I didn’t read much about Morocco
before I embarked on a five-day trip to this Northern African country. I’m well
traveled (Europe, the United States, Caribbean, event a bit of Asia) but I have
never been to Africa, and Morocco seemed like a good place to get my feet wet.
Plus I have American friends living there.
My trip began in Paris I love and have been to, many times before, on an impressive two and a
half hour Royal Air Maroc flight to Rabat. The plane was new and the food
exceptionally good for airplane food, so I quickly forgot that the flight was
an hour late. The moment the plane landed, while still taxing, most people got
up, and started taking their bags from the overhead compartments, ignoring the
young, female flight attendant’s requests to sit back down.
I quickly realized—I wasn’t in Western Europe anymore.
The Rabat airport was as new and
shiny as the plane, which made me question my American friend’s statement that
Morocco is a third world country. “Moroccans are very good about making certain
things look good,” he vaguely explained, as we were cruising along a nice
highway at 11pm on a Sunday. A moment later, we saw a man hoarding cows down
the highway.
On Monday morning, we took a two
hour drive north to Asilah, a small town on the Atlantic coast, not far from
Tangiers, with a beautiful, picturesque Spanish-influenced fortress,
overlooking the ocean. The air smelled salty and fresh. We sat in a café Al Madina, in the middle of the old
town, and ordered the a la menthe, a
delicious Moroccan blend of green tea, fresh mint leaves and lots and lots of
sugar, and Moroccan gateaux, or white-powdered sugar cookies. But once you down
your greenish tea from the tall glass, you need to use the bathroom, right?
Well, don’t expect any toilet paper or soap in the small cafés natives go to.
Be lucky if there is a toilet bowl. So, unless you want to spend your time in
Morocco in bed, nauseated, may I suggest bringing and using a lot of hand sanitizer?
Asilah’s old town has lots of
little shops filled with colorful arts and crafts, shoes, carpets, pottery as
well as spectacular views of the ocean once on top of the fortress’s walls. There’s
no hike, just a few steps and you can feel the ocean breeze on your face.
A
stone-throw away from the fortress is a Spanish seafood restaurant, Casa Garcia,( 51 Rue Moulay Hassan ben el-Mehdi) highly endorsed and frequented by
my friends, who elaborated by saying that people drive from Rabat, for two hours,
just to eat in it. After such an endorsement, I was expecting Four Season’s
quality a la Moroccan or at least an Inn at Little Washington with Spanish,
seafood twist but what we got was actually mediocre-to-good seafood paella,
grilled shrimp and fried calamari, and a slightly bitter crème caramel for
desert, but all served with the ocean view and the smell of the sea. Lunch for
four cost about $45.
We were occasionally
harassed by the street vendors trying to persuade us to buy cigarettes, even
thought we obviously did not smoke, and small unframed paintings, even thought
we said, in French, we were not interested, many times. But get use to it,
fast. It’s a normal, every day occurrence for tourists in Morocco.
On our way back to Rabat, I asked my
friends to take me somewhere I can buy good quality Argan oil, both for eating
and cosmetic use, since a 30ml bottle of this oil in Whole Foods costs $30, and
it’s very healthy both for your stomach and your skin. They took me to Apia, a small, fragrant, modern store
at the beginning of Rue Oukaimeden, in Agdal part of Rabat, a Westernized
shopping area with stores such as Mango, GAP, and restaurants like T.G.I. Fridays,
but also many small, local cafes. Apia
smells of roses and is full of Argan oil based products as well as any type of
honey and jam you can think of, artfully packaged. It is the best shopping I
was able to do in Rabat, both for myself and for gifts, such as artisanal
bottles of cold pressed Argan oil for Gastronomique use, natural, anti-wrinkle
Argan oil for Cosmetique use, soaps, massage oils and similar items, all
wrapped for gifting and reasonably priced. A 150ml bottle of cosmetic Argan oil
cost about $12, and soap about $3.
