Saturday 28th – Sunday 29th September

So remember how the night before Sean and I were dancing around the living room like crazy people and singing ABBA songs… yeah well when Kylie came into my room at 8.30am in a panic cos we had to leave for the airport in an hour, pretty sure my blood was still 90% gin. Made the packing and getting ready real fun. Quick shower, closed my bag on what I’d half packed the night before and was off. What a surprise packet my bag of clothes turned out to be!!

It would have been a saving grace had Kylie not had a massive night out also, but like me, she was also still half cut. How we made it to the airport I have no idea. Do recall the loud random conversations we were having on the train to Gatwick about saggy undies and our mums, surely the other passengers would have been entertained no??

Maybe we should be drunk for trips to the airport more often, the tube and train felt like only a 5 minute ride, we managed to checkin and pass through security in a nano second and Nando’s appeared out of thin air to feed our drunk bordering on hung over selves. So, people in London are obsessed with Nando’s, they have massive Nando’s restaurants and people rave about it like its heaven sent. For my first Nando’s experience which was served 15 minutes before boarding, it was kinda spesh, but in all honesty, all food tastes amaze balls when it’s 3am and you’ve drank too much… except it was 1pm… Anyhoo, a burger and fries with a hundred condiments and 5 glasses of Pepsi later, we legged it, and this time I really mean legged it as in running/hobbling, we managed to board our train in our inebriated state… except it was a plane, really had no idea at the time. All I know is that 2 hours into our flight to Morocco and our hangovers kicked in… not enough crap plane food and European doses of Ibuprofen in the world to help with that…

Lucky for us we had the gorgeous Moroccan landscape to distract us from our hangovers, so much more green than I ever could have imagined, had to blink a few times to make sure it wasn’t the gin messing with my eyes… Nope, Morocco from the sky really does look like this…

Landing in Morocco, we were super aware that we were two young (haha) blonde women landing in a Muslim country where we needed to respect their cultural beliefs. And thank F we did because had I walked through the 500 levels of security in a skirt I would have been a little worried. Pretty sure our passports were checked 10 times, bags scanned 20 times and looked up and down about 100… but all good, we were through and both on African soil for the first time ever. And wowsers, did not expect such a fancy pants airport, certainly made the RADelaide airport look like a tin shed!!

Remember how I mentioned we were being respectful of the culture?? What that meant was long sleeved tops and pants, so you can imagine the piles of sweat we turned into when we stepped out the airport into 39 degree heat… pretty sure I sweated out the gin and the Nando’s while we waited for our guide to collect the other travelers and deliver us to an air conditioned van. Feel overheated just thinking about it, defs no selfies from that part of the trip!! Once at the hotel, we found Adam Tancbesakoatovsov, our third musketeer and most importantly found a freezing cold thirst quenching beer, never has a beer tasted so good. It even stars in its own picture…

A few beers later, with some hotel checkin happening somewhere along the way, and we all gathered for our Travel Talk tour meeting. Here we met Abdul, our tour guide, who at this point was not yet at his soon to be legend status, and also met the rest of the tour group. Of the 26 people, there were 6 Americans and the rest were bloody aussies!!! Nothing wrong with aussies, just didn’t come to Africa to only meet Aussies, I swear there’s more of us overseas than what’s left in Australia! Abdul gave us a run down of each and every day’s activities, well at least I think he did, spent the whole session squinting at him like it’d help me try work out what the hell he was saying… what I did fathom was dinner, the Holster never misses a mention of food. Onto the bus, which would be our fourth musketeer for our adventure and off we were into the heart of Marrakech. When you’re hungover, sweaty and a wee bit jet lagged, food is life and I would have eaten a dirty street pie at that stage… lucky for me, I got a chicken pie instead, called a pastilla in Morocco, one of their traditional dishes of chicken, pistachio, cinnamon and other spices all wrapped in a light pastry, sounds weird, tastes weird but also so so good!!!! Looks a little something like this…

Unfortunately for us, there was no cold, delicious, mouth watering beer to enjoy with dinner, Muslim country remember!! Maybe this place would help me curb my gin addiction… may replace it with a pastilla addiction… With the tour crew all tangine and pastilla’d out, we headed back to our hotel and upon the suggestion of one of the group, possibly me, we gathered for a quick drink by the pool. One beer turned into three, maybe four and before long we were all besties and like we’d know each other longer than mere hours. It was on the walk back to my room I had the feeling that this was going to be one hell of a trip, a gorgeous country and one hell of an awesome group to tour it with!! Poor Aleesha, my new roomie, got a taste of the trip to come, trying to get an early night and having to put up with me coming in at 1am, lucky she’s an awesome gorgeous girl and had no complaints, I think… It was at this stage I got the first of many surprises from my packing, wet PJs, guess they weren’t dry when I grabbed them off the line while legging it out the house, oops.

