Moroccan Madness

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Madness - though that is a bit unfair on Morocco, as we actually found it a relatively relaxed place to visit, but we did collect a few funny tales on the way. In fact, one of the most crazy experiences of our trip to Morocco was our first night in Luton! We had an early morning 6.30am flight to Fes on the Saturday morning so we decided to save ourselves another couple of hours sleep and a taxi ride and stay at the Luton Airport Holiday Inn (whoever books themselves there for a "holiday" should really speak to their travel agent). With some luck the Luton Beer Festival was on that night, so it made a good excuse to brave (and that is the right word) the Luton streets and was the saving grace of the night. All that can be said about Luton is....there's not much to recommend it.

A little hungover the next morning, off Anna and I went, arriving in Morocco to the weather we had just left behind - rainy and cold - and this was an early pointer to the bizarre mix of weather we were to encounter. Nevertheless, we were whisked into Fes to our Riad for the first two nights - Riad Norma. And what a stunning place it was. Riads are large old Moroccan houses that have been renovated to the point of being palatial, full of mosaics and etchings. The contrast of the insides of these Moroccan buildings to their drab and dirty exteriors was always surprising.

Fes is infamous for the maze-like streets of its Medina (old city) and we decided to follow the advise of numerous travel guides and get a guide for the first day. Our Riad recommended Lattif and he did a good job of guiding us through the myriad of alleys and lanes that make up the Medina - though poor old Lattif had been doing it for 20 years and sometimes it showed. Our first experience of Morocco definitely surprised as, as we found Fes to be a lot more relaxed than we expected. This was to be a theme of the whole trip, where we found the Moroccan people to be very friendly and - except for the odd bad seed - helpful. Compared to Egypt or Turkey, Anna said Morocco was a breeze.

After a good day in the city, dodging the odd shower, we had booked in to have dinner at our Riad - which was much recommended by reviews we had read. In fact, many of them said that the food was so good they ended up eating all their dinners there - which is exactly what happened to us. The two soups I had over the two nights are probably two of the best soups I have ever had. These were followed by first of many tagines and accompanied by some surprisingly good Moroccan wine (whose very existence itself is a surprise in an Islamic country).

The next day was fine and sunny, so we just wandered around the city by ourselves, getting lost a couple of times - requiring a small payment to the locals to get us back to a known landmark. We even picked up a couple of young lads who were determined to be our guides for the afternoon, even though we were heading back to our Riad and knew exactly where we were going. At one stage they got told off by someone and finally gave up after we had led them halfway across the city.

Monday dawned and off we went with some trepidation to pick up our hire car. By no means was it a modern car, but it wasn't as bad as we thought it could be - a Toyota Corolla (which must be the most gutless cars ever built) that served us well and got a bit of a hammering on the way. It was one of those cars that feels like it could break down any day now, but always feels like it won't be today. It was great having the car too as it allowed us to go at our own pace. Most people we met along the way were surprised that we were driving ourselves - most get a driver. But the driving was actually relatively easy, out of the towns you hardly see another car on the road. The towns themselves can be a bit frustrating, with 40 kph speed limits, and the car being a second-class citizen, the roads being primarily reserved for biking, walking, donkeys, market stalls or just general catching up.

Driving off towards the mountains we were surprised how green this part of the country was - something you are not expecting when you visit Morocco, but Morocco is definitely not the country you think it will be. We spent the day driving up into the Middle Atlas Mountains, where we got our first look at Morocco's stunning mountain scenery. We even went past a Moroccan ski field, which with just one lift, two runs and no snow, earned some disparaging comments from the two of us - little did we know that the joke would soon be on us.

Our destination for the night was the town of Midelt at the base of the High Atlas mountains. The only drama along the way being a close call with a 40 euro fine when we didn't notice the sign telling us to stop for the police (managed to charm our way out of it though). We had booked a place recommended by the Lonely Planet and it ended up being of typical Lonely Planet standard. It was literally in the middle of nowhere, being 6kms out of town along a dirt road. Its situation was quite nice, right up against the mountains, but in what was quite a large place we were the only guests. The place was obviously set up for a bus load of backpackers and was lacking a bit of life with only the two of us there. We had the choice of rooms, which isn't saying much, and we comforted ourselves with the fact that it was just a stopover for the night. The old guy (who I labelled the Patriarch) who owned the place though was a real character, he didn't speak any English except for saying "It's good? It's good!" all the time. He obviously had an interesting story as he had one son to a German wife and then about 6 or 7 for children to a Moroccan wife - it would have been great to be able to talk to him. He was also one of the few Moroccans we saw drinking. Dinner was a very interesting experience! Because we were the only guests and it was damn cold, we had it in the salon which had a fireplace, with the Patriarch and his son, who spoke English but was very intense and just a little bit scary. So there we were eating what was a very average dinner (Anna's wasn't too bad, mine was terrible), with the Patriarch and his son watching us eat and him saying "It's good? It's good!" all the time. Needless to say it feel very weird and after dinner we decided it was best to just go to bed - at 8.30pm! In the middle of nowhere in the middle of Morocco and having just eaten a meal of doubtful quality, it would not have been unreasonable to go to bed with the pocket-knife in one hand and a roll of loo paper in the other, not knowing which possibility was the least desirable. But both fears were unfounded and the shock we got in the morning was much more unexpected. Looking out the window in the morning and wiping the window to look outside, we realised there was no condensation on the window at all, and that white stuff was all outside. Yes - it had snowed overnight! We certainly hadn't expected to see snow on our trip to Morocco!!

