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| (Chris took this as he was walking.) Guide Mo leading me and Loana on our camels. |
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| We saw this view a million times over: the snow-crusted High Atlas mountains behind a stretch of date palms. |
I sold Chris on a trip to Morocco by painting him a mental
image of Marrakesh’s colorful central market full of street performers (one of
his all-time favorite things in life) and moonlit hikes through the Sahara
desert. Looking back, I’m not sure what
made me want to go other than vague
memories of childhood Discovery Channel specials. December isn’t really the ideal time to
travel around Morocco but after dealing with shite English weather for the past
many months we couldn’t resist a 70-degree break!
In the end, we spent five days in Morocco; a couple days in
Marrakesh split by a 3-day drive across the country to the Erg Chebbi sand
dunes of the Sahara desert. We’re glad we went but it certainly wasn’t a relaxing holiday. I’d say we are seasoned travelers, but that
didn’t prepare us for the overwhelming sensory overload of Marrakesh. Everything was calm enough at the airport (we
accidentally had enough cash on hand for the unexpected tourist visa) and then
the bus to get from the airport to the Medina (Old City) was easy, but from
there things unraveled quickly. Our first
major error was the suitcase (pink, with wheels) we had packed in addition to
our normal two little backpacks. In defense, a 5-day trip with temperatures ranging
from 25 to 80 degrees requires a few items of clothing. That said, next time I’d rather sweat or
freeze than try to roll a suitcase through those crowded, cobbled streets
again. People saw the bags and flocked to us to aggressively offer ‘advice’ or
‘great deals’ or ‘directions’.
Honestly, Chris couldn’t even hold the map to find our riad (typical
Moroccan hotel with a central courtyard) because of all the ‘help’. I’m proud of him for not punching anyone. It’s really hard to explain how stressful the
whole thing was. Wandering around a
little lost doesn’t bother either of us, but the constant intrusions were really wearing. After
twenty incredibly tense minutes, we finally gave in to a stalker who
‘accidentally ran into us again’ to show us to the riad in exchange for a
tip. He led us through a maze of
alleyways from the chaotic central souk (market) to the address of the hotel. We rang the bell and the sweet French woman who
answered ushered us through the thick wooden door and into a beautiful central
courtyard.
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| Early morning in Jamaa el Fin souq (the only time we were comfortable taking the camera out - usually there were hoardes of people!) |
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| A picture of our room (2nd story) looking down on riad's central courtyard. |
The joy of staying in a riad is
the instant escape from the city's sensory overload.
It smelled lovely inside, soft music was playing, and the owner of the
hotel carried Pink Suitcase up the flight of stairs to our adorable room. WHEW.
She scolded us for not calling to have her pick us up in the medina (we
had declined her offer, sure we could find the place ourselves.) Then she showed us to the rooftop terrace and
brought us each a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a much-needed map
of the town center. I’m proud to say we
resisted the temptation to stay tucked away there for the remainder of our
trip! After a few minutes of quieting
our ‘market rage’ (travel books have tips on how to manage this quite real
thing), we ventured back out for dinner.
Overall, we really enjoyed Morocco’s food. We ate a lot of heavily seasoned chicken,
beef, and lamb in tajines (meat and veggie stews cooked in a traditional
earthenware pot) or over piles of couscous.
The French certainly left their influence (or was it the other way
around?) on the coffee, bread, and
croissants of Morocco. In fact, the
coffee was everything we’ve ever hoped for: the best of Italian quality in
American portions! The food was always
complemented by fresh herbs and incredible bread. Overall, the food culture was amazing. Old men sold mint, cilantro, and thyme in
huge quantities on the side of the road.
Live chickens were for sale as were slabs of meat on hooks in front of
stores. People or donkeys pulled flat
carts piled with perfectly ripe avocados, massive pomegranates, and small sweet
oranges. Even the tiniest of shops had
fresh bread for sale next to the till.
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| Unpacking herbs and veg from a truck to a little market stand. |
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| First lunch - lamb tagine and chicken couscous with an avacado/orange juice blended drink which was as rich and delicious as a milkshake. |
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| Steak, anyone? |
After a quick street food dinner, we explored more of the
area. Marrakesh’s medina was built in
the 10-1100's and is a World Heritage site. It’s a collection of narrow, winding streets
full of food, ceramics, clothing, and leather vendors surrounding an open
central market square called Jemaa el Fna that’s full of acrobats, henna
artists, musicians, dancers, people with trained monkeys, snake charmers,
etc. Navigating through it was less
stressful the second time around. Having
no bags helped, of course, as did a full tummy and a little better idea of the
layout of the narrow streets. Also, you
kind of build a tolerance to the harassment by vendors and young men trying to
‘help’ by showing you to their ‘uncle’s ‘rug shop… Is this making Morocco seem unappealing? Did I mention the amazing coffee and bread? I
can smell it in my mind. I’m drooling on
the keyboard. Anyway, we had our fill of
the chaos in a couple hours and headed straight back to the riad for a really
relaxing rest of the evening consisting of cards, wine, and pj’s.
