Travel makes you smarter.
Sunset on Place el Hadim, the big public square where we watched all the men gather around the nightly performers or sit together in cafes while the women would huddle around on the ground totally segregated from the men; a common thread throughout Morocco.
One of the four so-called “imperial cities” (with Marrakech, Meknes and Rabat) Fes is the third largest city in Morocco, after Casablanca and Rabat . According to Tertius Chandler's Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, Fes was the biggest city in the world about 800 years ago . The clean Hotel Cascade where we stayed [...]
The best food so far in Morocco we got today in cafe Zezinia: chick pea soup, baked aubergines, bread, olives, and coffee for a really fair “Moroccan price, not tourist price” 20 dirhams for the both of us, plus a five dirham tip . All the food was top notch ! Located outside the medina [...]
We took the bus back thru Tangier to Asilah on the Atlantic west coast… that sounds weird typing that: “Atlantic WEST coast” . We met a guy when we got off the bus and he offered us his house to stay in for 80 dirhams per night : a fair price we thought . so [...]
We took a tour of the tannery which smelled pretty foul which is probably due to the fact that there were dead animal carcasses lying all over the place. Tanning is the process of converting skin into leather, usually with a tannin such as oak bark, an acidic chemical compound that prevents decomposition and often [...]
While Zoe was out taking pictures Steven paid the laundry lady 50 mdh to wash a load of laundry. “50 dirhams is almost six bux in the US and seems a little expensive but…“, he thought, “I want to support the local economy.” Later when Zoe got back to the room she helped him realize [...]
We went out again looking for djellabas, the traditional Moroccan outerwear; like a wool jumpsuit . It is not easy shopping in Morocco as a westerner: merchants see our white skin and think, 'ok, here comes money!' . The vendors are so friendly …toooo friendly actually. “No no, We are just looking.” Then the shop [...]
Acording to a 2004 survey by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 134,000 hectares of cannabis had been cultivated in Morocco in the previous year, yielding 42% of global hashish production making it the world’s leading producer and exporter of hash. Medina center This cute little city sits right at the foothills of [...]
We took the afternoon bus a long way up a windy road (can you say 'car sick'?) to Chefchaouen where we shared a short 20 dirham taxi ride with lovely Lorna to the sky blue medina and got a room in the Hotel Babel'Ain from helpful Abdul-ah . We walked to the charming medina center [...]
We walked around the old town, the medina: A medina quarter is a distinct city section found in many North African cities. The medina is typically walled with narrow and maze-like streets featuring historical fountains, palaces, and mosques preserved for their cultural significance and as a draw for tourists. Because of the very narrow streets, [...]