every country or bust!
one of the days in fes i drove out to another nearby but notably less touristed walled city called meknes, where there is a massive city gate of historical importance, some underground storage reseviors, and another medina to explore. nearby, i stopped at an ancient roman ruin called voluvulis, which is a remarkably well-preserved city which in its day was one of the largest in the roman empire.
our last stop in morocco was a few days in fes, which is another walled, ancient city in the northern part of the country. here we splashed out for a room in a really nice riad (called lune el soliel). riads are the traditional living spaces in the medinas – a large home with many rooms surrounding a central courtyard. there we got amazing breakfasts on the roof overlooking the ancient city. the medina in fes is the largest car-free urban area in the world, and takes days to fully explore! fes is famous for its traditional tanneries, where the animal skins are cured and colored in different pools of liquid, all of which can be seen from elevated viewpoints over the area.
overall it was really a wonderful 12 days or so in morocco! we thought of it as our honeymoon, and it didn’t disappoint!
after marrakech, we drove seven hours to the edge of the sahara desert! first, we had to cross the atlas mountain range, which is snow covered year round! there is even a ski resort near marrakech. east of the atlas range, we stopped at a famous deserted town called ait ben haddou, which has been abandoned by locals for over a century but has recently been a movie set for many films including the jesus movie and gladiator. it is composed of mud-built houses built on a hill, and is a very fun place to explore for an hour or so.
our destination on the edge of the sahara was a small town called merzouga, which sits beside an area of massive sand dunes. contrary to what i had thought, much of the sahara desert – at least the northwest part of it – is more rocks and mountains than sand. but there are areas of sand that develop where the wind blows right. we stayed at a desert hotel called ksar bicha, which while being rustic was actually really nice and great value. after one night there, we headed out into the dunes on camels for a night in the desert! definitely the highlight of the trip. it was about an hour-long camel ride to a desert camp they had set up; we had a berber guide and were with one other couple from germany. once we got to the camp, we hiked up the largest dune (which took about 45 minutes), and watched the sunset. amazing. then the guide made us dinner and played some traditional berber songs on the drums while i danced, and the rest of the group watched, lol! it was fun. we then played some cards games which didn’t require any verbal communication before sleeping in some little tents and riding the camels back to the hotel in the morning. an amazing experience in the sahara!
we spent about four days in the amazing desert city of marrakech, in the shadow of the snow-capped high atlas mountain range! we were able to stay in a super-nice hotel in the new city using hotel points compliments of a credit card sign up bonus (get at me if you want to get in on the game!). most cities in morocco have a new city where moroccans generally prefer to live and is more modern, and another ancient, walled, car-free part of the city called the medina, which is where most of the excitement for a tourist is.
marrakech is a great place. there is a huge square in the medina called jmaa al fna, the largest and most exciting urban square in morocco. it is filled with stalls selling amazing and cheap fresh-squeezing orange and pomegranate juice, and snake charmers. at night, there are bands playing traditional music, arabic storyellers, and cross-dressing bellydancers, as well as many food stalls with extremely aggressive salespeople. never a dull moment! a moroccan comfort food in the market in marrakech is snail soup, which you can get a bowl of for under one dollar. there are miles of narrow medina passageways surrounding the square, where one can wander for days. that is exactly what we did and it was excellent.
highlights included two hammam experiences on successive days. the first i went to was at a very traditional male-only one called mouassine hammam which is most frequented by the local men of the city for their regular baths. you enter a large, communal, moist room and bath yourself with buckets of water and black olive soap, perhaps helping an old man wash his back if you can understand what he is trying to ask you. i then hired the staff there to give me a rub down with a glove of steel wool, followed by an amazing, aggressive 30 minute massage characterized by a very large man vigorously and systematically attacked every pressure point in my body, including the groin ones and the ones behind the knees. it was very intense but also very relaxing once it was all over. the next day ann and i went to a luxury underground hammam experience at a riad called medina elisa, which was excellent. it was a lot more private and gentle, but again involved another steel wool scrub down, which i would not recommend two days in a row, as my skin was quite pink by that point. there they had a serene pool which we reclined by and then there was a foot massage which was very luxurious. going to a hammam of some variety is definitely the thing to do in marrakech!
