As I last wrote, we had just completed our cooking class in Fez and Randall then took a mid afternoon walk around the neighbourhood to complete our rest day. We dined within the medina at a local restaurant in the home, enjoying Moroccan salad (of course), chicken pie (pastilla) and home made sweets. Great cook and friendly family.
The next day was a very long 10 hour drive to Marrakech and almost another world. The country changed fairly quickly along the way and after some steady climbing we had a short stop in a European style town complete with royal grammar school, convention centre and french town setting. Ifrane is known as the Switzerland of Morocco and has plenty of snow in winter. Amazing oasis as not far beyond that the country flattened out completely and we then sped past many trucks carrying sugar beets to a sugar processing factory. And just about everything else in sight as our driver deviated just slightly from the legendary, take your time about everything, Moroccan living.
We enjoyed a long chat with our wandering Italian Clos des Arts riad hosts who had spent many years in Africa before getting into the riad business. In the late evening we made a short walk to the main square of Marrakech but did not linger long as we were buggered and suffering from enough of the pressures within medinas. For those not familiar with riads, they are well hidden behind street walls (most places have no windows to streets) with rooms located around an open garden or sitting area complete with central fountain and sitting and dining areas. Tranquil, with bedlam just outside the door. Heaven for some.
By the next morning we were slower still with both having a touch of food poisoning probably from the restaurant(!) in the town where we had lunch the day before but fortunately we were recovering by the end of the day. The day tour of the medina was one step after the other but we did take most of the history lesson in (we think). A light dinner then followed in the new town and then the day was over.
Next day we were heading for the finishing line at Casablanca. You must remember this; that Casablanca is over 4 million people with a very cosmopolitan feel about it. Women in modern dress and the beach area where we stayed was a mass of families enjoying their weekend outing. Western visitors tend to avoid Casablanca as it is just another city but for us it helped to get a feel for the balance of where Morocco is heading. Casablanca and Rabat are different from the older culturally conservative cities of Fez and Marrakech. Casablanca has the world's third biggest mosque and one of the few in Morocco that accepts western visitors. Our tour there was really interesting and the place has a very elegant and rich feel about it. Opening roof, in built audio systems, venetian chandeliers and a beautiful arabic creation of unknown cost and built in 6 years, often 24 hours a day!
On our drive into Casablanca we also briefly stopped in El Jadida which has an old Portuguese fort with an underground cistern to rival Justinian's in Istanbul. One would say a photographer's paradise
For out last Moroccan evening we dined
with locals, enjoying our fish with Yvonne anxiously awaiting a
promised belly dancer who turned out to be not that great or perhaps
still learning. Try as she might like to see it that way, Morocco is not as sexist as she thought it might be,
it seems.
All in all we thoroughly enjoyed
Morocco and we will now watch with greater interest developments in a
growing country, proud of its heritage.
We now head back to Spain for our next learning experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment