Morocco 2/16/2024 - 3/2/2024

Prologue

We had planned to go to Morocco in February of 2013, on a trip which coincided with the Gnawa and World Music Festival in Essaouira. The trip had included time in the Sahara desert. Unfortunately, the timing of the trip was such that Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb was in the process of invading Mali, and the general unrest in the desert region meant that the tour company was not confident that they could keep us safe. As a result, the tour was cancelled a mere 5 days before departure.

Luckily, our late friend Toni Neubauer, then owner of Myths and Mountains Travel, came through for us in a pinch and booked a wonderful trip for us in Vietnam with very short notice.

We have always felt a stab of regret that we were not able to visit Morocco. In looking for a place to visit in early 2024, we decided to give it another try. We wanted to go in the off season, before the weather became too hot, since Craig's multiple sclerosis makes him particularly sensitive to heat.

But with whom should we book a trip? Should we do a group trip or a private trip? We looked into Abercrombie & Kent's offerings, and although the itinerary looked good, the accommodations were too deluxe (international luxury hotels). Plus, we decided that we wanted a more personal touch.

Craig has been following Wendy Perrin's WOW List of hand-picked destinational experts for years. Our late friend Toni Neubauer was a Wendy Perrin WOW List expert. If the other WOW List experts were as trustworthy and talented as Toni, then we knew we would be in for a great experience.

We contacted Wendy's Morocco experts, Experience Morocco, and told them the basic list of cities we would like to cover. We wanted to see Casablanca, Volubilis, Fes, Marrakech, and the Sahara desert. Since our cancelled itinerary 11 years ago had included the Gnawa music festival, we said that we would like to incorporate music into the trip somehow.

We told them that we preferred to stay in riads rather than international hotel chains. Riads are more boutique accommodations, and get their name from the Arabic word for garden. They are houses which tend to have a courtyard and fountain in the middle, and have Islamic architectural elements.

They asked approximately how much money we wanted to spend on the trip as a whole, so that they understood what class of riad and what level of service we desired. And we told them that the most important thing to us was having a spectatacular guide. To us, that means a guide who is personable, knowledgeable, and empathetic. We were looking for an experience that would be like traveling with a friend who is showing us their country.

Radia at Experience Morocco put together a shell itinerary based on what we had discussed. She added Essaouira as a destination at the end of the trip due to our inquiry about music. Although the timing of our trip didn't coincide with the Gnawa and World Music festival, she was able to book a private workshop for us with a Gnawa master musician. Perfect! She recommended a motorcycle sidecar tour in Marrakech, which sounded like a lot of fun. She mentioned a few other optional activities, and we decided to add a couple (ATV rides in the desert and a hot air balloon ride). Then we signed off on the itinerary, she reserved all of the accommodation, and we booked the trip. The only thing that we needed to do was to book our own flights; everything else would be taken care of by Experience Morocco. We would have a private guide and a private driver/car for the duration of the trip. It would be a very individualized experience.

We realized that it was a jam-packed itinerary without much down time. We would be covering many locations and driving many miles. But that is how we like our first visit to a country to be. We like to get an overview of the place so that we can then determine where we may want to return some day.

Friday 2/16/2024 - Saturday 2/17/2024 - Boston to Lisbon to Casablanca

Logan Way car service picked us up at 2:30 p.m., and we were at the airport by 3 o'clock. We checked in and went through security to the gate. We got Wahlburgers for dinner...bbq bacon burgers with fries. It was our first time eating there, and we were impressed.

The TAP Portugal flight took off on time at 6:10 p.m. On the flight Craig had chicken and I had ravioli. They gave us little dixie cups of drinks (I called it a thimble full of Coke), and we were super thirsty. We have never been on an airline which serves such small beverage portions. At one point I went to the galley to get some water. We were given a ham and cheese sandwich and a granola bar for breakfast with another thimble full of liquid.

We arrived in Lisbon at 5:30 a.m. We had to get off the plane via a staircase and take a bus to the terminal. There was no wheelchair in sight, even though we had requested one. Craig's legs lock up when he is seated too long on a plane, and long walks through airports are tough for him, so we usually get him a wheelchair.

Luckily, we didn't have to walk too far in the Lisbon airport. We waited in some random gate until they announced the location of our departure gate. I bought two giant water bottles. When we got to our gate, the gate agent called for a wheelchair to get us to the plane. But it didn't come, so we walked and took the bus, where at least Craig was able to sit.

As we boarded the flight some Portuguese couple was asked to gate check their bags and the woman went ballistic. She got all up in the face of the baggage woman and the flight attendant. At home she would have been kicked off the plane. She made such a scene but finally acquiesced and gate checked the bag, but only after she made us late for takeoff.

The flight was only an hour, and as we came into Morocco we saw farmland. They had us deplane last. A man brought a wheelchair for Craig, and once Craig had climbed down the airplane stairs, he was seated in the wheelchair and wheeled onto the bus. The bus brought us to the terminal, and our wheelchair attendant ran through the airport, got us through the wheelchair lane with no line at immigration, got our luggage, and got us out in record time. Casablanca is a big airport, so we were definitely glad that we had the wheelchair.

