Hi again,
Knowing that this would be my last chance to travel for a
while (I’m starting my new job next week!), I had quite a few things planned
over Christmas. First, Jannes and I travelled to Morocco for a week. After
Christmas, I visited Berlin for a couple of days with friends from university
and I ended my long vacation in Switzerland with my brothers and Jannes,
skiing. In this blog post, I’d like to tell you about the amazing and
adventurous week that Jannes and I had in Morocco.
The trip was actually quite spontaneous, since we only
bought the plane tickets two weeks before. We decided to start our travels in
Marrakech and fly out from Fez, leaving all the places to visit in between
undecided.
Once we arrived at the busy city center of Marrakesh around
8 pm, we found out that navigating around the medina (old city), where our riad
was located, wasn’t as easy as google maps had made it seem at home. Somehow we
managed to find our way with the suitcases through the busy medina to the
street where the hostel was located in. However, it turned out that the
‘street’ was actually a narrow labyrinth of small paths, each leading to
different group of houses. Getting kind of desperate, we decided to ask the
employee of a nearby street stall for help. He then led us happily through the
deserted labyrinth paths to a abgelegene metal door. That’s when one of his
friends joined us and our ‘guide’ demanded to be paid his 10 euro fee for
leading us to the hostel. Unfortunately, no one in the supposed guesthouse
(that didn’t have a sign or any indication that the door was in fact leading us
to a guesthouse) seemed to hear our insistent, slightly scared banging on the
door. Finally, somebody opened up and we managed to get rid of our ‘guides’ by
giving them 2 euro and rushing through the door before they could protest and
get handsy. Knowing that we’d immediately stepped into a tourist trap, we
decided to be a bit more careful from then on. Then we had our very first
tajine, the most famous dish in Moroccan cuisine, which was truly very good,
but not the best tajine I had on the entire trip.
The next day, we started out pretty late, since over night
and all throughout the morning it had been raining constantly. Not the kind of
weather we were hoping to get on our vacation… Around noon, we decided to face
the rain and started our day of sightseeing. First, we exited the medina and
walked through the newer parts of Marrakesh, searching for a tourist info.
While we had to find out that the tourist info was closed once we arrived, our
walk was quite interesting and therefore no waste of time. While the new parts
of town were bustling with nice restaurants and regal hotels, we noticed that
it was quite deserted and a lot of the pompous hotels seemed like ghost towns to
us.
Then we returned to the medina. Unfortunately, due to the
ever present rain, the medina and its souks, that supposedly bustle with life
and colors on other days, were pretty empty that day.
It was probably because there weren’t as many tourists as on
other days that the vendors from the small shops and street stalls got very
pushy and, honestly, annoying after a while.
That’s when we decided to have a late lunch and get away
from the souks for a while. We found a small café advertising with the beautiful
view from its roof top terrace and they weren’t lying: the view from there was
by far the nicest thing we saw all day! Even the sun came out for a bit:
After having some delicious harira soup for lunch, we visited the
oldest Koran school in Marrakesh. The building is from the 16th century and the amount of
small chambers inside and its courtyard were quite impressive.
The Koran school museum was located in an old palace and its
most impressive feature was by far the enormous candelabra in the middle of the
hall. They even built a steel structure reaching across the roof to hold it!
Then we walked back to our riad and I must say, in the
twilight, with the rain gone, the souks somehow seemed much nicer:
In the evening, we visited the Place el Fna which was,
probably due to the rain, not as busy and interesting as the guidebook had
suggested. Still, there were some food stalls, street vendors and even street
performers, though I must say, I bet on other days it would have been much more
fun to hang out there. Then we had dinner at a Senegalese restaurant, which was
very nice. The dishes had names that I’d never heard before (though they
actually just turned out to be chicken with rice and sauce) and I discover a
new drink called Bissap, which is made from hibiscus flowers and tasted
amazing!
