When we first envisaged our trip to Morocco it didn't look anything like this...
but as we discovered, Morocco is more than just one new world, it's many! We should probably start at the beginning...
Las Palmas
After about 30 hours in transit and almost catching the wrong bus it was sooo good to see the smiling faces of our friends Kath and Brad (originally met them in Orange, NSW) at the bus stop in Las Palmas.
Somehow we managed to bring that terrible weather from Perth with us - despite being assured that it never rains in Las Palmas it rained on our first day! Not too much though (only sprinkles really) and rain is the perfect excuse for playing Settlers of Catan, eating tapas and drinking local wine and honey rum.
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| Settlers of Catan - "Fog Island" scenario |
Kath, Brad and Michael (Kath's brother) were excellent tour guides and we visited Catedral de Santa Ana (we are officially churched out :P), bought oranges from the market, walked along the beach and had lunch at a winery in the hills (delicious food!.. and lots of Spanish red wine).
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| View from Catedral de Santa Ana |
Marrakech
The five of us caught a flight to Marrakech, Morocco and demolished the 70g packet of greens olives received on the plane as a snack.
Marrakech is definitely a city of the night and everyone is on the move... including the dessert cart which we had to hunt down after eating market snacks for dinner. We stayed in a traditional Riad in the medina/old city. There were small lane ways winding throughout the medina and it was easy to get lost... luckily Brad had control of the map!
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| Medina wall |
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Lane ways in the medina |
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| Chillin' in our Riad |
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| Market snacks |
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| Market snacks for dinner |
We took a Moroccan cooking class which including buying all the fresh produce from the market. It seems the traditional method is now pressure cookers on the gas stove - we learned that the ceramic tajines are considered disposable as they start cracking after a couple of times in the fire.
Shopping at the markets for our cooking class
Preparing lunch modern Moroccan style
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| Tucking into the best meal we had in Morocco (completely unbiased!) |
After a hard day in the kitchen we were parched and set off to find a drink. This involved leaving the conservative medina and heading to the more liberal 'new city.' Even in the new city, alcohol is hard to find and it took almost 2 hours of searching to find a suitable watering hole.
Finally! Drinks at a rooftop bar...
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| Timbo's wine glass design to the rescue! |
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| Thanks for the jubes Erin! |
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| Sunset over the rooftops of Marrakech |
5 Day Safari
When Brad, Kath and Michael returned to Las Palmas, we booked a 5 day safari which would include hiking in the Atlas Mountains and camel rides in the Sahara desert.
The first day was a fairly easy 20km hike from Imlil to the base camp for Mt Toubkal. Base camp was at 3207m and Mt Toubkal's summit is 4167m. Overnight we were blessed with snow... although didn't feel so blessed when the tent collapsed under the weight of it! We were up before sunrise (not that we slept much!) and started our first 'real' hike at 6am.
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| It starts... the village of Imlil is in the background |
The campsite on arrival (left) and then at midnight (right)
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| Marty and Mohammed (our guide) on the way up |
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We made it!! At the summit of Mt Toubkal |
It was definitely hard work but we make it and didn't seem to be too affected by the altitude. Shelley preferred going up and Marty liked the descent.
At first, it was welcome change to chill in the car... however we ended up spending the majority of the next three days cooped up in the very back of the car as we drove through the Atlas mountains, across the country to Erg Chebbi and then back to Marrakech.
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| Shopping for the desert trip |
We did stop at some gorges, and Berber (indigenous Moroccon people) villages... as well as many, many, many 'photo stops' in which we piled out of the car... along with people from all the other tourist cars and buses that were taking the same opportunity. We were very efficient by the end of it!
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| View from the Ksah/Kasbah/Castle |
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| List of the movies/shows filmed at the Kasbah |
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| Berber village |
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| Baking mud bricks in the sun |
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| Carpet shopping - the softest were the baby camel rugs |
The road to Dades gorge (left) and Dades gorge (right)
Poor Marty felt the rumble in his tummy as we set up to camp in the Sahara Desert. He went to bed before the group stargazing started, but made up for it throughout the night. Luckily he recovered in time for the long drive back to Marrakech.
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Sunset camel ride |
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Sunrise camel ride |
Taghazout
We are now relaxing in a seaside village on the West Coast. The last three days have been filled with surfing lessons and chilling on the beach, followed by yummy dinner.
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View from our balcony in Taghazout |
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| Preparing for a surf lesson |
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Beach dog - sits with us and steals the shade from the umbrella then leaves at the end of the day
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Next stop is Amsterdam! We're looking forward to seeing my cousin and his girlfriend again... as well as being reunited with Kath, Brad, Inge and Euan on the highly anticipated bicycle pub crawl!
