Eight Days in Morocco
Over the last 8 days we got to experience a few key places in Morocco - Marrakech and Agadir/Taghazout. Morocco has many other interesting and beautiful places, from the blue city Chefchaouan, to the Sahara Desert, to Fez, the capital Rabat, and more. While there is still so much of Morocco to explore, we think we got a pretty fantastic taste of the beauty and culture this country has to offer.
We spent the first six days in Marrakech, one of the country’s former capitals (aka an Imperial City) which is laid out in two key sections, New Town (Gueliz) and the Medina (the walled city). We chose to stay within the Medina so we could be more central to the walkable sights, though we knew it would be more busy and loud. We booked a traditional Riad, the Riad Safran et Canelle, which had 14 rooms around a courtyard with a water feature as well as sitting areas in the ground floor, top floor and rooftop.
Before we even unpacked, we already felt so welcome. Our riad owner, Simo, arranged transport from the airport and our driver gave us a great primer on the city as he drove us to the entrance of the Medina (no cars allowed in its walls!) where Simo greeted us with a smile. He grabbed my bag and led us through the maze of the Medina to our new home for the week. With so many twists and turns I was SURE I would get lost, but by the end of the first day we figured it out.
The hospitality was only just beginning. We were taken up to the rooftop to do some paperwork and were immediately given tea and snacks. We would quickly come to learn that mint tea is the custom and we would drink several pots of it every day. As we relaxed on the rooftop, voices on loudspeakers began to echo in the distance. This, we would learn, is a call to prayer that happens six times per day, the first one at around 6am. Morocco is over 90% Muslim and the prayer call is a reminder to head to the mosque for prayers. Aside from the frequent tea offers, we also learned that in any of the restaurants (or if you go to someone’s home) they will nearly always offer bread. Many places also offered olives and/or fruit.
Within the medina, there are two central places - Koutoubia Mosque and Jemaa el-Fnaa square. The mosque’s tower is the tallest feature in town and you can use it to orient yourself. It sits on the edge of the square, where you can find food vendors, entertainers (including snake charmers), and a bustling market. Wander down one of the many streets off the square and you’ll most likely find yourself in a souk, a market with different shops selling everything from spices to leather to lamps.
Our first adventure was into the square, where we learned that people are eager to talk to you and show their kindness, but often with the expectation that they will get something from you. My best advice is to be firm, keep walking, and don’t accept a handshake or any physical redirection. You may end up with a monkey running up your arm or a quickly penned henna tattoo which your new friend now wants payment for. To build my confidence getting around the medina, I booked us a walking tour for our first full day through AirBnB experiences. We met Hicham at the Koutoubia mosque and were led to the Kasbah, through the Jewish quarter, and into the Souks. I highly recommend this, he helped us not only to get our bearings and learn some street smarts for haggling in the souks, he also shared a lot of history and cultural context that we wouldn’t have otherwise learned.
Aside from the walking tour, we did the rest of our exploring in Marrakesh on our own. We started each morning with breakfast at our riad, which was included and typically consisted of some breads and jams, egg, and fresh squeezed orange juice (and tea of course!). We would then set out to explore, finding a palace ruins, the Secret Jardin, and visiting Bacha Coffee in the Musee de Confluence. All were full of beautiful tile and woodwork, making everything picturesque. We made sure to visit a hammam, where we did a traditional hammam scrub with black soap and then got an hour massage (for only $30!). We would have done that every day if we could have.
Most days we spent wandering through the souks or relaxing in the riad when we weren’t seeing the sights. We did get some rain, but that allowed us to enjoy some much needed downtime on this marathon. It helped that spending time at our riad was fun on its own and didn’t feel like we were “missing out”. One night we had beers in the courtyard with some other French guests. Another night we had dinner of tagine and wine with Simo, the French guests, and a couple from London. Another night, we smoked hookah and drank tea on the rooftop. On our last night in the Medina, we found a Jazz bar. Within the medina, Hicham explained, it’s more conservative and since strict practicing muslims don’t drink alcohol, we wouldn’t see typical bars in the old town. Restaurants do serve alcohol but it's not cheap and so we mostly skipped out. It was good to dry out a bit after Paris.
