While in Fes, we also did a quick day-trip to a nearby town called Meknes. There wasn't anything particularly special to see, but we found the market quite interesting.. :)
Fes is the last city on our "official" world trip. Here, we stopped visiting tourist sites and spent most of our time setting up our computers to prepare for working remotely while travelling. We also took some time to take a vacation from our long trip, so we just relaxed and watched movies, walked through the new city, and played in the pool.
We did spend one day visiting the Fes's famous medina. We decided hire a guide to lead us through the maze-like narrow streets and point out so many things that we surely wouldn't have noticed without him. Here are a few interesting tidbits that he shared with us:
- There are 750 quarters in the Fes medina, each with its own mosque, fountain, public bath, and school
- There are 500 000 people living within the medina
- Every major city in Morocco has a colour associated to it.. Fes is blue.
Like every good guide, he brought us to at least one tourist shop... we expected it and were prepared for a bit of a battle.. but, no one was really that aggressive or pushy... they showed us their wares and didn't pressure us at all to buy....surprising!!.
Lastly, we visited the local leather tannery... it smells so bad there that they supply mint leaves for tourists to put under their nose, to mask the smell while walking through. We found out that they use pigeon poo in the tanning process and this is what makes the leather feel softer.... interesting.
There are deserts everywhere.. but not all are equal. Most of the deserts we've been to so far, were rock deserts or small slivers of sand dunes. They were fun, but never really met that iconic image that we all get in our minds when we think.. "desert". We were still in search of that classic desert scenery... endless sand dunes.. as far away as the eye can see.
From Marakech, we decided to check out the 3-day visit to the "big" sand dunes of the Sahara desert. Unfortunately for us, this trip was probably the worst organized tour ever...
We were picked up as planned and brought to the main square where they join the tour groups together. Oops... it seems they overbooked the tour by 3 people and all of the mini-busses were full. We had to sit in the square for 2 hours while they searched for another company/mini-van to send us out in. Eventually, they asked if we could move our trip to the next day, but we had a night-train booked for the evening we were supposed to return.. since we had already lost 2 hours, we asked to just cancel the tour and get a refund, but they told us it's not possible to get a full refund and quickly disappeared on their cellphones again.
Eventually, they end up throwing the 3 of us into a Taxi that would take us to meet up our driver/guide in another town. They neglected to tell us that due to lost time, we'd completely miss the visit to the big castle along the way (another castle where Game of Thrones is filmed). After figuring that out, there wasn't much we could do about it.. we accepted it and and were ready to move on...
Unlucky for us, we met up with our driver/guide and he ended up being the absolute worst, most obnoxious driver ever. He had such a bad attitude, was super unhelpful, made inappropriate jokes, constantly bashed on tourists, and anytime we asked for information he answered us like we where complete morons. Our new friend Bobby, the 3rd overbooked passenger, ended up getting sick and puked out the window of the car (food poisoning). For the next 30mins, our driver non-stop scolded him saying he was retarded for eating in the square (everyone eats in the square, by the way). At one point Bobby asked the driver to stop the car because he was going to be sick again. Bobby was laying on the ground outside the car looking horrible and miserable... our unsympathetic driver quickly lost patience and started screaming "come on! just shove your fingers down your throat! 2 fingers, Bobby.. like this.. come on! let's go!!".
We eventually met up with the main group and 4 other tourists joined our vehicle, creating a nice conversational barrier between us and the driver... lucky for us, otherwise, Dom probably would have strangled the driver.
ANYWAYS... our long journey began by winding through the beautiful Atlas mountains. Along the way, we did a few quick photo stops.
We also stopped at a local village where another guide (he was super nice!) explained the traditions of the local Berber people. He asked us not to take pictures of the Berber women as it is considered offensive to the family. He told us one story of a journalist that took and published pictures of villagers working the fields.. when the husband saw the picture of his wife in public, he went straight home, divorced her and kicked her out of the home.. the wife didn't even know about the photo.
After 2 days of driving, we finally arrived at our destination: the Sahara. We hopped on a camel and and rode 1.5 hours to the desert camp to spend the night.
On our last day, we had an early breakfast and started our 12 hour drive back to Marrakech.
Prior to booking this tour, we verified with the booking agent that the tour would return early enough for us to catch our 9:45pm train and were told we'd be back by 5PM. We again verified this with the tour agency that picked us on in the morning and were told we'd have plenty of time. Apparently they all neglected to tell our driver.. and when we went to verify with him that we'd be back in Marrakech sometime before 7PM, he was furious, drove like a madman, and yelled at us the whole way home for not telling him on the first day that we had a train to catch. He got us worried saying he'd need to speed all the way back, and that if we got a ticket then we'd have to pay for it (yet he still forced us to make stops at restaurants all along the way... we think they get commission for taking tourist there).
