(To follow the full Morocco trip, start at TRAVEL: Morocco 1)
Last full day in Morocco. Big drive to big city.
Our rooms grew freezing overnight as our fires dwindled, so the wake-up was grueling. We were happy most of the packing was done so we could throw everything in the car and go. Which is what we did. We drove through many towns just like Agoudal, high valley communities supported by their valley farms. In the pre-dawn light wisps of smoke drifted out from the warm homes, evidence of life inside the small clay homes. Only a few people were out, walking or waiting by the road for buses.
The doors on many of the homes here, and the rest of Morocco, had simple diamond designs laid with thin metal strips and painted a variety of colors, the most common being blue and green. There's a symbol we keep seeing, a sort of symmetrical angular lizard, that Ibrahim told us was the code for Berber. I find myself wishing I had asked him more questions yesterday. We found declarations of love as well, painted on the walls and carved into things, postings like Fatima + Ahmed. It's the little things like this that made me less homesick and reassured my people are actually here among me, loving and living. It's easy to lose sight of that when the land and culture seems so alien.
The roads continued to be rough and riddled with potholes and we got caught up in a group of vans going slow. Ellen, our trusty driver for this leg of the journey, masterfully maneuvered past each one at choice moments in the crappy road. There are trees in this area, colored like birch but with branches that curve straight up. We traveled in and out of towns and terrain, the towns with restaurants, hotels and more potholes and the terrain twisty, sparse and hilly. We hit a big lake at one point that reflected the morning sun back at us. From there the river dried up and the farmland went away.
And then another descent began and trees started cropping up in the hills. There's a row of those birchlike ones bordering a turn that create a surreal white wall. We hit construction in a valley town and as we were driving into the sun, Ellen turned on the wipers and windshield becomes too smeared to see through. We had to stop while Tym wipes the thing off with water and stolen toilet paper. The morning ride was light on the conversation front as we'd been playing the radio. We did this earlier on in the trip, and the stations were filled with songs of modern Arabic and French and some lengthy Arabic dirges. But mostly it was talking so we had to change the station frequently. Once, we stumbled on a strange ballad that sounded oddly like Arabic shape-note singing (look it up).
The forest thickens and the roads started to be paved all the way. But the drive started getting nauseating with the constant back and forth. We climbed and the scenery turned to red and green, with rolling mountain hills of diverse vegetation and farms at sporadic points throughout. A true contrast to where we were only hours ago. Our temperature was also shifting, as we started the day at 30 degrees and then rose to 65. At the peak of our pass through the Atlas Mountains the view was gorgeous and the sheer scale of the thing was difficult to take in. We descended quickly as the forest continued to thicken. At one point there was a row of tires lining the roadside, half buried and sporting the Moroccan colors of red and green. We hit bottom and entered true forest, entering a more modern and clearly affluent town. The road got thankfully flat and when we exited we found ourselves among fields and fields of farmland. The road straightened out in front of us and we cheered, free of the curves and bends at last. The farms were full of flowers, red and yellow, in addition to olive and orange trees. We passed a massive city to the west, Kasbah Todla, and it goes on across the horizon for ages. We get four lanes on the highway at one point and went through a few roundabouts, absolutely novel after the past couple days. We stumbled on a strange fair or maybe market with all kinds of people buying goods and hanging out. There was couple of bouncy houses and a slew of tents. We hit our first toll on the road and the streets got very official looking. Our navigation suddenly stopped working and we scrambled with maps on our phones. In a stroke of luck, we discovered the GPS was taking us on a rather circuitous route and by navigating on our own we shaved a solid half hour off our time estimate. Some hills cropped out of the field space, with huge chunk bitten out to reveal layered red rock, like a terrestrial jawbreaker. Hard to tell if they were natural or man-made.
We stopped at a rest area only a few dozen kilometers outside of the Mohammed V airport. Ellen had driven an impressive four and a half hours. The rest stop featured a seatless squatty potty with a faucet and a bucket of water to one side. Weary of how to process with the arrangement, I decided I could make it to the airport. We hit up the convenience section for some snacks: Pretzels and digestives (cookies) and a bag of chips labeled "Peasant" flavor. We filled up the car with gas and, doing the math, realized that the cost of the diesel would've been about the same for the amount we would have drove in the states.
