Morocco - Marrakech Adventures

As mentioned in my post below where I describe our Saharan adventures, Marrakech was our destination city in Morocco. Although Mark and I have diligently read the Lonely Planet guide to Marrakech on the plane (he concentrated on history and I concentrated on food, naturally), I don't think we were prepared for it. The city itself is split into 2 parts: the Medina, or the old city that is hundreds of years old and is surrounded by a wall; and the Nouvelle Ville, or the new city that sprawls outside the walls.

We chose to stay in a riad inside the Medina to get a true Marrakech experience. Riads are supposed to be mini traveller oasis's within a busy city. They are mini hotels that don't look like anything from the outside, but once you enter, they open up into a beautiful quad that consists of 3 floors: the reception/dining room and the pool on the first, 8-10 guest rooms on the second, and a terrace garden on the roof. They have a classic arabic feel, which I loved.

We spent our first day exploring the main square and the souks (the market), and here's where it got 'interesting' for us, at first anyways. Medina is like a 13th century medieval city - there are no street names, the streets are absolutely illogical, curving with a ton of dead ends, there's traffic and people everywhere: bikes, mopeds, cars, horses...and barely any roads. Shops, food stalls and artisan shops are everywhere, and everyone is trying to sell you something. In other words: chaos. We got so lost on our final day there that we ended up paying a local kid and his brother a full cab fare to lead us to our hotel (a full cab fare here there is 3 euros).  Once you get used to all the hustle and bustle however, the place becomes pretty interesting as it's nothing like the European or Western culture that I'm used to.

The food was pretty spectacular. The most popular dishes were tajine - meat stewed in a special conical pot, and couscous. I was surprised myself when I realized that I'm not a fan of the Marrakech style couscous, because I love couscous. My favourite thing was a pigeon pastilla. Not sure about the pigeon part (but it could be substituted by any meat, really), but the pastilla itself is a sweet layered pastry stuffed with meat, eggs and other goodness. Mmm! I also really loved the 40 cent freshly squeezed orange juice that they sell in the main square. One of the nights, we ended up having dinner from the food stalls in the main square, dining on such local delicacies as sheep head stew, sausages, and fried liver, which was actually quite delicious.

It was only on our last day that we accidentally ventured out into the new city when we took a horse carriage our around the city. We were once again shocked, but this time by modernity of Nouvelle Ville. It looked like a very modern and well off Mediterranean city with condos, gardens, Audis and Starbucks's. In short, a night and day contrast from the Medina. It was great to see both parts, however, as you get a ful understanding how the locals live their lives.

Link to All Marrakech Pictures

Sensory overload in the souks

Our yummy freshly squeezed OJ :D

FOOD!

Deep in the souks

Our riad

Touring an old palace

...and more food! Maria and the tajines

Morocco - Saharan adventures

I'd like to preface this entry by admitting that Morocco is one of the most memorable places that I have been to. The culture shock that we all experienced definitely contributes to that. Once you are past that, however, you begin to realize the uniqueness and enchantment of your experience in this ancient corner of Africa.

Our itinerary consisted of visiting Marrakech for 2 days, an spending the other 2 days driving through the Atlas mountains to the Sahara desert, where we would spend the night and ride the camels back to civilization in the morning.

I'm usually an organization freak and tend to write about events in chronological order, but I want to jump straight to the Sahara portion of our adventure, as it left the biggest imprint on me. Sahara, the biggest dessert on the planet, touches Morocco on the east side of the country, a full 9 hour drive from Marrakech. The drive is not easy, as you have to drive through the mighty Atlas mountains (that are so high in certain places, that they stay covered with snow all year round...being in Africa and all!). This drive, however, is incredibly scenic: you drive through the green valley of the Draa river running through the mountains, through bare red rock formations cracked with stunning canyons, through luscious date plantations with hundreds of thousands of palm trees, through an ancient fortified town of Ait Benhaddou, through the city Ourzazate that is considered the Hollywood of Morocco as it hosts 2 large film studios that film pretty much all the desert scenes you see on TV, and finally, through the desert that starts off rocky and turns into elegant dunes. The funniest thing was seeing flocks of literally hundreds of goats and sheep all over the slopes. I'm guessing those were mountain goats?

We caught a glimpse of a spectacular sunset over the desert while in the car, but weren't prepared for the other beautiful experiences that Sahara was going to offer. We arrived to our camp when it was already pitch black. The plan was to spend the night in a tent in the desert camp that was manned by real Moroccan nomads. That night was definitely a unique experience, as we got to know the nomads around the campfire after dinner. They played traditional instruments and sang for us, and even let us give the instruments a go...this is where I'd like to say that the girls were totally better at it than the boys :P The night sky in Sahara was nothing that I've ever seen, not even at cottages in the middle of nowhere. The stars were bright and plentiful, and one could see the milky way and shooting stars...we then fought over the names of constellations, but gave it a rest when we realized we had no idea what hemisphere night sky we were looking at.

We woke up at 6:30 am and climbed the highest dune to meet the sunrise. I'm not going to try to describe how beautiful it was, as my words won't do it justice, but pictures will! I've included some below. Also, here's a link to all our photos, courtesy of our spectacular personal photographer, Mark Goh. We then got to ride the camels for 2.5 hours trough the desert back to the civilization, i.e. the desert gateway village called Mhamid. I realized that I quite like the camels - they are very calm and almost graceful with their long legs and pretty eyelashes...and contrary to the popular belief they neither smelled nor spat - very polite those camels.

Link to All Sahara Excursion Pictures

Peaks and valleys of Atlas mountains

Re-enacting fight scenes in Ait Benhaddou fortress

 Campfire with the nomads

 Sunrise over dunes

 Breakfast at the camp

 Camel caravan