Day 8: At the desert near Merzouga: We had to wake up early for our sunrise camel ride, so obviously it was still dark when I awoke, but it wasn’t raining, yay! I got dressed and got my scarf tied around my head (I couldn’t do this myself, but all of the Moroccan guys working at the hotel knew how to do it) and when it was time, we all walked over to where the camels were hanging out.
I was pretty nervous, but it all happened pretty fast, and before I knew it, I was up on a camel!
I’m the one in the front, riding the camel.
My camel led the way up the dunes. When we got a little ways out, the guides had the camels sit back down and we all got off and took pictures and watched the sunrise. From our group, Travis and Renee walked off and then we watched as he proposed to her, which was very fun and exciting for them (she said yes!). And the guys made a little a fire to warm up.
After the sun rose a bit we got back on the camels (link goes to a video of me on the camel while it stands up, a must watch!) and headed back to the camp to finish packing up and eat breakfast.
My camel taking a little break.I’m in the front there as wellThe view from atop a camelThe camels taking a breakSun rising over the dunesWe were all a bit sleepy from having to get up early!
Sorry for the pictures being a bit out of order!
Anyway, breakfast was tasty: mostly bread/crepes with various jams, and the coffee was good.
We got loaded into the bus and headed for our next stop, which was a quick stop in Erfoud to try dates and get encouraged to buy some. They were delicious and melted in your mouth and would have bought a bunch if I could have brought them home, but I didn’t think that was allowed through customs.
We drove a long way between the anti Atlas and the high Atlas mountains. It was a beautiful drive, but far. Our itinerary said it was 7 hours of driving today. The desert is FAR away from everything else, but it was so worth it.
Cat resting at the rest stop
We made a few more stops of course: a cafe stop for bathroom and coffee, and then we had lunch at a restaurant that was in somebody’s house in a small village near Todra Gorge. We all got served plates of food and then paid a set price. I never minded this sort of thing as I knew food would be extra, but if you are hoping to really save money on food, sometimes that would mean simply having to a skip a meal or something, and the meals were overall really good! Sometimes we got to order from menus, but not always. In any case, this was a delicious meal. It was a house owned by people who were Amazigh, which are the native (pre-Arab) people of Morocco. This was probably the best lunch we had…or at least one of.
We had a delicious lunch here!The villageIs this a mule or a donkey? Now I can’t remember what I was told and I am NOT a livestock expert.
After lunch we walked along Todra Gorge. What an amazing sight to see–the road ran through it, but everybody was on foot for the most part. There were some hotels that used to be there but that had been closed down due to rock falls.
The Amazigh flagThe aforementioned closed hotels. Would be a cool place to stay, but getting killed by rockfall isn’t so cool.Did I buy another scarf? This one seemed more like an Amazigh style. Did I have a great time bargaining for it? Yes, I did.
I believe we made a grocery store stop before heading to our destination for the night, but I didn’t write that down. I didn’t buy any beer or wine, but some people did (the places don’t usually serve it, but we were told we could bring some along.) I enjoy wine, but figured I could have some time without it as well!
The last part of the drive was on a winding road through the mountains and was absolutely stunning. Our driver did a great job with the winding roads and we always felt like he was driving very safely.
A winding roadVery high elevation on the drive!
We got to the gite (guesthouse) for the night. They gave us tea and snacks first and then took us to our rooms. I got one with twin beds. This place was really neat: it was in a village called Bou Tharer in the M’Goun Valley, in a very old, very traditional looking building. We had a little time to unpack (I did some sink laundry), and then went over the restaurant building for dinner.
My room. It was nice to sleep in one and use the other for a suitcase holder, ha!Fireplace right by our dinner table. It was nice and warm this night.
It was funny, because we were staying here for two nights, and we were one of two groups we saw…and then we realized the other group was our exact tour but that had left the day before. Us, but from the future! The Morocco Uncovered Tour is very popular and has one that leaves almost every day–we also knew there was one behind us so we figured we would see them the next day.
Dinner was very nice: soup, lamb tagine, (bread and olives of course). Guess what dessert was: yes! Fruit! Sliced oranges, bananas, and apples. No chance of getting scurvy on this tour.
