Recap of a trip to Morocco! 🇲🇦

Wanted to share about a trip I took with a few friends during the time in between the two semesters. Originally, I was thinking about doing a day-by-day breakdown with lots of information, but given that I never seem to get around to doing that, I have decided to go with a general overview and some highlights of the trip!

General Overview

• went in early February, for 8 days (last day was just flight, so I guess 7)
• we flew into and out of Marrakech
• essentially a road trip, lots of driving (something around 1700 km)
• visited the following cities/places: Meknes, Fes, Chefchaouen, Casablanca, Agafay Desert, Marrakech, Essaouira (quite a few!)

It was quite a packed schedule, but definitely a memorable trip overall.

Highlights

Now let’s go into some highlights (both good, bad, and interesting), all relatively chronologically ordered.

The random eating place on Google Maps

This was on the first day, and we had just flow into Marrakech in the morning. We got our rental car, and now we needed to grab something to eat before making the long drive to Fes. Since we were already at the outskirts of the city, we didn’t want to go inside (especially not with a car!), but we also wanted to get something local. So, after some random searching on Google Maps, we found a place that had something like 10 reviews (average was around 4.0), supposedly opened 24/7, and like 5 pictures of the place.

Unassuming place in a quiet neighbourhood outside of Marrakech.

Turns out it was one of the highlights of our trip! It was kind of in another neighbourhood outside of Marrakech, along the road. We were all pretty excited (and hungry), but when we got there, the menu (written on pieces of paper stuck above the kitchen) was all in Arabic, and the people there spoke very little French (which isn’t an official language of Morocco, but still widely spoken). We managed to communicate that we were 5 people looking to eat, and then hoped for the best with whatever we would get.

It was very delicious and also incredibly cheap (150 MAD for 5 of us, so a little under $4 CAD per person)! We got this potato/chicken/olive stew with fluffy bread, and also some fried stuffed fish, finishing off with some refreshing mint tea.

Chicken, olives, and potato stew. Not a fan of olives, but still ate them all!	Fried stuffed fish. soooo good!

We did end up going back to this place twice for breakfast on our last two days in Morocco, since we were staying in Marrakech then. There was some kind of bean soup (I think it is called Bessara?) as well as a very delicious flatbread called M’semen. It reminds me very much of roti canai, but less oily, not as flaky, but equally chewy and yummy. They also serve it with a pseudo-laughing-cow cheese, and of course mint tea.

Breakfast, simple but delicious. The M’semen was my favourite, reminded me of roti.

It is a bit far out if you don’t have a car, but if you happen to be driving from the airport, then would highly recommend. One of my friends left a Google review too 😆. It’s called Snack ZAKARIA (on google maps), link is here.

The orange moon

Not so sure if it was a major highlight, but it was interesting. This was on the first evening, when we decided to stop in Meknes for dinner and then walk around a bit before heading to Fes. It was a rooftop restaurant, and while we were talking, suddenly we noticed that the moon had become orange! It also kept moving really really fast. So this is a picture of it, as well as the city at night:

The orange moon.	City at night from the rooftop. A bit blurry.

Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen was a highlight for a number of reasons. We originally weren’t sure if we would end up going there, since it was kind of far away from all the other cities we were visiting, but we opted to go and I’m glad we went! Apart from the city itself being quite blue (and photogenic), I have listed some small things along the way below.

The rainbow

It got a little bit drizzly, but then the sun came out, and we caught a rainbow!

rainbow	same rainbow!

The friendly world-visited man

We happened to stumble across this friendly man during our walk. We had no idea who he was, but it turns out he has been having visitors and tourists take pictures with him/sign their names, and he has been doing it for many many years! So it was a fun surprise.

His little shop, with lots of signatures.

Top of the hill

We also decided to walk up a hill, which gave us pretty nice views of the city (though if you want the blue pictures they aren’t as good up here). It was really windy, but still a fun time. One of my friends took this neat picture while we were on the hill—we all joked later that it could be some kind of outdoor company advertisement 😂

Anyone want to sponsor us?

Camel meat

Not as much of a highlight, but interesting one. This was a camel meat burger, and if I remember correctly, it tasted like a cross between lamb and beef. In terms of taste, nothing spectacular, but it was a first for me nonetheless! We ate it at Cafe Clock (Google Maps link here.)

4 of us ordered the camel burger to try.	A blurry cross-section of the burger.

