Morocco

ON THE ROAD TO MARRAKECH

Fes….December 1998

° After securing safe (we hope) storage for our bikes at a campground in Spain...we made the 14 km crossing to Africa.

° 1st stop was the tiny Spanish territory of Ceuta. The visiting Moroccan touts and even our hotel owner seemed astonished that we wanted to stay there. It is another odd place that few people seem to visit. There is a McDonalds in Ceuta.

Chefchauouen in the Rif Mountains

Checking in to the Pension Cordoba with new fancy luggage

Couscous and tagine!

Across the border into Morocco...seemed like chaos to us when we crossed the frontier and into an old Mercedes "grand taxi" up into the mountains of Chefchaouen. The town is a Berber town at the base of mountains...the medina (old town) is a maze of alleyways...all painted in white and ice blue...bakeries with clay ovens ...donkeys...wood carving shops...tiny grocery shops...the call of the mosque throughout the day...a chicken being slaughtered in the narrow street as we first entered...the smell of hashish..and a roof top refuge at our hotel..very relaxed pace of the town...felt like walking around a movie set.

We were introduced to the intricate dance of the touts who after several friendly encounters, suddenly mention that their "uncle" owns a shop...

Beneath the seeming calm, fights break out from time to time...

With Ramadan around the corner ( a month of daytime fasting for the believers and a month of blaring mosques for all)..it promises to be an interesting trip...

The Hotel Cascade in the medina area of Fes. It had pongy toilets.

Entry gate into the old city of Fez from our hotel roof

Our sandwich maker was just below our hotel room

Some quick snap shots inside old Fez

Here in the maze of Fez, we watched people buying fresh chicken...live...throat is cut, bird is plucked and butchered while you wait..that is fresh chicken!

Marrakech…January 1999

Picking up from Fes, Morocco, Sheila went to a Hamman (bath house) which was so bizarre (it was the bath rush hour), that if she were to go again, she still would not know what to do! In most countries, hotels frown upon the practice of guests cooking in their rooms, but at the Hotel Cascade in Fes, the hotel manager seemed to be supervising two Arab gentlemen's efforts at cooking in their room next to ours.

From Fes, we jumped onto the very comfortable and on-time train to Rabat, the laid back capital. In Rabat, modernity meets the traditional world: we spotted a woman wearing a leopard skin outfit on her way to a disco passing by a fully cloaked woman with veil.

We headed further south, along the coast, changing buses in unappealing Casabalanca (the movie was made entirely in Hollywood). We spent a couple of nights in El Jadida, an old Portugese fortified town. Our hotel room came complete with slippers, a prayer mat and bedside Koran excerpts.

El Jadida

El Jadida cistern

We reached Essaouira (Essa-weera) where we kicked up our heels for 4 weeks over Christmas and New Year's. A 3 day search for an apartment only confirmed that our oceanfront hotel room and terrace at the Hotel Smara, was the best spot in town. In the sometimes dreamy and surreal Essaouira, we walked along the endless beach, ate tagine (Moroccan stew), watched sunsets, ate tagine, hung out at the busy port, ate tagine, read a dozen paperbacks, ate tagine, ate French pastries and ate more tagine. We met some interesting travelers like Chris and Gabriele (heading through Africa overland). Fellow Canadian Curtis was an IT type who was tired of casual offices and wanted to work for a bank, so that he could wear a suit!

Essaouira

Essaouira

Essaouira

Our bus to Agadir broke down, so despite promises never to take another Grand (shared) taxi, we endured another nerve-wracking ride into Tarodant. Aside from a small, interesting souq and surrounding, intact walls, its main attraction seemed to be the absence of "faux guides" (touts).

A scenic bus ride brought us into Ourzazate (War-sa-zat) which boasts a Club Med but no McDonalds. This is the land of mud kasbahs (forts), palm trees, red rock, snow-covered mountains, camels, Berber people and tagine.

Ourzazate

Todra Gorge

After visiting the Todra Gorge, we decided to flee the cold and rain by taking a white-knuckle bus ride through fresh snow over a 2,000-meter pass through the Atlas Mountains into Marrakech. It seems that selling to tourists offer bigger margins, so much of the traditional shops have given way to tourist shops in the Marrakech souq. Non-the-less, the main square with its snake charmers, storytellers, dozens of fresh orange juice stands and evening food stalls creates quite an ambiance. And in case you have somehow forgotten your prayer compass, the Koutoubia mosque in Marrakech also fires a light beam into the night sky towards Mecca.

Marrakech

Day trip to Seti Fatna

It was back on the train for a wet 3 night stay in our last-chance-of-a -beach at Asilah before a wet day in Tangier and its ferry terminal back to Spain.

MOROCCAN TRAVEL NOTES:

Best buy: A plastic clock with a mosque-call-to-prayer alarm.

A good thing to bring to Morocco: a knowledge of French.

Better than a home-shopping Channel: from the "comfort" of your bus seat you can buy watches, herbal medicines, peanuts, sunglasses, etc.

Sharpen your negotiating skills: shop owners often ask Three to Four times the final price and even after haggling them way down you still feel like you have been ripped off.

An art form: the extravagantly rich hand gestures during a verbal dispute are something to behold.

Safer that it looks: the dark alleyways with their shifty looking hooded characters are seemingly safe. We didn't meet a single tourist who had been robbed in Morocco.

It is a game: rarely did a day go by without someone trying to short change us.

All too familiar: the "Hello, which country? Welcome to Morocco" guy who latches onto you and tries to steer you to a shop. "Just look, don't buy".

The stark reality: A decent wage is 130 USD a month but there is 20% unemployment, but it looked like 40%, judging by the number of people loitering about. Plenty of begging. There is garbage and filth everywhere. It is a poor country.

Surprising: we had an average of 3 very wet days a week (the winter is the rainy season). It is cold enough to see your breath sitting around in a restaurant or hotel room.

Visions of Paradise: our hotels in Rabat and Ourzazate had large pictures of Maligne Lake, Jasper.

Tree climbing goats: sometimes a dozen in a single tree.

Star attraction: the ubiquitous donkey.

Tragedy: innumerable Chameleons for sale.

Moroccan business opportunity: sell " I survived Ramadan 1999 in Morocco" t-shirts to tourists.

FINALLY….OUR NOTES ON HOW TO PRACTISE RAMADAN (4 WEEKS PER YEAR), MOROCCAN STYLE…

* Wake up at 4:30 am, eat and drink something. If you are staying in a hotel, make plenty of noise so that tourists can feel like they are participating. Go back to sleep.

* Sleep in late.

* Take things slow throughout the day.

* 15 minutes before the daily fast is to be broken, suddenly realize that you will need some food…create a near riot in bakery, trying to buy the last bread loaf.

* Sit in front of a bowl of harira (lentil) soup , dates and boiled egg. When the all clear siren or canon goes off, eat it all under a minute. Drink mint tea and have a cigarette.

* Eat a tagine later in the evening.

Tangiers as seen from the ferry to Spain