Aman serving up soup. You can see the bread bowl too, and somebody’s bottle of wine.Soup!A dinner selfie! Some decorations.
It was cozy in the room, though the walls were a bit thin. I had some internet in the room, and chatted with Louie a bit this night as well. It might have ended up just being a long distance call–my plan has phone calls for 25 cents a minute, which sounds high until you remember living pre-cell phones! Remember long distance calling? Anyway, I was never amazed to hear Louie’s voice clearly from thousands of miles away. And then I read my book until I was too tired.
Every evening our guide would send a message via Whats App with all the info we needed for the next day. I thought I’d share one example today, so you can see what this day was like:
“Salam Alaikum all…Reminder of the program tomorrow. Breakfast starts 7 am. We will put our luggage down in the reception at 8:45. 9 am departure towards Midelt city.
First stop in supermarket to buy picnic lunch…Second stop in Ifran city, Switzerland of Morocco. Some free time for about 45 min to enjoy a walk in the park or just enjoy the beautiful green town, also snowy town.
Then we will resume the drive. Drive along the cedar forest. Stop in a place to eat picnic. Then we continue to our hotel not far from midelt.
Once we make it there we will have some time to relax before we head to a village to have some tea with family and a 1 hour walk through the fields of apple and other crops that people grow…
Back to hotel, and dinner will be at the hotel as there isn’t a single restaurant in the area.
Thanks for your time. End of the program…see you guys tomorrow.”
Every evening we would get a detailed message like this, which was really nice and helpful. I should add that I have Tmobile which gives me internet everywhere as well as unlimited texting. We had wifi in most of the hotels, but it wasn’t always very good in the rooms.
So, how did it work out in real time, versus the plan? Let’s do the details with pictures!
I woke up and met with Barb and Graehm, as well as other later comers to breakfast. It was a fine breakfast, nothing to write home about. Then I finished packing my bags and headed to the lobby. There was an atm right across the street from the hotel so I went over to take out more cash. We took the bus to the grocery store, which was a chain brand we hadn’t tried yet, and was as always, fun. I got cheese and olives for lunch and was going to share a baguette with Sabine (the other solo woman on the trip.)
Our first stop was the town of Ifran, called the Switzerland of Morocco. It had a lot of French influences and was a skiing town, I guess? We had some time to walk around and I bought some nice roasted nuts from a vendor.
They had a giant lion statue, which reminded me of University CityYou can see the architecture is quite different from much of Morocco.
We continued our drive then, along a very snowy area. We were getting into the mountains.
Some unusual vehicles on the road.
We saw monkeys along the side of the road!
Do you see the monkey?People were pulled over and it looks like somebody had given the monkey some food. Questionable.
We stopped for a picnic lunch at a rest stop, where it was unheated, and we basically froze in a little room. It was a tossup if it was colder inside or out.
People sledding on the hills. We would drive along and then be stuck in traffic with people parking to get out and toboggan.
We got to our accommodation for the evening which was outside the town of Midelt. The rooms were old and traditional, but large!
I even had a sitting room!Outside of the hotel
After we got settled in, we got back on the van and went to visit a nearby village and apple farm. We met a man who lives there and we walked around for about an hour. The views were incredible!
I believe these are the High Atlas Mountains.The guide said this stork’s nest had been started nearly 50 years ago, and was still being used. Every year the storks would repair the nest and use it again.
The village was very rural and it really made me think about what a different life the people living there led. The man guiding us said that he had moved away for many years and lived and worked in places like Abu Dhabi, Russia, and Saudi Arabia in restaurants, and was a restaurant manager. Then when his parents needed him to he moved back home. The first year was hard but now he is happy: giving tours plus doing the orchard. He said life is simpler and better in many ways. That being said, I would not wish to live there, but it didn’t seem all bad, and especially the views were lovely. And they are near Midelt where they are many modern services.
Gotta have a cat picture!
After the walking tour we had tea and Moroccan crepes with jam and cheese. We had seen the crepes at breakfast before, but these were the best we had had by a longshot as they were hot and fresh. I didn’t get a picture of them but this link looks like the same thing.
