I was positively aching to get to Morocco by the time my EgyptAir flight departed Cairo International Airport. For starters, my good friend and fellow travel blogger Nellie Huang (who runs the fabulous WildJunket website) said, at one time anyway, that Morocco was her favorite country.
Additionally, while driver-cum-hustler I mentioned a couple entries back was taking me through old town Sharm el-Shiekh after my day at Ras Mohammed National Park (this was before the almost-assault, though), we stopped at a large Moroccan dinner theater. The archways alone sold me, let alone the prospect of enjoying fresh mint tea or sumptuous Moroccan Tajine.
Morocco is indeed an amazing place, albeit one with a host of social problems you might not expect from one of the most apparently moderate Muslim countries. Thankfully, Morocco’s most prominent feature — its vastness, a characteristic that applies to it on multiple levels — ensures you’ll find nearly all of your experience there enjoyable.
I traveled a long path to Marrakech’s, Morroco’s primary tourist city — I flew Cairo-Casablanca, then took a train from Casablanca to Marrakech — arriving there just before 10 p.m. after having departed Cairo around 8 a.m. Thankfully for me, the driver of the petit taxi I climbed into when I exited the station was able to discern from my poor French that I needed to get to Jemaa el-Fnaa square, located in the center of the city’s medina. Upon arrival at the Hostel Riad Marrakech Rouge, two Western girls who’d decided to stay in the city long term were more than happy to accompany me into the mess of food stalls that materializes in the medina each night — specifically to #47, their favorite. No matter which stall you choose you’re to enjoy choices like Chicken Tajine, couscous or any of the other specialties they offer, always washed down with fresh mint tea. Just watch your ass if you’re female — literally.
In spite of how cool I found Marrakech — which was in spite of how filled-to-the-brim with tourists the city was — I was dismayed at the attitude locals seemed to adopt toward visitors when I went out to shoot the following afternoon. One woman I came across in the southern part of the city near El Badi Palace asked me not to shoot a festive-looking watermelon stand from several yards away, then had the nerve to beg for me money. A young man who approached me when I entered repeated the lovely phrase “Fuck your mother” when I told him I didn’t want to stay in his friend’s hostel because I already had one. Another even younger man literally spat at me when I told him I didn’t need his help — something also born of the fact that I didn’t want to give him money — in navigating the city. Obviously I don’t write Marrakech off completely due to these unfortunate incidents, but am nonetheless shocked by the behavior of these particular residents.
After a few days exploring Marrakech, I headed off to the coastal town of Essaouira with Erin, an Australian girl I met in the hostel. About four hours from Marrakech via CTM bus, Essaouira isn’t the type of city you expect to come across in Morocco. Situated on the rocky North Atlantic, Essaouira’s aesthetic (from a scenery perspective, anyway) is more befitting of Spain, France or even Ireland. Of course, this makes the juxtaposition of Moroccan buildings and people all the more visually exciting. One word of caution, though: Don’t get anything with meat in it when the bus stops along the way. I promise you will live to regret it.
In case you haven’t noticed, I love photographing birds, so I was tickled pink — or white, as it were — upon seeing just how many seagulls calls Essaouira’s coastline home. Upon walking up to the old fort in the north part of the city, it seemed the birds were just passing, but walking further south along the ocean showed a veritable infestation — and I mean that in the best possible way. In addition to being friendly (as birds go, anyway), the birds added an additional dimension to Essaouira’s almost alien (for Morocco) aesthetic.
Once I recovered from the food poisoning to which I alluded a couple paragraphs ago, I headed to Marrakech, where I departed on a three-day, two-night tour of the Sahara Desert. As I detailed in my article on the topic this past Monday, the entire first day — and most of the second — was spent in transit first over the Atlas mountains and then through the rockier portion of the Sahara. One of my favorite stops along the way was the dramatic Draa Valley, which literally dwarfs the crowds of people the walk through it every day.
The Sahara itself was definitely worth the wait, if only for the camel ride to get there — camels are my favorite animals, for the record. As I mentioned more extensively in my piece earlier in the week, our time in the desert was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had. After a home-cooked meal around the campfire, we smoked hashish, climbed to the top of a 300-meter sand dune and spent about an hour just looking over the barren terrain. Our Berber guides name checked “Timbuktu” and joked about us being close to Algeria, but they weren’t actually far off — by my calculations, Algeria was within the limits of what we could see from the top of the dune.
I departed the Sahara bound for the city of Fez and what I hoped would be a full day there. Unfortunately, a series of delays resulted in my not arriving to the city until well after nightfall. With only a limited amount of time and more anticipating for a visit the mountain town of Chefchaouen than touristy, cliche Fez, I forfeited much exploration of the latter and hopped an 8 a.m. bus to the city some locals simply call “Chaouen” the next morning. The city is painted blue — and, as you can see, is still in the process of being colored as such — in order to repel insects that dwell in the mountain above it.
Although my flight to Spain would depart days later from Marrakech, which necessitated a lengthy, multi-stop bus ride through the Moroccan capital of Rabat to reach again, Chefchouen was the de-facto conclusion to my two weeks in Morocco. And a beautiful way to end the trip it was! Beyond the fact that the town was decked out in my favorite color, Chaouen’s locals were without a doubt the friendliest in the whole country — human and non-human alike.
Robert Schrader is a travel writer and photographer who’s been roaming the world independently since 2005, writing for publications such as “CNNGo” and “Shanghaiist” along the way. His blog, Leave Your Daily Hell, provides a mix of travel advice, destination guides and personal essays covering the more esoteric aspects of life as a traveler.
