Mo'roccan Roll

Marrakech

With a name like Morocco, it seemed only natural that we grow a little facial decoration for our time here. So I opted for some handlebars and Kev grew some Ali Baba influenced finery. Joined by our travel buddies, Fran and Chris, and with our mo's shaved in, we headed out for our first full day in Marrakech.

It's a crazy cool place, full of tantalising smells, vibrant colours and noise galore. At the centre of it all is Djemaa el Fna, a massive square bordered by stalls, restaurants and shops. Running off the square is a maze of winding streets and a seemingly endless trail of souks (markets), which sell everything from spices and dyes to clothes and handcrafts. The craftsmen making the various metal, textile and leather goods can often be found hard at work down little alleys in the souks.

Around dusk each night the square really comes alive. As the sun begins to set, dozens of restaurant stalls are set up next to the dried fruit stands (the dates and figs are amazing!) and the fresh orange juice stalls. Groups of people surround the storytellers, snake charmers and musicians that crowd the square. It's a great place to find some delicious food for dinner or just enjoy a mint tea and some people watching.

Sahara Expedition


We really wanted to get into the desert and decided the best way to do it would be an organised tour. So we booked in for a three day trip and headed off the following day. There was a lot of driving but some fantastic scenery and interesting stops on the way to our hotel in the mountains for our first night. It was freezing up that high and there was no heating but they did serve us a great dinner.

Not long after setting off early on the second day, our van got a puncture. No worries though, we put the spare on and were back on the road before too long. At the next village we had to stop off to fix the spare wheel carrier (and possibly a tire, we're not too sure) but soon enough we were off. Twenty minutes later, the same tire blew again! So our driver got on the phone and got the tire guys from the village to come out and get us on our way. An hour later, in the middle of nowhere, the van gave the telltale dive to the side... yet again. We couldn't believe it, three punctures to the same wheel in one day! No spare still for some reason so it was a bit of a wait while the other van turned back to get us a new one. By this stage we had had to skip two of the planned stop offs for the day and were still late getting out to the desert. Turned out alright though, as we got a starlight camel ride to our camp for the night. The following morning we got up in time to see the stunning sunrise, nestled amongst the dunes of the Sahara. It was an absolutely magic spot. Such a shame to leave it but there was a day of travel ahead to get us back to Marrakech.








Essaouira


After the hustle-bustle of Marrakesh we took a bus out to the coast to a small port town called Essaouira. The place is fast developing into a resort town, but for the moment it has a really nice chilled-out feeling to it, which was nice after Marrakesh. It was the middle of winter, yet people were still out surfing and swimming in the water and it was nice enough weather to just sit around and soak it all up. Which, apart from a fairly tame boat ride round the harbour, was pretty much all we did. One of the highlights was the fish stalls, where you select your own fish (freshly caught) and watch it grilled for you on the barbeques. Delicious!

This ended up being our favourite place in Morocco, unfortunately we only spent a couple of days there.

Rabat

If you go to Morocco you could probably skip Rabat. There were some cool waves. And some good fruit shakes in the medina. That's about it.

Middle Atlas Monkey Mayhem


Possibly one of the best days of my life, we took an excursion into the Atlas Mountains, our ultimate destination: Snow Monkeys. The trips are done by local taxi drivers who you can hire for the day. Our driver had obviously been a contestant on "Pimp My Ride - Morocco". The late 80's Mercedes sedan that is the standard for taxis in Morocco had been kitted out with tinted windows, racing seatbelts, stereo system, video screen and to top it all off, a strobe light!


So we drove into the mountains listening to some compilation CD that I can only imagine had a title along the lines of "Annoying Dance Anthems of the mid 90's - Vol 4". We stopped along the way at some villages and so forth, but screw that - I was there to play with Monkeys!


Finally we reached a spot up above the snow-line, got out of the car and were immediately greeted by a huge Monkey who obviously knew that tourists meant an easy feed. We'd brought some bread so spent the good part of a next hour feeding monkeys of all shapes and sizes. Awesome!

Fes

Fes is the religious capital of Morocco, the highlight being the huge Medina which apparently has over 9,400 streets. The locals warn you that you must go in with a guide because otherwise you'll get lost. But that's half the fun, so that was what we did! The area was huge and impossible to navigate and within minutes we had a fairly limited idea of what direction we were heading in. Our goal was to find the tannery where all the leather is dyed. It wasnt exactly obvious or sign-posted, we suspect partially because a lot of the locals make their money by guiding tourists to go and see them.

We saw some people walking along with dyed leather on their heads and spent about an hour trying to figure out where they were all coming from. Finally when we were close Fran brought a scarf from a nice guy who took us to a spot that overlooked the dye pits. It was really cool, all the dye is made from natural materials, one of the treatment substances being pigeon shit!

End of Part One...

Well after a year being around each-other pretty much 24-7, sharing money, beds and pretty much everything else, we're going our own ways for a little bit. Marcus is heading to the U.S.A to travel and spend time with friends/family while I'm going to stay in London for a few months to find some work. This wont be the end of our travels, not by a long shot, so stay tuned and hopefully in a few months we'll start on Part Two!