the first week in Morocco

This is where we’ve been so far.


We spent the first two days in Casablanca, which is industrial, large (about 3 million) and not very touristy.  It has some art deco buildings, some wealthy shopping areas, some slums and a medina that is decidedly not touristy.  People looked at us, but there was virtually no annoying tourist hustle.

The highlight was the Hassan II Mosque, which is the 3rd largest mosque in the world and one of the few that non-Muslims can enter.  I suspect this is because it was so exceedingly expensive.  It opened in 1993 and cost about $800 million.


    


Then we rode a train about three hours south to Marrakech, a city of almost 2 million that is a very popular tourist destination.  We made the mistake of staying in the medina, next to the tourist trap that is Djemaa el Fna square.  Yes, I mean trap literally.  I can say that Auberge Riad Douzi was one of the best hostels I’ve stayed in, in terms of social atmosphere.  I suspect this was because of the free mint tea on the beautiful roof terrace, the overwhelming desire to escape the bustle of the medina and the higher average age of people traveling outside of the summer holidays.

 

The only museum like thing we did was visit the Saadian Tombs.  We look happy and relaxed because the 10 dirham ($1.50) entrance fee cut out the rifraff.  These 16th century tombs were walled off and forgotten until they were rediscovered in 1917 by aerial photography.



Jack’s last post wasn’t an exaggeration – Marrakech really was an extraordinarily unpleasant experience because of the people.  The best interaction we had was this: we walked out into a busy alley and were immediately approached by a spa hustler.  We were in the middle of a heated discussion after two days of being constantly accosted so I just kept talking (in addition to continuing to walk, which I advise) and the guy kept talking and walking with us and I kept talking and I guess my volume and the absurdity of the situation made him and then me start laughing, so that he gave up.  That’s it.  That was the most genuine interaction we had outside of our hostel. 

I have never felt such animosity, veiled in such false friendliness as I did in Marrakech.

Also in Marrakech, tourists are flooded with opportunities to take tours into the mountains or desert.  Most are overnight.  We couldn’t decide between them, so we took the bus to the desert ourselves.  I think this was the right thing to do because we learned that a lot of the tours take you from one sponsored shopping opportunity to another and we probably could not have dealt with that.

So, we took a 9 hour bus ride over the snow capped Atlas mountains to a town called Mhamid, where the road ends and the Sahara begins.  This is definitely enough material for a post of its own.

After the desert, we took a 12 hour bus trip back through Marrakech, to a nice seaside (Atlantic) town of Essaouira, which is where we are now.  It is beautiful and much more relaxed.  Whew.