The Land of Polyglots

We spent 11 days in Morocco and visited Tangier, Chefchaouin, Fes, and Marrakesh; at times it was a bit intense and challenging. And I decided that I am going to start with our last city first, well, because it's more interesting and if you are going to read any part of this, I would have it be this part.

Marrakesh

We arrived via train, a long-ass train ride and got to our Airbnb. The next day we met 2 other guests at breakfast, and we all talked about how we were interested in taking a day trip out to the Atlas Mountains. Together we could get a better deal so we decided that all 4 of us would book a day trip together. And that's how we got got booked on what I have dubbed, The Marrakesh Mystery Tour.

The Marrakesh Mystery Tour...a 34-hour-tour, a 34-hour-tour

It's the mystery tour because we didn't actually know what the tour included, and typically didn't know the order or schedule of things. In the process of booking the day trip it was recommended that we opt for the overnight excursion instead because you got to visit the Atlas Mountains and see the desert. So we said, sure, sounds good. The next morning we got picked up at 7am, prepared to pay 1000 Moroccan durhams each. We get there and the guy charges us 600 each, which immediately scares all of us. This never happens, no one ever charges you less, EVER. So, we are thinking, something has got to be up, plus the fact that the guy insisted we pay him away from the drivers and then he drove away on his motorcycle definitely seemed suspect. We figure, okay, we'll roll with this and see what happens. So, our driver pretty much never spoke and didn't tell us where we were going or for how long we would be there, we found out some details upon arrival, it was all a mystery!

Our Mystery Tour group: The Cool Kids (obviously, our group...just kidding!): Me, Joel, our 2 fräulein friends form the Airbnb; the Spaniards; the Quebecois couple; the Unknown couple(didn't really speak to anyone so I don't know where they are from); and the French party bros.

1. The Atlas Mountains

the winding roads

Yay, the atlas mountains, that sounds cool...and I think it would have been a lot more cool if our driver hadn't been such a crazy driver. Our driver liked to accelerate and then break suddenly at each turn, and there were a lot of turns, like 2 straight hours of long windy roads. Did you know I get motion sickness? I felt bad but not on the level of vomit, this was not the case for others in our van. As soon as we got off the van I got the pleasure of seeing a girl vomit right in front of me. So, it turns out that we literally stopped a couple of times in the Atlas mountains, no hike. Next stop, Hollywood.

2. Hollywood

Next we stopped in Aït Benhaddou, a Bedouin village, where they have filmed lots of cool shit like: Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia, Game of Thrones, etc. It's amazing that it's all built out of adobe. Only something like 8 families live in the old city anymore, most live across the shrinking river. We had a tour guide here and he gave us the tour to accommodate all the languages of the group: French, English, and Spanish. I bet he could have done it in German too if the Germans hadn't spoken English. Joel and I were constantly awed by all of the polyglots we met in Morocco, what a feat to be able to speak 4 languages or more! We both agree that being a polyglot makes you a bad-ass.

3. Sleepover in the desert

So, the only thing our guide told us is that we were now heading to the desert. Just a little 4 hour drive of all long winding roads. I was mostly holding it together trying to mediate my way through motion sickness and put on headphones so I could drown out the dry-heaving out 2 people. We arrive, and hey, there are camels. SURPRISE! Camels, that we are going to ride to the tent. It's fairly dark out in this part of the desert at 8pm, but at least our guides and the camels knew where we were going.

 No surprise here, riding a camel is bumpy. Having never ridden a horse, I have nothing to compare to. I was just holding on for dear life because, you know, I am paranoid. Naturally, one of the french bros is smoking a cigar while riding his camel and taking selfies. We get to the campsite and they bring us some dinner, followed by some music with drums, and then the guides pretty much peace out. I have never been anywhere that was so dark that you actually get to see the stars like that, so that was pretty breath-taking. But, don't forget to close your mouth because it's windy and you'll keep swallowing sand. So the music ends, and the hosts just peace out and leave us. Okay...I guess we'll just go to sleep

Our campsite 

Surprisingly, I slept well, but that's probably because I didn't know about this until the morning:

Lots of these prints in the sand

I heard this was not the case for others, something about a cat meowling on top of their tent all night. We woke up early in the morning to finishing watching the sunrise which was beautiful, of course. Now, in broad daylight we realized how close the tents that looked so far away actually were.