You want to pour the tea from up very high!
We headed back to the hotel and had a little break before dinner so I went for a walk to a nearby lake.
We had dinner at the restaurant. We had ordered our dinner earlier in the day and they had it ready for us. I had a whole trout with various sides. Sabine and I split a small bottle of a Moroccan white wine, which was hmm… not my favorite but fun to have tried. I then ordered a beer afterwards which was nicer.
The gang. Our guide, Aman is on the far right. I checked the weather before going to bed and saw that it might WINTRY MIX in the morning. NOOOOO.
And then it was bedtime, on the early side as always. My room was toasty warm, so I was happy.
If you haven’t read my previous posts about my trip with Intrepid called “Morocco Uncovered” start with Day 1. But if you are caught up OR just here to read about Fes, let’s go!
Day 5: It’s fun to note that this day was January 1, New Year’s Day.
It was a more relaxing morning since we were staying in this hotel (Across Hotel and Spa, though I saw no spa) for two nights and didn’t need to check out. I went to breakfast and as usual, ran into Barb and Graehm. No fresh-squeezed orange juice at this breakfast, though the food options were fine and they had a coffee machine, which was fun.
We boarded the bus and headed to meet our tour guide. It was a very foggy morning!
Doesn’t our mini bus look handsome in the fog? If you look closely you can see the remnants of our New Year’s celebrations.
We met up outside of the Royal Palace, which you can’t go inside, but has some great doors.
The biggest door was very crowded so we took pictures of a smaller door instead. Still gorgous!
You can see up close the detailed tiles and the work that went into the doors. I’m sure no expense was spared!
We walked through the Jewish quarter which was nearby.
i thought this gate really showed the people of Fes just going about their daily lives.
Next we bussed to the ceramics factory, where we learned how the ceramics are made. It was very interesting, and featured men sitting in what looked to us to be very uncomfortable positions doing work for our benefit. Is this really how they work or is it a show for us to pay more for the ceramics sold there? I suspect some of both, and after the tour I did purchase a small ceramic cat ornament and a little bowl to put trinkets in, so I fell for it, ha!
Zoom in on the picture and it says “Smile, you are in Fes”.
Next we went to the Medina. We were warned not to get lost from the group as it was very hard to navigate and the streets/alleys didn’t always show up in Google Maps. One annoyance I had with the tour guide is that he was very soft spoken so as we walked through the medina unless you were right behind him you couldn’t hear anything he had to say. He was super knowledgeable, but just soft spoken. We also felt very rushed through the medina, but I know that’s part of the deal with a group tour. If we stopped for everybody to look at everything they wanted to look at we’d still be there. Hmm…that wouldn’t be so bad!
Some very narrow streets!Dates.Olives. So many!That’s olive oil in the jars in the back.Pastries. So many pastries!Smart cat, standing near a fish stand.
The medina was amazing, and I just wanted to look at stuff, but instead we walked through very quickly. We visited a madrasa there (a school) as well as seeing a University. It was not just the stores (souks) but houses, mosques, fountains, restaurants and cafes, and everything a person would need. I imagine if you lived in the medina you rarely needed to leave.
I inadvertently crashed this photo of Barb waving.
Next we walked to the tanneries where they make leather. They smelled horrible, and we were told it was much worse in summer, so I’m glad I didn’t visit then.
We were given sprigs of mint to cover the smell. I found if I shoved them into my nose and breathed deeply it almost worked.If I were the sort of person to ride a motorcycle I would want that purple jacket. Alas, I am not. Aman and our local guide (I have forgotten his name and failed to make a note of it) chatting in the leather shop. You can see that excess is the name of the game! It was overwhelming at times, but also amazing.
We were taken to a place for lunch next, which was in a really cool house.
We were all seated inside of that room.
I had chicken couscous and the food was quite tasty.
We all got impatient with how long it took though, and wanted to leave the room and get back into our sightseeing. Moroccan meals are never fast, that’s the lesson here.
