The Magical Views of Morocco

Happy Earth Day with a sunset view of  Ouarzazate which is located in southern Morocco
in the desert. Ouarzazate is the Hollywood of  Morocco, with the largest movie studio in Northern Africa.

Happy Earth Day!

So, I meant to write this blog post a while ago right after we went on our first excursion. But I ultimately got too busy with class and life that I am happy to be finally getting to it now. It was our first time out of Rabat. We went from a coastal city, to snow covered mountains, to the Sahara Desert and everything in between. The 5-night, 6-day tour of Morocco made me breathless at every stop. We never stayed anywhere too long, because we always had to get to the next place.

Foothills of the Middle-Atlas: Meknes and Fez

Sultan Moulay Ismail built the largest grain storehouse while
he ruled Morocco from Meknes. It could hold three years of
grain for all of his horses. 

Drive 2-hours inland from the coast and you get two of Morocco's great imperial cities. Meknes was a stop on the way to Fez. It was the first place I saw mountains; something I had been craving while missing Vermont a little extra that week. We only did a quick tour and Meknes wasn't the most fascinating city. We then carried onto Fez.

Fez is an old imperial city in the Middle Atlas mountains.
It has the larges medina and is a commercial center.

The manufacturing center of Morocco is Fez. It's where the leather goods, woven goods and metal goods are made. The Fez medina is enormous; it's the largest in all of Morocco. It was really fun, but I also bought way too much. It was very interesting seeing the process behind the leather at the tanneries, the weaving of scarves and the labor behind the ceramics.

An artisan paints a tile in Fez.

Into the Mountains: Azrou

Azrou was by far one of my favorite places (Hint: It's the first place we saw snow in Morocco). If I had the time I would have liked to hike and really explore the outdoor beauty. However, we did get some time to go to a park and see some monkeys in their natural habitat. It was kind of sad though because there was so much trash laying around. The monkeys were also waiting for onlookers to give them food.

One of the most annoying things I find about Morocco is the amount of trash everywhere. There is no sort of national parks service like we have in the states to maintain federal land. There were also no trash cans at this popular picnic and camping destination. Moroccan homes are kept very tidy, but public areas not so much. Trash is a common sight in city streets. It baffled me to see so much trash in nature, alongside roads and in parks like the one we visited in Azrou.   

Sunset over the village of Azrou in the Middle Atlas mountains.

The morning sun shines over our campsite in Merzouga.

Snow to Sand: Merzouga
We rode camels, listened to Ganawa music and camped in the Sahara Desert. Most amazing experience, 'nuf said.  

Moroccan Hollywood: Ouarzazate

A view of Ouarzazate from a roof-top terrace in the kasbah. 

When we got to Ouarzazate we had some free time to explore. A few of us went to the kasbah. We were met by the typical Moroccan "tour guides" that wait to lure tourists in and scam them for a tour. We knew this would be the case, but he haggled with us and we got it down to about 7 dirahms (about $0.70) from each of us. It ended up being totally worth it. He brought us up to a few private terraces with great views.

Instead of staying in a hotel we got to stay in a girls dormitory where girls board during the week when they go to school, because they live too far away to commute every day. It was very fun and definitely a much-needed break from the super-touristy experience we got in the desert. We stayed up playing games and dancing. At one point my American cohorts and I gave our bravest attempt at singing the National Anthem in response to the Moroccan girls singing us theirs.


Where Desert Meets Mountains: Marrakesh

By far my favorite city in Morocco. We were only supposed to stay one night, but our program director let us stay on our own an extra night if we wanted. The first day we went to a cool art exhibit the Marrakesh Biennial. I also got to explore some Marrakesh nightlife with some of my friends.

The next morning we woke up ready to explore the city. We obviously had to  stop at Starbucks, because that was only a few blocks from the hotel. We also got to visit Majorelle Gardens and the main square, Jemaa El Fna, to shop in the soukes and get freshly squeezed orange juice.

It was an incredible experience to be able to see the diverse landscapes of Morocco. Mother Earth is truly incredible to have this many landscapes so close to be able to see them all in a week, or even a day.

PS: We went on this excursion just days after my phone was stolen. Therefore, all photos had to be taken on my camera, so there are also fewer than expected because phones make photos 10x easer.