The Spark that Started this Adventure

Last year when Chris and I described our plans to sell most of our possessions and travel for a year, the most common reaction we received was “You’re so brave!”. We didn’t feel that we needed extra bravery for our venture, but after our first day of wandering around Marrakech, Morocco on our own, I definitely felt like we had been brave. So much was unfamiliar – not just the language, the currency and the clothing, but the mix of animals and people on the street, the sounds of calls to prayer, the unfamiliar products and the endless narrow, winding alleys and streets. We felt like we had accomplished a heroic feat when we arrived back at our family run riad hotel at the end of the day.

One of our first sights after arriving in Marrakech, Morocco.

One of our first experiences at a Morocco medina market. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but after visiting similar markets in nine more communities we felt we had seen it all - local markets with everything from food and fabric to nail shops to school supplies and tourist focused markets with rugs, jewelry, clothing and art. And every market, no matter the type, has argan oil in every form of lotion, soap and shampoo.

Eighteen days and 10 Moroccan locations later, Chris and I had thoroughly experienced the  flavors, aromas, colors, sounds and textures of this Arab/African/European/Berber nation. We prepared tagine, the national dish, in a home in a small town in the Atlas Mountains; we rode camels in the Agafay desert; in the industrial city of Casablanca we visited one of the world’s largest mosques and the only one in the nation open to non-Muslims; and we visited the remains of a Roman city that wowed us, even though we thought we were finished seeing amazing Roman ruins since we’ve encountered them in nearly every country we’ve visited. We quickly became comfortable with the norms and can say that, after a short time, any visitor with even minimal courage could travel there easily.

Pizza, hamburgers, fried chicken and Asian food are available at restaurants, but most Moroccans we met continue to cook the traditional meal of tagine at home regularly. Tagines are meat, vegetables and spices slow cooked in a conical clay pot that traps and condenses steam, so minimal liquid is required. 

The Hasan II Mosque in Casablanca is Morocco's largest mosque and can hold 25,000 worshipers. Everything from the minaret tower to the doors are on a grand scale. 

Volubilis is a well preserved Roman site that was a thriving center for olive oil and grain production. The homes, mosaics, baths, sun room, laundry areas, arches and more are still being excavated. Weather helped protect it over the centuries, but it also was rarely pillaged for its stone, like so many other Roman sites, because so much other stone is easily accessible in the area.

We traveled with eight other Americans, Brits, Canadians and Irish (Chris was the only male) on a trip organized by EVA Travel (Ethical Travel Adventures). EVA offers small group tours for those who want to see the world and give back a little in the process. https://www.evatravel.uk.

Our “give back” activities included helping to restore a classroom and playground in a preschool in the mountain town of Imlil that was damaged by a 2023 earthquake, speaking with a group of teens and adults who meet at night under streetlights to improve their English and collecting trash in a city park in the beach town of Essaouira. (Garbage collection is not provided to homes in Essaouira, but residents can take their trash to neighborhood bins. However, when the bins are full, trash can be left to collect in the park entrance.) We also visited a facility where abandoned boys, often born to single women, are cared for so we could learn about its operations and needs and determine whether a future EVA group could contribute.

English Street Class is a free English language program for people of all ages started in 2017. Volunteers lead classes and practice groups for all speaking levels with donated materials and chairs in the evening beneath street lights on side streets of the medina market in Essaouria.

The program was started by local teacher Mouchine Camel. You can learn about the program on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/englishstreetclass/
or Workaway listing: https://www.workaway.info/en/host/182428712963

Morocco is a vibrant country, with mountains, coastlines, desert and farmland. It is a developing nation with a high-speed intercity train system, but where donkeys are regularly used in small towns, the countryside and even big cities. Its healthcare system lacks enough doctors and hospitals, but pharmacists who can offer advice and medication are readily available in urban areas. It has expanded its desalination facilities to address a water shortage, but it is unclear whether the tap water is safe to drink, so we, and many residents, relied on bottled water, which, of course, adds to the trash problem. The government, which is a constitutional monarchy with a king, as well as a parliament, has provided stability, reforms and increased women’s rights, but is also accused of corruption and media control. And every form of dress can be seen – women in everything from midriffs to hajibs to burkas and men in suits, as well as traditional leather slippers.

Cats are found throughout Morocco. Few are pets, but many are fed by residents. There are few spay or neuter programs. They are considered valuable for rodent control. Dogs are not common pets in Morocco - birds or turtles are more frequent pets.

We felt completely safe everywhere - at night, in crowded tourist areas, in markets and on the roads. It is a friendly country where English is quickly replacing French as a second or third language for many. We were welcomed and greeted by strangers and shopkeepers at every stop. A traveling businessman shared his large table with our group when no other space was available in a crowded restaurant. He bought a round of drinks and diligently tried to communicate despite a severe language barrier. A man sitting nearby noticed the communication problem, volunteered to translate and shared insights into the local culture. On another day, a passerby ran to help one of our group who slipped and fell. Mothers of the students at the preschool where we volunteered brought us cakes. And no one pushed or jostled no matter how crowded the medina got.

These men in the mountain town of Imlil were happy to explain that they were doing their community service of sorting and pulling rocks from a dry river bed. The rocks would be loaded onto donkeys and moved to villages higher in the mountain for repairs to buildings damaged in a 2023 earthquake. Elsewhere in the town, members of various households were doing there service of digging trenches to lay new water supply lines.

In the beach town Essaouria the cooks at this restaurant will prepare and serve the fish you caught or bought at the daily seafood market.  