Pretty much the only thing I don’t like about organised tours, besides hours on the bus, and being told what to do, and packing every day, like I said, pretty much the only thing, is the wake up calls. I’m not a morning person so every day having to be up at stupid o’clock and onto the bus for 8.30am is like having to be at work again… sorry, here I am whinging again when I literally am living the best life… anyhoo, the wake up call wasn’t my only problem on the first morning, the fact I’d only repacked the pretty dresses from my Florence trip meant I looked like I was going out for a night on the town every day… Luckily the strict dress code I’d been abiding so far wasn’t so strict, otherwise I had one pair of jeans and one top from our sweaty plane ride to last me 10 days, double oops.

Our bus into the Médina of Marrakech was my first glimpse of the real Morocco, was too sweaty and hung over to notice a single thing on the trip from the airport the previous day! What I saw, I didn’t expect, I saw green… green trees, green grass, so much green! Had it in my head Morocco was desert like, given one of the days we’d be heading to the Sahara. To my amazement, the city of Marrakech is anything but desert, grass along the roads, flower beds everywhere, palm trees and gorgeous mosques of white, blue, turquoise, orange and so many more colours, really should have got my google on before heading over.

For the tour of the Médina, guide duties were taken over by, um, uh, can’t remember his name, let’s just call him Abdul 2.0 cos as Abdul 1.0 told us, there’s 99 names in Morocco starting with Abdul, which means service of god so why wouldn’t ya want to be called that? So Abdul 2.0 was a small smiley man, in traditional white Moroccan robes, and an Adidas cap, quite the contrast!

The Médina of Marrkech is something else, spices of every colour, beautiful door arches, bright pink walls and cats, little kitty cats everywhere!! Not to mention a 20km gorgeous sand stone wall surrounding the city… we all know walls do more harm than good but I’ll give this one a pass since it’s now just a pretty object, with no intent of harm, possibly not when it was built though… might have to google that one!

Of course the BEST thing about tours is all the tidbits of information from the guides that not even google would care to share… Like the cities of Fes, Marrakech and Rabat have all had turns being the capital of Morocco, Rabat currently holds the title, and all the cities have a different colour, Marrakech is red, although I’d call it a dark pink. Since we’re going to the other two cities, guess I’ll find out what their colours are. And apparently if you choose to paint your house a different colour to that of the city, you have to pay a significant amount of cashola to the government. Not sure I’m on board with that, like freedom of speech surely there should be a freedom to paint your house whatever damn colour you want!! Wandering past the Mosque, Abdul 2.0 once again was on fire with all the info, so for the call to prayer, done from the top most pillar of the Mosque, back in the day the dudes that rang the bell were always blind so they couldn’t look into the open Riad’s and see women showering. Ok, so a few questions pop into mind, what the hell is a Riad? Do they shower just out in the open, no shower screens? If so, hope they’ve got strict rules about drones in Marrakech!

So after an insightful wander through the Médina, we headed for the Prime Ministers Palace, famous for all the pretty instagram shots! So this dude had one of the biggest palaces in Morocco so he could accommodate his 4 wives and 24 concubines, no you didn’t read that wrong. Dude must have been super fit, and patient, and possibly deaf… The reason he reckoned he needed all 28 women in his life was because there were just sooooo many things that needed to be done for him, like cooking, sewing, embroidering, cleaning etc that couldn’t possibly done by just one wife, and/or servants. Reason seems a bit sketchy to me. The palace was called Bahia after his favourite wife, way to create a war between your 28 lovers mate, wonder what age he was when he died??? So each wife had their own room, the concubines shares rooms but had an ornate and stunning lounge room, that looked a little something like this… BTW, google may disagree with this account but anyhoo…

Do you think maybe he favoured them a little?? Abdul 2.0 seems abhorrent at the Prime Ministers promiscuity and made a point of telling us that polygamy in Morocco was mainly for the rich as you’d need plenty of cashola to support all the wives and is not accepted in the cities anymore, but still kinda done in the traditional villages, although frowned upon. BUT, it was OK during the war because there were less men and women needed to procreate so it was ok for a dude to spread his seed amongst many women, he didn’t say it exactly like that but you get the drift!

From the outside, I definitely would not have called this place a Palace, just looked like a rather large, plain building but once inside, wowsers!! Absolutely gorgeous with mosaic tiling floor to ceiling, carved wood, lead light windows, fountains, a inside garden, stunning detailed ceilings, you just kinda walk around saying wow…

So Abdul 2.0 explained the reason for the plain Jane outside and the wowsers inside was that apparently the rich didn’t want people to know just how good they had it, so they’d keep their places boring on the outside then fancy up the inside, also done to keep away the evil eye which cursed people who showed off their wealth. And the Prime Minister being the stand up bloke he was insisted that the musicians that would entertain at his lavish banquets had to be blind so they wouldn’t tell others about his wealth and also so they wouldn’t perv on his wives and concubines. Sometimes you just get a feeling you really wouldn’t have liked someone… Dude has taste though, check out the stunning garden…

