Discovering Morocco

In one sentence, Morocco can be described as an attack on all senses. The fact is that a trip to Morocco these days is very simple and cheap. In our case, we got satisfied with the low budget airline Ryanair which flies from most major European cities. However, the real experience of travel in the country is on the cultural level. The country is not the size of the U.S. or Brazil or similar, where it’s normal that the country boasts a wide range of diversities. However, with its surface only slightly larger than Spain, Morocco covers all possible differences one can imagine. So here you can find severe poverty, where people are living in one set of clothes they have on themselves, they have nothing accept one donkey, and they’re only thinking if they’ll have enough water, cause each year there’s less. On the other side, for example in Marrakesh, some people are driving a Hummer and eat in KFC. It is possible to find traditional Muslims, where people are dressed accordingly and women are fully covered (including gloves). In some places they cover everything except the eyes, somewhere they show only the face. On the other hand, in the larger cities some girls are walking in skirts and go out into clubs. Morocco offers a variety of landscapes. So in the north, Mediterranean landscapes can be found, in addition, associated climate and Rif Mountain range with fields of marijuana and hashish production for the European and other markets. Along the Atlantic there’s a completely different climate and lifestyle. Besides megalomaniac centers and small fishing towns, tourist spots and surf centers grew caused by the migration of the hippy culture in the quest for the perfect paradise. Morocco's interior at first glance looks very brown, dry and hot. However, it’s full of beautiful canyons and waterfalls with greenery and exotic flora and fauna, palm trees, monkeys and some shit. The country provides a haven for individual hikers, climbers and adventurers. So the interior of Morocco is adorned by the High Atlas mountain range with the highest peak, Jebel Toubkal (4167m). At the end there is the impressive wilderness of sand dunes in the southeast where officially the Sahara desert starts.
Morocco is divided into the Mediterranean part, North and South Atlantic coast, the area of Atlas mountain range, the desert or the Sahara and the Anti Atlas of Morocco. The fact is that after you discover all possible corners of this country, you have the feeling that you have travelled through several countries, not just a one.
The main languages in Morocco is Arabic and its dialects that are significantly different from the standard language and dialects of Berber spoken mainly in mountainous areas. The population of Morocco is a mix of many groups from indigenous Berber people and immigrants from northern and sub-Saharan Africa as also refugees from the Pyrenean Peninsula after the escape from Spain and Portugal. The state religion is Islam that encompasses almost all the inhabitants. Berbers are the indigenous people and they spread from Egypt to the Atlantic, and from the Mediterranean to the River Niger. Apparently the translation of the word "Berber" means "free and noble man." We met them as friendly, simple and honest people. They improve the whole picture of this country, and a few good spirits that we met in Morocco were all of Berber origin.


On the journey a good friend of mine accompanied me. As a starting point we chose Tangier, at the northern part of Morocco by the Gibraltar, where we flew in from Milan. The night in Milan we spent in a terribly dirty and stinky corner near the airport after we asked the police if it’s allowed. Otherwise, it is possible to sleep at the airports and it’s much less threatening than sleeping at railway stations, but in our case, the airport was currently under some kind of reconstruction. Since the first coffee in Tangier the phase of surprise began. In this new environment your body and mind, cause of the new culture and climate, are experiencing  attacks on all senses and react with astonishment. You just capture moments, and each moment is a cognition. It takes a while to get used to everything, which is directly based on the fact that you have to see and feel everything. After you pass that you go to the phase of  feeling you're part of everything and after that point you're at home, enjoying their slow pace and relaxed rhythm.


The best way to travel is always the spontaneous way. In our heads we were filming a documentary, we were travellers and not tourists, so our trip was related to the study of culture and landscape. Whenever people hasseled us and tried to sell us something, we said: "We not tourists, we travellers, La Difference, go find rich tourists." So it was always very helpful to reject offers and go along without to much hassel.


I was thinking about how to write this text, and the only thing I figured if I would describe the trip the way I wrote my diary, this story would be too long. So I'll keep only the main lines, which impressed me and which I want to share.
One of the best experiences was the way of travel trough this country. You can try to hitchhike, although the locals will absolutely look to earn some money, if you do not get lucky and run into the occasional good Berber soul and explain to him that you do not have anything. Also, good bus companies operate through Morocco like CTM and Supratours. With a slightly higher price you can travel to almost every corner of Morocco with a seat number in an air conditioned bus and secured luggage. They are also relatively accurate. However, my favorite (this is questionable, because it is interesting now when I look back on the moments of our trip when we got really crazy) way of travel in Morocco is by bad local buses and taxis. You can imagine the bad local buses as old, smelly, dirty, horribly decorated buses, “where seats often fall apart, with which tourists often do not travel, so you're mostly with locals” bus, the bus which you don’t need to find, but the people that work for the bus “company” find you, "your bag when took out of the trunk has changed color" bus, the “it’s not driving according to schedule, it’s only driving when full” bus. It is interesting that it is impossible to plan anything. Imagine a situation where at some bus station 15 people get out. And I repeat, the bus continuous only when filled up again.
Taxis are slightly more reliable way to travel if you manage to find one, negotiate a good price and if it is shared with more people. These are old Mercedes models and they take up to 6 people plus the driver. So, beside the driver, there are two people on the passenger seat, and four people at the rear seats. It gets mostly crowded so that passengers have almost to hug each other to fit in. There is no safety belt, the drivers drive like they are crazy, and the main traffic signalization is the trumpet.
Sometimes it was really tough to find travel companions to share taxis, and sometimes there were not enough taxis, so the taxi belonged to the people that first pushed themselves inside. I must admit that we used to sit and wait for hours, but eventually, our natural predisposition to the locals, as they are all smaller then us, prevailed.