And to end our sleepover in the desert, ride back to the road on the camels. So, what's it like to ride a camel? Bumpy. What's it feel like afterward? It's like riding a bike that has no cushion for about 20 miles, that is what it makes your rear end feel like. It's safe to say I never need to ride a camel again, EVER. Plus, I felt really bad for the camels. The poor camels did not look well taken care of and a bunch of them had some sores on their necks.

4. A looooooooooooong and winding road

Truly, 7 hours of mostly winding roads, not a good thing. Luckily, the most motion-sick gals sat in the front and held it together. The same could not be said for one of the French bros, we had to pullover for him to vomit. We think dude had a hangover, probably from all the vodka and weed the night before, and further exacerbated by our hellish driver. I worked quite hard to drown out his vomiting out the van window with music, which I managed, seeing his vomit splattered outside the van was not helpful. Not to worry, my streak continues, I am car-sick-vomit-free since 1992. We finally got back to Marrakesh around 6pm, so fucking relieved to be out of that van. I'm glad we went on this adventure as vague and vomitty as it was. The end.

And now back to the beginning...

Unfortunately, things got off on the wrong foot, but only for like 30 minutes. We took a ferry from the south of Spain to the northern city of Tangier, only 1 hour! As soon as you get off the ferry there are a lot of people trying to give you a cab ride, guide you to your hotel, offer hotel accommodations, etc. And well, anyone with a backpack is their target and they are extremely persistent. You see, anyone that helps you with directions expects you to pay them money. A kid decided he was going to be our guide although we said no thank you very nicely several times. When he realized we weren't going to accept his “guide” services he so kindly yelled at us to go fuck ourselves repeatedly. To be honest, it was kinda shocking, he seemed like such a nice 12 year-old kid and we never mislead him. So, we continued our walk to our accommodations, and about 15 minutes later we have another confrontation. We politely tell the adult man, “no thank you, we know where we are going, no thank you” which earns us him yelling at us to fuck off, we're racist, and to leave his country. I was like, wtf? He had started of telling us he was just being helpful and that Morocco is a wonderful friendly Muslim country and then bam, he turns into opposite monster. To be honest, this sucked because it made us just avoid everyone to play it safe and there were some people who were just trying to be genuinely helpful. It took us a couple of days to be more trusting. I also don't want you to get the wrong impression, these were 2 bad experiences out of 100 people we interacted with in the country, so it's very rare.

Tangier

We walked all over Tangier, the Old City, New City, and the Kasbah. We stayed in the Old City, near the Medina (means old city in Arabic). Morocco was a nice change of pace in terms of food, the food is good. Tagine all over the place! Tagine is a style of cooking, you cook a dish in a clay cone-shaped small pot over coals, so there are many different types of tagine. We ate tagine almost every day too the point of probably being a bit tire of tagine, but what can ya do?

Chefchaouin

From Tangier we took a bus to Chefchauoin aka “the Blue City”. So named the Blue City because much of the old city has been painted blue. Originally it was painted blue because it was seen as a divine color by the Jewish refugees who had been expelled from Spain. Though the Jewish population is all but gone the tradition continues today. I mean, why not? It looks good. We only had one night in this city before we moved along to Fes.

The Homeowner's Association is not pleased about this purplish wall. 

Fes

We had heard that Fes and Marrakesh could be a lot more stressful in terms of people being aggressive in offering their services and selling things, but we found both cities to be more relaxing than Tangier.

View of Fes from the hills above

Old ruins above the medina

The riad where we stayed

A beautiful garden that provided some respite from the heat 

To wrap up, some observations:

• I'm happy to report, Morocco is a Barcelona country, like 80% Barca jerseys to 20% Madrid, ha!

• It's quite popular to eat pizza with ketchup.

• People think Joel is Scottish.

• People think I am Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. Seriously, I got a Konichiwa walking through the Medina.

• The sign that prhobits motor bikes from the Medina is just there for giggles, mopeds and motorcycles are always zooming past you in the Medina market.

Next stop: Seville, Spain.