Catching Up: Morocco

Sharon and I have just returned from our holiday in Morocco and I wish I was thesaurus but I can find no other way to describe it but AMAZING. It was my first venture out of western civilization and despite it being in North Africa with a lot of middle eastern/islamic influence, I think Morocco's somewhat progressive society was a good "gateway" if you will. Anyway, we leave for Paris tomorrow and I want to write as much as I can remember about Morocco now before it slips my mind--so be prepared this will be a long post. :) Or you can skip all the writing and go directly to my pics, most of which are at the end of my postas I'm sure that's what interests people most.

We started our travels to Marrakesh via London Luton airport on a Tuesday night, with the intention of staying the night in the airport as our flight to Morocco wasn't until 6:55 a.m. I knew Luton was a smaller airport but I didn't expect everything to shut down at 11 p.m., 10 minutes after we arrived....so we slept on the cold tile floor in our sleeping bags. That was fun-sort of.

Anyway our flight to Marrakesh went quickly and we were greeted with sunny skies--I almost forgot what that looked like. We headed to our riad in the old city, only accessible by foot down some random alley ways. I was here we were first made aware of Moroccan "friendliness" with many a "Bonjour les filles!" and "vous etes tres belles!" greetings coming our way. Our riad, Hotel Sherazade, was beautiful and very authentically Moroccan. Most of the buildings have open courtyards in the middle of buildings with either a lemon or orange tree growing in the middle and terraces on the roof. We left our luggage in our rooms and headed out for the main square. We were greeted by snake charmers, story tellers and women randomly grabbing your hands to apply henna for a ridiculous price...as Sharon soon found out. The sights and smells of the souqs were unreal but I have to say for all the spices we saw in the markets, we certainly didn't taste them in our food. Basically all the restaurants served the same three things: tajine (a stew type dish), couscous and brochettes (kabobs), but all of them seemed toned down in flavour for tourists, bordering on bland. We asked a few Moroccans "where can we get good, authentic Moroccan food?" and they all repled the same thing: "my house."

That was probably the most notable thing about Moroccan culture: everyone we met was extremely warm and friendly. I have never been in a society where people had such an easy going attitude and openness about them. We were constantly being invited for "berber whiskey" otherwise known as mint tea by people we met, where we would talk about eachother's cultures and interests. It really was heartwarming and I realized that my previous concerns about two young girls traveling alone in a muslim country were not well-founded.


After a few days in Marrakesh, we signed up for a Saharan expedition. This basically entailed getting in a range rover with a guide and four other people and driving for two days, but it was a great way to see Moroccan landscape when we were tight for time. Luckily we also had a really great group of people traveling with us, Lilian and Adam from Poland, Suzuki from Japan (whom I affectionately call Kawasaki) and our token australian traveller, Marc. They were all really lovely. The first day was spent driving through the High Atlas Mountains, where Mohammed our driver, would occasionally pull over for breathtaking views. We also stopped to visit a few kasbahs including Aït Benhaddou which was the setting for many films, including "Gladiator." We rounded up our trip with a stay in the Dades Valley Gorge which was very impressive. The next day we made our way to Merzouga, stopping along the way at various locations. We also visited a nomad brother and sister, who run a woman's co-op making rugs. We had tea with them and the brother (Mohammed again), told us about the various symbollism the women use in making the rug. Each rug tells a story and a few of us bought one to remember our time with them--and because they were beautiful of course. We arrived at the gateway to the Sahara at dusk and took a camel ride through the sand dunes to our campsite for the night. Unfortunately our pictures didn't turn out so well and they certainly do not do the view justice. The colours were phenomenal and even though I knew we were there, looking out over the sand dunes at sunset seemed as though it was a post card--unreal. We settled in our campsite and had the best tajine of the whole trip. Then our two guides (you guessed it) Mohammed and Hassan played some traditional Berber music and then taught Sharon and I how to play the Bongo drums. Mohammed spoke 9 languages, all self-taught, by virtue of his contact with tourists. So impressive...

Although it was dark already we decided to hike up the dunes to look at the stars...they were deceptively high. I thought it would be a short jaunt up the hill but 45 mins later at the top I thought I would have a heart attack. The stars were beautiful so we decided to cuddle up under blankets and sleep the night outside the tent--why not, I doubt I'll ever get to sleep in the Saharan desert again. The next day we headed back in the morning to our car but rather than return with the group to Marrakesh, we headed south to Fez. Fez is one of the oldest midieval cities in the world and its gorgeous! Its built kind of going down into a valley, Sharon said it reminded her a lot of Jerusalem. The next day we took a guide through the medina as it's extremely confusing with 9000 small streets/alleys in it. The guide wasn't that great, he basically took us to all his friend's shops and we had no self-control and shopped anyway knowing we were likely getting ripped off.

We returned to Marrakesh via train and met a bunch of really nice people, all exchanging email addresses and invitations for us to stay with them next time we were in Fez. I cannot say enough how nice the people were in Morocco, men and women, we were constantly greeted with smiles and openness. I think that will be what will stick with me most about this country.