Category: Travel

  • Morocco Code : Ess, more please!

    Continued

    Day 7

    We woke up around 9 only because breakfast would be served only until 10. The riad had a lovely terrace, and we chose a table that gave us a view of the beach and beyond. Some bees apparently liked the table too. After attempts from both sides, the bees successfully shooed us away! The staff very kindly sent the breakfast to our room.

    Essaouira, formerly Mogador, (that sounds so GoT!) seemed to have a very active market, and Marrakech was the only stop left, so we planned to exert our shopping muscles a bit. The WIFi was working fine and we mapped our entire walk. It helped that the routes were pretty straight forward and the places weren’t far off. Our first stop was supposed to be the Bab Doukkala, but we managed to distract ourselves and wander into the side lanes. There were a couple of shops which made some very interesting figurines with vehicle spare parts, cutlery, cameras etc. We reached Bab Marrakech, another corner of the medina, before we realised we had forgotten our original destination.

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  • Morocco Code : The coast is clear!

    Continued

    Day 6

    Breakfast was standard fare, except for an omelette that arrived in a tajine, and some excellent vanilla yogurt! We checked out from Riad Maktoub, and happily got into the car, when Hisham told us that we’d be walking up. That took us about 20 minutes, and we were early enough to miss the crowds that would soon arrive from Marrakech. The site is a kasbah which apparently still has a few families staying inside. The rest of the population had shifted to the opposite side of  the river, (that looked more like a stream) because it had electricity, transportation etc.

    On the way up, we met “Picasso Abdullah”, who painted using indigo, saffron and tea+ sugar. The fantastic part of it was how the colours changed when he heated the paper. This was an old ‘encryption’ technique, he said. Ait Benhaddou has also appeared in Hollywood fare, (including Gladiator) and more recently as Yunkai in Game of Thrones. The view from the top was fantastic.

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  • Morocco Code : Ain’t Hollywood, but..

    Continued

    Day 5

    The sun apparently woke up early in this part of the world. So we did too, to watch it rise. 6’o clock, brutal! A little over an hour on camels took us back to Yasmina. Though we had to ask for some tech support in between, the bath felt really refreshing. The breakfast brought us back from our elated state – stale, and the worst mint tea we had on the trip. But, to be fair, they’re in the middle of nowhere, so things must be tough to maintain.

    We returned the way we came, and chose to skip an archaeology museum visit on the way. For the second day running, we had a long way to go – close to 400km.

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  • Morocco Code : Enter sand man!

    Continued

    Day 4

    We had a day long drive ahead, and had to make an early start. Breakfast done, we set out, towards the Sahara. We first passed a town called Ifrane. Set in the Middle Atlas, this town is locally called the Switzerland of Morocco and has snow during its winter months. Its “hill station” image meant that it had a huge number of villas which were apparently rented out for weeks. The town is also famous for the Al Akhawayn university.

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    Next up was Azrou, which means ‘great rock’, and is home to forests where the Barbary macaque is found. We stopped at what seemed a tourist spot. Our first attempt to shoot a family pic resulted in an NSFW image! We also caught an aspiring Formula 1 driver! (more…)

  • Morocco Code : Two Fez’d

    Continued

    Day 3

    We woke up reasonably late, at least by our usual itinerary standards. Our guide was scheduled to meet us at the hotel around 9.30, and that gave us time for a relatively simple breakfast (that’s a distant cousin of the Kerala porotta on the plate) and a mini tour around the riad. The view from the terrace, as had been indicated by our elderly host, was amazing, though I oscillated between freezing to death and being blown away by the wind in the five minutes I spent up there!

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    Abdul, our guide for half a day, promised to show us the ‘real’ Fez. Dressed in a djellaba, he was a middle aged man, with a son who was born the same year as the one in which the current king took over the rule. He was also quite talkative, as most guides are wont to be, and had a great many adjectives for himself – great, modest (in the same breath), honest, and lucky were a few. Hisham drove us to the (old) medina, and he described how it had many quarters, and each quarter had five essentials – a mosque, a hamam, a bakery, a school for the kids, and a fountain. These days, Batman as well. (check the image for the bat mobile) (more…)