The next morning, we got up early to take a bus to the town
of Essaouira from the train station. While waiting for the bus to leave, we saw
a tourist stall that was offering four day desert trips, which was what we had
planned to do during our Morocco travels, so we took the opportunity and
reserved two spots in the group leaving the next day. We were surprised, since
we got a much better price than expected and had sorted out what to do the next
few days, all while waiting for the bus. The bus ride to Essaouira took about
two hours and held one major shock, when we passed a couple of Argan trees that
had very special kinds of fruit: a couple of goats were actually sitting on top
of the tree’s branches! As we had read before, it is a rather common occurrence
to see goats on top of trees in this area, since they like the argan fruit so
much they are willing to climb up the trees. Unfortunately the bus passed by
too quickly for us to take pictures, so here’s one from wikipedia:
A Portuguese watchtower from colonial times.
We found a coffee place on top of a roof and enjoyed the
views of the vast, roaring sea.
And of course we spent some time at the beach!
In the evening, we took the bus back to Marrakech and had a
quick dinner and a quiet evening in the riad, chatting with the other guests.
The next day started with another early morning. The travel
agency had told us that we would be picked up by the van driver directly at our
hotel, so we waited there, After half an hour of waiting, the van driver
finally showed up. Turns out that even for locals our riad was very difficult
to find! The other group members were already waiting for us and we took the
last two spaces in the back of the crowded van. What followed was a silent three-hour
bus ride in the cold, since the windows of the van wouldn’t close. Then we
arrived at the Atlas mountains and started our ascend. We saw some stunning
mountains, valleys and vegetation changing from lush green forests to brown
shrubbery, with little clay houses nestles between the mountains.
Despite the beautiful views, I quickly found myself wishing
that our mountain crossing would be over soon, since our van driver had a
suicidal driving style on the very narrow and curvy mountain road…
Finally we arrived at the very top of the mountains and were
surprise by some snow. The last thing we expected to see in Morocco!
After another few hours of driving down the mountain, we
arrived at a village. In order to get to Kasbah Ait Benhaddou, a traditional
oasis, we had to cross a river that had flooded during the torrential rains of
the past few days. At least now the sun was getting stronger and I was even
starting to sweat a bit.
Not having heard much about where our desert trip would take
us, we were positively surprised by the picturesque oasis taken out of an
Arabian nights picture book. No wonder this beautiful kasbah built entirely
from loam was the backdrop for lots of movies and series, such as Gladiator and
Game of Thrones.
When we arrived on top of a hill in the middle of the
Kasbah, we had an amazing view on the lush green gardens and the stony desert
landscape:
In the distance we could even see the Atlas mountains we had
just crossed:
After we had lunch in the village, we drove another few
hours through the mountainous area until nightfall. Then we stopped at a hotel
in the middle of nowhere.
Other than our group, there were lots of other travelers
heading for the desert in the hotel. Though the place was a bit dirty and
freezing cold, since it was in the mountains, we had a good time, chatting with
fellow travelers.
However, since it was around 10 degrees in our room and no
heater to use, I could barely sleep that night and was a bit tired for the
second day. Our first stop was nothing special though, so I got some time to
relax, while we were shown a bunch of authentic (and expensive) Moroccan
carpets in a town somewhere on the way to Erg Chebbi desert. Then we passed
through Dades valley and saw some more cute kasbahs and lush green gardens
along the road.
Then, around midday, we stopped at Todra Gorge and walked
along the more touristic beginning of the gorge. While it was nice and empty
when we were there, we could imagine the masses of tourists passing there
during high season, since the path was lined with souvenir booths. To be
honest, that ruined the whole experience a bit, because rather than being able
to focus on the beautiful nature, we had to ward off sales people.
Then we spent some more hours in the bus, and finally we saw
the rocky surroundings turn into beautifully shaped orange dunes. We had
arrived at the highlight of our trip: Erg Chebbi, Morocco’s largest sand dune
desert. After dropping our non-essential baggage in a camp, we met the camp
inhabitants: camels. After everyone was introduced to their transportation for
the afternoon, we were helped on the camel’s backs.
