Marrakech: The Scottsdale of Northern Africa

You’ve read about our ferry from Barcelona to Morocco, but we realized we got so caught up in the chaos of Egypt that we never actually wrote about our time in Tangier and Marrakech! 

Our ferry dropped us in Tangier, and we were only there for one night as a stopover, so we didn’t really get to see much of the city. The area we did explore, as mentioned previously, was the Kasbah – where our guide Abdullah took us to a variety of different spots with historical significance. We saw areas where The Clash stayed when they were making music (and doing drugs), areas where William S Burroughs lived to write (and do drugs), and where Matisse painted (and did drugs). And all along our walk, EVERYBODY knew Abdullah. He was waving to people on the sidewalks, helping cars navigate through tight alleyways, throwing a soccer ball back to a group of children…it was really beautiful to witness such small acts of kindness and get a peek into this tight knit community. We ran into a friend of Abdullah’s, Fatima, who agreed on a whim to let us into her home, up to her rooftop, to see the city from her balcony – one of the best views in the city. It was like that moment when Aladdin shows Jasmine his view of Agrabah for the first time. Unbelievable – we just kept saying, WOW (which amused Fatima to no end)! 

We headed back to our hotel for the night and had a hell of a time finding a place to buy a bottle of wine (an indication of things to come in Morocco), but don’t fret! We managed to get to a liquor store before it closed and shared a few glasses in the room before bed.

The next day it was up and at ‘em to get to the train station, to take two trains south to Marrakech. 

Arriving in Marrakech was a whirlwind. Fortunately, we had arranged to have a driver waiting for us to take us into the Medina – the old, famous bit of the city – where our riad (hotel) was located. Driving from the train station to the Medina was really jarring because all of a sudden, we could have been Scottsdale, Arizona! The two cities, over 5,700 miles apart, are only 2 degrees of latitude away from each other, which meant the weather felt like Scottsdale, the plants and vegetation looked like Scottsdale, hell – the buildings were painted in the same beige and pink tones! 

When we arrived at the Medina, our driver yelled at some guy out the window, and pulled up to a curb where we were meant to get out. The man he yelled at hustled over to us pulling a wheelbarrow, and together they started unloading our bags into it. Our driver simply pointed at the guy, said, “Follow him”, and left us. Our wheelbarrow man took off, walking into traffic, so of course we followed him – he had all our stuff! The walk from the car into the pedestrian-only Medina was absolutely hilarious. This guy was simply charging through unfazed, and we, being dumb tourists, were left to try and keep up with him, dodging around people, mopeds, snake charmers, shop owners and a variety of stands selling everything from fresh fruit juice to knock off Gucci slides. We kept looking at each other like – Where the hell are we going??? – while basically jogging to keep him in our sights. 

When we arrived at the Riad, it was lovely. We were given Moroccan tea, shown to a spacious room and offered all kinds of options for excursions and experiences. That night, we had one of the most delicious meals we have had along our journey – Chicken Tagine cooked in a clay pot with apples and apricots! Definitely something we’ll be trying to cook ourselves when we’re back Stateside.

In general, we found the hospitality in Morocco to be wonderful. The people were nice, the shop owners, though loud and at times obnoxious, were good-spirited and understanding when we declined their various wares and foods, and the staff at our Riad was particularly lovely. We even had a Riad kitty – ‘Mimi’ – that joined us for breakfast and pets. 

We felt perfectly safe…well, aside from the mopeds flying past us on the pedestrian lanes, being driven by everyone from mothers with groceries to friends sitting 2 or 3 to a seat, to shoeless children! I’m not sure how people do it, navigating those busy winding streets, but luckily we did not witness (nor were we involved in) any accidents. 

Some of our favorite things in Morocco were:

The Secret Garden

A lush oasis tucked away in the Medina, where we spent an afternoon walking around, sipping coffee, eating creme brulee, and looking at local art. 

The Photography Museum

A multi-level building with each floor dedicated to a different part of Morocco’s long and complex history – all told through photographs. 

Riding ATVs in the desert

Our guide was a literal teenager. It was awesome. 

Some things that were challenging in the moment, but we look back on now and laugh about:

We signed up for an afternoon excursion out to the desert to ride ATVs (as mentioned above), take a sunset camel ride and enjoy dinner and a show – advertised to consist of belly dancers, fire-eaters and live music. It was clearly one of those things that all the Riads offer to their guests, and dozens of people attend every day. We did the ATVs first, and were then sent to a tent to sip tea and wait for our turn on the camels.

We waited. And waited. And waited.

We checked in with the guys running the excursion. We waited some more. Finally, when sunset was nearly upon us, we finally got called down to the camel area to put on our outfits (pictured below!) and prepare to go. But then, another group was taken to the camels instead of ours, and we ended up waiting some more. We deduced that the guides had overbooked the excursion and had not planned appropriately to get everyone through the experience before the dinner show. So at this point, we were a bit pissed. We were certainly going to miss the sunset, after sitting around for 3+ hours waiting. When we finally did get onto the camels, we caught the very end of the light in the sky, and though it was a beautiful landscape, the 1-hour ride was more like 20 minutes, and we felt really bad for the poor camels, who did not seem well treated or looked after.

From there we were driven to the performance tent, starving as we had not eaten all day, and when we arrived the performance was already happening and most tables had already been served food or had fully finished eating. On top of that, there were no belly dancers or fire-eaters as promised! It was a group of 5-6 men banging drums and chanting, going table to table while people ate. All in all, we were glad we did the experience, but if we were to do it again we would probably just do the ATVs and head back into town. 

Another funny thing we did was get ‘Moroccan massages’ offered by our Riad. Ross’s experience was pretty typical, but we’ll let Della explain in her own words:

You know how when you get a massage as a woman, you typically start facing down with a towel over you, halfway through the massage the therapist lifts the blanket and allows you to turn over underneath it, and you continue the massage with the blanket covering your torso? Well, this massage was almost like that, except when I flipped over onto my back, this woman pulled down the towel and started massaging my bare boobs! I was so shocked, I almost started laughing out loud! I was truly stunned and just stared straight ahead avoiding eye contact. It was fully unexpected and not the most relaxing experience overall!

We left Morocco the same way we came in – bobbing and weaving around obstacles as we chased our wheelbarrow friend across dirt paths to get back to the main road, to the van that took us to the train station, and to the train which took us to the airport. 

We were off to Egypt, and had no idea what was in store for us on the other end…