Morocco tips -
Taxi rides from the airport are about $50 durham, though people will try to charge you 100 or more.
From anywhere in the Medina itself, if they ask for 50 durham, say 30. They will say 50 again, you say 30, and soon they will say OK. 30 will get you anywhere.
No matter what do NOT let henna people write on your hand - even if you told them no 10 times and that you have no money to pay them, don’t let them touch you.
Snakecharmers will try to take pictures with your phone and then charge an insane amount for 2 or 3 minutes of snake “entertainment”. Negotiate a price ahead of time, or they can get pretty aggressive, trying to charge 200 Durhams. We paid 20.
Everything can be negotiated for.
If someone tries to give you directions or take and “show you the way” do not fall for it. They are known for taking you down an alley and then demanding more aggressively. And we had multiple gentlemen try to initiate this, as soon as we were outside the main touristy area and there were less people. Just ignore them and do your own thing, use your GPS on phone or ask other tourists.
The adventure spans all over the country of Morocco, a Sahara Desert trek; Greece & Greek Islands, Cairo & Egypt, the holy land & Jerusalem, a Kiteboarding destination vacation, Hawaii, Maine, and the undetermined Fuji, Australia, Singapore or New Zeeland 3-week trip to end the 77-day trip this summer. Little baby Nova Rae Jeffrey begins her first journey overseas far far and away!! Nova, now at 11 months, has been on half a dozen flights at this point, including trips to Mexico, Jamaica, Glacier Nat. Pk bordering Canada, Michigan, Maine and one pointed Coachella Music Festival. One could consider these “prep trips” some “training” for little Nova and we’ll see how it pays off as the Epic trip ensues. As I started this post we were on a 7.5 hour flight to Paris. Where I’ll be when we finish this 1st post you’ll have to read!
The flight almost missed!:
Out of AZ at 6am, and into NY, we arrived no problem. Upon seeing a flight to Paris at 4:20pm, on time, and in the terminal, we assumed all was well and lounged on over to grab a bite to eat. Little did we realize while we moseyed around that our flight was actually out of an entirely different terminal. Of course, this realization came tumbling down when we got to our supposed gate to board and I did a double check on the monitors of our actual Flight Number - amateur mistake, really. Off on a run we went! With Nova grinning ear to ear, standing in the stroller with a scarf wrapped around her waist to hold her in like a seatbelt, we were hitting the standing-flat-escalators when we spotted a buggy moseying on by. Of course, with a few smiles, some polite words, and a noise or two from Nova we had commandeered it, taking us to the edge of the terminal. Two terminals still away, including a bus ride, a walk outside along the road, and a re-entry into a different security, things were looking bleak. As we waited for the bus, I chatted it up with a older veteran Pilot who actually managed to make things even more bleak. After I had asked him to re-repeat his specific instructions to get there as quickly as possible, he inquired after our departure time. Once I told him that it was 4:20pm, he looked at his watch, then back to us and said gravely “I’ll be honest with you guys, the odds of you making it at this point is slim to none.” Flight already boarding, we exited the bus at Terminal 2, dashed outside, ran along the road to Terminal one, ducked under the belt to the front of the line at security, and enter into the security people from hell. Checking our watches as our bags proceeded to get DOUBLE bag checked and basically derailed for an additional 10 minutes, I sent Candace along with Nova to the gate to run delay if possible, while I claimed both bags as mine and dealt with it myself. Oddly enough, the least-nice (by far) airport security people (is it just some New Yorkers?! I mean I’ve got some super-nice friends who live in NY, but hey..) I’ve ever met, I managed it and then sprinted along to gate 6 where the agent said you probably made it, then turned to his peer and said “If they haven’t shut the runner doors, you can let them on”, at which point they checked and then let us into the tunnel to the plane..
And so we made it to Paris. And then Morocco. But where was the stroller to be found?!
The flight to Paris (7.5 hr) was pretty simple, especially since we had the luxury of a Wall-Attached baby bed that hooked onto the wall in front of us where Nova could sleep. Hopping on over to Marrakesh, we landed at 9am local time to find that our Uppa-Baby Stroller didn’t make the trip!! We figured that even though it made it to Paris and they told us that it would make it all the way to Morocco, we should have double checked at the gate upon exiting in Paris. Especially since, in the rush, we didn’t personally remove the Pink tag, which was attached in Phoenix. So despite the fact that it was marked with another tag to take it all the way to Morocco, it never made it.
