While Thomas and I had both travelled prior to arriving in Africa, we had always intended that Morocco, being relatively touristic, would be a gentle introduction to Africa travel specifically. In many ways, we were correct and the decision definitely resulted in a relatively relaxed introduction to African travel.
We flew into Casablanca and while we were assured by many that it was not a particularly exciting Moroccan city, coming from New Zealand, it seemed plenty exotic to us. Among other things, I have always been a massive fan of the movie Casablanca and have forced various people to watch it over the years (Thomas included). Obviously there was no way I was missing the opportunity to go to the city where the émigrés were forced to wait, and wait… and wait, where Louis and Rick began their beautiful friendship and where Sam did, indeed, play it again. While our time in Casablanca was really spent soaking up the atmosphere, visiting the state mosque and doing uniquely Moroccan activities like eating snails on the side of the road (Thomas was very keen on this, I was less convinced), we did go and enjoy hideously expensive beverages at Rick’s Cafe Americaine and Thomas smoked a cigar. Admittedly, while there was not much else going in Casablanca that we could see, they really did do a fantastic reproduction of Rick’s Café and they had an excellent cigar selection. Satisfied that I had fulfilled my Casablanca fantasies as much as was possible in a city that really cared very little for this icon of cinema, I consented to move southwards to see a bit more of the Moroccan Atlantic coast.
In this vein, we picked our way south from Casablanca to Safi, onwards to El Jedida and from there to Essouaira. Each town had quite excellent Portuguese forts and Safi was famed for its incredible pottery. Thomas did, however, promptly fall violently ill, so this week was a bit rough. Essouaira is a super touristic town, which retains its charm admirably and is seated on the coast within amazing old city walls. We spent a nice few days wandering the ramparts, visiting hammams (read: having all skin scraped unceremoniously from our bodies) and enjoying our riyad (very fancy). From Essouaira we proceeded on the coastal route south to Agadir. It turns out Agadir is not super exciting. That said, it is sunny in the middle of the European winter and is beloved by French retirees. One cannot really argue with their logic here as it is not a bad place to hang out when the weather is grim in Europe. In that line, the south of Morocco generally is well visited by French campervaners.
From Agadir, we rented a car and headed for Paradise Valley – a place that seriously lived up to its name. The car worked out pretty well, despite being somewhat hair raising at times – always an exciting experience that first time you decide it is a good idea to drive stick on the other side of the road, and even more exciting when you choose to do it in Morocco up a gorge with steep cliff sides and roads that allow for 1.5 across. That said, Paradise Valley was indeed paradise. A spectacular gorge cutting into the mountains from the coast, golden rock, gushing streams, perfect swimming holes, blossoming almond trees, date palms and olive groves all combined to make a very special place. Add to that, the incredibly lovely people, and it is a definite winner. Case in point: One night we were too cheap to stay in the hotel nearby (and actually had no idea where to find one) so we got talking to a guy in a cafe and he agreed to put us up at his home for a small fee. Besides being very friendly to our limited budget at the time, this amazing family fed us homemade food from local produce, chatted to us in French we failed to understand very well, and showed us around their house. We also went to see some waterfalls where there was no water (fail) and did a walk through an incredible gorge (win). When we were more organized, there were also nice hotels set into the valley with panoramic views.
After Paradise Valley we stopped at Taghazout for a night – the surfers hotspot of Morocco. A cute hippy town visited almost entirely by surfers and set up for tourists. We found an apartment for the night and visited the owner’s restaurant to say thanks even though it was entirely empty (not normally a great sign). This turned out to be a fun evening because our visit clearly encouraged business. All of a sudden the restaurant was inundated by every tourist that walked past. This did appear to be fairly stressful for the proprietors as this unexpected turn of events required them to run out of the restaurant every ten minutes or so to find the requisite ingredients for the items they offered on the menu, did not expect any customers to arrive to buy and now, suddenly, needed to produce.
Deciding it was time to head inland to the desert before we hit Western Sahara, we moved on to Tafraout and stayed for a couple of nights. A fantastic decision as the area around Tafraout is stunning with massive boulder rocks and incredible landscapes. We decided that a good way to experience the area would be to rent bikes – despite the fact that the two months before arrival in Morocco had been spent at Christmas and goodbye parties in New Zealand and total neglect of anything remotely resembling a fitness regime. Perhaps a strategic error as we were basically falling off of them by the end of the day. In Thomas’s case this was added to when at one point I lost him and he disappeared behind me somewhere. After waiting a while and going back to find him, he eventually emerged, very upset, from some cactus bushes. Turns out, he had decided that it was an opportune moment to try cactus fruit for the first time, notwithstanding the lack of gloves and the incredible difficulty of picking and pealing such fruit. He was not a happy camper after filling his fingers with the fiberglass-like thorns – but he did get to try the fruit. Worth it, I guess. Also near to Tafraout is the spectacular Ameln Valley, in which we stayed in lovely half board hotels and wandered the various hiking tracks nearby. I approved.
We spent a day wandering the Ait Mansoor Valley area (which was really incredibly spectacular) ending up in Taouida. People were somewhat perplexed at our desire to walk though, so many conversations occurred with passers-by where we were required to provide heavily gesticulated explanations that we were actually quite okay wandering down the road and did not need a lift. After a stopover in Zagora (very film set worthy desert camp, but we felt a bit silly being led around on camels so cut the activity section short) we ended up in the lovely town of Ouarzazete. Ouarzazete is the gateway to a few major tourist attractions, but is itself quite lovely and a day trip to Ait Benhaddou is definitely worthwhile. This is an old kasbah that is a UNESCO world heritage site and has been used for filming many, many films – including The Gladiator.