We made it to the airport fast and easy and said goodbye to the steadfast car, our Renault Kadjar. We were on a mission to find Ellen's parents, who were meeting us there. Tym and Ellen will be continuing onward for another week with them. They'll practically be honorary Moroccans at that point!
Our final leg out of the airport was by train so we bought a couple of tickets and waited. The train itself wasn't very remarkable and travelled through the outskirts of the city at a clip. Tym got a coffee from a food cart and we chatted while Ellen sat with her parents. Their stop came too quick and we said our goodbyes. Those two were fantastic travel companions and we were sad to see them go.
The train ended at our stop, Casa Port, and since our hotel was three blocks away from the station, we didn't really need to rush. We got McDonald's fries because, well, it was right there, and then set off out the station. The hotel was easy to find and pretty swanky. The poor bellhop that took us to our rooms had to wear a mustard colored fez as part of his uniform. The room was typically western with the exception of a bidet next to the toilet, a touch of French decadence. Emily and I planned out a quick walk through the city while we had the daylight.
Casablanca was a pretty chill city, with the exception of the chaotic traffic. The color scheme was mostly white, which I realize now totally matches the city's name. We entered a square with a few impressive municipal buildings and a fountain teeming with pigeons. We didn't stick out like white sore thumbs here so it was a welcome change to not get too many stares. Traveling down a palm tree lined street, a huge white cathedral entered our view. The landmark was under construction so we couldn't get close but it was impressive all the same.
Then we set out for the huge mosque by the sea, Hassan II, named after the previous Moroccan king. We decided to travel through an alley market, where we bought some tea, and got a little lost. Motorbikes were everywhere and we had to dodge more than a few. Once we got to the wide street that followed the coast, the mosque's tower, or minaret, came into view. It. Was. MASSIVE. The courtyard outside was at least full football field across and gave me a sort of weird horizontal vertigo. People were everywhere: children running about, teenagers sulking and adults resting in the shade. And of course there were people taking pictures, including Emily. We strolled around, awestruck at the ornate green and beige tile work and took a moment to take in the coast, watching some kids play on the murky beach.
We wandered our way home, stopping at a shop on the way, hungry for souvenirs and a chance to unload some of our dirham. The place had walls of all kinds of Moroccan tchotchkes along with a pair of incredibly friendly shopkeepers, Ahmed and Mohammed. Ahmed led us around while Mohammed sat and engaged us with a huge smile and a frantic string of jokes and comments. He said that everything was free downstairs if I just left Emily behind and flattered us by asking if we were students because we looked so young. It was a high pressure situation as nothing had a price, promising a surefire haggle in our future.
The shop had three stories and Ahmed led us through each of them. The basement was big and full of Moroccan rugs. They had us touch them and laid them out on the floor, calling them magic carpets, surely appeal to our western assumptions about Arabic/Moroccan culture. We shook them off with protestations of not having enough space and not being interested. Ahmed then led us to the second floor which he called the Pharmacy. It had spices and a bunch of probably overpriced holistic nonsense. Emily picked up some argan oil, which I had never heard of, but I guess Morocco's famous for it.
Back on the first floor we finally decided on a silver tea pot and some other things for family that I won't mention here because I know they read this. We did a quick haggle with Ahmed and probably overpaid again but that didn't bother us too much. Wheeling and dealing is certainly not my forte. Mohammed came by to help close the deal with his boisterous demeanor and wrapped up all our stuff. He made a joke about paying in Berber installments: You pay half now, and then the other half immediately after. He sure was a force of a human being. He gave us a little bonus gift and his business card as we left and told us to tell all our friends about his shop.
Laden with goods, we returned to the hotel. Realizing our hunger, we had a hummus plate and a couple falafel burgers at the hotel restaurant. The meal was a welcome change from the many vegetable tajines we had nearly every night.
Then we turned in super early to rest up for the flight home tomorrow.
