Stop 8: MOROCCO!!!!!!

I have now offically been to AFRICA!!! After Peru, Daniel and I met up in Morocco. All I

can say is WOW. It was a wonderful culture shock and our experiences

there are irreplaceable.

I met Daniel in Rabat where we stayed in a janky little hotel. We tried our first tagines (stewed meat & veggies cooked in ceramic bowls), and that night Daniel had what I think was snail kabab put in a sandwhich, haha. The next day we took the train to Meknes, one of the other five Imperial Cities. It was fairly small and we stayed in a nice little hotel in the Ville Nouvelle (new/modern part of the city). We experienced our first medina (old city composed of narrow pedestrian walkways jammed with little shops and street

vendors). We wandered through the craziness, sampling a plethora of treats and traditional Moroccan foods (a recurring theme in our travels). I gained a few pounds as we embarked on an incredible culinary adventure of Moroccan delicacies, not wanting to miss anything. We ate at little food stalls and street vendors and some nicer restaurants, trying everything from lamb tagines and cous cous to snail soup and fresh oysters. One highlight of our trip was wandering through the ruins of an ancient Roman city called Volubilis (above left).

From Meknes we continued on to Fez, the original religious capital of N. Africa, where we saw one of the oldest universities in the world! The medina in Fez is an incredible maze of shops and it's nearly impossible to not get lost. Several times we had to pay someone a dollar or so to lead us to a

sight or bring us back to our riad. We certainly got our shopping fix there, buying leather products, silver jewelry, some clothes, argon oil lotion and lots and lots of food and mint tea. My

favorite meal of the entire trip was there, on the rooftop patio of

this restaurant that only offered a few meal choices- a few choices that they did extremely well. We split one order of the set menu ($11) and just our first course was an entire table full of different Moroccan salads, like cumin-spiced beans, tomato & onion salad, eggplant caviar, several Moroccan-style ratatouilles and different varieties of olives (see left). Our main course was beef and vegetable tajine, and lastly sliced oranges spiced with cinnamon.

From Fez we decided to take an overnight bus to Marrakech to save the day. Moroccans must have super-bladders, since there are no bathrooms on any of the buses and we were on this one for almost 8 hours! The bus stopped only once after the first few hours, but not for people to go to the bathroom.. Daniel and I had to beg the bus driver to wait while we sprinted across the street to a cafe. No one else even got off the bus! We arrived to Marrakech at 6am and went to a cafe for a few hours to use the internet and find a hotel. We finally checked in and had a relaxing rest of the day laying by the rooftop pool and drinking one of the bottles of Wilson I gave to Daniel to bring with him. We wandered the Ville Nouvelle that evening- very hip and nice. The next day we went to the big square at the medina, where we sat and watched an entranced cobra and held snakes. It was so cool! And looking back on it, kinda freaky, but we were in Morocco action mode to see and experience it

all... in a sense we were like the cobra. We wandered through the medina there, going to Badi Place and Bahia Palace. The latter was stunning... intricately carved wooden inlays, mosiac designs and detailed paintings covered every wall of this hundred room palace filled with courtyards and fountains (see right). In the afternoon we went for another roof-top meal at Earth Soup, where we got fresh flavorful and earthy meals. Unfortunately, Daniel didn't get to enjoy his meal like he usually does, as something from a previous meal/snack attacked his stomach and we had to head back to our hotel. Lets just say its a good thing this place had its own bathroom... on the upside, it purged Daniel of the enormous amounts of food he had been consuming (nope, not all of it healthy) and I got to eat the rest of

his lunch for my dinner.

After Marrakech we headed coastal to get some beach time. Fortunately Daniel had a quick recovery and was back at it by the next day. We headed down to beachy/resorty Agadir which was a great change of pace from the medina madness we'd been experiencing. We stayed at a lovely hotel close to the beach. The first evening there we went for pizza, Daniels first real meal after defeating Montezuma's revenge, and after bought a bottle of French cote-de-rhone and walked along the beach, finally settling down to drink it and watch

the sunset. The next day we had some good ol poolside-beer drinking-laziness, and don't worry mum, Daniel's an avid sunscreener, and insisted on putting multiple layers over my whole body. We went to the beach as well and tried snail soup for the first time. It was...interesting, but definitely not bad! It had sort of cardamom-marjoram spice to the broth and went down pretty easily. We did some more shopping and ate more delicious meals of tajines and Moroccan salads.

After a great stay in Agadir, we headed north to another coastal city of Essaouria. It is a

gorgeous, white-washed city situated on an escarpment overlooking the sea. The first night we had fresh fish, Daniel picked the one he wanted cooked up, and watched an incredible sunset. We stayed at another great little hotel (we're quite the bargainers, and found if we got the cash out for what we wanted to pay, our success rate increased). The following day we went to the beach and took a camel ride! When we were beached-out we wandered the city some more, ending with yet another delicious meal.

We moved along to Oualidia, a little town of 4000 people situatuated above a beautiful crescent-shaped lagoon/harbor. We went out to Oyster Farm # 4 where we ate the freshest, juiciest, best oysters of our lives! The following day we bussed it up to Casablanca, where we spent our last few days of the trip. Casa had some great architecture and the most beautiful, intricate mosque I've ever seen. We wandered the city on foot and found the Museo de Bellas Artes, where they had a temporary exhibit showcasing Yves Saint Laurent's works that were inspired by Morocco. Some of the outfits were great!

It was an unforgettable trip. I would highly recommend visiting Morocco to anyone with a sense of adventure and love for food and culture. Next comes Spain with my best friend Hollie, yahoo!