One week in Morocco has passed already! I have learned so
much about Moroccan history and culture, but I still have a lot more to go. I’ve been in three different places since arriving- Casablanca,
Essaouira, and Taghazout. Each place has been drastically different from the
other despite all of them being on the coast. Across these 3 places and 7 days,
I’ve seen a lot of beautiful sights, eaten a lot of delicious food, and met a
lot of cool people.
In Casablanca, I wandered around the big city with my
couchsurfing host. The city was a bit (actually A LOT) overwhelming and
intimidating for me, but my host, Khadija, helped me out a lot. Not only did
she insist on cooking almost every meal for me, but she took me to a museum
(where she translated EVERYTHING into English for me because they only had
descriptions in French and Arabic), to historical souks and monuments, and to
the major streets in the city to view architecture and other random things. 
The major takeaways for me were that all the buildings look very different from each other because when Morocco was a French Protectorate, the French basically had a “competition” amongst architects to see who could design the best buildings. This means that each block of downtown Casablanca was designed by different people, making the city like a hodge-podge of styles. However, 95% of them are white since Casablanca is the “White City” or “White House” in Spanish. ;)
When I left Casablanca to take a 7-hour bus down the coast to Essaouira, I felt a wave of relief as soon as we exited the congested city and entered the peaceful, vast countryside. Randomly spaced, geometric homes with farms built around them stretched out across the landscape interspersed with tall, thin minarets dotting the horizon. It was a calming drive for my culture-shocked system (I know it sounds crazy to say that I had culture shock when arriving in Morocco, but not being able to communicate with people, read menus or signs, or have an inkling about navigation, prices, or culture kind of caught me more off guard than I’d anticipated).
When I arrived in Essaouira, I went to my next couchsurfing host’s home—located in a maze of apartment buildings that all look the same and that are dissected by streets with no apparent design purpose (going every which way). Essaouira is recenty famous for being the set for Game of Thrones (it’s Astapor!), but also has a very rich history as a pretty major port for Morocco.
The medina, like a
shopping area, has been preserved very well and serves as a confusing maze for
tourists who wander the alleys that are full of tourist souvenirs and restaurants. The
city walls are still standing (not sure if they’ve been restored or not) which
is pretty cool looking because it gives the medina the feeling of being in a
castle or something. The fishing port is full of activity with flocks of
seagulls constantly flying around in search of fish scraps, dozens of little
blue boats tied together and bobbing in the water, large fishing boats being
built and repaired in any empty space along the harbor, fishermen selling their
mornings’ catch along the road, and, of course, tourists snapping photo after
photo of the chaos. Add in the stench of the fish corpses, and it’s just enough
to deter you from spending too much time there.
On my first day, I saw the beach, the harbor, a fort, and
then met a fellow solo traveler with whom I spent the next day and a half
wandering through alleys, testing dishes at local restaurants, trying to avoid
rain showers, finding popular monuments, trying to translate French text at
museums and on menus, walking along the beach, and having wonderful
conversations. The next day, I wandered for a bit by myself, taking photos and
snacking on spicy green olives, before ending up at a hostel I’d been to the
night before that had a great rooftop terrace. While on the roof watching the
sunset over the medina, I met a bunch of travelers including two guys from
Belgium who were driving to another beach the next day who offered me a ride to
come along if I wanted.
That night, my couchsurfing host, Najat, and I went to a
nearby fancy hotel’s lounge/club. At 1 AM, it was pretty empty but popping with
a DJ as well as crazy strobe lights. However, by 4 AM the place was packed. It
was an experience that I had definitely not expected but which was fun! The
next morning, I was a bit tired but decided to take the Belgian guys up on
their offer to give me a ride to the next beach.
So now I’m in Taghazout, a tiny little town (about 300
meters across) on the coast that is a major surf spot. I decided to stay at a
hostel with my friends, Lou and Dries, as opposed to attempting to couchsurf
this time around. It’s a nice little break to have some down time when I need
it as well as a space that’s mine.
Last night when we got here, we caught a sick sunset on the
rooftop terrace with bright pink highlights contrasting the blue of the sky and
ocean. Today, we went to another nearby beach so the guys could go surfing
while I explored along the coast, climbing around and on the massive, beautiful
boulders on the shore. I even found a cool cave carved into a huge rock
wall. The water was a bit rough for me to swim, but after lunch, we drove in
the other direction toward a place called Paradise Valley where we jumped into
some cooooold streams. The drive was amazing- through rolling mountains covered in green desert shrubs giving them a speckled look. The hike
down to the river and the actual rivers were a bit disappointing as there’s so
much trash and graffiti all along the way. But, we found an empty,
clean-looking pool to swim in.
So there’s an overview of the places/sights I’ve been
seeing. My other favorite part of the experience thus far has been learning more about the food culture in Morocco.
I’ve been eating a lot of tagine which is a typical Moroccan
dish cooked in a specific ceramic, conical-shaped dish and made with pretty much
anything and everything you want to put in it. Most of them have chicken, fish,
or beef on the bottom, are topped with sliced up things like onions, tomatoes,
potatoes, olives, preserved lemons, nuts, etc, and are spiced with cumin,
paprika, turmeric, salt, and pepper at the least. You put the dish ON the fire and let it cook slowly for about 30 minutes, then take the top off and enjoy the steaming hot mix of spices and flavours.
Another major Moroccan tradition is mint tea. They call it
Moroccan whiskey because, as a Muslim country, Moroccans are not allowed to buy
alcohol. So, they drink a lot of tea. This tea is a combination of green tea leaves
and a whole bunch of mint. When you pour it, you have to hold the teapot as
high above the cup as possible without spilling it so it will give the tea some “foam.” This is served, literally, with hunky sugar
cubes so you can sweeten it as you want.
Couscous is another major dish here in Morocco. I’ve only
had it twice so far, but what I know about it as of yet is that it’s served in
GIGANTIC, unfinishable proportions and can be made with practically anything as
well, like tagine. Some things I’ve seen or tried on couscous: spiced
vegetables, dates, prunes, and chicken.
Last but not least, Moroccans love bread and olives. A
typical breakfast consists of the round, flat breads made here dipped in olive
oil and eaten with olives. Or with cheese spread on it. A basket of bread comes
with almost every meal as does a small dish of olives. What I’ve learned about
olives is that the plain ones are for cooking and the spiced ones (chili,
rosemary, mixed with vegetables) are for snacking. Bread is super cheap…a small
baguette or flatbread is only $0.10, so you can imagine that people eat a lot
of it.
Okay, that’s all for me for now. I get bored of writing
after too long. Time to go interact with the world again…or, in my case now, to
go to sleep. I’ll share more/better photos soon, but here’s at least an update
in case anyone has been wondering what I’ve been up to over in this corner of
the world.