After lunch I managed to take a few minutes to buy a fez: the first place I failed to talk the guy down lower, and the second place I ended up paying the same as I would have at the first place, but felt more successful because I had haggled from 130 to 100. Ha! The last stop we made for shopping was a weaving factory and I ended up buying a beautiful camel scarf (which I have worn several times already here). I had fun haggling down to 300 from 350. (I wrote that down, but I feel like I paid slightly less, but maybe I’m dreaming, or thinking of a later scarf purchase. I suppose my notes I made the day after are more accurate than my memory today).
One in the group, Travis, bought a drum and ended up playing it with this man who we encountered.
Our last stop on the tour was from the top of Fes to overlook the city. It was really neat to see where we had been.
You can see my new scarf here, as well as please note that I am wearing just a t shirt: it must have really warmed up on that day!
We ended the tour then and went back to the hotel. After a quick refresh, a few of us walked to a nearby mall to shop: I went with Steph, Alicia and Sabine. We looked around at the mall and then the grocery store, which was absolutely slammed, it was like navigating a public high school (at least, mine) in between classes. We decided to make things easy and have dinner at the food court. The whole place felt like a modern medina, which I suppose it was. I panic ordered finally, and got a burrito called the bang bang, which was chicken with cheese, fries, and a sauce. Not super healthy, but a nice change from tagine.
Moroccan Pizza Hut!
We walked home then, and we saw a van absolutely stuffed with people, and either Steph or Alicia (now I just can’t remember, forgive me!) said “Oh, that must be the basic tour.” We just died laughing. (If you have researched Intrepid trips, this is a much funnier joke, or maybe you had to be there). And then we saw this van:
I decided, no THAT’s the basic tour van. Everybody inside and the luggage tied on top.
We discovered there was a bar at the hotel, quite hidden, around behind a corner, and Sabine and Steph and I decided to have a drink. The bar smelled like smoke, but we noticed there was a little garden terrace so we sat out there. We also invited the rest of the group and Barb and Graeme joined later. I had a beer from Fez and another from Casablanca, which I preferred.
I looked up at one point and noticed this LINE of a/c units. Crazy!
It was pleasant but chilly on the terrace, and it was nice to chat and relax with a beer, one of the rare times we did that on this tour. And then that was it for the day, and I went up to bed.
Day 4 of the Morocco Uncovered Tour: Chefchaouen, and then to Fes
Today was our first opportunity to do some exploring on our own. I woke up and got ready and went up to breakfast. I had slept pretty well. I ended up not having good pictures from inside the room because it was too dark and I had accidentally blurred the photos, but I took some right outside the room.
The first door to my hotel room. This door led to a small common area.The view from the pool area. It was still dark as it was on the earlier side, and you can tell it is a gloomy morning. But what a view of the town!Another angle of that door to the common area.
The breakfast at the hotel was pretty good. I ended up sitting with Barb and Graehm and enjoyed a variety of foods plus coffee. I had originally been planning to wander on my own for the morning but Steph and Alicia, two of the younger women on our tour, invited me to join them and suggested they could take pictures of me, and frankly that sounded like fun, so I did. I finished packing up my room and got my luggage out for later pickup, and off we went.
A few words about Chefchaouen as we learned from Aman (our guide), who was from there. He said in the early 2000s one street of houses decided to use blue paint and pictures of that street went viral on the internet. Over time, the whole town ended up painting themselves blue, various shades, in order to increase tourism and look cool on Instagram. So basically, it’s a really popular place, very beautiful, and the main reason is the internet. But it IS beautiful, and we just loved it. (Later he pointed out a town in the distance that he said was trying some green paint for tourism, and it did make me want to go there as well, also watch the socials for that one.)
As you can see, we took a lot of photos! It was hard not to. I have so many more on my camera roll. I didn’t choose my outfit to match or coordinate, but we saw many who did. We had a fun morning wandering around, and then we did some souvenir shopping before deciding to get lunch at Restaurant Aladin, which Aman said was the nicest one overlooking the main square.
We thought we had allowed enough time for lunch, but after waiting over 45 minutes for our food, we asked them if it could actually be to go (We had ordered sandwiches and pizza so this was possible) and then hurried back to the hotel to meet the group.
This woman was using the fountain to fill up her water jugAman standing at the door to the Riad/Hotel we stayed in.
