraka, which was really nice and super cheap (I think about $30 Aussie got Mike and I a private room with a bathroom) and it looked like an authentic Moroccan house with a courtyard in the middle. The owner was this funny/strange English guy, and although he spent most of his time hidden away somewhere ''inhaling'' the regions number one produce, he actually had a good suggestion to hire a grand taxi to trek the nearby national park for a day. Together with 3 others from the Riad, we piled into a 'grand taxi' (read: a station wagon with 6 people squished in) and ventured  to Talassemtane National Park.

On top of our Riad...

..A view over Chaouen

The highlight of the park is a natural rock formation known as 'God's Bridge', and so we spent the day trekking some uphill, rocky paths and wandering around the mountains. The weather was sunny and perfect and the whole time, we couldn't help but get one thought out of our heads: this time in one week we will be freezing in Eastern Europe. It made the walk all that much better.

*Fes

Our final stop was a night in the oldest city of Morocco, Fes. 

On the hill outside the medina walls

Fes is a city that I can only describe in one word: hectic. The medina of Fes contains over 9,400 different streets so navigating the labyrinthine passages was going to be a challenge, especially since we had heard that the people of Fes are the pushiest of them all (our guide Abdoul described Fes in this way: "a nice medina to visit, but when the sun goes down get out of there"). Luckily for us, we were staying right in the medina in a Riad about a 10 minute walk from the main medina gate, Bab Boujloud. Though before any parents/grandparents reading this get worried, we had absolutely no problems- the guesthouse owner met us at the gate and showed us the way when we first arrived, and the closest encounter we had with a gang was just the gang of cats hanging in all the alleyways at night. 

Market stalls outside the medina

That aside though, Fes was not like any other place in Morocco, and after coming from the laid back way of life up in Chaouen I think we were glad we had just one night there. Walking through the streets of the medina, people call out and follow you trying to sell you something. To avoid this, our riad owner suggested we hire one of the official guides to take us around. Since we had to catch an afternoon flight, we decided a guide might be the best way to see the most of Fes that we could in just one day. For 200 dirhams (20 euros), our riad arranged a guide for Annabelle, Mike and I to show us all the sights. Too bad we managed to get the crazy one.

It started off alright- his accent was a bit too thick but we did our best to nod along politely when we couldn't understand. He showed us an old islamic school, the oldest university in the world, and was telling us some facts about islamic way of life (including the way Muslim weddings are celebrated, showing us the shops where they buy all the clothes and fittings). We also visited a leather tannery, which was really cool to see. They said it takes 2 months from start to finish to wash the leathers, rinse them in pigeon poo (yeah, we thought the same, but it turns out it's a natural ammonia), dry them and then dye them using natural colours. Then the pressure to shop started. After coming away empty handed from the first tannery, he took us to a string of shops where he would normally get commissions- carpet shops, more tanneries...at one point Annabelle said she wanted to get henna done, so he took us to some pharmacy where Annabelle got some henna  (some basic, florally pattern which she hated), and then afterwards the lady tried to sell us all her products.And when we didn't buy his attitude started to change.

The leather tanneries

Annabelle pulling her most convincing happy face

Since our time was running out and our 'guided tour' wasn't exactly working out, we ditched the guide and spent our last few hours in Fes doing a last minute shop. There were a lot less touristy shops in Fes which made shopping a bit harder, although I did manage to buy a present for someone back home that started off at being 490 dirhams and I got it down to 150! The guy in the shop called me a berber lady- a term used for the tribal africans who haggle down to the last cent to get the price they want- so I took that as the biggest compliment I could get. 

Our time in Morocco came to an end before we knew it, and we were sad to be leaving the warmth (although we headed to Paris with Annabelle so things were still pretty rosy).  There is really nothing I can compare Morocco to on our travels, and for that reason I think it was one of the best and most interesting places we have been so far.

Now we are on the final countdown of our trip (scary!), with our travel plans from Morocco going a little something like this: Paris>London>Plymouth>Poland>Czech Republic>Hungary>UK. I think it's going to be over too soon for our liking.