Today's HaikuOur rooms grew freezing overnight as our fires dwindled, so the wake-up was grueling. We were happy most of the packing was done so we could throw everything in the car and go. Which is what we did. We drove through many towns just like Agoudal, high valley communities supported by their valley farms. In the pre-dawn light wisps of smoke drifted out from the warm homes, evidence of life inside the small clay homes. Only a few people were out, walking or waiting by the road for buses.
The doors on many of the homes here, and the rest of Morocco, had simple diamond designs laid with thin metal strips and painted a variety of colors, the most common being blue and green. There's a symbol we keep seeing, a sort of symmetrical angular lizard, that Ibrahim told us was the code for Berber. I find myself wishing I had asked him more questions yesterday. We found declarations of love as well, painted on the walls and carved into things, postings like Fatima + Ahmed. It's the little things like this that made me less homesick and reassured my people are actually here among me, loving and living. It's easy to lose sight of that when the land and culture seems so alien.
The roads continued to be rough and riddled with potholes and we got caught up in a group of vans going slow. Ellen, our trusty driver for this leg of the journey, masterfully maneuvered past each one at choice moments in the crappy road. There are trees in this area, colored like birch but with branches that curve straight up. We traveled in and out of towns and terrain, the towns with restaurants, hotels and more potholes and the terrain twisty, sparse and hilly. We hit a big lake at one point that reflected the morning sun back at us. From there the river dried up and the farmland went away.
And then another descent began and trees started cropping up in the hills. There's a row of those birchlike ones bordering a turn that create a surreal white wall. We hit construction in a valley town and as we were driving into the sun, Ellen turned on the wipers and windshield becomes too smeared to see through. We had to stop while Tym wipes the thing off with water and stolen toilet paper. The morning ride was light on the conversation front as we'd been playing the radio. We did this earlier on in the trip, and the stations were filled with songs of modern Arabic and French and some lengthy Arabic dirges. But mostly it was talking so we had to change the station frequently. Once, we stumbled on a strange ballad that sounded oddly like Arabic shape-note singing (look it up).
The forest thickens and the roads started to be paved all the way. But the drive started getting nauseating with the constant back and forth. We climbed and the scenery turned to red and green, with rolling mountain hills of diverse vegetation and farms at sporadic points throughout. A true contrast to where we were only hours ago. Our temperature was also shifting, as we started the day at 30 degrees and then rose to 65. At the peak of our pass through the Atlas Mountains the view was gorgeous and the sheer scale of the thing was difficult to take in. We descended quickly as the forest continued to thicken. At one point there was a row of tires lining the roadside, half buried and sporting the Moroccan colors of red and green. We hit bottom and entered true forest, entering a more modern and clearly affluent town. The road got thankfully flat and when we exited we found ourselves among fields and fields of farmland. The road straightened out in front of us and we cheered, free of the curves and bends at last. The farms were full of flowers, red and yellow, in addition to olive and orange trees. We passed a massive city to the west, Kasbah Todla, and it goes on across the horizon for ages. We get four lanes on the highway at one point and went through a few roundabouts, absolutely novel after the past couple days. We stumbled on a strange fair or maybe market with all kinds of people buying goods and hanging out. There was couple of bouncy houses and a slew of tents. We hit our first toll on the road and the streets got very official looking. Our navigation suddenly stopped working and we scrambled with maps on our phones. In a stroke of luck, we discovered the GPS was taking us on a rather circuitous route and by navigating on our own we shaved a solid half hour off our time estimate. Some hills cropped out of the field space, with huge chunk bitten out to reveal layered red rock, like a terrestrial jawbreaker. Hard to tell if they were natural or man-made.
We stopped at a rest area only a few dozen kilometers outside of the Mohammed V airport. Ellen had driven an impressive four and a half hours. The rest stop featured a seatless squatty potty with a faucet and a bucket of water to one side. Weary of how to process with the arrangement, I decided I could make it to the airport. We hit up the convenience section for some snacks: Pretzels and digestives (cookies) and a bag of chips labeled "Peasant" flavor. We filled up the car with gas and, doing the math, realized that the cost of the diesel would've been about the same for the amount we would have drove in the states.