By then it was pouring rain again, after a decent morning, thankfully! We headed out in the van to Fes, and the driver kept having to slow down for giant puddles and sometimes to divert around standing water and flooding along the route.
Inside the minivan. We could change seats, but mostly people stayed in the same as we were happy. I took a backseat where I could stretch my legs out in the aisle.
At one point there was a stand selling fresh oranges along the road and Aman hopped out and bought some for everybody.
One of the snacks I had bought. I thought the packaging was hilarious, and they ended up tasting good. I shared with people around me and this brand became a cult hit on our tour.
We made it to fez in the late afternoon and checked into the hotel for two nights. (So relaxing, two nights in one place!). Here we stayed at the Across Hotels and Spa which was a disappointment compared to the Riad in Chefchaouen, but was a perfectly serviceable hotel. It was in a nice location and just felt a bit more “corporate” or “chain.” After a little downtime, we all met downstairs to go to dinner together. We went to a restaurant in an old house where they served us a feast of Moroccan salads, chicken pastille, fresh fruit and cookies for dinner. It was New Year’s Eve at this point and one of the woman had brought some decor for us to use.
The Moroccan salads. These were amazing! Perhaps the best part of the meal. The chicken pastille. I enjoyed it, but it was an unusual dish. Chicken inside, flaky pastry and sugar around it. Reminded us of that Friends episode: “beef, good, jam, good”. The whole gang there with our decorations for New Years.Fresh fruit, a staple of Moroccan dinners.
And then we drove back to the hotel. It felt a bit sad to go to bed early on New Year’s Eve, but yet, what else to do? I think some people might have gone out, but more in their couple groups. I was also feeling a little bit “needing my personal space” so it was nice to go up to bed and relax, even though it felt lame, haha. I ended up giving Louie a call on Facetime, which was great, and felt so crazy: talking on facetime from another continent is always crazy, isn’t it?
The room. If you stay here, look in the closet for blankets, as they don’t put them on the bed!
Practical things: you could pay to have laundry done at this hotel. I took advantage of the time to sink wash some clothes which would have two days to dry. The heat was really effective in the rooms and it was nice and cozy, which I figured would also help with air drying.
Happy New Year to us! It was always sad spending New Year away from Louie–we’ve done it quite a few times–I would say this was one of the times I started to feel most home sick, but the next day was so much fun that I was again so grateful to be where I was. And you’ll have to wait to read about that until later. Day 5 of Morocco Uncovered, coming soon.
(If you are reading this, please give a comment! I love comments!)
Day 3: I woke up early and couldn’t sleep well. Either I shouldn’t have napped on the bus yesterday (impossible, I sleep so well on moving vehicles) or it was jet lag. Probably a combination.
I went upstairs to the rooftop restaurant for breakfast and enjoyed some nice views, fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee, and some other items. Breakfast in Morocco is a lot of bread and jam, but this hotel had a great spread overall, which made up for the room a bit.
Sunrise over my view of Meknes from the balcony.
We checked out of the hotel and went to meet our guide for a walking tour of Meknes Medina. I loved this place! I could have wandered for days through the alleys and looking at all the doors. The guide was the opposite of the day before in some ways, always fussing at us to get closer together and hurry up, stay together. He gave tons of information and was terrific.
This is my “I can’t believe I’m here and it’s just like I hoped” face.So many cats!
I took so many pictures as I didn’t even know where to look.
More of the overly trimmed trees.
According to the whats app plan, we visited the Old gate Bab Lakhmiss, the Jewish Quarter and the mausoleum of the founder of Meknes, Moulay Ismail.
At the end of the tour they took us into a little store with some handicrafts and showed up how people made ceramics and put wiring on them to make beautiful patterns. Of course they wanted us to buy things but it wasn’t uncomfortable, just an opportunity. When in Morocco, you do these things.
We got back on the bus, next stop was the grocery store again. We got supplies for a picnic lunch and then headed towards Volubilis. Lunch was at a cafe with a nice view that sold drinks and kefta but nothing else. Some of us ordered kefta to share and we had way too much, but it was delicious. I also enjoyed a fresh squeezed orange juice as well as a soda.
