Morocco

My friends and I went on a 12-day trip to Morocco. We were able to hit up all the major cities- Casablanca, Fes, Marrakesh and Rabat- as well as spend a few days in the beach town of Essaouira. Check out the pictures.

Our trip to Morocco began a bit inauspiciously: with a rainstorm and six-hour delay getting out of the airport in Ouaga. (For the record, this is the second vacation that involved a 5+ hour delay getting out of Ouaga.) Thankfully, our luck quickly improved. The Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca is huge, clean, and sparkly with tiled floors everywhere. Within minutes of getting to our hotel in Casa, we had found the first of many glasses of fresh orange juice. And after walking past the famous Rick’s Cafe, we watched the sunset over the Atlantic from the plaza outside the beautiful Grand Mosque.

FES
The main highlight in Fes is its medina, or old town. In particular, Fes’ medina is a winding maze of narrow alleys that keeps going and going and… Colors galore. There were purses, scarves, rugs, hats, jewerly, music, books, leather. All on sale for “a very good price”. One afternoon we mistakenly asked a kid to show us where the old palace is; he ended up taking us to his father’s rug shop, his brother’s cosmetics store, and then to the tanneries. All were interesting, but when he started demanding ridiculous amounts of money ($10) without having taken us where we wanted to go, we got annoyed and gave hime 50 cents to get lost. The tanneries were especially neat. They treat animal hides for about two weeks before cutting them into workable pieces and making everything from leather belts and purses to jackets. On our last evening we decided to see the “ville nouvelle”, or new town, constructed after colonization. It’s a gorgeous city with wide boulevards and a park with a couple of really nice fountains. There’s even a McDonald’s. We also suffered through a badly dubbed copy of “Ocean’s 13″ in a movie theatre that was about 110 degrees with no fans. At least we were the only customers.

ESSAOUIRA
From Fes, Marty, Caleb, and I took the train (so clean and so fast) back through Casa to Marakesh, where we got on a bus to head out to Essaouira. Essaouira is a medium-sized beach city that seemed to be the Mecca of Moroccan tourist destinations. We were lucky enough to get an apartment facing the Ocean, and we spent a couple of days bumming around on the beach, playing paddle ball, exploring the wharves, and eating ice cream. Unfortunately the beach was a crazy windy and a bit cold, so it wasn’t the relaxing escape we were hoping for. A little like Ocean Beach in San Francisco, actually.

MARRAKESH
The medina in Marrakesh is the one you’ve probably seen in pictures. Just across from the stunning Koutoubia Mosque is the Djemma el Fna, which comes alive at night with food stands, henna artists, and guys with monkeys and snakes. And oh, the orange juice. Orange juice stands are everywhere all over Morocco; we often saw several men with carts stacked high with oranges on the same street corner. For 25 to 50 cents, they’ll peel and juice the oranges on the spot. I have to say the orange juice in Fes was better (not least because we found one guy who gave us free refills), but in Marrakesh they added ice, which dilutes it a bit…but it was so hot there I didn’t care. Caleb and I also took a half day trip from Marrakesh to see the Ourika Valley in the Atlas Mountains outside of town. We hired a driver for the day, and he took us around to see the great views, small towns, and even a little hike. The hike was a bit disappointing in length, but it was still fun to be in the cool and refreshing mountain air. Such a difference from the heat of Marrakesh 45 minutes away. Next time I go to Morocco, I’m going to spend more time in the mountains- you can climb the highest peak in North Africa or even go on a ten-day trek to the Sahara.

RABAT
Just north of Casablanca is the Moroccan capital, Rabat. Caleb and I took a quick day trip there before leaving. Rabat is on the coast as well, so the temperature was wonderful. We wandered around town that afternoon and evening, and saw the beach (so many tourists!), the Royal Palace. (King Mohammed VI has a palace in all the major cities, but Rabat is the seat of the government and site of the largest palace. And man is that thing huge! We could only look in from the main gate, but all we could see was a straight, tree-lined road whose end we honsetly couldn’t see.) We also saw the Mohammed V Mausoleum, the burial site of the Moroccan king during the 1950’s when it gained Independence from France. His tomb (and the tombs of Moroccan’s other modern kings) is on the grounds of an ancient mosque that contains Hassan Tower, a minaret begun in 1195 AD and intended to be the tallest minaret in the Muslim world.

Which brings me to a few truisms about Morocco.

1. Fresh squeeze orange juice stands are, as previously mentioned, EVERYWHERE.
2. Also, soft serve ice cream stands are everywhere. For 20 cents you can get a cone. Delicious. For a little more in a shop, you can get scoop ice cream. Very delicious.
3. After OJ and ice cream, the most common sight in Morocco is a mosque. Burkina is split nearly 50-50 between Christians and Muslims, but Morocco must be nearly 100% Muslim. With the exception of one Mosque who must have been broadcasting morning prayer (4:30am) into our hotel room window from a distance of five feet, I loved hearing the call to prayer. The Arabic language is beautiful, and I love hearing the call echoed throughout the city, especially in the evening just after sunset.
4. After mosques, the most common site is construction cranes. Morocco must be just dumping money into roads, buildings, and bridges because construction was all over the place. From the hill at Hassan Tower we could see at least 13 cranes.

Very neat country.