One friend told me in a conversation before the trip that it’s important to adjust quickly and set up like you have already been here several times. So you will not be hasseled to much and bothered by locals and fake “guides”. We quickly got into the rhythm, but we needed time to adjust, to feel how this place is breathing and to learn how to treat local people. The fact is that the country is very poor. This fact we knew. But in the first few days I had so much hate for these people because I thought that absolutely all of them want to screw us up. I longed for the warm people who know the difference between tourists and travellers. One time, a random night, when we were relaxing in a Berber village, playing djembe drums, drinking tea, "enjoing the blessings of this country", I complained and said this to my host Abdul. I will not forget what he told me that evening: "You have to know, this poor people, my friend. And they only want to eat, and feed their family. But this are good Muslims, good people." Then I realized that I was completely wrong and I started to realize their second, under their mask, the good side of them which deserves better treatment. Basically, it is true that sometimes they just want to screw you and earn some money, but they are very poor. The poverty made them like that. After that conversation, to the end of the trip, we started to meet extraordinary  people, good souls who have helped us without asking for money.
A special experience is the bargaining. Bargaining is a part of their culture and it was a pleasure to taste that experience. However, in some remote areas where we were, we were not up to bargaining. Sometimes, bargaining does not make sense. The extreme poverty hit me. It is an indescribable feeling when you see the glow in the eyes of children whom you just have given a few Dirhams (Moroccan currency) and bought them ice cream, when you sit down with the locals and offer them a cigarette (although I do not smoke, I always had the occasional box in my pocket to share and bribe) as they usually buy only several cigarettes in the shop, not the hole box. It was a privilege to sit with them as they talk about their culture, or we often used to, because of our linguistic differences, simply sit, silently, absorbing everything around us.

Since I bored you to much with the text, here below are some frozen moments.

Mostly we spent sleeping in rented rooms. You can do it really cheap with a little effort and bargaining. You can also sleep on the roof of the hotel for a euro or two. If you want to go even cheaper here is a free, slightly uncomfortable but acceptable way of doing that.

Bad local buses. In many buses the seats were loose. In this particular example, except the seats, some people threw up and left that part of themselves in the bus.

There are really good petrol stations, but here's a special one.

The Grande Taxi, an old Mercedes model, 6 passengers are fitting in plus the driver.

Mint tea. They drink it throughout the day, offering it to you in all places, it's extremely strong, and extremely sweet. They have a special ritual of drinking mint tea. To ensure that the tea is well prepared, they pour it a couple of times from a certain height into the glass. Each time they would pour it back into the vessel and repeat the same process several times until foam appears at the top of the glass. When this happened after the third time, they would know that tea is well prepared.

Excellent fruit of some cactus that grows everywhere. They peel it for you, cause it has needles and the inner part you eat.

Fresh orange juice, a vitamin bomb on every corner.
 Watch for orange juice sellers which mix the local water with the juice cause you don't want to get sick as the water is not good for us who are not used to it.

Brutally sweet delicacies that you buy, but can't eat the whole portion you bought, unless you really do like brutally sweet delicacies.

A tajine or tagine is a type of dish found in the North African cuisines of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya, which is named after the special pot in which it is cooked. The traditional tagine pot is formed entirely of a heavy clay. Tagines in Moroccan cuisine are slow-cooked stews braised at low temperatures, resulting in tender meat with aromatic vegetables and sauce. Excellent way of eating in Morocco.

Dates palms grow everywhere.

Excellent snails. If you're as good as us, and eat all the snails and drink the snail juice afterwards, you get another cup of snail juice for free.

Most of our meals in Morocco were related to such places like this. In some places, people slaughter chickens on the road and you can see goat heads hanging around. Although camels are valuable and they are very expensive, we have seen a camel's head too. In Fes, we saw scattered goat feet on the ground which are sold as bouquets, etc. Beside such places there are often places where everything of that meat is roasted. Well, if you choose a mix of everything in a sandwich you are mostly making a wrong decision because it happens to be with all kinds of innards. So we always had a bottle of good homemade brandy, which we used for disinfection after the "poison".

For more about Morocco check out all the other posts...