The view
After finishing our lunch it was a short drive to Volubilis, a Unesco World Heritage Site and ancient Roman ruins. In Morocco, did you know the romans made it that far south? We had a really nice tour through the area. It was fascinating to see how before the Arabs, the Romans were here first.
The town of Moulay IdrissJust hanging out on some Roman ruins. Totally normal.The arches made it feel like home.
Fun fact: the Australians didn’t know that St Louis has an arch! I enlightened everybody with this knowledge. They asked why?
Would you like this on the floor of your house? Amazing.Arches are great for framing picturesque towns on mountains, aren’t they?
From there we had a long drive on winding roads to Chefchaouen, our stop for the night. I should note that I took Dramamine each day when we started on the bus and if you are at all prone to motion sickness it’s worth doing. Several people felt ill on this drive, which was pretty until darkness fell.
The whole gang. I’m in there somewhere.
We got to Chefchaouen right after dark, and were amazed by our hotel: Dar Echchaouen Maison d’hôtes & Riad. It was a step up from the night before! Too bad it was already dark and we were only staying one night.
What usually happened when we got a hotel was that we got off the bus and waited a bit while somebody unloaded the luggage and our guide got the keys, then he would distribute each room based on our needs. This hotel: when we entered the gate there was a lovely courtyard, then various beautiful lobby rooms. My room was up a flight of stairs, back outside, and shared a common room with another room (which was the other single woman.) The room itself was large with a beautiful bathroom. It also had a view of the pool, which of course it was too cold to swim, but would be lovely. If you were at the pool, you could see the whole village on the hill.
But, we got settled quickly and then headed out for dinner as a group–not everybody joined but I wanted to.
Chefchaouen is known as the “Blue City”. You’ll see why. Also, our guide Aman was from Chefchaouen so he felt very at home here, and took us to one of his favorite restaurants, but first it was a walk through the medina.
This is the restaurant where we ate: Restaurant Bab Ssour.Goat cheese and jam. Chefchaouen is known for fresh goat cheese.Anchovy Tagine. Perhaps not for everybody but I absolutely adored this dish. It was a specialty as well.
And then it was back to the hotel for sleep. I was exhausted from sight-seeing, travel, and excitement. I will say: this was not a late night tour group. You could stay out later, of course, but I never wanted to as I was always exhausted by the end of the day, even after I was over jet lag. We were hopeful for a free morning in Chefchaouen on our own…hopeful that the weather would hold and we wouldn’t have rain! To be continued…
Morocco: land of colors, excess, horns, arches, doorways, ceramics, and more!
Why did I go to Morocco? So many reasons, but I really wanted to travel somewhere DIFFERENT, and the pictures I’d seen made me so curious to see it for myself. I knew I needed a tour group, and did a lot of research about what was best, and ended up choosing the 13 day Morocco Uncovered trip with Intrepid Adventures, based on the small groups (maximum of 12), the itinerary, and the price. They also had great reviews, and seemed to be a very reputable company. Spoiler alert: I found everything to be true, and the tour was terrific. 13 days is a bit misleading, as they count their days the way musicians count intervals, and the 13th day is the day you have breakfast and then leave.
I hope that this series of blog posts can be fun to read as well as helpful for anyone looking to do this tour and having trouble finding information on it online! I researched very hard to see what actually happened on the tours and only found two blogs written about it, so I may be the third. In typical fashion, I will share a ton of photos with my writing and take awhile to finish recapping it (but I WILL FINISH) and I hope you enjoy hearing about my trip. If not, why are you in here??
Pre-Tour: I originally booked a ticket to fly to Casablanca through New York and then Paris. On Christmas morning, the day before I was to fly out, I got a text from Delta saying that that flight was canceled and I was rebooked for some flights the following day. Noooooo!!! I had planned to arrive 1 day early, and the rebooked flight would have me missing the welcome meeting. Not good at all. I got on the phone with Delta and managed to get a flight leaving the same day, and ultimately ended up with the same flight from Paris to Casablanca. Crisis averted.
