Advertisement
Published: April 19th 2006
Koutoubia Mosque Marrakech
We spent quite a while here just sitting in the gardens and enjoying the sunshine. I have wanted to go to Morocco for quite a while and in the last few weeks I spent a lot of time trying to find the cheapest way to get there. In the end the cheapest way I could find was to fly to the south of Spain and then catch a ferry across the Gibralta Strait. I asked a few people if they would like to join me and often people were very positive but in the end only Morgan (Fatima), an American girl from Texas, was game enough to come.
We left on the afternoon of the 5th and caught a train to Bratislava (Slovakia). From the train station we got a bus to the airport and caught a flight to Frankfurt (Germany). We arrived about 11pm but our next flight didn't leave till 7am so we slept in the airport with a bunch of other people. In the morning we left for Jerez (South of Spain) and got a bus from the airport to the bus station, then another bus to Algeciras. Once there we discovered it was better to go to Tarifa and catch a faster ferry from there
Tarifa, Spain
We had a quick explore around this awesome little town before we caught our ferry to Morocco. so we got a taxi (with an Aussie couple) to Tarifa. Then the ferry to Tangier, where we had a few hours to explore the city. We walked through the medina (A medina is the old part of the city and it usually has a big wall around it) for our first real taste of Morocco, checking out all of the curio stores as well as the little local shops on every street corner. These shops are only a few square meters but seem to have everything you could ever want. It's like jamming a supermarket into a walk in robe. :P After a few hours of exploring we headed for the train station and caught a night train to Marrakech. This was quite an interesting experience... All the sleeper cabins were booked out so we had to settle for seats. We found a few empty seats in one of the last carriages and curled up for a few hours sleep. At about 2am we were woken and ushered up a few carriages. We found out later that they were uncoupling the last few carriages. We managed to find 2 spare seats in a little cabin with a Moroccan family
A Mosque in Tangier
This is a mosque we found as we walked around Tangier waiting for our train to Marrakech to leave. and did our best to sleep for the next 8 hours. Thus as you can imagine we arrived in Marrakech feeling exhausted and in need of a long shower.
Marrakech We found a decent place to stay at in the new city, dropped our packs off and headed out for our first look around Marrakech. We walked down the main street in the direction of the medina. (It seemed that in every city we visited the main street was called Mohammed V so that always made it easy to give directions to taxi drivers 😊 ) We had 2 days in Marrakech and spent most of the time walking around Place Djemaa El Fnaa (quoted as being the busiest square in Africa) and walking through the medina. It seems that most Moroccans stay home during the day and only come out in the evening. However they definitely make up for it by staying up really late, even young children and old people. The Place Djemaa El Fnaa was amazing at night. Lots of stalls and shops and heaps of people gathered around different street performers from snake charmers to monkey men to traditional African dancers.
While we were
walking around the medina on the first day we started talking to a Moroccan guy (Khalid, who also gave us our nicknames) who was studying English at an American school. He offered to take us out the next day to see some of the Atlas foothills and get a bit of an impression of Morocco outside the major cities. So the next day we hired a taxi for the day and headed for the High Atlas Mountains. We stopped at a Berber village on the way and were able to walk all around seeing the traditional flour mill, kitchen and hammam. (The hammam is the Moroccan equivalent of a sauna, however unfortunately we never managed to find the time to try one out) We also stopped to see some waterfalls and had to climb up a narrow valley for about half an hour to get a good view. The water was really cold and I chickened out swimming in my boxers as there were heaps of locals there... :P We also stopped to see some camels but didn't bother going for a ride (I think I'll save that for when JC and I hopefully go to Tunisia in summer!)
Toilet stop
Everyone is very friendly and helpful and I didn't even have time to take this photo before a man came over to direct us. Essaouira Essaouira is meant to be the most beautiful town on the Atlantic coast and from our limited experience it seemed to live up to that reputation. The medina is right on the ocean and the port is just outside the medina walls. We spent a bit of time on the beach here, and I had a quick swim but the weather wasn't great so most of the time we just walked through the narrow streets of the medina. It's always interesting just to walk the streets in the medina checking out all of the different stores. In the morning most of the stores that are open are local stores selling fruit and veges and also those "supermarket" stores. Then as the tourists start to get up the curio stores open up. Often we would be invited into stores to have some tea or to smell lots of different spices and herbs. The tea in Morocco is Mint Tea and it is made with a lot of sugar. I really like it and have brought some back so I can try and make it here.
Casablanca Casablanca was a bit of a dissapointment to tell the truth. Maybe this
A Moroccan Fridge
On our hike to the waterfalls in the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains we passed lots of these little "fridges". was because it was a much larger city than any of the other ones we had visited, or maybe it was because we happened to be there on Mohammed's birthday and everything was shut. We stayed in a Youth Hostel there and met a lot of interesting people. One guy, who was wearing a green habit and looked like a jedi knight, had been in Morocco for 2 months and was just beginning a 3 year trip around Africa... He was a little strange to say the least...
