Porto-Morocco-Barcelona

At the end of February I went on a little trip to Morocco. Stopping in Porto, Portugal and Barcelona, Spain in the process.

February 23-25: 

Morocco was great. I was traveling with two American girls (Kate and Claire) that are on exchange with me in Bordeaux. We took the plane from Bordeaux to Porto and stayed at a very nice hostel called "The yellow house hostel". The owner of the hostel was a friendly and witty British man who was very entertaining as well as kind. As it later turned out he was the guitarist from the well known British music group "James". I was not aware of this at the time and perhaps for the best as I might have embarrassed myself seeing as I am a fan of "James". We took an unofficial tour with a young woman called Anna, who is from Porto and a qualified teacher, but does these tours as she loves Porto and there are no available teaching positions in Portugal at the moment. She was amazing and it was obvious that she did it out of the love for the city. There was no fixed payment, but we could give a donation if we enjoyed the tour. Everyone contributed. We met two Americans during the tour and spent the rest of the day with them visiting the city and getting free samples of port wine from multiple distilleries in Porto. It was clear after a few hours that these two Americans (one male and one female) had, had enough of travelling with one another. This became obvious after a number of tense moments that were followed by awkward silence. They were both very nice, just not to each other. After two days in Porto we took a morning plane to Marrkech.

Claire and Kate with a view of Porto

View of Porto

 

Feb 26-29

We started our trip in Morocco with Marrakech, which was very beautiful in terms of small streets and architecture, but equally overwhelming. The small streets were very maze like and it was easy to get lost for hours in these massive bazaars/streets. The locals, especially children, found it amusing to misguide tourists and send them off their course. It becomes more confusing when streets have no names, streets have more than one name or have street names changed since your map was printed. In Morocco they are switching all the street names given by the French colonizers and replacing them with more Moroccan ones. In every city the main road will always be named after the current king and changed when the king does. In the main old square of Marrkech there is something happening all day including: Snake charmers, musicians, Orange juice salesmen (very popular in Morocco) during the day. At night the Square turns into a giant restaurant with tens of sections where you can eat. The strange part is that the restaurant/stalls are not competitive price wise with one another, but rather all have the same prices. The competition is rather amongst the waiters who try to lure tourists into their specific restaurant. Some of these waiters are very convincing and speak multiple languages others can get aggressive when their offer gets rejected. 

Kate and I in Marrakech

Street view of Marrakech

We spent a a night in the desert with the berbers. This of course was something we could not do on our own and required us to arrange it with an organisation through our hostel. As the desert is more than 400km away we were driven in a van holding 8 or 9 people. The driver was excellent, but the route was nerve racking as it went through the mountains with very narrow roads and at high speeds. If the went off the road there would be absolutely no chance of survival. After a few hours I learned to accept this and the drive became more pleasant with an amazing view. The desert itself was a very tourist oriented experience. As soon as we arrived to the drop off point there was complete chaos. There were the drivers, the tourists, the Berber guides, disgruntled camels and a pack of Moroccan kids waiting for hand outs. Soon enough twenty tourists were on camels and heading into the desert. The timing of this was picked so that we would be riding into the sunset. The camel ride was symbolic and could not have lasted more than 45 min. We realized the next day that the guides had been walking us in a large zig zag  and that the camp was in fact very close to the drop off point, this was not evident in the darkness and excitement. The camp itself was very nicely laid out with large tents and beds already set up. There was a fire burning and dinner was already cooking. The dinner was served in a large tent with tables, dishes and candles. This was followed by singing berber songs by the fire. In my opinion it seemed as though the Berbers singing were having too much fun singing a song that they must sing every single night for different tourists. It is, therefore, my suspicion that they were mocking us in these songs. Too much laughing and smiling going on,not to mention that I would  have done the same thing if I were them. Overall the experience was fun and interesting, but completely artificial. I do realized, however, that you cannot go into the desert alone as it can be dangerous due to the people and nature of the desert. It was also extremely cold at night! 

 Ait Benhaddou (Kasbah Ellouse)

Desert with camels

Desert near Zagora, Morocco

Mountainous view on the way to the desert

Feb 29 - March 2

We returned to Marrakech the next day and soon after left for Meknes by train. Meknes was a medium size city that did not have much to offer tourism wise and one of my fellow travelers became sick. It was however a change from Marrakech, which was large with many tourists and constant harassment from street vendors. 

March 2-4

Chefchaouen seen from the above

We arrived in Chefchaouen by bus. Actually we arrived on a highway 5 km away from the town. The bus did not only have a bus driver, but also a ticket collector and a luggage guy that all rode with us all the way. You would think this would make things more efficient, but I feel like having so many people operate the bus made things more complicated. After five hours the bus suddenly stopped and the guy in charge of the luggage told us to get out as we were here. We were on a road, no city in sight. A taxi pulled up and took us to the downtown. Chefchaouen is a beautiful city known for being painted blue (once a holy colour), but now has the reputation as being a large producer of Kif (a type of Cannabis), which is exported throughout Morocco and Europe. This Northern part of Morocco was also invaded by the Spanish at one point and therefore Spanish is more prevalent than French, which is used more in the South. Meaning we now had a language barrier with most locals. We stayed at a pleasant hostel and spent two days visiting the mountainous country side and the small alleyways of blue. 

Chefchaouen, Street view

March 4-5

We arrived in Tangier by bus and immediately disliked it. It was loud and very busy. As it is close to Spain it has a lot of international traffic. Luckily we arrived in the late afternoon and left the next morning. We met a young German medical student named Max who was just starting his trip in Morocco. At dinner we told him stories and tips from our trip that he seemed to appreciate. In return he told stories of his recent trip to India. 

March 5-7:

Basilica Sagrada Família

Barcelona was totally different from what we had been used two the last 10 days. I was relieved as could have more food choices, as I was mostly living off couscous and some seafood in Morocco. We were also no longer in a Muslim country, which made it easier to order alcohol. Though we saw some of Gaudi's work and walked around downtown Barcelona we were pretty tired from our travels and quickly tired and would often find somewhere to sit or get something to eat. Returning to Bordeaux felt very strange at first, but after a day or so it was as if we had never.