I will forever regret not taking my friends
offer of borrowing an extra suitcase and filling it with these rare, expensive oils
and products hard to find in the United States. So, if you like to shop, I
suggest you travel with your suitcase half empty.
On my second day, we went to
Casablanca. Casablanca is an hour of a train-ride away from Rabat.
May I
suggest you learn some French or have a French speaking companion when
travelling to Morocco, since you are going to need that language to ask for directions and
negotiate with taxi drivers when lost. Moroccans apparently do not need many
street signs to get around. They’re not big on cleanliness either. It is
probably the dirtiest city I have been to so far. Trash is everywhere, the
sidewalks smell of urine and decaying food, the architecture is run down and
the traffic is much worse than in Washington D.C, maybe even L.A. The only
two reasons to visit Casablanca are to see the spectacular Mosque of Hassan II, the third largest mosque after the ones in
Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and the Mosque with the highest minaret in the
world—200 meters or a little over 656 feet, and to eat!
Hassan II’s minaret is turquoise and
white and it is exactly what one's need after a whole day of looking for
something beautiful in a run-down city of six millions people.
The whole area around this Mosque, built partly on water
since, as my guide explained,
” the throne of God was on water,” is shiny white marble and
stone. Hassan II is not only an
architectural wonder but also an exception of beauty in this dirty city with
crazy drivers, where pedestrians are citizens of second class with non-existent
or obstructed sidewalks and no traffic lights. The Mosque was built almost all
from Moroccan materials with a few exceptions—Italian crystal and Venetian
plaster. Materials are carefully picked for their ability to resist the
humidity such as cedar wood for the dozen massive doors. The tour costs $15 per
person, and lasts about 45 minutes with guides in English, French, Italian,
German and Spanish. The revenue from tours makes this Mosque self-sufficient,
and paying the fee is the only way a non-Muslim can enter it. It is a little
pricey, in my opinion, and you may skip it. The Mosque is much more impressive
from the outside then the inside.
Food is the second and last reason
to go to Casablanca. I had lunch at La Squala (Boulevard des Almohades,
Casablanca,) just around the corner from the famous Rick’s Café, infamous for
the scarce working hours. Rick’s cafe opens at 12pm and closes at 3pm, to
reopen again at 6:30pm. La Squala is situated in a small fortress overlooking
the ocean and a garden, with seats both outside in the garden and inside, and
it makes incredibly tasty tajines, traditional Moroccan cooked dishes with either
only vegetables, fish or meat, soft, juicy and perfectly seasoned. Tajines are named
after the clay dome dishes they are made in. La Squala also makes incredible
chewy Moroccan almond cookies that go perfectly with a well-crafted Italian
Lavazza cappuccino or café crème. Unless you are dying to go to the touristy
Rick’s café, maybe to act on some old movie fantasy, I suggest going to La Squala
instead. The prices are moderate too, about $40 for two entrees, two
cappuccions and a plate of cookies.
In Rabat, you should see the Kasbah,
an impressive orange-color fortress with narrow streets, white and blue painted
walls, then have the a la menthe and
Moroccan cookies (unless you have diabetes by now) in Café de la Mer on Rue Bose overlooking the Bouregreg river. From
there, well rested, you should visit the adjacent Andalusian garden and its
small, unimpressive museum (10 dirhams or a little over a dollar), with only
four rooms displaying old artifacts and old hammams, and a courtyard with a
fountain. I suggest you walk down from the Kasbah to Medina, right across the
busy highway, and walk along Rue de
Consuls. The best shops are on that street, as well as the tamest vendors,
if you don’t like to be pulled by your sleeve or someone entering your
personal space. Deeper you go into the Medina and the souks or the marketplace where everything can be negotiated, the
crazier and smellier it gets. But if you have a strong stomach (and, in my
opinion, a food poisoning-wish) you could try different exotic foods prepared
there, while often spoken to, by the locals, in languages you probably don’t know.
From Medina, head to La Tour Hassan hotel. It’s truly an
oasis in a city as dirty and polluted as Rabat, but an expensive one. A grilled
salmon lunch cost 180 dirhams or about $25, and chicken and vegetable soup 120
dirhams or $15, which might not be expensive for New York City, but it
certainly is for Morocco.