I expected the camel ride to be similar to a horseback ride, but it was more like a boat-ride: gently and slowly up and down.
The next hour, I took way too many photos and couldn't take my eyes from the scenery. This was the perfect alien experience I had been hoping for, almost like taken out of a scene from Star Wars: a few space-travelers riding through a vast orange sand field on a deserted planet. Only a bit of garbage here and there made me realize that this fascinating landscape was not as deserted as it seemed.
After an good hour of riding through the desert, we arrived at a desert camp that consisted of a few large nomad tents arranged in a circle. Next to the tent was an extremely high sand dune and our camel guide challenged us to climb up the dune and catch a last view of the disappearing sun. Unfortunately, in my haste to get up the dune, I forgot to bring my camera with me. After a challenging twenty-minute climb up, we arrived on top and were rewarded with a great view. While the sunset above the dunes was truly an amazing sight, I remember this as a rather sobering moment. When riding through the dunes in the afternoon, the landscape had seemed vast, infinite. Now I could see the road and the small city where we had started our trip. Even to the other side, I could see some small mountains not too far marking the end of the sand dunes. The romantic desert that I had seen before, now seemed a bit like an oversized sand box.
After we descended the hill, we had an amazing evening of tajin-eating, sitting around the fire, star-counting, drumming and telling of adventure stories in a circle with the fellow travelers.
It was not as cold as the previous night, so I could even get some sleep before we woke up at 6 am to watch the sun rise above the dunes.
After a more quiet camel-ride back, we arrived at the city and our trip was declared finished by our travel guide. This meant, that we would drive straight back to Marrakesh, without stopping anywhere along the way. However, we had planned to travel to the city Fez to spend the last few vacation days there and going back to Marrakesh would have been a major detour for us. So, we asked around and found four travelers that were planning to travel straight to Fez, just like us. Our travel guide suggested to drop us off in the next biggest town and call someone he knew to take us to Fez from there. We took his offer and promptly found ourselves dropped off in the middle of nowhere, next to an old, shabby Mercedes cab. Though the cab only had four seats, it turned out that this was in fact the car that the travel guide had arranged for the six of us. After some back and forth, we decided not to take the tiny taxi and instead travel with a medium-sized cheap, that conveniently was also waiting at the empty parking lot. Lucky us! The driver hadn't expected travelers that wanted to drive as far as Fez, but he was very flexible. We found that flexibility is a necessary virtue when travelling in Morocco.
So, we set out on our travels to Fez, passing amazing and differing landscapes, from beautiful kasbahs and empty stone fields to snowy forest with a traditional nomad camp (we chatted to them a bit during a toilet break) and the famous region Ifrane, the "Switzerland of Morocco". Once we stopped at a farm to buy some dried dades and later in the afternoon, we bought some delicious cakes somewhere next to the roa. Otherwise, we didn't have a lot of stops during our trip and since some of the landscapes we passed were really impressive, that was a bit of a shame.
After arriving in bustling Fez in the evening, we immediately went to our riad and had a small dinner.
The next morning, we had some energy again to walk around and discover this new town. We enjoyed our first few steps through the medina, getting a bit lost in the labyrinth streets. Unlike Marrakesh, in the narrow streets of Fez that were surrounded by streets stalls selling everything to tourists, we didn't get bothered as much by persistent sales people. Also, through the narrower net of streets, that truly were a labyrinth, the city seemed a bit more mysterious than Marrakesh.
After arriving at the blue gate, the most famous entry passage to the medina, we decided to leave the more touristic old town for a trip through the "normal" streets of Fez. Soon, we found ourselves climbing up a steep hill next. Before we knew it, we were standing on a platform overlooking the city. Next to us was a giant pile of rubbish and right in front of us was a breathtaking view: a shepherd was guiding his sheep over a very thin ridge, with the city as a backdrop. What a sight!