In any case, pretty well prepared with two backpacks, and a baby sling/backpack, we checked into our hotel and strolled out onto the streets of Marrakesh and its various Markets. We were staying within the walls of The Medina, like a city within Marrakesh, with motorized restrictions and small weaving streets that make getting lost almost a must. Prepared to do battle with some of the toughest negotiations out there, we found ourselves immersed in what Candace described as the most “Culturally different place we have been to”. From unique spices; specialty hand-woven wool rugs, snake charmers controlling Cobras, monkeys, Palaces, and other sites, we were definitely wide-eyed and basking in the attack on our senses. Imagine, that to actually get anywhere, and I mean literally anywhere, you would have to walk by hundreds of shops per mile. Candace didn’t last long and we soon had some dresses, a Moroccan Rug, and some local figs and fruits.
To set the context here for the experience - Two items of interest unique to Morocco/Marrakech:
1. What is interesting is how much the local people love babies! Everyone was making snapping sounds with their fingers and tisking sounds with their mouths, with funny faces and arms reaching in to touch Nova. They most liked to touch her cheek and, often times while we were shopping, even offered to have her crawl around in their shops. They wanted to hold her, if we let them, and loved to mimic the sounds she was making or talk baby talk to her. I found it to be pretty funny, and actually quite helpful when it came to negotiation. When it got down to a reasonable price, after typical negotiation, I would say “OK, now for Nova, what is very best price for Nova!” And smile. We always got it down further. Good job Nova!! Already paying her way! Haha. Nova liked it and seemed to enjoy the extra attention. No joke though, from nearly everyone walking by smiling at her, to tough guys on the street striking a grin, to shopkeepers and taxi drivers to little kids running up to say HI, it was truly “a thing”.
2. The French!! We have found that almost anyone not Moroccan was surprisingly French! And almost all the Moroccans spoke French too.. After inquiries, it turns out that Morocco was conquered during colonial times by the French Empire, as Egypt was conquered by Britain, and upon Morocco’s freedom, many of the French stayed. The language is taught in the schools for free, whereas to learn English requires private schooling that most of the population cannot afford. Apparently many many French visit Morocco as well, which brings us to the point of all this with an interesting twist: any of the hawkers and hagglers we saw nearly always took us for French and, thus, would begin their conversation/hawking speaking the French language to us. Candace and I do actually speak the basics for French, from our Europe Trip (2012) - jasoncandaceeurope.blogspot.com. Its also my target 3rd language so we have also learned from some French-learning-CDs and Andy Jeanty ;). Basically, this means we know how to say things such as: thanks, yes, no, beer, bathroom; how to ask for things and tell them that we only speak a little French, and that we speak English, etc. So even though Morocco distance and flight-wise, is about the same, if not closer, from Spain or England, there are almost no British people or Spanish here, and even less Americans. When people ask where we are from and I say Arizona, they have absolutely no clue. Which is cool, and understandable, but when I tell them I’m from the United States, they still have no clue. It’s not until I actually say America that there is any understanding. “Ohhh American. yeah…”, is the response. So interesting, for example, that Texas is bigger and could be considered more powerful than many of the countries over here, but people have no idea that it even exists. But hey, that is basic geography for you, and with the opportunities people have here, knowing anything about Texas might not help you make an extra 10 Durham for the day in this place, where 99.99% of Texans will never go. And no Texans conquered Morocco in the colonial days, so I guess that probably makes a big difference too!
