Alan and I have just returned from an incredible 10 day trip to Morocco. This country has so much that it was impossible to do all we wanted in only 10 days so we decided we'd focus on the two major historical and cultural cities, Marrakech and Fez, and their surroundings and save the rest – the Atlantic ocean, the Sahara, and some other small towns for later (we've already decided we have to make another trip).
We began our trip in Marrakech after a train ride from Casablanca, which we were told was not so great. Marrakech, on the other hand, is like a glamorous oasis for European tourists, outfitted with modern restaurants and clubs, high end shopping, and spas. But it also offers amazing architecture, gardens, and cultural sites. Most of the sites are within the old part of the city, called the Medina. The Medina is basically the old walled section of the city that consists of a main square surrounded by a labyrinth of small alley-sized streets all interconnected but with absolutely no identifying names or landmarks. We were told to be prepared to get lost and to get frustrated… both of which we did more than once.
Some of the annoyances included getting lost and the constant approach from locals offering to guide us or show us the sites. Even if you are walking in the correct direction hagglers will make you turn around and go the wrong way in exchange for a few coins. And because we don’t speak French or Arabic, we couldn’t even tell them to please let us get lost in our own terms. So they would follow us speaking a mile a minute in French or Spanish as they tried to guess what country we were from and offering to show us around. We learned to just keep walking and ignore them except for a one or two times when we just lost it and blew up at them and told them in broken French/English to leave us alone. That was met by comments about being paranoid, to go back to our country, or calling me “Sweetie” and making kissing noises. It was cynically comforting to know that other tourists like us were experiencing the same. One day we found a group of Spanish ladies who were just as lost and frustrated with hagglers that we decided to tag along them in the quest for famous landmarks without paying to get lost. But, we were able to laugh later about these experiences and learned that one cannot stop and look at a map in the Medina because you will be surrounded by locals within seconds.
In Marrakech (as opposed to Fes where streets are even narrower), another annoyance is that motorbikes are allowed on the narrow streets in the Medina so you have to constantly be looking front and back to avoid being run over. In fact, within the first 5 minutes of entering the Medina for the first time, I was hit by a woman in a burka on a motorbike…I had not yet learned to haves eyes on the back of my head!
But, when we were not getting harassed by locals or hit by motorbikes, we were amazed by the tons and tons of crafts – everything from carpets, to pottery, to leather, to jewelry, to silver tea sets, and much much more.
In Fez, we visited the tanneries which is an area of the Medina where they treat and dye the hides from which all the leather shoes, bags, and other goods are made. It was really smelly so we were given some mint leaves to hold near our noses.
We discovered intricate mosaics on doorways, could smell wonderful spices, and just watched the locals go about their business. We were mesmerized by the amazing architecture of palaces, museums, Koranic schools, gardens and just random doorways here and there. The design is immensely intricate with either mosaic tiling or small carvings or inlayed work. You can just stare at if for hours and it never gets boring to see it again and again.
We also made our way to the Mellah in both Marrakech and Fez, which is the old Jewish quarter, and this was really interesting too. We saw the still operating synagogue in Marrakech. Luckily the Rabbi was in that day and showed us around. In Fez, we got a local guide to show us around the quarter for a few Dihram and soon after some discussion he and Alan discovered the other's Jewish heritage and appropriately shook hands under what used to be a Sukkah.
Outside of the Medina in Marrakech we went to these amazing gardens called Le Jardin Majorelle which was owned by Yves Saint Laurent – the fashion designer. It was filled with gorgeous exotic cactus and flowers and decorated with bright blue fountains and planters.
The plants and flowers were another amazing part of Morocco. Everywhere you turn you see fruit trees or olive trees. Even our hotel had an amazing garden full of orange and date trees. And during our train rides between cities we’d see miles and miles of farmland with apples, peaches, grapes, olives, walnuts, and figs. In the Medina were stands just piled high with dried fruit and nuts.
And in the center square you can get fresh squeezed orange juice which we did several times after almost melting from the heat.
Speaking of the heat…Alan officially became a redneck after the first day of touring around and my feet took a serious beating!
During our stay in Marrakech we took a day trip to the Atlas Mountains a few hours away and had a guide take us on a hike up to a Berber village where we got to have mint tea (the official beverage of Morocco) with a Berber woman in her house.
Although it was one of these touristy things to do there, we found it really cool to see how the Berber people live in these small villages in the mountains. The house was very rudimentary but they are hooked up to the electricity grid and get radio but they still cook meals over a hot fire and use mules to get things up and down the mountain. Even though we couldn’t communicate with the woman, we learned that we both knit and she showed me something her daughter was working on! Then we had lunch on top of the highest building in the village and took in some amazing views and enjoyed a chicken tagine with skewers and veggies.