The highlight of Casa (as people in the know call it :P ) was definitely the Hassan II Mosque. We went on a tour of the Mosque and were able to walk around inside and take photos. We also visited the Washing Rooms (before you pray you have to go through a washing ritual which involves washing everything 3 times in a particular order) and a Hammam that was built under the Mosque. The Mosque is very modern being built in 1987 and took only 6 years to complete. It cost a fortune (estimated in the billions of $US) and was paid for by King Hassan II (1/3) and by donations
Feral Cats
There are heaps of cats wherever you go in Morocco. This one was particularly cute and for anyone who's travelled with me you know I can't resist taking photos of animals... :P from the people of Morocco (2/3). All of the materials used in its construction are from Morocco except for the chandeliers (which were made in Murano, Venice) and two pillars of Carrera Marble from Italy. The doors, which are massive by the way, are made from Titanium and were more expensive than if they were made from solid gold. (They used Titanium because it resists corrosion and is very light.) So yeah it was very impressive and we were really happy that we got to go on such a good tour.
Asilah From Casa we headed north to Asilah, a much smaller coastal town, and spent the night there. In the morning we got a taxi most of the way to Paradise Beach and then walked the rest of the way. The road there is really bad and is mainly serviced by horse drawn carts. We spent most of the day there soaking up the sun and walking along the beach. While we were sitting on the beach we met a really strange Moroccan guy who came over to talk to us. He talked to me for ages about all sorts of strange and seemingly unrelated things. After about
Moroccan Supermarket
These shops were really amazing. I dunno how they fitted in so much stuff! 20 mins I stopped responding hoping that he would go away but this just seemed to encourage him. He suddenly broke into quoting Quaranic verse and went on for about 5 minutes. Then when he tired of this he spent the next 10 minutes air drumming out a really annoying tune looking at me the whole time. After that he went through all of the countries he could think of and told me the language they spoke. In the end we had to leave to get away from him... So yeah you meet some really cool people and then you have some very strange encounters...
But then our time in Morocco was up and we had to start the long journey home. We had to wait a few hours in Tarifa (Spain) so spent quite a bit of time on the beach there. It is a very windy area and we saw more windsurfers and kitesurfers than I have ever seen in one place. We arrived in Jerez at about 7 and walked to the Youth Hostel (which seemed to be located on the very outskirts of the city). Unfortunately it was full so we headed back to the
Mint Tea
Enjoying some Mint Tea at a cafe in Marrakech. In Tangier they wouldn't let us sit down as cafes in Morocco are usually reserved only for men, but in Marrakech they seemed a lot more liberal. trainstation and took the last bus to the airport. We were hoping to stay the night in the airport terminal but were kicked out at 11.30 and ended up sleeping by some benches outside the terminal. Finally at 5.15am the airport opened up again and we were able to get an hour or so of good sleep. Then we caught our flight to Frankfurt (Germany). We had a 36 hour wait there so we decided to visit one of Morgan's friends who lived not too far away. We caught a bus to Mainz and then another to Wiesbaden where Morgan's friend picked us up from the station.
Wiesbaden Morgan had lived in Wiesbaden for 3 months a few years ago so was able to act as tour guide and show me all around the city centre. It is a really beautiful city and I can see why she spent so long there. In the evening we went out in search of a nice pub to try some famous German beer. We went to a few places but the best one was the pub we went to last. It was a really small place and when we walked in everyone
just stared at us for a few minutes. I'd say the average age was at least 50 and the next youngest person was over 40! We decided to stick it out though and it didn't take too long before people started venturing over to talk to us. We ended up staying there a few hours chatting with everyone and I had an awesome night! One Norwiegan guy in particular chatted to us for ages. He was really drunk and kept turning to his wife and saying "I f****** love this woman!!!". Then he tried to give us relationship advice and even though we explained about 3 times we were just friends he was ready to marry us at the end of the night. :P Another very gay guy ,called Gunter, sang us songs about Vienna accompanied by a very accomplished pianist who would bust out a song every few minutes. It was a really nice end to the trip and I will definitely not forget that night in a hurry!
Then the next day it was back to the airport and on to Bratislava where we got a bus to Vienna. It definitely felt like we were coming home
which was a bit strange but also had a really nice feeling to it. Finally got to my apartment at 3am and went straight to sleep!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.219s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 9; qc: 19; dbt: 0.0229s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
justin
non-member comment
amazing
Yo joel, morroco sounds like a truly amazing experience. Just to see such a different culture and environment (especially to the cosmopolitan life of europe) would be great. The mosque looks really cool as well. Now i really want to go there too, but i hope its cheap there! Then again, homer simpson only gets fined US$2 for smuggling souvenirs out of the country, so im sure that it cant be too costly!