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| Breakfast Morocco Style |
Those things being said, we continued our trek into the Medina and soon happened upon the famous Jemaa el-Fna. This is a large/main “square” with shops, food, and randoms that also has some of the most intense hawkers out there, sometimes even happening to have multiple people hawking at you at the same time as you walk by. Whats interesting is that almost all of the fruit and all of the food vendors were selling the exact same thing. For the Fruit vendors, it was either Dates, nuts, and dried fruit vendors or smoothie booths. For the food - rice, fish, chicken, olives and some veggies for a salad such as cucumber, tomatoes and peppers. The couscous and potatoes was the hit: Sold as a “soup”, what it truly became, was a plate of couscous with the carrots; yellow and orange, and some potatoes in a sauce, poured all over it. Nova definitely liked the carrots, and got into the couscous, which of course got all over her too! We got some dessert from the vendors that were carting around baklava and other treats, and then walked around to see the sites. From musicians playing random instruments, to street performers, we ended up getting drawn into one juggling a soccer ball, as Nova especially liked this one. The African dude doing it was amazing, going on and on for minutes without the ball hitting the ground and doing some pretty cool stuff - Nova was mesmerized and we hooked the guy up with a tip before we headed out of the Jemma el-Fna square. We shot over to the ATM, where we continued to stock up on local currency. I had a feeling we would need it; and not for shopping necessarily, so even though we had already hit up 2 ATMs that day, withdrawing the max $2000 Durhams each time ($210 US currency), we continued our stocking. It ended up being a smart move on our last morning in Marrakech…
But before we get into that - a few experiences/places to note that were a great experience during our time in Marrakech, as well as a day trip to highlight to a coastal town - Essaouira. Now, the time that we have chosen to be in Morocco is a very unique time of the year - Ramadan. This is, in essence, a Push Period of “fasting” lasting several weeks, it was in full effect upon our arrival. This means that from 4am until about 7:30pm, the local muslim population does not eat or drink, even water. This is a commitment to their religion and taken very seriously. That being said, you can meet some cranky people at around 5pm in the afternoon. For the most part, though, I was impressed how the general populace was going strong, even into the later afternoon. On one such lazy afternoon, we had just finished checking out Bahia Palace; a palace full of amazingly intricate carvings, mosaics, stained glass, tile and the like, when we happened upon Black Chich Cafe. One thing that is cool that we have found about Marrakesh that resonates with our style is rooftop chill spots. This Cafe/restaurant was one such. With seating on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floor, we chose the 3rd floor and proceeded to make a Nova Blockade. A new term for us, it is basically defined loosely as an area where Nova can crawl around, play safely without the danger of falling off of something or injuring herself. We are making these in restaurants, airports, and pretty much anywhere where we are going to be for 20/30 minutes or more, even if unconventional, whenever possible. This makes for one happy Baby. In any case, Nova roamed around, played with a slot machine, and we ate & drank some excellent Moroccan food, and specialty mojito-like juices, drinks, and teas. I recommend the spot.
The next two places I recommend would be the Kasbah Cafe & Restaurant, a location near the Royal Palace and near to the La Sultana “hotel” (just walk through that place, it’s beautiful and costs much much more per night than your “maximum withdraw” from the ATM). In the Kasbah, it takes 3 flights of stairs to get up to the top level where they have a view of the street below; water-misters, great service and food; with comfy atmosphere and seating. The next place I recommend is The Red House Restaurant. This was a dinner spot we went to, despite the fact that our hotel’s manager had never heard of it, pointed out that it was quite far away, and recommend an excellent place right around the corner. But I had done my research, albeit brief, so we stuck to the plan and taxied out. When we arrived we realized we were the only patrons there, which they knew about ahead of time because its reservations. Despite this, they had brought in a local guitarist for us and had multiple servers just for our one table. The room we ate in was probably the most beautiful room I’ve ever eaten in, with large, vaulted ceilings, and a space the size that you could host a medium sized wedding in. The beauty really came from the fact that the entire room was basically a piece of art: there wasn’t a square foot (maybe even inch I was going to say) undecorated with either mosaic-art-tile, marble-design, carvings, or other artwork so intricately created that you would have to walk up to it to entertain all of the detail. As we sat in this “piece of art” room, we felt very grateful and talked about things like what we liked best about Morocco thus far, and what we loved about Nova, or what we looked forward to most. I definitely have respect for the Moroccan hospitality and professionalism of this place, going all out just to serve two people for what must have been almost 2 hours, with the type of meal they laid out for us, which was great food, by the way. It almost felt like we were a visiting king & queen, being hosted in the local Palace…
PS - Nova Blockade @ Kasbah Cafe set up under the table, along the balcony, which she could look out through the intricate iron bars onto the small square below. At the Red House, she was roaming around the entire room, up to the guitarist who mesmerized her, pushing small tables across the marble floor, and being looked after by the staff, who loved her and probably enjoyed the distraction as they could have handled serving half a dozen more tables, had anyone else besides us been there (Ramadan fast, probably contributed to this).
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| Jardin Majorelle |
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| Carvings everywhere at The Red House Restaurant |
The last place I’ll recommend is the Mythical Oriental Spa. Take note, though, that you don’t have to go to this particular spa to get the experience I’m going to describe, and you can find many places throughout the city that offer the same type of experience and for a cheaper price. However, with my limited time to research the large market for this “Hamman” experience, I knew this place would do the trick, would be authentic, was greatly reviewed, and was close to our Riad (nice hotel), so it worked perfect. How it works is you enter into basically a room half Sauna-like and half Steam-room-like, with a hot sink full of water in the center with a large bucket next to it. Once you relax and have a seat, the host enters and you soon find buckets of very hot water being strategically splayed over your arms, legs, body and temple. Then, rubbed down with a special salt you are left to “soak and relax” in it. I meditated in these intermediate times between washings. After the salt-residue is washed off, the host takes some sort of abrasive scrubbing glove and proceeds to “scrape” the dead skin off of your entire body. Watch your moles if you have any, they will take a few days to recover!! After showing you the rolls of dead skin on your arm, you are washed off and then, if you have chosen other substances to lay on you, which I had chosen Clay, they will be applied and you will be given more time to relax. The experience finishes with one final wash and an application of a type of lotion applied to your entire body before you exit out of the Hamman area to a much needed glass of water and a feeling of a clairvoyant mind.