Needless to say, it was pretty cold - though not as cold as the shower. After a quick breakfast we escape our very odd hotel and set off to drive over the High Atlas Mountains and onto the Sahara desert, where we were due to spend the night. By the time we had left, the snow had turned to rain, which stuck with us all day - a bit of a shame as we were driving through some stunning scenery. The most stunning was the Ziz Valley, where we thought we were driving along a flat valley floor and actually commented that it was quite boring and couldn't understand the panoramic views the guide books was mentioning. About 2 minutes later we turn a corner and the Ziz Valley opened out before us, a huge gouge in the plain, incredibly green, contrasting with the drab brown and grey above - definitely one of the more memorable sights.

At the end of the day we arrive on the edge of the Sahara and stopped to fill up with gas. That was when a local came up to us to talk us into getting a guide to drive us off-road to the Saharan dunes rather than taking the main road. As he turned out to be from our hotel, I decided to go along with it as it was only 10 euros. Turned out to be another interesting experience. When we went off road, Mustafa our guide wanted to take over the driving. Even though he was obviously used to it, we were hardly going to do that seeing as we wouldn't be insured. Also, how many chances do you get to drive across the desert? It actually turned out to be a bit of a hoot as Mustafa got the pip as I don't think he liked being driven around by a western woman. The car took a bit of a beating but managed to survive the day and we finally arrived out our hotel with grumpy guide in tow.

We had booked in that night to be taking by camel trek into the dunes by a Berber nomad and spent the night in an isolated Berber camp. As it turned out, we were the only two going out with our little guide Muhammad. But this turned out to be great as we got to spend a lot of time with him and learned quite a bit about how he lives as a nomad. The downer though was the weather. The highlights of going to the Sahara include the sunset, the stars at night, and sunrise - we saw none of them. We actually had some rain - rain in the Sahara desert!! The rain they have had this year is in fact the first rain they have had in 5 years. So the people are happy, but was a little disappointing for us. But because it was so cold, we did endup spending most of the night with Muhammad in the small kitchen hut learning how he made a delicious soup and tangine (those with salmonella phobia would have been a bit worried though), chatting away as best we could. We learnt that Anna in Berber means "me" (very appropriate) and Sam must mean a very hard name to remember. We had lots of fun trying to describe different things to each other and I think our Muhammad was quite smitten with Anna. The whole thing was a great experience - stars or no stars - and was definitely the highlight of the trip.

An early morning start and camel ride back to the hotel to be showered and fed, we said our farewells to Muhammad with him inviting us for a month long trek next time (though I think he might have meant just Anna), and set off again, this time on the road and minus our mate Mustafa. In the morning, we headed out in the midst of a bunch of old Renaults driven by French students involved in a rally driving to Morocco - apparently there was a thousand of them involved and they made quite a convoy. It was another day of stunning scenery, only partly disrupted by the drive through one town which was having its weekly market in the middle of the road and took about half an hour to get through. We arrived out our destination for the next two nights up in the spectacular Dades Gorge. In some places it carves vertically through the mountains and has rocks of a dramatic colour and formation. We spent the next day or so exploring the gorge and enjoying the top class French cuisine of our accommodation - Chez Pierre - which made a nice break from the tangines.

On the Friday we headed off towards our final destination - Marrakech - taking in some awesome Kasbahs and some more of that stunning scenery. However, our final trip was not without a little bit more madness when we found ourselves stopped halfway up the High Atlas Mountains - where we bumped into the convoy of the French rally again. We found out that a gas tanker had had a crash on the other side and the whole road was closed for the next 3 hours (lucky we had booked the car to the next morning!). When we finally got going it was a slow crawl over the mountain pass and we did not arrive in Marrakech until 7pm. This was our first experience of night driving, which we had tried to avoid, and for good reason as turning on your lights is clearly an optional consideration for Moroccan drivers! A fairly harrowing drive through the streets of Friday night Marrakech, we were finally able to negotiate our way to meet the owner of our Riad we were staying in for the last two nights.









Once again our Riad - Dar Dallah - was brilliant, with a great terrace on top that e took full advantage of with the warm weather. Patrick, the owner, despite being a little absent-minded put us onto some great spots for visiting and eating. Again we were surprised how relaxed the city was, though Marrakech was completely different to Fes. It is certainly more touristy (and a lot of the tourists are Moroccan as well), but it is also a lot more open and the Medina is much easier to navigate. Marrakech has a modern and trendy side to it as well and we visited some superb restaurants and cafes that would not look our of place in London or New York. It has a bit of everything really, enough sights to do a bit of touristy stuff, but not too much so you don't feel guilty about spending time relaxing in the sun or over lunch. It has cheap Moroccan markets and (a majority of) friendly locals with some fine dining and top class accommodation.

And this pretty much emphasises how we saw Morocco as a whole - a country of many contrasts, both environmental and social. One day you are enjoying hot sunshine, the next you are waking up to snow; one day you are in the desert, the next in the middle of mountain ranges, and then the next again in midst of a green oasis; one moment you are haggling with a pushy store owner, the next being helped by a stranger on the street. Certainly a interesting and exciting place to visit, it comes highly recommended.