We made it to the airport fast and easy and said goodbye to the steadfast car, our Renault Kadjar. We were on a mission to find Ellen's parents, who were meeting us there. Tym and Ellen will be continuing onward for another week with them. They'll practically be honorary Moroccans at that point!
Our final leg out of the airport was by train so we bought a couple of tickets and waited. The train itself wasn't very remarkable and travelled through the outskirts of the city at a clip. Tym got a coffee from a food cart and we chatted while Ellen sat with her parents. Their stop came too quick and we said our goodbyes. Those two were fantastic travel companions and we were sad to see them go.
The train ended at our stop, Casa Port, and since our hotel was three blocks away from the station, we didn't really need to rush. We got McDonald's fries because, well, it was right there, and then set off out the station. The hotel was easy to find and pretty swanky. The poor bellhop that took us to our rooms had to wear a mustard colored fez as part of his uniform. The room was typically western with the exception of a bidet next to the toilet, a touch of French decadence. Emily and I planned out a quick walk through the city while we had the daylight.
Casablanca was a pretty chill city, with the exception of the chaotic traffic. The color scheme was mostly white, which I realize now totally matches the city's name. We entered a square with a few impressive municipal buildings and a fountain teeming with pigeons. We didn't stick out like white sore thumbs here so it was a welcome change to not get too many stares. Traveling down a palm tree lined street, a huge white cathedral entered our view. The landmark was under construction so we couldn't get close but it was impressive all the same.
Then we set out for the huge mosque by the sea, Hassan II, named after the previous Moroccan king. We decided to travel through an alley market, where we bought some tea, and got a little lost. Motorbikes were everywhere and we had to dodge more than a few. Once we got to the wide street that followed the coast, the mosque's tower, or minaret, came into view. It. Was. MASSIVE. The courtyard outside was at least full football field across and gave me a sort of weird horizontal vertigo. People were everywhere: children running about, teenagers sulking and adults resting in the shade. And of course there were people taking pictures, including Emily. We strolled around, awestruck at the ornate green and beige tile work and took a moment to take in the coast, watching some kids play on the murky beach.
We wandered our way home, stopping at a shop on the way, hungry for souvenirs and a chance to unload some of our dirham. The place had walls of all kinds of Moroccan tchotchkes along with a pair of incredibly friendly shopkeepers, Ahmed and Mohammed. Ahmed led us around while Mohammed sat and engaged us with a huge smile and a frantic string of jokes and comments. He said that everything was free downstairs if I just left Emily behind and flattered us by asking if we were students because we looked so young. It was a high pressure situation as nothing had a price, promising a surefire haggle in our future.
The shop had three stories and Ahmed led us through each of them. The basement was big and full of Moroccan rugs. They had us touch them and laid them out on the floor, calling them magic carpets, surely appeal to our western assumptions about Arabic/Moroccan culture. We shook them off with protestations of not having enough space and not being interested. Ahmed then led us to the second floor which he called the Pharmacy. It had spices and a bunch of probably overpriced holistic nonsense. Emily picked up some argan oil, which I had never heard of, but I guess Morocco's famous for it.
Back on the first floor we finally decided on a silver tea pot and some other things for family that I won't mention here because I know they read this. We did a quick haggle with Ahmed and probably overpaid again but that didn't bother us too much. Wheeling and dealing is certainly not my forte. Mohammed came by to help close the deal with his boisterous demeanor and wrapped up all our stuff. He made a joke about paying in Berber installments: You pay half now, and then the other half immediately after. He sure was a force of a human being. He gave us a little bonus gift and his business card as we left and told us to tell all our friends about his shop.
Laden with goods, we returned to the hotel. Realizing our hunger, we had a hummus plate and a couple falafel burgers at the hotel restaurant. The meal was a welcome change from the many vegetable tajines we had nearly every night.
Then we turned in super early to rest up for the flight home tomorrow.
The king’s minaret
a holy beacon by the sea
children play below
a holy beacon by the sea
children play below
Today's Workout
(exempt due to travel)
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