The next morning, after a delicious breakfast of
homemade yogurt and a pomegranate/kiwi/strawberry fruit salad, we loaded Pink
Suitcase into the back of a Jeep and met our driver named Khalil. We were in
that Jeep a LOT for the next three days - we covered about 900
miles. The main goal was to cross over
the High Atlas Mountains that traverse the middle of the country and spend a
night in the Sahara at the Erg Chebbi sand dunes. Along the way we stopped at some (mostly
underwhelming, if I’m going to be honest) places to take photos and have a
break from the Jeep.
The snow-capped High
Atlas Mountains are visible from just about everywhere in Marrakesh. The first part of the journey involved
driving east out of the city, ooo’ing and ahh’ing over constantly changing
scenery and then zigzagging our way up the High Atlas Mountains to the 2260m-high
Tizi N’tichka pass. The scenery was absolutely beautiful this first part of the
drive, and we were especially intrigued to see so many olive groves covered in
snow. We stopped for a couple photos and
some coffee and then continued through the pass and down the other side of the
mountains.
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| The Berber mountain towns blend in! |
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| 4-seasons in one drive - it got chilly at the top of the Atlas Mountains! |
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| On the other side of the Atlas mountains. |
Our driver was friendly enough but generally not very chatty about things such as Moroccan history. The two things he’d get talking about were
food and his three-year old daughter, so we spent a lot of time on those two
subjects! Interestingly, he had once
driven Jerry Bruckheimer around for an entire week as he was filming Prince of
Persia. To his credit, after we complained
about a really expensive ($12/each) sucky first lunch at a tourist restaurant
the rest of our meals were taken at markets for about $2/each. We’d each get a mini flat loaf of Amazing
Bread (cue salivation) and then find something to stuff into it (egg, smoked
fish, tuna or whatever), then get a bag of olives, a bag of roasted nuts of
some sort, and always an armful of tangerines for dessert. Once he got us some roasted pine seeds that
had a strange chalky texture but were tasty.
Why do I always find myself talking about food?
Right, so the next stop was a quick one at Ouazazate, aka
the “Hollywood of Africa” because of the movie studios based there. Worth a pee break. From there we went to the Taourirt Kasbah,
the purpose of which was never discussed.
Kasbahs in general are garrisons, or forts, and I think were typically
built by the French in their efforts to control the areas. Afterwards we went through the Skoura palm groves, saw how Argan oil is
produced, and passed through Kelaa M’gouna (City of Roses.) The last bit of the drive that day was also
really scenic as we went through Dades valley into the Todra gorge. We hiked around a bit in the 300m-deep gorge
on our own, much to the dismay of our driver, and then headed to the hotel for
dinner and great night sleep.
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| Take me to the casbah. |
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| Skoura |
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| Dades Gorge - you can actually see 2 climbers if you look close enough. |
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| Cool geology near Dades. |
Khalil told us all about marrying his first cousin
(surprising) and how I need to eat kiwi when pregnant to make the baby
smart. He was seriously adamant about
this, and made me repeat it many times!
According to Khalil, most Arabs live in cities and Berbers in the
mountains. You could always tell who was
of Berber descent because of their distinctive pointed-hood tunic. Khalil said most Moroccans were generally
happy. “Watch this”, he said as he
honked the car horn and waved to a guy riding a donkey along the side of the
road. The old man gave a toothy smile
and raised his arm in greeting. “You
see, we’re a happy people, especially in the mountains. Only when you move to the city is there
stress. The kids here don’t even know
they’re poor.” Although it’s said to be
a secular state, Morocco didn't feel like it! Especially as we got farther away from the city,
women were really conservatively dressed in all black, oftentimes with only one
eye showing.
The next day was frustrating. We were obviously ahead of schedule but
instead of just getting to the desert early, our driver stuck to a 40mph pace
(on the way back we were doing at least 70 on the same road.) I really wish we had driven it ourselves!
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| Camel spotting! |
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| A nomad with his camel herd. |
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| Kids playing football everywhere! |
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| Bikes, bikes, bikes everywhere!! At times it seemed that whole towns were walking or riding bikes or donkeys or motorcycles. |
In any case, by the time we got to the edge of the desert, all
three of us were ready to be out of the car.
We had some mint tea and waited for our camels to be saddled. Our driver
got a break from us and we were introduced to a very stern-looking (although
colorfully garbed) Berber guide named Mohammad.
Chris admitted to being nervous as we set off into the desert, the two
of us atop camels and our turbaned guide leading on foot. We’ve ridden a camel once before, but only
for about 20 minutes. This time was over
an hour, and by the end Chris was voicing concern that children may not be in
our near future.
The dunes seem to start out of nowhere and quickly become mountainous. They look a
little orange in full day but as soon as it starts setting the dunes take on a
really strong orange hue. It was an
amazing sight, especially backed by the bright blue sky.
