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| Rural taxi stand in Morocco |
Leaving Marrakesh, we headed toward the Atlantic Ocean and the coastal cities of Morocco, taking us firstly through several small towns and villages.
In one town we saw several horse and wagons lined
up along the roadside, just like a taxi stand.
In many of the villages it was market day, with
chickens, people, food, pots, and donkeys spread across the road. We had to
carefully weave our way through in our large motorhome, Vanni. It was an
interesting drive.
Then we arrived
in Essaouira, an attractive walled coastal city, giving us our first real look
at the Atlantic.
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| A street in the medina of Essaouira (UNESCO) |
The Essaouira medina is full of whitewashed buildings lining twisting, narrow alleyways, full of interesting sights and smells.
The city dates back to prehistoric times, and by
the 5th century, it had become an established trading post. It is
now a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its intact ancient architecture. We
loved it.
It is protected on the sea side, by the ramparts of
a fortress, which we visited. Old brass cannons line the walls, and
there are great ocean views.
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| Marg in the souk at Essaouira's medina (UNESCO) |
We could see many fishing boats outside the ancient fortress, so we visited the fishing port and wandered around a while admiring the coulourful scene.
Essaouira’s old souk, with its variety of goods and
fascinating sights, was an absolute treasure trove. We bought a small and beautifully hand-made bowl, which
we are looking forward to using, and a few bottles of argan oil to take
home.
We found this
souk to be much more laid back and not at all a pushy place, compared with
those in Fes and Marrakesh. We enjoyed wandering around before heading off on the next leg of our trip.
As we were leaving, we saw dozens of young men and boys along the roadside jiggling keys. We learned later, that they were selling rental accommodation.
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| Boats seem to outnumber the buildings in Morocco's fishing villages |
The road wound north,
alongside the Atlantic coast and through tiny fishing villages where the boats seemed to outnumber the buildings.
The beaches were
lovely, with golden sand, and although it was the peak of summer, they were
mostly deserted.
Eventually, we
reached a town called Safi, a large coastal city, and ended up free-camping for
the night in a car park overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. We felt safe and slept
easily, lulled by the waves and cooler seaside temperature.
Safi is one of the oldest towns in Morocco, but most of the town now, seems relatively modern. It is the centre of Morocco's sardine industry, and we liked its big and interesting port with its many colourful boats.
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| Leaning hay truck, Morocco |
Driving on the next day, we encountered lots of
trucks. Several were dangerously loaded with precariously leaning hay bales. In one
instance, the truck’s outside wheels were almost off the ground and we really
thought he would topple over with his heavy leaning load.
We finally found a place to overtake safely, but
the whole trip was quite slow as a result.
Several small villages later, we reached El Jadida, a pretty town, but flanked by lots of heavy industry which has badly polluted the beaches. We saw the 16th century Portuguese Citadel of Mazagan there, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, then moved on heading north along the coastal road.
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| The busy, modern city of Casablanca, Morocco |
About 90 minutes later we were in Casablanca, the
largest city in Morocco, and its most modern one. Unfortunately, any once-charming features seem to have disappeared during
its growth into what is now Morocco's economic and business centre.
However, we did enjoy its newish medina, the art-deco architecture, and the tall, stately Hassan II Mosque.
After visiting the first supermarket we had seen in Morocco, which was beside a huge pile of garbage, we drove on looking for a campsite for the night.
But then we couldn’t find a way out of town without going through a street market. Thankfully, a guy in a Mercedes guided us
through. He was very charming and we were very grateful.
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| The beach from our camp at Mohammédia, Morocco |
Soon after, we were
in Mohammédia another big, busy, grubby coastal city, still looking for a
campsite.
This time, we
were saved by a teenage boy who offered to travel in our van to guide us there.
Unfortunately, he took us to a hotel instead.
After prolonged
consultation with the teenager, his friend playing soccer across the road from
the hotel, and the hotel security guard, we eventually found the camp, about
2.5 km further north.
It was on the coast with lovely sea breezes - as long as you ignore the rubbish its ok. We stayed a couple of nights, enjoying a break to catch up with emails, clothes washing, and cleaning etc.