Other pre-tour: I was planning to pack using just a carry-on suitcase, backpack, and purse I could stuff in the backpack. But then my last flight was with Air France and Air France has a strict carry-on weight limit of 12 kg, which is 26 pounds. This doesn’t seem too crazy, but when I started weighing things my suitcase weighed something like 22-23 pounds and then my backpack and purse were 10, and it was all just going to be too much. I decided I’d better just check my suitcase, and we put airtags on it and my backpack.
Sunset as the plane left St Louis–it was truly stunning!
But then my flight from Atlanta to Paris was delayed and I ended up missing that flight. No problem, I got booked on the next flight. However, this messed up my transfer with Intrepid–they were supposed to pick me up at the airport. I spent some time in the Paris Airport calling and leaving messages, unsure if I had gotten through.
I will say that I found this to be a challenge–flights get canceled and delayed all the time and it should have been easier for me to contact someone about this. I knew I could take a cab from the airport and it would be fine, but I was owed this transfer.
Anyway, when I landed in Casablanca I knew my bag wasn’t with me because of the airtag, so after clearing immigration and customs I immediately went to make a lost bag claim. Note about immigration: I somehow got the softest speaking immigration officer every, and had to ask him to repeat absolutely everything. As I stood there waiting to get my stamp I thought, hmm, if they send me back it’ll be because I just couldn’t hear this man.
(This was a quick entry into Moroccan society, haha!) The woman I was talking with about my luggage spoke English pretty well, but we were still struggling. And there was a dog barking loudly the whole time, and it was just a scene. (I also realized that lines were more of an idea and the best thing to do was just make yourself known and push your way in.) Anyway, I got a copy of the missing baggage form and then exchanged money, and needed to see if there was any chance Intrepid was there to pick me up. The answer was no, no sign of any transfer. And so then I was outside of the airport and it was fairly empty, and a few people kept asking me if I needed help, and I fended them off (because I was told that’s what you should do).
I was exhausted and it was after 10 pm Casablanca time at this point, so I probably missed a sign. I realized that I actually DID need help, and here is where I did something I shouldn’t have, but I was tired: I let a woman help me “find a cab” and then ended up that she drove me to the hotel. I was half worried that she was kidnapping me and the other half worried she was just scamming me, but she did get to me to the hotel at the agreed upon price, so I think I only ended up falling for the unlicensed cab scam and nothing more, and alls well that ends well.
I checked into the first Hotel, the Hotel Les Saisons, around 11 pm or so. Thankfully they were expecting me and had my room held, and that went just fine. Oh, and even though my suitcase was delayed, I did have all my toiletries with me as well as a change of underwear, so not all was lost. I got to the room and collapsed into bed.
The bed in my room. It was a nice enough room for two nights, the toilet worked, the shower worked, the bed was comfy, and it was almost warm enough.
Official start day of the tour:
Day 1: Casablanca. I had a day tour booked for this morning, since I was arriving early. I got up and went down for breakfast, where I met Barb and Graeme, another couple that would be on my tour. I wasn’t very hungry so I drank some coffee and juice and ate yogurt and a croissant. i talked with the hotel about my luggage and they said they would call when the office opened up.
The tour guide sent a cab to pick me up. It was raining and cold, so if you are going to Morocco in December, be aware that you will need things other than “desert wear.” After picking me up, the cabbie went to pick up another woman at her hotel. She was named Lori and was from Victoria, Canada, and we were the only two on the tour! This ended up being really fun and I was glad it wasn’t a private tour, but also it was great with just two people.
We met our tour guide Hicham outside of the Hassan II mosque. We didn’t go inside, but we got some pictures outside.
The mosque, you can see it was rainy and wet.I’d love to remove those people from the background but don’t know how. But as you can see, it was cool and rainy, but what a beautiful place.One more for the skies too. The Hassan II mosque with wet floor and intense skies.
We headed off on the tour, via the cab as needed and sometimes on foot: it was a walking tour mostly, but then we used the cab (the driver just waited) to get from place to place to walk around. We learned about the history of Casablanca as we went from place to place, and visited the old Medina and the new Medina.
