In November 2004 Anna Hines went on a 2–week tour to Morocco. Here she writes about her highlights of the trip.
The tour was named Imperial Cities and Desert, and took in the cities of Rabat, Meknes and Fez, camping on the edge of the Sahara, the Todra gorge, casbahs near the High Atlas mountains, the seaside town of Essaouira, finishing up in Marrakesh. It was an ambitious tour but it was excellently planned and gave me a real feeling for the diversity and varied cultural history of the country.
Morocco was the first developing country I have visited, but the biggest surprise of the trip was how little this mattered. Perhaps this was partly because I was on an organized tour and was to some extent protected from certain things, but I felt that the tour was so varied and as all our guides were local we didn’t miss out on experiencing the real Morocco.
Morocco is relatively close to the UK, but utterly different. Obviously it is an Islamic country and its culture is historically very different from that of Europe. Despite this, I found the people to be warm and the differences not as disorientating as they could have been. I would recommend going to Morocco as part of an organised group, at least for unseasoned travelers such as myself. Morocco is renowned for the amount of hassle you can be subjected to, especially if you are female. I didn’t really find this though as we were well protected by being in a group led by a professional guide. (The guides were absolutely essential when navigating the medinas and souks of Fez and Marrakesh!)
I would say the most notable difference is the part played by religion in every day life. It was, depending on the time of day, an evocative, surprising or annoying event to hear the call to prayer so frequently. If one happened to be near a mosque at sunset, or in the middle of a medina, it enhanced the experience of being within medieval surroundings; when awoken by a loudspeaker at 5am, it became an unusual irritation! Our guides were constantly pointing out the green roofs of mosques, as green is the colour of Islam; calling out ‘Yallah!’ (‘Let’s go!’) to try and hurry us along; and wishing me ‘Insh’allah’ (‘God willing’) that I would get better, when I inevitably got ill during the trip.
Obviously the other most visible differences were the donkeys being ridden everywhere (including at great speed through the medinas, with their riders’ urgent calls of ‘Balak!!’ – roughly translated as ‘Get out of the way, quick’), limbless beggars and general dust and dirt. It would be unlikely that visitors would not be prepared for these differences however.
After flying into Casablanca, we traveled from place to place by bus. The roads were for the most part fairly quiet, although we did see a couple of nasty looking wrecks when driving through the Todra Gorge - bribery is rife when applying for driving licenses, so the skills of a lot of Moroccan drivers are not up to scratch.
The accommodation was all pre–booked as part of the tour, and was pretty good I thought. It certainly beat staying in a dormitory hostel. It came as a surprise to all of us however just how cold the hotel rooms got at night. The temperatures were quite spring–like during the day, but got really quite cold as soon as the sun went down. I would advise taking far more warm clothing than you expect to need.
There were so many highlights on this trip, it is difficult to narrow it down for the purposes of this article. I would say though that a trip to Morocco would not be complete without having seen/done the following:
1. The Shellah Necropolis and the Roman Sala Colonia, the old Jewish quarter at Meknes, and seeing the storks nesting on the half–ruined minarets.
We visited this site quite early in the morning, and the place was almost deserted. Smoke rose from some fires of cleared bushes, and we could wander over the Roman ruins and through the ruined buildings of the Jewish quarter at leisure. A pool full of eels, which you could feed with boiled eggs provided by an attendant, used to be visited by Moroccan women to improve their fertility.
2. Visiting almost deserted Volubilis, the Roman town near to Moulay Idriss, the holiest town in Morocco.
A hot day – and the biggest Roman ruins I have ever seen (no, I haven’t been to Rome). I sat on a sun-baked stone, surrounded by bright yellow flowers, looking over the ruined Forum, eating warm bread we had bought from a traditional bakery about half an hour before. There are a few interesting mosaics around the site, which despite being left exposed to the elements for hundreds of years still show their bright original colours when splashed with water.
3. Walking through the labyrinthine Fez medina, one of the oldest intact medieval cities in the world.
This included a visit to a traditional tannery. It stank, but this was probably because it was hundreds of years old and one of the elements of the dye is pigeon shit. Pity the poor blokes who have to stamp up and down on the leather in the pits of dye (see picture)…Fez was probably my favourite place on the trip – I haven’t been anywhere else in the world where it was so easy to imagine life in another era. And the setting of the city is pretty spectacular too.
4. Camping near Erg Chebbi on the edge of the Sahara, in a Berber campsite, and watching the sunrise over the desert having ridden a camel up the dune.
Unfortunately I was at my illest this point (the trip in a 4x4 out to the dune was a real test of endurance, let me tell you), but I wouldn’t have missed the visit for the world. I’ll never forget the colours of the sand and the distant view of Algeria.
5. Meeting local children in the Berber villages of the Todra Gorge area.
Despite my worries of being seen as voyeuristic tourists, the children seemed excited to meet us and followed us in crowds as we walked through their villages. It was a special and heartwarming moment to be able to speak to them in French.
6. Lying on the beach at Essaouira, the old hangout of Jimi Hendrix.
I think there must have been something in the air of Essaouira; no need to smoke anything, just wandering around in the mellow, balmy atmosphere was enough to make me feel relaxed and chilled out, ready for the mentalness of Marrakesh. It was a refreshing change to be able to wander into shops without being hassled to buy everything for a million pounds.
7. Walking around the great square of Djemaa el-Fna in Marrakesh, peeking into groups of people listening to storytellers and musicians.
It was impossible to imagine this square ever having been empty since medieval times. It is only the handlers with their sadly drugged snakes and monkeys that are there for the tourists; the other entertainers were genuinely skilled and this was reflected in the number of Moroccans crowded around them. |
