HELLO CULTURE SHOCK!
After the longest journey; 19hrs via public transport we arrived to Tangier an hour later than expected as we had missed our ferry in Algeciras. We were dead tired but still with a hint of wonder about what Morocco could bring! Our taxi driver was still waiting for us, thank god and we got into what would soon become the Moroccan death cab in our eyes.. The 40 minute journey to Tangier definatly woke us up but it's not hard when most of the journey is spent sideways on 2 wheels with barely any brakes!!
Although the streets were dark and dirty, our riad was beautiful just like something out of an Arabian princesses dreams! If this was Morocco then bring it on. We had no sooner arrived in Tangier only to leave after a good nights sleep & onto the oldest imperial city in the world - Fez, some of it dating back to the 8th century! The 8 hour train ride bought us a friendly local tourist officer Abdul who was quick to organize the next two days for us as we had no plans and we're just going to wing it like we normally do but he insisted! He organised lunch on arrival to our riad and soon after we were met by our private guide for an afternoon of history and a visit to some of the sites in Fez. Not knowing what to really expect of Morocco, it was quite a shock to the system along with its many charms & I was glad we had our guide with us showing us around! On our second day together we went into the imperial city to walk around the markets and see some of the local handicrafts.. Fez is where all the goods are made and then sold to Marrakech or surrounding cities & even exported overseas. If you can imagine a whole city that is really, really, really old & basically streets upon streets of market stalls with everywhere selling everything & anything you can imagine then you will begin to understand my wonderment with this city & Kael's nervousness at every turn for what I might buy. With stars in my eyes I could just about buy everything in front of me but of course Kael comes to the rescue and brings me back to earth to our reality as backpackers & I don't particularly want to lug half of Fez around Europe.. Or be left broke and destitute in Africa. I did however buy a beautiful tea pot and some tea cups from a shop that made sterling silver items for the royal palace so we knew they were good quality and I can't wait to make my very first batch of Moroccan mint tea!! Which brings me to the subject of Moroccan mint tea...... I could go me some of that right about now btw. Everywhere you stop you are constantly offered this delicious concoction of tea, fresh mint with a hint of sugar, it's just delicious! How can you be sad if you have Moroccan mint tea!? You can't, it's impossible. It's like drinking warm, sweet toothpaste sounds gross but its not! They should call it happy tea I feel happy now just thinking about it :D .. The tea is an ice breaker I believe, hello come into my shop drink some tea & buy something..... We just like the tea thanks! Haha.
From Fez we moved onto Marrakech another 8hr train journey that often felt like it had no end in sight! Our riad was in the most unlikely of places, down a dirty little street that was very typically Moroccan and not at all touristic & behind a big wooden door was the little oasis of Du Peitit Prince, it was a slight relief after feeling like a zoo animal walking through the 'locals' market streets. The one thing that really gets under my skin is the way they look at you in Muslim countries, it's as if we're not even the same species & believe me sometimes I wonder!
We set out to tackle Marrakech on our own & as its a little more touristic than Fez so I was feeling ok about it. We took the half hour trek to 'the place' market square, a very popular area to visit for tourists.. So I felt a bit safer. We wandered through the markets, past the snake charmers, monkeys & mules where we found a rooftop restaurant to eat some lunch while admiring the view over the hustle and bustle of the square & after the longest day we were starving. We both ordered vegetable soup and Kael also ordered an omelette and for me I had a salad as we'd had just about all the tagine and cous cous we could handle...... Somewhere here I think we went wrong because nothing was quite the same from this day for the next 3 weeks! :/ Kael being lactose intolerant tends to have a more sensitive stomach than mine anyway but the following few days would for him be wasted on toilet. I tried to occupy my time sun baking on the rooftop & by having massages or reading a book as he wasn't comfortable with me going out into Marrakech alone.. But eventually even I found myself on the toilet too. Our hotel room was also one of those leave nothing to the imagination type rooms where there was no door on the bathroom so there was no shame & no mystery left in our relationship after those few days!
We had organized a hot air balloon ride over the atlas mountains and through the desert but it was cancelled due to bad weather :( but probably for the best since I'm sure there are no toilets on board!!
So aside from mint tea morocco did have things going for it and if we were ever to return it would definitely be to go our into the desert & through the mountains, I think that would be pretty special. But for now we are most certainly satisfied with our adventure and have no desires to return anytime soon, I think the wounds are still too fresh. My advice though for anyone daring to travel to Morocco would be to eat cooked vegetarian food only & only eat fruit that you can peel e.g bananas and oranges ect.. I can't pinpoint where we went wrong exactly but I did buy apples from the market and although I washed them you just never know. The salad I ate most likely was washed with local water, so that too could of been a problem but the soup.. Was it just old? I'm not too sure and who knows what was wrong with the omelette Kael had. The other thing to avoid is pinwheels of bread that every man and his dog has touched.. They seem harmless until you see the way locals throw them around and touch them all.. So I believe we went wrong in a few areas maybe on the same day! I think the biggest mistake is often thinking you won't get sick and not being stringent enough with what you do & don't put in your mouth! Being in such a foreign country your bound to end up with a bit of a funny tummy just from the change in diet but for it to last for 3 weeks!? That's not right! Although it got slightly better, 3 weeks of diarrhea is not fun for anyone, it even left us wondering if we had parasites! And who knows to be perfectly honest but google sure does a good job of scaring the 's***' out of you.. So don't google it.
I have never been more happy to leave a country than I was when we left Morocco, I think we just about kissed the dirt when we arrived in Algeciras. It was nice not to worry about what I was wearing, what to eat or is the water safe. We often take small things for granted and there's nothing like Morocco to remind you how lucky we are!