Moroccan Adventures

When Nicole planned her trip to London, we agreed we would head somewhere outside of London for a few days. After much consternation, we decided a little exotic adventure was what we were after, and so we set off to Marrakech, Morocco for four days…and adventure was had!

Our taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was just the beginning. We were immediately hit with all the color, sights, sounds and smells of Marrakech as we rounded the corner and we smelled the coriander, cumin, curry and saw the women in veils and donkey carts on the small cobblestone roads. The roads were so small in fact, that our cab driver could only take us far. He pulled over and got us our own donkey cart where he placed our luggage and we all walked the ¼ mile to our Hotel.

We loved out hotel, the Dar El Souk. It is run by a charming English lady and her daughters. We had our first cup of mint tea while she gave us restaurant and sightseeing recommendations. After getting unpacked, we set out to explore the city. First stop was to grab some lunch. The woman at the hotel told us to visit Stall 1 at the outdoor market in the main plaza for delicious and inexpensive food. After wandering for about an hour without finding it, we gave up and headed back towards the hotel and ended up at Kozybar. It was passed 2pm, so they weren’t serving lunch anymore (when will I ever learn this trick) so we just had a glass of wine on their rooftop terrace and watched the giant storks on the castle walls. It was lovely.

We then headed back to the main plaza, Jemaa El Fna, and took it all in – snake charmers, watermen, henna artists and so much more. We headed to the Terraces de l’Alhambra (wouldn’t recommend as it wasn’t very clean) for some mint tea and to look out over the plaza.

That night we had our best meal of the trip at Le Tanjia. We had a delicious Moroccan meal of tangine, couscous and pastille (a filo like pastry filled with chicken, cinnamon, almonds and sugar). Dinner was followed by entertainment - two belly dancers one of which had a tray with several candles balanced on her head. It was a great first day.

The next morning we slept in after waking to hear the call for prayer at sunrise (they pray five times a day) – it was really beautiful. Then we had our daily breakfast out on the patio of our room. Fruit salad made of yogurt, pomegranate and apple, several types of bread, fresh squeezed oj and tea was delicious and great way to fuel up each morning. After a relaxing morning we set out to explore. We headed to out to case out our purchases. We were a bit caught off guard by all the attention we were received. Mainly it was just shop keepers trying to get us to come into their shops, but some of it was unnerving. All the souks were very colorful, leather, eggs, spices, fruits and nuts, lamps, it was all interesting. It was a bit chaotic for my taste. It is also a bit of sensory overload in terms sights, sounds, smells. You are constantly in the way of mopeds, donkeys, carts, bikes, etc there. It kind of reminds me of Tokyo but in a 3rd world sort of way.

After a bit so shopping we headed to Badii Palace which truthfully wasn’t all that interesting. After that we went to Saadian Tombs which had some really amazing architecture and mosaic work. We took a long walk back to the hotel and finished the day with a nap. That evening we headed back to Jamaa El Fna for dinner at Stall 1 (turns out its only there at night which was why we couldn’t find it before). We felt pretty cool sitting with the locals enjoying our kebabs, calamari and fries. It was cheep and so so in taste, but we were there for the experience. We took in a bit more of the plaza scene which gets even more interesting at night with story tellers, acrobats and child boxing matches (kidsplotation as Nicole described it). It was all a bit too much so we headed back to the hotel only to have a bit of a spooky run in with a local. Lucky for us we found a very nice set of French couples who kindly escorted us back to our hotel and scolded us for coming to Marrakech without a man.

That night at around midnight, we awoke to hear someone trying to get into our room! The doors didn't really have very sturdy locks and anyone could have easy gotten in. We were half asleep and I was a bit paralyzed with fear, but Nicole finally yelled out, "Who is there?!". A man with an English accent said "Oh, sorry, wrong floor". We weren't sure what to do at this point...the hotel only had eight rooms, so it seemed unlikely someone could actually get lost. We went back to sleep but tossed and turned all night. The next morning at breakfast we observed a gentleman with an English accent get lost going back to his room. I went up to him and motioned the scare we had in the middle of the night. He fell all over himself apologizing, but were were just relieved to know it was a genuine mistake!

The next day we went to the spa which was also an interesting experience. Neither Nicole nor I had been to this style of spa (Turkish?) before and we were definitely fish out of water. We also couldn’t really understand what the women were telling us to do so it wasn’t as relaxing as we had hoped.

All in all, I didn’t love Marrakech. It was great to get some sunshine and warm air. It was cool to experience a totally different culture and I brought home a few great finds. I would recommend going as part of a larger trip to Spain or Portugal for a day or two or maybe if you were headed outside the city to some of the resorts that I’ve heard are nice. I am glad went, but it was definitely more adventure than either of us had expected.

Also, you'll note our frumpy attire...that is because we were told to cover ourselves from ankle to wrists despite the 80 degree weather. Neither of us really had any great warm weather attire that covered everything, so it was a bit of a challenge.

One last bit of adventure was a gentleman went a bit ballistic on the plane with a nice couple with a baby - something about their seats reclining? Anyway, after the plane landed we were all instructed to stay in our seats while this gentleman and his colleagues escorted the guy off the plane. We tried to find out a bit more of the details, but with no luck.