We did leave town one day for another AirBnB experience, a guided tour to the Atlas mountains. That was a long and jam-packed day. We started at an argan oil collective where women grind argan nuts down to make Argan oil. Honestly, we weren’t that impressed with it because Hicham advised us that these places are not quite legit, so we wouldn’t recommend going out of your way for that. Maybe because Hicham had planted seeds of doubt, the whole thing did seem a little staged to us. Next we went to a stable where we were dressed in traditional Berber garb and got to ride camels. That was actually really fun! They had some week old baby camels we got to see before the ride, and peacocks were roaming the grounds. After that we drove up many switchbacks to get into the mountains. The drive went on and on until we could see snow capped mountains on the horizon. We had lunch in our host’s village and then hiked through some berber villages to a waterfall. At this point we were fading but the waterfall was worth it. It started to rain on our way down so I was soggy and sleepy when we made it back to the van.
Finally on our last full day in Marrakech we got to check out an attraction that EVERYONE had told us to go see - La Mamounia. Ranked the best hotel in the world, it used to be a palace, but since then has played host to all kinds of famous guests including Winston Churchill, Alfred Hitchcock, Paul McCartney, and more recently was in the show Inventing Anna about the con artist Anna Delvey. Suites at this hotel can run up to $12k per night, most people we met said to stop by for a coffee or tea so you can see the gorgeous architecture and the sprawling gardens.
Thanks to the generosity of some family who are big fans of La Mamounia, we were gifted a night stay at the hotel. They felt that we had to experience it during our time in Morocco and we are so grateful that they did. From the moment we walked up we could tell that this would be very special, and it was clear from the security guards reaction that backpackers aren’t their usual clientele. When Marcus told them we were checking in they asked “for a lunch reservation?” Haha, not today! They took our bags, led us to a velvet couch in their lobby lounge and brought us dates and a welcome drink. We wanted to make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so we immediately went to the spa for massages before checking out our room.
We were then taken on a tour of the hotel which took over 20 minutes, through the Majorelle Bar, past the indoor pool and then the outdoor pool, by the Moroccan restaurant (one of three restaurants on the grounds), through the gardens, to the gym. You could stop and smell the orange blossoms on the trees, and see where the mint is grown for the many, many pots of tea. The whole place was a quiet escape from the loud and bust streets of Marrakech. We went for a swim before returning to our room to get ready for dinner, then watched a jazz band perform in the Majorelle Bar. For dinner, we went to their Asian restaurant and had delicious sashimi, spicy Szechuan noodles, and the best shrimp toast we’d ever had. We closed out the night at the Churchill Bar which used to be a cigar bar, but was recently renovated. Winston Churchill used to come to La Mamounia to paint and became a fixture at the hotel.
I’m sure that our stay at La Mamounia will be one of the most memorable experiences of this trip, and we were sad to leave in the morning. But we had a rental car waiting for us to go to the coast, Agadir. I was nervous to drive, since I had heard that the police will pull you over for speeding and then basically shake you down for 200 dh* (about $20). But the drive was uneventful. (* actually, on proofing this I remember now - on the way back to Marrakech, this DID happen to us. But we had already spent all of our cash so they let us go, ha!) We compared it to the I-5 in California, long and not much to see. After about 3 hours we made it to our hotel in Agadir, Hotel Tildi. It wasn’t much to see, but we did have a big room with a nice view of the ocean and the sunset. We dropped our bags and went across the street to the beach to scope out the promenade.
The beach in Agadir is modern and European, with lots of places to try fresh seafood and order overpriced drinks. We found a place with a beach view and ordered John Dory fish (which was on every menu) for a late lunch. In Agadir we took things slow, just walking around the beach, checking out a bar with live music and getting dinner in town. The real fun would be Sunday, when we would have some hot weather for the first time all trip.
Sunday temps were headed for 80* so we packed a beach bag and headed for Taghazout. Taghazout is a funky little surfer town that had the same je ne sais quoi as all surf towns. It seemed to be a mix of expats and locals, and Europeans on holiday. We headed to the soft sand beach to relax and hopefully catch some surf. Unfortunately, the waves never picked up but we still had a relaxing day of laying out, reading and watching kids play soccer on the beach. It was such a beautiful beach and the shops were all so colorful and cute, we definitely recommend a stop in Taghazout!
All in all, Morocco is where the joy of traveling came back to us. In Paris, we were cold and exhausted, still adjusting and decompressing from a stressful last few weeks at home. In Marrakesh we were able to lean into the hospitality of the Moroccan people, relax, and just take in the wonder of a new place and culture.