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| Cool textures in the sand. |
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| Dunes are amazing. |
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| Shadows of Chris, me, and Guide Mo. |
I asked our guide if the plateau in the
distance was Morocco and he said no, it was Algeria and did I want to go there
tonight? When I said “no, thanks!” he
asked why, and I responded by saying “because Morocco is better.” I was just trying to be funny, but you can
see where this is going…. “Well, I’m Algerian”. Crap, “Oh! I’m sorry!” Chris is glaring at me by this point… I’ve
basically just pissed off the guy leading just the two of us in to the Sahara,
where we’re going to be spending the night in a Berber camp. A few minutes later we passed a small
encampment and another turbaned man joined our guide, not acknowledging us at
all. Our guide turned around and said
“this is my friend, he’s also from Algeria.”
Hmm. The joy Chris had of getting
off his camel was tempered a little by anxiety and he half jokingly said “We
may have to sleep in shifts tonight.”
There was something a little disconcerting about being so alone. We were shown our comfy sleeping room and
then joined the two guides for a mint tea before venturing out for a sunset hike. The pictures don't do this justice AT ALL.
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| The Sahara at sunset. |
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| Sunset over the dune. |
A few minutes after we returned from our hike a Spanish couple was led in by a third guide. Chris calmed down a bit knowing we weren’t
the only ones out there! It had been a
long day and I laughed out loud when Chris said he could go for a cold
beer. “Good luck babe, you realize we’re
in the Sahara with Muslim Berbers? Your
only hope is the Spaniards.” We sat
around and chatted (in Spanish, as the Spaniards spoke no English and the
guides spoke fluent…everything) for a while until dinner was served. The Spanish woman, Loana, ducked out of the
mess tent and returned with, and I joke not, five cans of beer. Chris’ face was priceless. Dinner was fantastic, and then we sat and ate
pomegranates and oranges for dessert and talked into the night.
This was my favorite part of the trip, but the experience
was nothing at all like I expected. The
world is just smaller now. Even though our
guides were Berber nomads, wore turbans, and spent most of their lives in the
desert, they still had cell phones and facebook pages! There was one spot in the mess tent that got sketchy
cell service, so all three of the guides’ phones were placed in a cup on that
spot so they’d get texts and emails.
Guide Mo and Chris even showed each other their favorite YouTube videos.
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| Guide Mo on the left, Paco, and other two guides. |
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| Dinner and, against the odds, a beer. |
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| Chris and Guide Mo laughing at YouTube. |
After a while, Paco left for a minute and returned with two
bottles of Coke and a bottle wrapped in newspaper. Chris’ face, again, priceless as a bottle of
Scotch was unwrapped. Leave it to the
Spanish to bring a party! After a few hours, Guide Mo started smiling and joking, and by the end of the
night we had to laugh at how nervous we’d been.
I said sorry about the Algeria thing again and he started laughing. “I’m born and raised in Morocco. That was a joke!” Wow, he got me good. We had a great few hours chatting in the mess
tent and then went outside to stare at the stars. The sky was incredible, I’ve never seen so
many stars and don’t know how to describe it other than the Milky Way literally
looked like a corridor of light across the sky. We saw half a dozen shooting stars in the
20-or so minutes we were out there before retreating to our tents to stay warm. It was quite cold overnight – about 25
degrees – so we used all five of the heavy wool blankets and snuggled in close.
The next morning we ate some breakfast and then headed back out
of the desert. For the sake of future children, Chris walked back. The early morning light was gorgeous on the
dunes. The journey back was calm other than a few minute scare when the camel behind me tried to bolt (he was being bitten by the camel behind him!) Not to worry, Guide Mo got it sorted before
things got out of hand.
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| How to keep your camel from wandering off at night. |
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| Our camp was at the base of this huge dune. |
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| Our tent. |
Khalil and the
Jeep were ready to start the looooong drive back to Marrakesh. We arrived, exhausted, at about 8:00 that
night. Mentally we were more prepared
for Marrakesh the second time around. We
bought a late street food dinner (surprisingly, neither of us got sick despite all
the adventurous eating) and then crashed at our riad which was by far the worst hotel experience we've had to date. Long story short, we think something died in
the bathroom pipes but it was too late to find an alternative so we had to deal
with it! I’ve never ever in my many
years traveling spent such a miserable night.
That said, we made it and were served an incredible breakfast (huge mugs
of decadent coffee, pancakes, eggs, fresh fruit, chocolate croissants) that
tempered the experience. We were
energized enough to really go out and explore the Medina again and were really
thankful for a great last day in Marrakesh.
We’re not sure why, but people weren’t harassing us at all. Maybe we just looked as though we knew what
we were doing and where we were going?
In any case, we bought a few small souvenirs: some spice holders, a tajine pot, and some
lamp sconces made from camel skin. We
never quite built up the confidence to shop for a rug but don’t have any
regrets, either!
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| Buying a tajine pot from an old man with really bad cataracts. |
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| Snake charmers in the central square. |
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| Such an interesting mix of modern and traditional. |
I guess I’d say, in a nutshell, Marrakesh was overwhelming
and the overall trip was a bit underwhelming because of how many hours we spent in a car.
We were so happy to pick Bailey up from the kennel (first time we’ve had
to do that) and be home as our little family!
