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Morocco Uncovered, Travel

Morocco Uncovered, Day 3

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Day 1 recap here

Day 2 recap here

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 Idriss
Just 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 Uncovered, Travel

Morocco Uncovered, Day 2

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Day 1 recap here

Day 2: Let’s go! We are in Morocco, we are touring, we are having fun!

My alarm went off at 6:30 am and it was still pitch black outside in Casablanca. I got ready and went downstairs for breakfast. I ran into Barb and Graehm again (this would become a thing, we basically became breakfast buddies as the earliest ones to get ready on the tour). I ate yogurt and some bread, juice, coffee. Nothing too exciting. I brought my bags down at 8 and then we headed out soon after.

This was the day we started traveling on our minibus, really, our home away from home for the next 10 days. I brought my backpack on board the first day, but just to let you know: I started just bringing my purse and a few things in a tote after that as the space wasn’t that big. I do wish I had brought a smaller zip up tote or something on this tour as I just used a disposable tote from a store (they give you these weird cloth feeling bags instead of plastic) for the whole tour. It worked fine though.

But the first day I had my backpack, and my suitcase (my glorious suitcase! how I love thee) was in the back of the van/minibus.

Our first destination was the Hassan II Mosque. I had seen the outside the day before, but this morning we would be going inside. It was still early so it wasn’t too crowded, just us and a few other small groups.

You can see it’s less crowded that the day before, but this picture of me isn’t as good…

We had to take off our shoes to enter the mosque and they gave us a little (cloth feeling) bag to put our shoes in and carry them around. What an amazing place! The detail in the decor is phenomenal, and the designers and builders spared no expense. The guide was excellent and we learned a lot…and I’ve forgotten a lot of it by now, but that’s the nature of the beast. We had a woman guide as well, which was quite rare for this trip.

Looking into the mosque.
A door to the outside that would only be open during certain times.
So many gorgeous tile patterns.
I think this is the door that they said was made of titanium to avoid rust.
I thought this sign was great. So fancy.

On the way out we used the bathroom which was very clean squat toilets. It turned out there might have a been a “western style” toilet as well, as I saw a line after I left, but it was nice not to wait in line, when the restroom was clean. Then we got back on the bus and headed to Rabat, after a quick stop at Rick’s Cafe, which is a replica from the movie Casablanca, which I have not seen (yet.)

Things I noticed on the drive: old buildings with so many satellite dishes on top. SO MANY. And lots of clothes hanging out the windows. I was just watching the world go by out the window and loving it.

We got to Rabat in about an hour and met a local guide there. Intrepid likes to use local guides to stimulate the economy and to provide the most authentic information.

We visited the Kasbah first. The guide had trouble keeping our group together–it was like herding cats. We were all overstimulated and didn’t want to walk around learning history, I think.

A sampling of doors, so many glorious and unique doors.

Great view over the ocean and several sides. I kept an eye out for marauders.
A cat!

We took a break for mint tea and sweets.
The group.

Then we got back on the bus and rode to the ruins of a mosque that was unfinished, the Hassan Tower, built near the end of the 12th century. There was also a mausoleum there for Mohammad V, who died is 1961. You could take pictures of and with the guards, which was sort of fun.

Me standing by the guard.
The Hassan Tower
Inside the Mausoleum.
Guarding the tomb
We saw a lot of these strangely trimmed trees throughout Rabat
Is this building screaming or just in awe?

I did feel like the guide was mostly just rushing us around for no real reason. He was nice and very knowledgeable, but there was a lot of hurry up and then wait…I might have preferred just a bit of free time and meeting up somewhere.

Lunch was at a restaurant by the river/estuary. One thing on the tour was there were some meals you had to paid for, but you would be taken somewhere for the meal. It made sense, but something to keep in mind. We ordered from a menu: I was going to order fish pastille but then they didn’t have that so I panic ordered fish tagine. It was not nearly so flavorful as the tagine the night before. It was…fine. A bit bland. And cost more than the tagine the night before. Oh well, you pay for the view.

Look at this vehicle!

We drove to Meknes next, stopping at a grocery store along the way. I love grocery stores in foreign countries, so I got a few things to snack on (lunch had been VERY late) as well as some sunscreen that I love.

We pulled up at the hotel, and I think we were all a bit disappointed by this one, the Hotel Swani. It was a bit outside of town in a grungy looking area, and while the hotel was perfectly safe and clean, it wasn’t too exciting. My room smelled of smoke and a hint of sewer, but I got the fan going and that helped. I did have a balcony, which was nice, though it was cold so I only popped out. Aman recommended we eat at the hotel restaurant and just rest, so I did that. You had to order the food first and then go up to the rooftop restaurant later. I wasn’t terribly hungry so I ordered soup and an appetizer, running into a few other tourmates when I did. We met up at the restaurant a little later and enjoyed a really tasty meal, so that was good. And then I went to bed: I was exhausted from the day and still recovering from jet lag.

View from the balcony.

Not a bad view!