We made it to the train station on time and ran into other people from our tour group who were catching the same train as us... turns out that all of the other vehicles from our group easily got back around 5:30pm (as we were originally told). SO, it seems our idiot driver was just looking for another excuse to yell at us and mis-treat us....
So.. The camel rides and sand dunes sure were super fun!!! .... the whole trip would have been significantly better minus the overbooking mixup and the idiot driver!! Oh well!
Essaouira is a pretty port town on the West coast of Morocco which has recently become even more popular because of its appearance in TV series Game of Thrones, as the city of Astapor.
It's a super cute town to walk through since it's so scenic and much more laid-back than Marrakech. We would have like to spend more time there, unfortunately, we were misinformed about the bus schedule.. so our "day-trip" actually ended up being 6 hours of bus ride and 3 hours of visiting. But, we managed to visit the fort, have a quick lunch in a cute cafe, and quickly walk a couple of streets. It's definitely a place where you can relax and spend a couple of days... maybe next time!
We originally planned to spend 6 months working and slowly floating through Europe, but as Canadians, we are only allowed to stay a max of 3 months in Europe (out of every 6 months, cumulative days, and non-resettable). We didn't realize this was a big of a deal since there are so many great places to see around Europe... but after doing some research, we discovered that this 3 month "Schengen Visa" doesn't just apply to EU countries.. it applies to every country that is part off the Schengen Agreement. This turns out to be EVERY country in the European and surrounding region except for the UK (too expensive), Russia (we heard it can be tough to get a visa), Turkey, and the African countries.
So.. life can be unpredictable.. but we went with the flow and bought our tickets to Morocco!
When you think of Morocco, you think hectic bazaars, snake charmers, small streets, colourful crafts, tagines and mint tea... We were not disappointed! The old town of Marrakech is bustling with continuous activity and is a really pretty place to walk around.
We stayed at a really cool hang-out hostel called Marrakech Rouge, where we had the best host! Ali is unbelievably chill, friendly, and helpful. He was constantly offering us the yummiest homemade mint tea with Moroccan pastries and, of course, always passing around the shisha (flavoured tobacco)! The thing Dom loved most is that one of the official languages of Morocco is French! In all of our travels, this is actually the first county we've been to where people speak French, so Dom was super happy to be speaking French again :)
The main square (or Djemaa El-Fna) is where most of the action is. You can watch snake charmers, trained moneys doing tricks, various entertainers singing&dancing, eat at one of the many fresh food stands, get fresh pressed orange juice, or shop for various colourful handicrafts. Our first couple of days were filled with an excitement of the senses.
Visiting the souk means getting very lost in the massive maze of tiny alleys filled with a variety of shops: Tagines, slippers, wood boxes/carvings, spices, scarves, etc... If you adventure past the shopping alleys, you can actually see where they hand-make all of the wares that they sell.
Unfortunately, as we began to roam the more touristy areas vendors became a bit more aggressive and overwhelming: Locals insist on being your tour-guide and follow you for several blocks.. if they give you directions and you actually go that way (even if you were planning to go that way anyways), they insist on tips and follow you even more. In the square, a snake charmer forced a snake around Dom's neck, as we were just walking by.. then the snake charmer got aggressive and repeatedly pushed the head of the snake into Dom's face while insisting on a big tip. On another occasion, two waiters fought to get us to eat at their stand and it became an aggressive, unfriendly tug-of-war where Dom was literally the rope... each of them had one of Dom's arms and were pulling him in opposite directions while Dom was insisting that they stop touching him....a bit too much.
Nothing says Morocco like Tagine and couscous! ...and we had plenty! Sadly, we were extremely disappointed with the food here. We were really looking forward to experiencing real Moroccan food since the Moroccan restaurants in Calgary are so delicious! In all of the restaurants here, the dishes were surprisingly flavourless, too oily, and too mushy.. the bread was always very dry.. and the prices were touristy-expensive! Nonetheless, we still decided to take a cooking class :)
Lastly, before departing for our next destination, we experienced our first Hammam (Turkish Massage). Here is a quick description of the experience: You arrive, strip, and wear a towel. An attendant, strips the towel, smears you in Argan oil, then takes you to the sauna (or Moroccan igloo) where you sit for 30 minutes. Once you're thoroughly cooked, they rinse you off and lay you on a marble table. They then take sand paper (maybe not.. but it sure feels like it!) and scrape all of the dead skin off of your body, then another rinse. Next, a 45 minute massage, another rinse, and then you can relax in the lounge drinking that delicious Moroccan Tea again! Overall, an interesting and enjoyable experience with a decent price tag (about $15cad each for the 2 hour treatment) :)