we had almost two weeks of vacation in morocco! we rented a tiny car, which was amazing. i really wanted to make it to gibraltar and ann needed to get some work done, so upon arriving, she took the train to marrakesh and i drove north to take the ferry to europe! morocco has a pretty impressive toll expressway system, so it actually only took a few hours to drive to a town called fnideq, at the northern tip of morocco. after spending the night there and finding a place to safely park the car, i made my way to the border of an enclave of spain in north africa called ceuta! it occupies a tiny peninsula of north africa, and is one of a few remaining enclaves of spain on the continent. spanish sovereignty over these areas is contested by morocco, so it remains a sore spot between the two countries. the other major enclave a few hundred kilometers to the east is called melilla. and interestingly, there is also a third small enclave between melilla and ceuta that is just one small island a few hundred meters square, which is permanently staffed by a contingent of the spanish military to protect it. the short border between morocco and ceuta is very heavily fortified with a huge wall, as many migrants have attempted to make it into the european union this way, often by rushing the border en masse. at the time of my crossing, there were thousands lined up on the moroccan side – i was told they were headed to europe for work. the city of ceuta is an interesting fusion of spanish and moroccan culture, and has a pretty substantial population of about 80,000. from there, i jumped on one of the frequent one hour long ferries to algericas, spain. for whatever reason, i love ferries! once in algericas, one walks to the downtown bus station and takes a 45 minute bus ride to la linea, which is one the border with gibraltar. by this time it was about noon.
approaching gibraltar is fascinating. spain gives way to british accents and very british things such as many posters advertising the territory’s upcoming open snooker tournament. gibraltar is perhaps even more proud of its british heritage than is the typical town in england, because it is so isolated and has a rich history. indeed, gibraltar has been british longer than america has been american. immediately upon crossing the border, one finds themselves walking on winston churchill avenue across the centre of the single runway of the peninsula’s international airport! signs advise to “walk fast” and watch out for landing aircraft, of which there are just a couple each day.
it takes about half an hour to walk into the pedestrianized centre, where i got a huge fried british breakfast of blood pudding and mashers and ten other fried things. i then took a cable car to the top of the rock. the view was spectacular, and there are famous barbary macaque monkeys up there! they are very tame and numerous. they were brought from africa at some point, and when they started to dwindle following world war II more were brought from africa to replenish their population. today they are not having any trouble with all the tourists feeding them. despite being basically just a huge rock with forest on one side and a cliff on the other, the rock of gibraltar has a fascinating amount of history. there is a massive cave of st. michael that is seemingly endless, and in which there is evidence of neolithic human habitation. there are massive stalagmites and stalactites which are quite impressive. there are also many kilometers of man-made tunnels, built for strategic protection of the rock in the 1700s and during world war II, many of which can be explored. the tunnels from the 1700s open out of numerous holes in the cliff face, where cannons were fired from. there was enough space in the tunnels to house and provide for up to 1600 men for one year. very fun to explore.
after exploring the rock, i headed back the way i had come – back across the runway, the border, bus to algericas, ferry to ceuta, border crossing to morocco, into the rented car which had survived the day, and then as far as a terrible hotel in kenitra just north of rabat that night. an excellent day!
on out flight to togo we had a 16 hour layover in casablanca, morocco! i had read something obscure online about the possibility of an airline-provided hotel for such layovers, and indeed, after a quick inquiry after arrival we were being whisked away to the three star “hotel relax” near the airport! after getting some sleep, we headed into the sprawling city of casablanca. before leaving we had watched the film casablanca to stoke us for the experience, though it isn’t particularly enlightening with regard to the city today. casablanca is a modern and huge city of about six million, honestly without a whole lot to see for a tourist. we went to the hassan II mosque, which is a massive and ornate mosque, the largest in morocco, on the atlantic. it was completed only within the last decade or so, and was built using different types of marble and rock from all the corners of morocco. notably, it also has the world’s tallest minaret. we then stopped by morocco’s largest mall before heading back to the airport. solid layover! then a short stop-over in cotonou, benin before touching down in togo!