These women are part of an argan oil cooperative. They harvest and process nuts from the tree to make cosmetics, soaps, lotions and hair products. Argan oil can also be used for dressings and dipping sauces. They invited our group to come to their home for tea on our next visit.  

If you can only visit one location in Morocco, my advice is to make it Fez. It’s the country’s second largest city and the site of the world’s largest medina/market, where we surely would have been lost without our guide, Zach, who led us all day through the maze of winding, narrow alleys – it takes at least an hour to walk from one end to the other on the main “street” or zanka. It is where we tasted cactus fruit, dates stuffed with walnuts, fava bean soup and one of the many Moroccan pastries, which are usually some variation of dough, nuts and sugary syrup. We also tasted dried beef preserved in fat (thumbs down) but never made it to the camel hump vendor.

This man makes and serves fava bean soup - the meal costs about $1.

I was happy to try the fruit of the prickly pear cactus. It tastes similar to pomegranate but has hard seeds that you can't chew, you just have to swallow them. 

In Fez, you can view the exterior and grounds of one of the country’s many royal palaces, see what may be the world’s oldest university, which was established in the year 859, watch craftsmen at a ceramic factory, observe small shopkeepers pounding brass into platters or weaving scarfs with thread made from agave plants. The most famous industry there is the tanneries, where barefoot men transfer goat, cow, sheep and camel skins among various ceramic vats filled with solutions of limestone, pigeon droppings, cow urine and dyes.

The Chouara Tannery in Fez may have started operating in the 9th century. Guides gave us sprigs of mint to hold under our nose as we neared the vats of quicklime, cow urine and pigeon feces, but the smell wasn't that bad.

The Fez medina is enormous. It is not just a market, but it has homes, schools, mosques, hammams and a university founded in the ninth century. 

This fabric is woven with fibers from the agave plant.

Crafting combs, shoehorns, keychains and decorations.

Elsewhere in Fez, you can visit ceramic shops where tiles, dishes, tagines, tables, fountains, frames and more are designed and manufactured by hand.

But you can also venture to Marrakech, which has the Behia Palace, a two-acre compound of elaborate buildings and courtyards built by a ruler, supposedly for his favorite wife. Or the Atlas Mountains for mountain biking, skiing and trails. We only took a one-hour hike to a popular waterfall in that area, but guides, mules and a base camp are available for support if you’d like to climb 14,000 foot Mt. Toubkal. The young woman, Bousra, who accompanied our group around the country is normally a mountain guide and has climbed Mt. Toubkal 23 times.

Part of the path from Imlil to a nearby waterfall. Children also walk this path daily from nearby towns to the Imlil school.

You’ve probably seen photos of Chefchouen, a small northern city where the blue-washed buildings in the old city produce striking and Instagrammable photos. The area is indeed picturesque, and the people are often dressed in traditional clothes, including the jebli hat (think a sombrero with colorful pom poms around the brim) and the djellaba (think an Obi Wan Kenobi robe with a hood).

The old town in Chefchouen is not traditionally painted blue. The practice became widespread about 25 years ago when locals noticed it attracted attention and boosted tourism.

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The capital Rabat has the mausoleum of the former king protected by red and white uniformed royal guards. Meknes, a large inland city, has the compound of 17^th century sultan who ruled at the peak of Moroccan power and had a harem of 500 women and confirmed 800 biological children. Known for his cruelty and tendency toward war, the water reservoir and immense granaries he had built to withstand a siege of 10 years, if needed, are being restored.

And everywhere there are hammams, a traditional communal steam bath with steps for washing, exfoliating and oiling. Still today, most Moroccans have a small hammam at home or visit a public one at least weekly. The common explanation is that the public hammams are less expensive for men who spend about one hour there and more expensive for women because they may spend three hours washing and socializing.

This is a home hammam where you can enjoy the steps of a sauna, cleansing, scrubbing and moisturizing. You can see a member of our group peeking in the side door. It is tiny inside with a small stool and buckets of water heated by a fire below the floor of the hammam that is fueled by home trash that cannot be fed to the family's goats. Public hammams can be modest or elaborate and can be finished with an optional massage. 

Go to Morocco for the sights and the people. But don’t go for the restaurant service. At a group farewell dinner in an upscale restaurant, we made a bet about whether all six people would receive their correct orders. It was so close! Only one drink and one dessert were forgotten. That was a better outcome than many meals during our trip where we encountered servers who took the orders of most,  but not all, diners in our group; servers who delivered the wrong dish, returned to the kitchen for a correction and came back with a new serving of the same, incorrect dish; breakfast buffets where coffee didn’t appear until the end of the meal, and never would a restaurant amend a bill so we could be charged for what we actually received, rather than what was written on the order.

And don’t go for the food. We didn’t go hungry, but day after day of the traditional meal of stewed meat and vegetables cooked in earthenware tagines and endless supplies of rather tasteless khoubz bread were not enticing. What was enticing, however, was spicy, grilled chicken skewers, carrot salad flavored with orange water, sweet mint and herbal tea, and pistachio yogurt. I will be searching for that in supermarkets from now on!

I became a fan of pistachio yogurt and will be on the lookout for it from now on!

Go to Morocco to experience the culture, the history, the color, the people and their warmth. And go with a group of like minded travelers, like we did, so you can appreciate the impressive sights and laugh off the annoyances that come from visiting someplace very different.

Our desert camel ride was a highlight of our trip. It was a comfortable, but very leisurely paced, ride.

During our visit to our first medina in Marrakech, we "enjoyed" the cheesy snake charming attraction. We were brand new to Morocco and definitely overpaid for this experience.