Casablanca (the movie)

We would be headed to Casablanca the next day, so in preparation for that we watched the movie (the first time for me.) Even though I typically say that most movies are “okay/good” movies, I did enjoy this one—it was somehow different than most of the movies we have today; slower-paced and not as much going on, but still captivating and engaging.

We’ll always have Paris!

The only downside to this day was the Airbnb we stayed at in Chefchaouen didn’t have heaters that worked (it would cut off our power), so it was a pretty chilly night. But otherwise, great!

Casablanca (the city)

Unfortunately, not a highlight of the trip, apart from the Hassan II Mosque (more on that below!)

In terms of things to do, there isn’t too much, and the city itself is quite large and not particularly interesting, at least for sites and as a tourist.

Initial view of the city.	Along the water.

The movie itself doesn’t really ever show the city, but because of its name people probably have high expectations or assume certain things about it. We did visit “Rick’s Cafe”, though if there is one thing (and perhaps one of the only things) that would be a must-do in Casablanca is the mosque!

King Hassan II Mosque

We were a bit disappointed on the first afternoon/evening we arrived, and so we had high expectations for visting the mosque the next day (the only mosque that non-Muslims can visit in Morocco.)

It was incredibly grand and ornate, and I couldn’t have imagined what the interior would be like before going in! We joined one of the guided tours that the mosque runs at certain times, and we got the privilege to see them close the roof, which only opens/closes around 40 times a year. It is hard to show in the pictures, but it is really big (Wikipedia says the seventh largest in the world, and the largest functioning one in Africa.)

Outside of the mosque.	Trying to capture the scale
Don’t know if you can see the detail on the roof!	one of the patterns on the doors facing the ocean

Many people seem to fly into Casablanca, so would definitely recommend visiting the mosque! But otherwise, I don’t think spending more than a day or two would be worthwile (at least with what else Morocco has to offer!)

Camel riding

We got to ride camels! If you have time, many people usually go to Merzouga, which is in the Sahara Desert (all the sand and stuff). We were running a pretty packed schedule, and so we decided to stay closer to Marrakech in the Agafay Desert, which is more rocky and hilly. It was still neat to be able to ride camels; from what I remember, it is bumpier than riding a horse.

The camels.

Sunrise in the desert

We also tried to catch the sunrise the next morning, which was a while (from before it rose to after it rose), but also a neat experience. Tried to take a lot of pictures at different stages, but I think this one (after it rose) was pretty cool, with the little waves of hills underneath it.

Sunrise in the Agafay Desert.

ni hao!

So among our group of five, three of us are Asian (though none of us are Korean or Japanese.) We did get quite a few “konnichiwa” and “ni hao” (among other words) while walking through the streets, particularly at Jemaa el-Fna (major square and market in Marrakech) with the fruit juice vendors (who are all quite friendly.) We don’t think it was done with malice or bad intent, but more so as a way to connect with the tourists and get their attention (which it does!) It was just a bit different coming from somewhere like Toronto, where that wouldn’t be very common 😆.

There were many fruit juice vendors in the market, all giving out free samples to get you to come to them.

There was more of this in Marrakech than Fes. However on the flip side, we did find that the stall owners were not as persistent in Marrakech compared to Fes, where they really tried to get us to buy stuff (which is normal and part of the bargaining in markets). Perhaps there were less tourists in Fes than Marrakech at that time?

Cool photo

I took this photo in Marrakech, I thought it was pretty neat.

National Geographic cover? Maybe not 😂

The food (in general)

This isn’t really specific to one city, but in general I very much enjoyed the Moroccan cuisine. They had various kinds of breads which were all tasty, and they use spices and herbs that seem closer to what I might expect in Asian cuisines compared to European cuisines (not the same I’d presume, but closer.) I think the food is also relatively balanced, tasty and cheap!

The inside of a pastilla, kind of like a round, flat pastry with meat and almonds inside. It was both sweet and savoury.	Briouat, savoury triangular pastry.	Fresh juice in the market at Marrakech. Was really good!
Couscous is traditionally only eaten on Fridays.	A sardine meatball tajine. Tajine is the name of the special earthenware pot in which it is cooked!	Grilled meats that we stumbled upon in some random town during our road trip.
Some kind of cornbread? It was really good, second to the M’semen. Could eat it as is.	Another tajine, oxtail and raisins.	They use lots of fresh mint leaves in the mint tea!

Wrapping up

There is a lot more that could be said, but you should go to see for yourself! Overall, it was a really enjoyable trip, getting to try new foods, see different places, and spend time with some friends. Would highly recommend visiting Morocco if you ever get the chance!