February first, two thousand eleven. Phase one of our adventure is over and phase two is just beginning. We flew directly from Edinburgh, Scotland, to Marrakech, Morocco using Ryanair. The flight was reasonably short and quite inexpensive. I forget the exact details.
From this point on everything stated here should not be necessarily understood as “we” but instead as My (Ken’s) experience in Morocco. I was super excited to go, I did not know what to expect, I did some research, and I did have an overall good time, but on a few occasions the experience was not exactly positive, thus, the need to separate my opinions from Kalene’s. If you wanna know what she thought of Morocco…ask her.
Morocco is in Africa. It is second world, muslim, and quite poor. I knew all that. I had been advised that it is necessary to haggle on prices for your goods. It is a community based on us versus them. Tourist versus local. There are local prices and tourist prices. And there is never a price advertised….never. We began our African jaunt in Marrakech.
Marrakech seems overwhelming. And it is. All Moroccan cities are built on what is called a Medina. A walled fortress surrounding the whole city. Inside are all the good, shops, cheap accommodations, tourist traps, beggars, motorbikes…a lot of motorbikes, mosques, lower income locals, and tourists. Since I am white and they are not- I stick out. And I am viewed as a tourist. A tourist who has money. Morocco uses the currency of dirham (1$ CDN = 8Dh, 10 Dh = 1 Euro). It is quite cheap.
We arrived at the airport and were greeted by our very late shuttle driver who worked for our hostel to take us from the airport to the hostel. He made it 95% of the way then told us “a man will walk you the rest of the way, my van can’t fit”. Red flags instantly went up. We paid him and then we met this man. And by ‘man’ I mean seven year old boy. He greeted us and offered us a “big welcome” as is customary by them. Arabic is their national language along with French. English is developing. He lead us through the tiny, winding streets, giving us tips, and directions, nice kid. I felt good except for the kids posse of slightly older, yet still adolescent friends following us. We arrived and thanked him. Moroccan currency used to be closed to the rest of the world, only recently could you find it anywhere outside of Morocco. We found some. 1000 Dh’s which is the legal limit in denominations of 200 and 100 notes. We knew this would be a problem.
The kid expected a tip and we were happy to offer him one…just not 100Dh’s, the smallest notes we had at the time. We said let us check in, we will get change and get you in a minute. Kalene repeated in French. The posse didn’t like that. Long story short, they demanded 50Dh’s, we politely told them to fuck off, they followed us into the hostel and kept at it for several minutes before finally we refused to tip them anything at all and they left. It was not a positive way to begin in a new city. Now, I am about 190Ibs of solid steel sex appeal but I am not one for confrontation. I’ll admit that situation rattled me. I had no intention of tipping this young man anymore after his behavior and I also have no intention of getting physical with locals. All in all the situation ceased and nothing came of it but a little rough start. We talked to other tourists in our hostel who all had similar experiences. This began the overall theme of my visit to Morocco. It’s called money. Everytime we went anywhere, did anything, asked anything, or trusted anyone, it was about money. The most common spoken word in the English language is “the”. The most common spoken sentences by myself in Morocco were different versions of “no thank you, I do not want to buy that”.
We had a big double bed to ourselves in a room with four other people. English students. That night we met a good man named Ian Mallory. He has a website called Mallory on travel.com. He gets a commission if you visit so go ahead….I’ll wait. We had dinner with him and he told us some useful things and we became friends. The food in Morocco is awesome. Lots of vegetables, plenty of bread, cheap, mint tea, and no alcohol. I wanted to embrace the culture of the country I was in as much as I could. And in Morocco alcohol is not part of their lives so I wanted to abstain for the most part. Obviously on a few nights we found a bottle of wine and some local plants.
Marrakech was great because it was busy, the weather was nice, and we found the most excellent side stands for good, cheap, and highly questionable food. Marrakech also runs excursions into the desert. We wanted to do one and we did. We bargained that price down as well. We went for three days, two nights through the Atlas mountains to a hotel in a gorge and met authentic Berber people (Morocco is 80% Berber, 20% Muslim/Jewish). We associate Muslim with Morocco because they live in the most touristy places. Hence, it is mostly what you see. The second day we rode camels for 90 minutes into the desert and slept in a tent. It was freezing cold. Four months on this trip through the winter in Germany but the coldest nights were in Morocco. Why? I am glad you asked. Their building interiors are designed to keep in cool in the summer, so it keeps it cool in the winter too. It is basically bathroom tiles everywhere. Camels are very uncomfortable as well. The sunset was beautiful and the stars were unreal. Not as nice as Tobermory but still glorious.
From Marrakech we headed for the coast. I wanted water. Essaouria is a coastal hippie town. Much like many southern Ontario high schools claim to have the highest teen pregnancy rate every small Moroccan town claims to be where Jimi Hendrix hung out in the 60’s. And since the information is from a Moroccan person I instantly discredit them.
Essaouria was very nice. We got in some epic jogs on the Atlantic Ocean (from the Eastern shore!). Our accommodation there was very nice full of very nice people, great internet, free breakfast, roof terrace all for 6 euros per night. We realized soon after that we should have stayed there longer and not stuck to our original plan to keep moving. Lesson learned: when you are having fun, stay put!
The overnight from Essaouria to Fez. Would not recommend this for anyone. Pretty much the sketchiest thing we did on this trip. We boarded a bus around 830pm, scheduled to arrive in Fez early the next morning. They wanted to keep our backpacks underneath the bus but we absolutely refused. No way was this thing getting out of my sight. Not a single other tourist was on this bus and it didn’t seem to have any form of organization. Our bathroom break at about 3am was an adventure. Kalene left the bus and headed for the station/rundown cement building/homeless shelter from what it looked like. I quickly realized it was not safe and ran after her. She was safely inside the bathroom and I went too. She reached the bus before me and it began to leave. I will never forget the sight of leaving this shit hole at 3am to see my bus pulling away. I ran after it and fought my way on. Kalene had reminded them that I was coming so maybe the driver let up on the gas just a little bit.
We arrived in Fez around 8am or so. We each had not gotten a lot of sleep. For the first time on the trip we showed up without a hostel booked. Figured we find one when we got here. We were greeted by a young Moroccan student who offered us his hostel, which we knew was good and thought of it. We left our things, had breakfast, and made our way to see if any others were around and were better. Oh, and internet in Fez and Tangier does not exist in hostels. The student followed offering us a tour. We didn’t want it but he wouldn’t shut up. He would show us around and for a reasonable price. No thanks. But he kept pressing. Finally, Kalene got pissed and told him no, very sternly, maybe swore a little and left. I was very proud of my KK. Moroccan men are used to being in control and most have never been spoken to by a woman like that before. He didn’t like what Kalene said to him at all. So what, Canadian woman are free, always have been, always will be, and they have the right to speak their mind when provoked. This is what I said to him when he tried to level with me man to man.
From that moment on I was unable to trust another Moroccan person again. Everytime, and I mean everytime they tell you they don’t want money, or you can look for free, or they do this to practice English, or they will show you where something is, or that a certain item is handmade, or it is made of a unique substance, or it is a good deal, or they are the only shop that has this item, it is always a crock of shit. We let our guard down, we followed a man who would show us a great view of the city where we can get pictures. We were on the roof for twenty minutes and when we came down he was waiting for us? Why? Only one reason he wants money.
(Ken hasn't finished this post so please read mine for the rest of Morocco/ a WAY MORE positive view on it.)
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