We were supposed to go through FastTrack, a service that expedites your airport arrival experience, but with the wheelchair services we didn't even need it. Everything went as smoothly and quickly as possible, including being waved through customs.

Our private guide Jamal and private driver Majid were just outside the airport exit, holding a sign with our name on it. They helped with our luggage and brought us to a very comfortable Mercedes van.

They immediately presented us with leather bags which had our names written on them in Arabic, power adapters, a Moroccan cookbook, a map of Morocco, a tray of snacks, bottles of water, the wifi password for the van, and 500 dirham ($50 USD) in various denominations. It was very convenient that 10 dirham equal one U.S. dollar, making calculating prices easy. They also offered us a local cellphone to borrow, but we declined as I had my own and didn't want to have to keep track of two.

We could tell instantly that we were in for a great trip with Jamal and Majid. They were both very hospitable. Jamal is incredibly knowledgeable about the history and culture of his country.

Jamal launched right into the history of Casablanca, and Morocco in general. Normally, this would be right up my alley, but my head was spinning too much to retain much of anything. We had gotten zero sleep on the flight. Although it was just after noon local time, we were running on fumes from the day before. I apologized and said that tomorrow I would be a much better listener.

We learned that "Berber" is a racial epithet, meaning barbarian. The preferred term is Amazigh. The Amazigh are indigenous to the Maghreb regions of Northern Africa and pre-date the arrival of the Arabs. Jamal and Majid are both of Amazigh descent, and speak Tamazight, Arabic, French, and English. Nonetheless, "Berber" is still used in common speech, even by Amazigh people themselves.

Casablanca was settled by the Amazigh/Berbers by the 7th century B.C.. It was called "Anfa" (meaning "the top"). The city was Arabized in the 12th century, destroyed by the Portuguese in the 15th century, and decimated by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. It was rebuilt as Dar el Beida ("White House", or "Casa Blanca"). Morocco was under French control from 1912 until its independence in 1956. Today, Casablanca is the main port and industrial/economic capital of Morocco.

Majid dropped us off at Ain Diab (the corniche) along the Atlantic Ocean. It is a lovely stretch of coastline where there are surfing schools, swimming pools, playgrounds, and restaurants at the water's edge. The weather was beautiful, barely a cloud on the sky, with a strong ocean breeze. The waves had some good curls. It was surreal to think that we had just crossed this ocean, and home was on the other side. Well, we were a bit further south than home...Casablanca more or less lines up with North Carolina on the U.S. coast.

We ate lunch at Tropicana Space. We sat on the patio with a gorgeous view of the ocean, as well as a lighthouse and the Hassan II Mosque in the distance. Jamal made sure that we were settled and then left us to enjoy our lunch. I got the provencal skewers and Craig got the grilled steak and mushrooms, each of which were served with rice, fries, and sauteed veggies. There was also bread called khobz that Jamal tells us is a staple. It was served with olives and a spicy spread. Lunch was delicious, although too much food for our jet lagged stomachs. When we were done eating, Jamal met us once again.

We learned that Jamal has worked with the Moroccan film industry. He was Bill Murray's assistant when they filmed "Rock the Kasbah", and he was a driver for Harrison Ford and family during the filming of "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny."

The local money given to us by Experience Morocco had come in handy for lunch, but I needed to visit an ATM to get more local cash. There was an ATM on the corniche, but Jamal said that he would take us to a different one in a less touristy area which would give a better exchange rate. Majid picked us up at the corniche and we stopped at a bank that had an ATM outside.

On the way to the hotel, we passed the gorgeous and massive Hassan II Mosque. I took a couple of pictures through the van window. We would be visiting it tomorrow. We also saw some cool street art.

We checked into our hotel, the Barcelo Anfa, at 3:15 p.m. This would be our only chain hotel of the trip. We were in room #615. Jamal wondered if we needed any help with arranging dinner, but we said that lunch was big enough and we wouldn't be needing dinner tonight. What we needed was to sleep. We made plans to meet Jamal and Majid in the morning after breakfast, and then retired to our room to rest.

The room was appointed in a modern style. It was kind of a studio, with the shower and sink a part of the bedroom which could be separated by a curtain. The toilet was in a little separate water closet.

Looking in the wardrobe, I saw a sticker indicating the qibla, the direction of Mecca towards which Muslims pray. Many people use apps on their phones to orient themselves these days, but it was nice to see an old school representation.

Soon after checking in, I was typing up notes on my laptop when there was a light knock at the door. It was a delivery of Moroccan Choco Diamant gourmet chocolates (in a styrofoam box with an ice pack) from Experience Morocco! What a nice surprise. There were 5 different types, each representing a different Moroccan city. We certainly felt like VIP's with all the customized attention we had been receiving, and we had just arrived!

We took naps between 4:30 p.m. and 6 o'clock, and awoke more refreshed. We ate some chocolate and then looked at some tourist programming on TV. We were excited to start our sightseeing tomorrow. We went to bed at around 9:30 p.m.

Ain Diab (Corniche)

Barcelo Anfa