Then we walked along the edge of the park some more and all of a sudden found ourselves on a beautiful cliff with the most amazing view of the city. It was almost empty, only some locals were having lunch there. So, we sat down and completely forgot about time while viewing the spectacle of the busy city below, listening to the muezzin's midday prayer and the distant noises of people talking, cooking, living. It was so interesting, entertaining and relaxing at the same time, that we spend at least an hour just sitting there.
Then we walked a bit further, to a small castle above one of the city gates, where the numerous leather tanneries of Fez were drying their smelly products in the sun.
Then we explored the narrow labyrinth streets of the city some more, sat down at the Rcif square, the busiest square of Fez, and enjoyed an afternoon coffee. In the evening, we met up with one of the guys who had joined us on our trip from the desert to Fez and had camel burgers for dinner.
The next day, we enjoyed a long breakfast on our balcony, again with an amazing view.
Then we met up with our fellow travelers from the desert again. They had the idea of joining a city tour with a professional tour guide, to get in-depth insights about the history and stories lying behind the medieval walls of Fez el Bali (the old town), so we joined them.
The guidebook told us we would find an official guide at the blue gate (the most famous city gate in Fez), so we went there and asked around. Someone quickly appeared and told us he was an official tour guide, so we accepted his offer, but we soon began to question the guide's qualifications. While he could of course guide us around the labyrinth of the city and tell us a bit about the mosques and gates we were passing, he didn't offer a lot of explanations and even hit on the girls in the group (including me, unfortunately). As he was quite old and was calling us his "sons" and "daughters" and inappropriately tried to touch us (but didn't succeed), it was a bit creepy.
Still, we did get to see some interesting things on the tour. The guide took us to a lot of handcrafting shops, obviously knowing the people who worked there. While the objective there was clearly trying to sell us souvenirs, rather than explaining how everything was created, we didn't enjoy all of these stops. However, in a carpet shop, we got to see how fascinatingly fast the women were weaving the hand-crafted carpet and we even got to try ourselves.
Then we visited the famous leather tanneries of Fez. The view from the tanneries' rooftops was quite unique, but we didn't get what all the fuzz was about. After all, this was supposed to be Fez' most famous tourist attraction. We thought we saw a lot more exciting things than the tanneries during our time in Fez though.
After our strange guided tour was over in the afternoon, we decided to walk to another city gate and had an extremely local and simple dinner at Rcif square, consisting only of boiled potatoes and harrissa sauce.
Since the three Americans and the Australian guy that we had been meeting up with since our trip to the desert had a similar pace of sightseeing, we arranged a tour to Volubilis, the famous Roman ruins near Fez, for the next day together. Thankfully, we still had the phone number of our driver, Tata, who took us from the desert to Fez, so the next morning, he met us at the city gate and took us to the ruins.
After a scenic drive through olive groves and grassy hills, we arrived at Volubilis. We hadn't expected the area to be as huge as it was. The ruins of temples, bathhouses and palasts were stretching out for at least 10 square km. So, it took us a few hours to explore the ruins and discover the hidden and still surprisingly well preserved mosaics.
On our way back, Tata (our driver) suggested to stop in Meknes to visit the palace's horse stables and the old city. Not knowing what to expect, we agreed and soon found out what was so special about the royal stables in Meknes: they were gigantic. We found out that at some point, around twelve thousand horses were housed there!
After having lunch in the old town of Meknes, which was nice enough, but not as picturesque and unique as Fez, we headed back. Then we had to say goodbye to our fellow travelers over these last few days and our driver. Having spent quite a lot of time together and experienced so many great things in the group, it was a bit sad to part ways. But that's the traveling life and at least I still had my most important travel companion by my side for the rest of the vacation :).
In the evening, Jannes and I managed to get back to our favorite spot in Fez to watch our last Moroccan sunset. We could even catch some glimpses of the mountains on the horizon...
All in all, this vacation was so much more than I expected. I found out that there is more to see in Morocco than just a pretty desert and the souks of Marrakesh. The incredible nature and mountains that we could only see briefly, from out of a car window, made me want to come back one day and do some hiking. And Fez really was such an incredibly interesting city!
After this eventful, adventurous trip, I am ready to start working life.