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| Bab Oudaïa Gate in Rabat (UNESCO) |
The next day we continued
driving along the Atlantic coast, to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. We loved some of the sights there including Bab Oudaïa Gate, supposedly one of the most beautiful gates in Moroccan architecture; the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, and the Hassan Tower.
Rabat is another
modern city although, it does have an old medina which is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. We spent some
time in Rabat wandering through the medina and souk, and admiring the ancient 12th century Almohad Walls which are also UNESCO.
Moving on, we wanted to get away from the increasing industrialisation and grubbiness of the big coastal cities, so managed to find an inland road.
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| Main street market day in rural Morocco |
The views became more attractive the
further from the coast we went. There were many more small towns, markets,
donkeys, people in ethnic dress and not quite as much rubbish (at times).
It was the same in many of the rural places that we drove through - the main street is the market place, and we were always carefully driving through crowds, crates, donkey, carts and potholes. We're not sure how we eventually got through these places without a chicken or two ending up on Vanni's front grill.
The roads were bendy and very bumpy, and the trip took longer than we thought, but it was worth it. Eventually we arrived in Meknès.
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| Bab Berdaine Gate (UNESCO), Meknès |
Meknès is another of the large, modern cities of
Morocco. It has a Moorish style centre, surrounded by 25 km of tall city walls with
several impressive gates. The Bab Berdaine and Bab Mansour gates in particular,
caught our eye.
Collectively, the walls, gates, historic centre and
over 80 monuments in Meknès form a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It was founded in the 11th century, and is
one of the Imperial cities of Morocco, so there are several grand buildings.
The medina has the usual narrow winding streets, and a typical souk, but thankfully the pressure to buy was not as bad as in Fes or Marrakesh.
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| Moulay Driss - the holiest place in Morocco |
Leaving
Meknès, we were delighted to come across a lovely hill-town called
Moulay Driss. This is considered one of the holiest
places in Morocco by Muslims, because Moulay Idris Al Akbar, a great-grandson
of the Prophet Mohammad, arrived here in 789 bringing the religion of Islam. He
is buried in the town.
Our next stop was Asilah, a beachside fortified town
dating back 3600 years. Its defensive walls and whitewashed medina reminded us
of Essaouira.
Later, looking for a campsite, we were directed to
a parking lot on the beach front. Once we paid the
parking ‘minder’ a small fee, we parked for the night with great views of the water.
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| Spanish architecture of the Cervantes Theatre in Tangier, Morocco |
The next morning, we drove north to Tangier, and were immediately taken by its architectural diversity, having a mix of Moorish, Spanish and other European styles (the Cervantes Theatre being a wonderful example of Spanish architecture).
Since the 5th century BC when it was a
Berber settlement, the various occupiers and colonisers of Tangier have all
left their stamp on this wonderfully eclectic city.
We walked around it for ages, thinking about it being a
favourite of Matisse, Cecil Beaton, and Tennessee Williams to name a few. But
we were now running out of time in Morocco, and had to get back to the ferry to
return to Spain.
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| Three times around this large roundabout before we could get out |
To get there, we navigated our large motorhome through
the whitewashed streets of Tangier, and its many roundabouts. The roundabouts seem to
operate in a totally random manner with cars, trucks and buses going chaotically
everywhere.
Marg drove skilfully through these, and managed to
avoid any major problems - although there were a few stressful moments where we
went around the same roundabout at least three times, before managing to get to
the outside of the traffic lanes to find a way out.
Part of the beauty of having such a big motorhome,
is that other drivers can see you and ‘usually’ give way.
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| View of Tangier, Morocco |
In the end, we badly miscalculated how long it
would take us to get to the ferry and through customs, so we missed the 5pm
ferry and had to wait for the 8pm sailing - that one was at least an hour late
leaving but eventually we were heading back to Spain.
Overall, we loved our time in Morocco, especially
while travelling through the rural areas.
But while we were sorry to be saying
farewell to Morocco and the wonderfully friendly people, we were not sorry to
be leaving the heat and dust behind.
Our next stop will be in Spain.
This blog describes part of our 6 month
motorhome trip around western Europe, which began in Prague.