La
Tour Hassan is an artfully built, sparkling hotel, with three restaurants
serving French and Moroccan food, a pianist in one of them, and a brasserie by
the pool and the garden. The service is impeccable and the food is tasty.
From the hotel, you could walk down
the hill to the Parliament and the main Post Office, Central Bank and the main
Train Station on Avenue Mohamed V,
Rabat’s main avenue.
My friends took me to Vila Mandarine (9 Rue Ouled Bousbaa –
Souissi) for dinner, a restaurant and a hotel, immersed in its impressive, wild
and fertile gardens, with a dinning room filled with expensive chandeliers,
mosaics and paintings. Now here, the bathroom was impeccably clean and well
furnished. The food was not only tasty but also artfully prepared and the
prices were pretty high. Dinner for
four, with only two glasses of wine and no dessert was about $125. They have an
excellent salmon and sole fillets, and an interesting ravioli with seafood and
citrusy sauce. The home-made style bread in nice Moroccan restaurant is always
fresh and tasty, so was the tuna mousse appetizer on a tiny pasty.
My dilemma with traveling through
Morocco was what and where was safe to eat. I didn't want to risk getting food poisoning and ruining my trip, so I
haven’t had anything fresh in five days. I was advised by friends and doctors
not to eat salads or fruit if I want to avoid food borne illness or a parasite
of some sort. Apparently, Moroccans use “natural” fertilizers, coming from animals
you often see by the side of the roads, mostly cows and sheep, sometimes horses
of donkeys.
To be
honest, as a result of my cautiousness, I was often hungry, with no safe food
in sight. There are no food stores like in Europe or the United States. You’re
lucky if you bump into a small stand that looks like it’s going to collapse any
moment and sells some packaged foods like chips or cookies.
In Rabat’s
Medina, I saw a cart with round, individually sized fresh bread and locals
coming by and touching several pieces of it until they chose the one they wanted.
After seeing an average bathroom in Morocco, I put two and two together and decided
to starve for a little while longer until I could find a nice hotel or a restaurant.
One thing I didn’t do, and I suggest you do is bring and carry granola bars or
nuts with you at all times, in case you are starving and want to be extra
careful like I was.
I have never consumed so much sugar and fish in five days,
but I also remained healthy. If you’re dying for
something fresh, wash it yourself with a few drops of bleach.
On my fourth day, we went to Marrakesh,
a city with two faces. When you arrive at the airport or the train station,
(Rabat to Marrakesh is four-hour train ride. Make sure you buy first class.
It’s worth it.) and on your drive to Medina where the Riads are (and I recommend you stay at a Riad, and not in one of the typical hotels outside Medina) you are
driving through a modern, sparkling, Western looking Hivernage area. But when the Hivernage
ends, the Medina begins, and its dusty, narrow, smelly streets. Inside
Marrakesh’s Medina, riding an old motorcycle is apparently the thing to do. The
pedestrians are indeed the second class citizens here as well, since they have
to wait for the bikes to pass, in order to continue walking. Sometimes, a
donkey-dragged cart wants to pass, and there’s really no other was to survive
and leave the city with all your limbs unless you peel yourself onto the wall.
It’s impossible to relax in Marrakesh outside of your Riad or hotel. There are either motorbikes around or behind you, or
merchants pushing their cobras or monkeys toward you for a picture, on Place Jamaa Al Fna, Marrakesh’s main
square. They also often yell at you from their carts covered with oranges, offering
you a freshly squeezed orange juice from a dirty glass.
I stayed in Riad Argan (33, derb
Zenka Dika, Marrakech Médina) which was a refuge from the stressful city. It’s really
a big, beautiful house in the middle of Medina, converted into a boutique
hotel, five minutes away from Place Jamaa Al Fna. It has only four or five
rooms, impeccably decorated in Moroccan style, with red painted ceilings, wooden
saloon-like bathroom doors, and copper bathroom accessories. It’s owned and run
by a French lady and three local sisters who will help you in anyway you need,
and take your any place you want. They even speak English.