On the way up the mountain we got to see how a women’s cooperative produces Argan Oil (a similar thing to olives) which is used for both cooking and cosmetic purposes. I bought some Argan mask which I tried when we got home…not bad!
When we finished our few days in Marrakech, we took a 7 hour train ride to our next stop - Fez. Fez is the handicraft and cultural center of Morocco it seems. Here too is an even more dense and confusing Medina filled equally (or maybe slightly less) crafts and local hagglers. By now though, we were ready to try our bargaining skills and buy some crafts. We had decided we wanted to buy some carpets, embroidery, leather and ceramics. After getting burned on our embroidery purchase, I think Alan did pretty well with the carpets. At least we like to think so! Bargaining is truly an art that I think takes quite some time to perfect. It wouldn’t take long in Morocco though because you literally have to bargain for everything – even taxi rides!
In Marrakech taxis do not use the meter. At the end of each ride we would ask how much we owed and on every occasion the answer was,”What do you want to pay?” It made it a complete rip-off for ignorant tourists like us – if the answer was too low the taxi driver doesn’t accept and anything above what he expects is pure profit for them. In Marrakech however, by the third same distance ride Alan had cut our first 100 Dirham taxi ride to 20! By the end of our trip, Alan was so good at bargaining and catching scams that he managed to give it right back to a taxi driver. In Fez, a guy picked us up at really ritzy hotel we had stopped at to take in a beer and the view and had the meter already at 12 Dirham. Alan said “no, my friend, put the meter at 0” and the driver said, “Oh, you want to use the meter?” - Clearly he thought we had just arrived. So we asked him to take us near our hotel and by now we knew our way around and he proceeded to drive right pass it and would have kept driving for who knows how long around Fez all the while racking up the cost on the meter unless Alan hadn’t said something. He played ignorant like he didn’t know he had just passed the major parking lot in the city! So Alan asked for us to be let out immediately and he made far less on the ride than he would have if he had just taken us where we had asked to go initially. Alan was quite proud of his accomplishment for the rest of our trip!
All along our trip we had been buying stuff and each day we thought we had improved our bargaining skills. We left buying ceramics for the last day thinking we were unbeatable at negotiating prices. Two hours before leaving Fez we ventured in a store, picked the ceramics we wanted, and let our learned skills take over. We were not going to pay one extra Dirham for bowls and pottery – even if we had to walk out empty handed. Guess what… we won and walked out the store… empty handed!!! Now I’m writing this blog looking at my empty table that should have had a beautiful Fez made glazed bowl if I would just have been lenient enough to pay 5 or 10 more dollars for it! Lesson learned.
Probably one of the best parts of our whole experience in Morocco was our stay at a Riad in Fez. Riads are like small bed and breakfasts that are converted and renovated homes in the Medina. They are usually totally unseen from the street and when you enter, you come across beautiful courtyards, fountains, gardens and mosaics. The homes back in the day were built this way so that from the outside you cannot see their beauty and they become an intimate and very private oasis away from the outside world. They have become part of the tourist destination now in Morocco and are totally worth it! Ours was run by 3 French people and we were attended to non-stop by some amazing Moroccan women – Fatima was our favorite!
There were only 3 rooms of 10 filled so we got to know the other guests quite well. A family from Berkley with the two most amazing daughters – one of whom took a liking to me as she thought I was a movie star, an Australian father/daughter who we wound up taking a day trip with to the Roman Ruins nearby, and an older Australian couple. We ate breakfast together, ate dinner together, got Henna done together, and wound up sharing many stories and laughs together over the 4 days there. It was really interesting as we were all of different generations and cultures and with different experiences but we all got along really well!
While in Fez, we took a day trip to Volubilis, Roman ruins, which was the furthest outpost for the Roman Empire. We went along with some of our friends from the Riad and had a really interesting day, although it was ridiculously hot!
Overall it was an amazing trip and I would recommend it to everyone that has the patience to bargain for everything with everyone 24 hours a day. It is so different from Ghana and still very African. While we were told Moroccans consider themselves a people in between Europe and the Arab world, this is far from the truth. Everone was rooting for Ghana in the World Cup. We do want to go back some day and explore less visited areas.
** We will post all of our pictures on a photo viewing/sharing website as soon as we can and will put the link in this blog so if you want to see tons of Morocco pictures, you can!