This is me in front of the old fort for Casablanca, which is now a restaurant.Fun street murals, and just a sense of the streets. Little cars everywhere.Who doesn’t hug their fish like this? A picture of a mural with a woman hugging a fish.Palm trees and little cars.Little truck, check. Inanimate object that looks like a face, check!Such beautiful woodwork for a random door. Who knows what is behind it?Hashtag cats of Morocco. I couldn’t stop taking pictures. Look at this building!What about this door for your house?
We tried prickly pear fruit in the Medina, which left our tongues red. We walked up and down streets, and saw many more cats.
A cat sitting on a motorcycle. This was a surprisingly common occurence.Doors, electricity, and marble.It is important to note that I have not actually seen the movie Casablanca.A fruit and vegetable stand in the medinaBags of grains and who knows what.More cats! The other woman on the tour said I’d be taking a lot of pictures if I took pictures of all the cats. Whatever. I pay for extra cloud storage.A beautiful park.DoorsWhat a beautiful entrance way to somebody’s home.Arches, with cars.Arches, and me. Olives! So many olives. Did you know they are all from the same tree, just that they are different colors depending on how ripe.Pottery. Maybe just from China, maybe from Morocco. My first cup of mint tea. The Moroccans love a very sweet mint tea.
We ended the tour with mint tea and pastries.
the Hassan II mosque from across the sea/ocean.
My suitcase was still in Paris (thanks air tag) so the guide dropped me off at the mall where I bought a warm scarf and a pair of sweatpants to tide me over. I walked back to the hotel from there, without too many men yelling at me (the thing to do seemed to be to step in front of me and say “welcome to morocco” which was at a minimum, super annoying.) I knew I needed to eat something but my stomach felt bad–stress plus jet lag, poor combination. I ended up getting a cheese sandwich and fries at a nearby fast food style place.
I was grateful to be in Casablanca, but exhausted and a little (ranging to very) stressed out about my bag. Barb had said that morning that of course Intrepid would help, but I was unsure what they might do. Also, then I sort of hurt my ankle again walking around and luckily didn’t fall, but I was feeling like I had bitten off more than I could chew with this trip, and had some moments of doubt!
6:00 pm Time for the Welcome Meeting. It was in the hotel, and we met our guide Aman along with all the people. It ended up that it was 10 people from Australian (3 couples, 2 sets of women traveling as friends), 1 woman from Germany, and of course me. At this point my bag was “unknown” on the airtag rather than in Paris, so I thought, maybe it was on a plane. I talked with Aman and he said he would help, of course. He talked to a friend and said that after dinner we could go to the airport. We also set up a what’s app group with everybody in it for communication.
We went to dinner as a group (on our own dime, but I thought very reasonable) at a nearby restaurant. I had a chicken tagine with vegetables: note to reader, you will eat a lot of chicken tagines on this tour, so in retrospect I might have ordered something different, but it was delicious. My stomach was still funny so I figured chicken and vegetables would be good, and it was.
A tagineThe unveiling of the tagine!
The meal also came with bread and olives, which is very typical. I got terrific news during dinner, which was that my airtag was showing my bag at the Casablanca airport. Aman made some calls to determine the best course of action, and he said after we ate he and I would go in a cab to the airport. We got there and he walked with me as far as he could go–there were security checkpoints and I was only allowed past them because of my missing bag paperwork. I followed the airtag and ended up at the office from the previous night. I explained that my bag was THERE, and they went to look for it. I will say, without the airtag, I would not have known–they had not scanned it in yet, and while I’m sure they would have eventually done so, it is likely that I would have been without my suitcase for several days or longer, as they would have had to scan it, and then send it somewhere, which Aman had said would likely be to Fez, in four days, as we would be staying there for two nights.
I waited outside the office for a few stressful minutes until lo and behold, out walks the man with what can only be described as a “shit-eating grin” and my suitcase! I may have cried a few happy tears.
Now, this whole debacle cost me 600 dirham for the cab ride, and I couldn’t get a receipt to submit to insurance, because that’s not something they do, but I was incredibly relieved nonetheless. We got back close to 11 pm (the airport is a good 45-60 minutes from the hotel) and I was exhausted. I did a few organizing things as we were leaving the next morning, and went to bed. The next day would be starting on the early side, and I was happy to finally really feel like my vacation was starting.