For our last day in the Marrakesh region we took a day trip to Essaouira, basically straight west all the way to the coast of Morocco, approx 2 hours. A coastal town with plenty of shopping, an interesting twist on Moroccan style, and a more laid back feel, we had fun enjoying the sites and exploring. After purchasing a super cool linen shirt for me, and a beautiful silk “ladies scarf wrap” priced at around $8, we made a move to get lunch. The place that we had planned, The Loft, was closed because the owners were on holiday. Thus, we continued trekking through the Medina (tons of shops), until we came to my backup option, which was also closed. Luckily my third choice was open and we entered into a deserted Cafe Berbere. Off the beaten path, the reason I chose this spot, upon research, was because it was the local flavor of food and reviews. Because of the overflow of French, we saw a lot of “French Cafes” in the main square areas. These feature large patios, cafe drinks and for food, and a lot of crepes and sandwiches. Nothing wrong with that, but we have been all over France and wanted Moroccan food. Apparently this involved wandering down some alleyways and, really, being the only “tourists” there. What we entered into at the Cafe Berbere was really a cute and interesting room, with unique seating, tables, and wall decor which even included pictures of Mohammad Ali. We “woke up” the owner, who came down and gave the usual warm welcome to Nova. Of course, they hit it off, and once we ordered, we proceeded to setup yet another Nova Blockade, and Nova was off to explore the tiny space. Meanwhile, the owner went upstairs to make us some Moroccan tea, turn on the burners, and literally chop our vegetables for our dishes and create our food from scratch by herself. We dug into some tiny anchovy meatballs in a red sauce, along with a unique simmering hot dish of vegetables with Moroccan spices. Nova decided to go ahead and stand up for a few seconds for the first time and Candace and I were just in Awe of the event, as funny as it must sound to any non-parent. I happened to get a shot of the second time on the rooftop of Taros 30 minutes later, being quick on the draw with the camera. Soon she will be walking, and likely on this trip!! As we wrapped up the lunch, we realized that the lunch was really nothing amazing, but overall very good and an excellent experience, totally filling us up and costing us a stunning total of only $7 American (food and drinks).
We climbed the castle walls and saw the oceanic and islandic view from the top I purchased a ring; one that is 5 rings, put together to make one. I was actually pretty excited about this because for years I had been seeing similar types of in other places of the world, but had yet never found one quite the right size. Making our way back to the main square, we made a detour and climbed the 3 flights of stairs up to the top of Taros Bar & Restaurant. Entering into a different world, this rooftop spot with cool music and ambience was the spot to be; from good service, selection, food, and drinks, to the biggest bonus: magnificent views, we only wished that we had more time here. Making use of the last 30 minutes before our shuttle was to leave, we climbed yet another flight of stairs, to get to the Best view in all Essaouira. From here we could see the islands, the castle, the towers, an ancient wall and a near 200 degree view of the ocean, including the Kiteboarders ripping across the bay. I ordered my first Moroccan beer while Candace asked for a Virgin Mojito, and we laid back to enjoy the view while Nova explored the rooftop and stood for the second time. By the time we left, Nova was fast asleep in our arms and we made the short 5 minute walk back to the shuttle. I currently type this out on our 2.5 hour ride back to Marrakesh, ready to prep for our departure in the morning on our 3-day Camel Trek and Sandboarding adventure into the Sahara Desert!!
Oh yes, and that little voice in the back of my head telling me to “cash up”, at which point I had been to the ATM like 4 or 5 times, ended up being awesome, because on the morning of check-out, our hotel hit us with a $1000 cash charge at 7:30am that they wouldn’t allow to go to the credit card, and our driver who picked us up at 8am asked for $4000 Durham, due right then, basically before leaving the city that morning. With about $1800 Durham left, we felt confident we could make it to Fes, and through the Sahara…
Well, its really not that “risky”, as I DO have thousands of American dollars stashed variously throughout my luggage ;)
Jason
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