From Ouarzazete we made our way to some of my favorite areas on Morocco – including the Dades Gorge and Bou Tharar. Bou Tharar is known for producing rose water and is a sleepy hamlet near to the Dades Gorge. We trekked this area for three days with some lovely guides and a friendly mule. While the roses were not blooming when we were there, happily all the almond blossoms were out. This meant sensational apricot colored mountains, pure blue skies, idyllic terraced farming and splashes of white confetti almond blossoms absolutely everywhere against this backdrop. This remains probably my favorite area and activity from our time in Morocco.
As we were in Morocco in the off-season, there were not many tourists around and I would make a side note on our experiences with Moroccan men (we didn’t really ever meet the women properly): the men are frustratingly friendly. Yes, that is possible. It was hard to get five minutes to yourself without some guy coming over to take you to whatever it is that you say you are looking for – even if it was just to buy a bottle of water. While this seems quite nice, it became increasingly frustrating for us in small towns as they were almost always doing it for commission or drumming up business for someone so they could call in a favor later. We, being (at first) polite kiwis, found it very hard to simply ignore these very friendly offers of unneeded assistance. Sadly, we quickly learnt to ignore all offers of assistance – but this does not dissuade anyone from walking with us for five kilometers or so, talking over us in Arabic/Berber to any shop proprietor we happened to meet during that time and agreeing a higher price for whatever item we are looking at in order to get a cut. Guess this prepared us well for the rest of Morocco/North Africa.
We had another try at a desert experience in Merzouga and enjoyed it much more due to being able to wander the dunes at our leisure and not through a camp. Admittedly, this was actually very exhausting, but worthwhile. We were glad we were there in the off-season as there were still a lot of people about and the idyllic isolation would have been ruined somewhat if there were hordes of people in what is ultimately the pretty small 24km area in which the dunes are found.
Finally, after five weeks or so in Morocco, we hit Marrakesh. From what we had been told, we had thought that Marrakesh would be difficult to handle (with touts, commissions, etc.), but it was actually much easier than dealing with people in the small towns (i.e., you can ignore people that are harassing you and just walk away – whereas in small towns you would then meet that same person multiple times in the course of your stay – Awkward!). In any event, I really enjoyed Marrakech – Thomas was not as overwhelmed.
Of the major northern sites, we also went to Fes (which remains my absolute favorite walled city/medina in the world), Meknes (which was fine, but not amazing), Volubilis (the furthest reach of the Roman empire in Africa and the start of our obsession with seeing every Roman site about for the next few months) and Moulay Idriss (a very picturesque and famous shrine).
We also visited Chefchaouen which is as blue as one expects (see featured image) and is reputedly surrounded by weed farms (also frequented by much of the Spanish weed loving population as a favorite holiday spot as it turns out). We went in search of the farms – only to find out that there is not much from October to March because it has all been harvested, so no pictures of this.
After Chefchaouen, we went to Tetouan, which was part of the Spanish protectorate. Everyone speaks Spanish and pretty much no French – needless to say, this was a touch complicated for us. The town was (surprisingly) quite cool and had a Unesco world heritage medina area that we spent a pleasant day wondering about. Next we continued to Tangier. I had heard all kinds of stories about Tangier being a bit rough, however, it did not really feel that way to us. The town has a lot of history and we enjoyed wondering the old places where famous beat writers and poets had lived and where the secret agents hung out during the wars. We also went to the American legation, which remains quite famous there. As a result of this visit, I decided to read “Morocco that was” by Walter Harris, however, after reaching the half way point in the book I really could not help but find him a less than appealing character.
Our final days in Morocco were unremarkable. Al Hoceima and Nador are nothing much to write home about, but were necessary way-points nevertheless. The one event that bears writing home about was the day of the bus ride from Tangier to Al Hoceima. This begun with Thomas deciding that we would not be paying the agreed amount for our accommodation for the last few days on the basis that we never received the promised wifi. This resulted in the proprietor getting very angry, yelling loudly, throwing the money away and cursing us out of the hotel. Nice start to the day. We then went to the bus station where we had the usual fight with the baggage guy who wanted to charge us 10dh per bag to put them on the bus (a fee Moroccans do not pay). It got fairly heated and we ended up paying half – even though we really should not have paid anything at all. Then the bus ride. It ended up taking a less than direct route through the real Rif mountain areas and we experienced lots of police checks (big smuggling area) and a fantastic fight between a passenger and the bus driver and his helper. In the course of the fight, the driver’s cane was offered to his helper by the driver who was watching the fight behind him while blocking the whole road and swinging wildly around the mountainous bends. I have to admit, this last bit was good fun and we had trouble containing our laughter (which was necessary given how serious everyone was taking things). Needless to say we were happy when our arrival in Al Hoceima went smoothly.
As the land border between Morocco and Algeria was closed (and has been for many years, despite constant murmurings that it will be opening soon), in order to continue our African journey from Morocco onwards to Algeria, we needed to either fly or take a boat to Spain and back south to Algeria. Given our finances, we opted for the boat and the allure of a Spanish side trip: Wine!!.
We crossed into Spain at Melilla and spent a day at this cute Spanish outpost drinking beer, eating tapas, and being generally happy to gain access to these European staples. We caught a boat from Melilla to Almeria and stayed in the centre of town. Given that we were in Spain anyway, we figured it would have been rude not to take a couple of days and we set off for Granada to see the grandeur of the Alhambra, which was a fascinating contrast to the quality of the Moroccan equivalents. We basically managed to eat and drink for six days straight and I felt like I needed to go on a detox at the end of it. Conveniently, Algeria more than provided.
January & February 2013