Once in the warmth and security of my cozy Riad, I asked for
two things—where can I buy good Argan oil, and where is a good Hammam.
Just a few minutes away, toward the
main square, there is a small shop where a Moroccan woman in headscarf is
making Argan oil right before your eyes. I had mine (eyes) on the oil she was
making at that exact moment, since I was told that Argan oil is expensive, so Moroccans
often mix it with others, cheaper ones, and still sell it as pure Argan. A rare
English-speaking shopkeeper started the bid wars with me at 350 dirhams for a
250 ml bottle of cosmetic oil. After a short bargaining session I was bad at, I
got it down to 250 which is about $30. But don’t despair, I am the worst
haggler, and I’m pretty sure you can do better. You should offer a quarter of
the asked price to start with, but ultimately, it gets down to how badly you
want the item. I really wanted to leave the store with the oil squeezed from
the Argan paste in front of me, and I paid more for that privilege. At least I
know it’s 100 percent real. This store doesn’t really have a name. There’s a
sign above the door saying “Natural and organic,” and it’s a few minutes away
from the main square. You can get there by asking anyone where can you buy
Argan oil, or if you stumble upon a modest looking shop, with doors wide open,
and Argan nuts and paste that looks like hard bread, in buckets in front of it.
Les
Bains de L’alhambra (Kasbah, Derb Rahala 9) is a spa with Hammam
recommended by my Riad. It was about a 15-minute walk from the main square and
to get to it, you really need a guide or a taxi. It’s inside the Kasbah, in one
of its labyrinth streets and has a very inconspicuous entrance. It’s also one
of the best spas I have been to. The Moroccan package costs 450 dirhmas or a
little less than $60 and includes a full-service exfoliation and bath, from
head to toe, in a traditional dark, Hammam spa-room, similar to a low ceiling,
stone and marble sauna. The Hammam portion lasts about 45 minutes, after which
you lounge into a comfortable spa version of a “lazy-boy” with rose petals.
Then you are served their sweet mint tea, while another masseuse works on your
feet. An exceptional 60-minute full-body massage follows, that included your
stomach and your face and head. It’s truly a different spa experience that the
ones in Europe or the United States, and well worth the money, especially if
the fast pace of Marrakesh stresses you. Both women and men were equally
enjoying Les Bains de L’Alhambra.
Un
dejeneur de Marrakesh (2-4 Place Douar Graoua, Medina) is a good restaurant
to go to any time, and it’s right across the natural Argan oil store I
mentioned. It’s contemporary and casual, with a roof garden framed with cacti,
a small menu with fish, salads, dessert, and Nespresso coffee. Good service,
nice view of Marrakesh from the terrace, open all day, prices moderate.
For dinner, I suggest Pepenero (17, Derb Cherkaoui - Douar
Graoua Marrakesh). It’s Moroccan and Italian restaurant in a beautiful setting
with a fountain the middle of the dinning room and a pool in the lobby. You get
a complementary glass of champagne with dinner. Food is delicious and moderately
priced. Pasta is 120 dirhams or $15, fish or another main dish is 180 or about
$23.
Hotel La Mamounia (Avenue Bab Jdid, Medina), the city’s oldest hotel (but
you can’t tell) is worth visiting. It was recently renovated, its lobby and
hallways are filled with marble and mosaics, and it has vast,
carefully-cared-for gardens. From the moment you enter its gates, you can almost
smell the money. You can stroll the gardens for free, or have mint tea with
views of sculptures and paintings inside, or by the pool. Moroccan mint tea in Le Bar Churchill costs 60 dihram or
about $7.
All in all,
Morocco is a wild, colorful place you should prepare for, but there’s
definitely enough variety to keep your senses engaged for at least a week.
Maybe even longer if you don’t mind its chaos. At least, it’s never boring, but
neither is relaxing, unless you are in a Hammam.