Morocco

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Morocco was certainly the most different experience from the rest of our trip (so far) in terms of weather, languages, culture, architecture, landscape, and food. We spent three nights in Marrakech, five nights on the road as part of our tour, and a final three nights again in Marrakech. Our flight arrived fairly late ~ midnight. Drones are basically illegal in Morocco, so I had to leave mine at the airport. It was a bit of an ordeal, but I was able to pick it up at the end of the trip, after paying a nominal storage fee.

We spent our first night in a riad (essentially a hotel built around an enclosed garden) in the medina (the old town). Stepping out for a morning stroll, the scene was very chaotic! Scooters, bikes, motorcycles, and donkey-pulled carts zoomed all around us, adding to the general cacophony. It was exhausting (for me at least) to travel more than a few minutes in between all the honking, exhaust fumes, and decaying fish stench from the less-than-sanitary street fishmongers. However, we were never far from a garden or courtyard, which served as mini-oases and much-needed respites from the external chaos.

All together, we drove ~2000km in 5 days, over nearly 30 hours on the road.

Morocco: map of our driving

Marrakech: our first riad

Our first day of the tour, we stopped by Marjorelle Gardens (of Marjorelle Blue fame), which was restored in the 80’s by Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé. We also visited a Berber (indigeneous group of Northern Africa, with the alien-looking alphabet) museum, the YSL museum, Menara Garden, El Badii Palace, Jemaa el-Fnaa, and Koutoubia Mosque.

I quite enjoyed the YSL museum, as it presented an overview of his fashion work and evolution told through exhibits of clothes and an interesting movie. I thought Jemaa el-Fnaa was fairly overrated, even though we returned to it multiple times during the day and night. We must have missed the dancing and story-tellers.

Marrakech: Marjorelle Gardens and Menara Garden

Marrakech: Koutoubia Mosque, El Badii Palace

Aït Benhaddou was quite grand. It served as a filming location for Gladiator (the first arena, where Maximus is enslaved in Africa), and we had mint tea in the Berber home where they filmed the scenes where he’s in his cell. Aït Benhaddou also served as a filming location for Lawrence of Arabia and Game of Thrones.

Morocco: on the way to Aït Benhaddou

Aït Benhaddou

Our first night on the road was at Dades Gorge, where we arrived just in time to see the sunset.

Atlas Studios and Dades Gorge

We hiked through Todra Gorge, walked through some of the khettaras (ancient subsurface irrigation channels, in which a series of wells placed a few meters apart transport water from an aquifer) and toured a fossil / marble factory. The area was formerly underwater, and a lot of the rocks have high densities of fossils (trilobites, etc…). As a memento, we picked up a soapdish with a fossil in it.

Todra Gorge, khettara, and fossils

The night in the desert was the highlight of this trip. We checked in to our hotel in Merzouga, then hopped on board our camels for a ~ 1 hr ride. We climbed the steepest dune to wait for the beautiful sunset, then made our to the camps. They run electricity, water, sewage, even internet from the nearby city so we did not lack in creature comforts. In fact, our bed in the tent was probably the softest of our trip! After dinner, we had a roaring fire, dance party, and impromptu drum lessons from our hosts.

Sahara Desert by Merzouga

We made our way on to Fes, but stopped by a known Barbary macaque monkey sanctuary on the way and fed the monkeys. After enough monkey business, we had a short visit of a tannery, and Kelly picked up a new leather jacket!

Fes and Barbary macaque monkeys

Fes: tannery visit and jacket shopping

We spent a lovely night in Chefchaouen, possibly better known as “the blue city.” It’s not entirely clear why exactly the city is so blue, and theories range from mosquitos to Jews to making the city more Instagrammable. At any rate, we had a few scenic runs during our short stay.

Chefchaouen

Heading back south again after Chefchaouen, we stopped by the Roman ruins of Volubilis. After Diocletian’s Palace in Split, these were the biggest and most well preserved ruins we had seen, with many partial buildings and mosaics still present. It turns out the same earthquake that devastated Lisbon also caused significant damage to Volubilis.

Volubilis

Capt. Louis Renault: What in heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?

Rick Blaine: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.

Capt. Louis Renault: The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.

Rick Blaine: I was misinformed.

We spent the night in Meknes, then carried on to Rabat the next morning. For those keeping count, this makes all four imperial cities (the historical capitals: Fez, Marrakesh, Meknes, and Rabat). We really picked up the pace near the end of our tour and continued on to Casablanca, where we had a lovely lunch with our group at Rick’s Cafe. Our final stop on the tour was Hassan II Mosque, which was truly massive. It’s one of the largest mosques in the world and one of the few in Morocco that’s open to non-Muslims.

Meknes: El Hedim Square and Bab El Mansour and Rabat: Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail

Rabat: Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail and Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca

Casablanca: Hassan II Mosque

After our tour, we had a final couple of nights in Marrakech to decompress, first with some massages and a rough hammam scrub! We also visited Le Jardin Secret and participated in a cooking class, which also had us running around the souks to buy ingredients.

Marrakech: Le Jardin Secret and our riad

Marrakech: cooking class and view from Cafe Arabe