Once the palace tour was done and dusted, we wandered back through the Médina while Abdul 2.0 once again turned into Google. As he told us, there are 5 pillars (I think they are kinda rules??) of Islam. The first, that you believe in one god, Allah and Mohammed as his last prophet. The second you must pray five times a day, done facing Mecca. Must google Mecca. The third is about Ramadan, for one month a year, you fast from sunrise to sunset, with no food, no smoking, imagine the pig out once the sun goes down! The fourth is about charity, you must give to the poor, whether it’s money, food or otherwise, you must help those less fortunate than you. And the fifth, at least once in your life you must go to Mecca. Ok, Google tells me that Mecca is the holiest city in Islam, located in Saudi Arabia and is the birthplace of the prophet Mohammed and the site of his first revelation of the Quran. And apparently god says Mecca is best place in the world. So out of a population of 35 million, made up of 99% Muslim, only 35,000 Moroccans are allowed per year. With around 1.8 billion Muslims in the world all living by the 5 pillars of Islam you could imagine the place would get a bit crowded. To be one of the lucky ones from Morocco to visit Mecca, you put your name into a draw and wait for the lucky day your name is drawn. Can take years and years. Once you’re over 74 you get priority cos you know, time is running out. You then have to fork out around £5k for the trip. I guess it’s the trip of a lifetime so you spend your lifetime saving for it. This place called Mecca definitely has my attention. Wonder if you have to be Muslim to go there?? Google says yes. And for the last tidbit of info, the five stars on the Moroccan flag represent the five pillars. Nice. Listening to Abdul 2.0 I hardly noticed we’d wandered back into the Square to the sounds of a shrill pipes, which is kind of nice until you look down and realise it’s the sound to make Cobra’s dance… yep, snakes, just there, right there, no cages, just staring at you with their evil eyes. It was at this stage I sandwiched myself to Kylie’s back and prayed for dear life the snakes wouldn’t sense my fear and attack… they are evil bloody things!! Snakes in a Square, would beat Snakes on a Plane hands down, a whole square of Cobras going nuts on the tourists, payback for being made to dance when they just really don’t wanna… wait, is that sympathy for the Snakes?? Hell no, my sympathy was saved for the monkeys, poor little fellas had chains around their necks and were being pulled along by their captors. I know you’re supposed to respect a countries culture and customs but animal cruelty just doesn’t sit well with me no matter where I am in the world. It’s times like these you feel useless.

Once through the square with my life intact, possibly not my wits, we were back on the bus (BOTB for future reference) and headed for Essaouira, a beachside town. Say beach to me and I’m a happy camper. With Abdul 1.0 back in charge, he enthusiastically told us more about his home country. I find facts interesting so hang with me while I get my nerd on and share some more! Of the 35 million people in Morocco, 60% are less than 35 years old. Complete opposite of AUS, where there are more people aged over 45 than under 30. Wander what makes our countries population so different? Maybe aussies live longer? So the main forms of cashola generation in the country is from Tourism, understandable, the place is bloody beautiful, from agriculture like grains mainly grown in the mountainous regions and from taxes. And from painting your house a different colour, that’s my guess… So Berber is the main language of the country, with most people also speaking Arabic and French, cos the frogs had a massive influence on the development of Morocco. Enough nerd for now.

Before hitting up Essaouira, we stopped at a store which must be their equivalent of CostCo, without the pesky membership fees. Would you like to buy a washing machine with your carton of milk?? The stop was mainly for the tour crew to stock up on snacks, water etc but for Kyles and I it was a chance to buy clothing appropriate for Morocco, we were both suffering massively from hangover packing! A dress and Moroccan pants later, along with a life times supply of snacks, cos you know, what if food doesn’t exist in a few days?? We were BOTB and headed for our lunch stop because yep, on a tour time is precious so we’d squished in the Médina, palace tour and evil snakes before lunch. Having had food envy the night before from Adams meatball tagine, I finally got to indulge myself. Meatballs anywhere in the world are amazing, never met a meat ball I didn’t like. Although I am starting to look like a meat ball…

Meat balls were fab, being told I was beautiful over and over by the creepy waiter with a glass eye, not so much. Blonde and big boobs is apparently every Moroccan mans type. If only it was every aussie dudes type maybe I wouldn’t be so single!! Anyhoo, stuffed full of meatballs and possibly an ice cream and we were BOTB, finally beach bound. Music to my ears. But nope, should have listened to Abdul instead of writing down all the facts, there was still one more stop at a women’s Co-op for making Argan Oil. Women empowered to build their own business, I’m on board with that. Having heard of Argan Oil, was a fad for hair products for the dudes reading, I hadn’t really thought about the actual process of making it, like a lot of things I eat/consume I guess. Hmm, how do cocoa beans become chocolate?? Another day. So the ladies use a rock to crack the shell of the Argan seed/bean?? then grind it into a paste from which the oil is then sifted out… no that doesn’t sound right. Here’s a pic, you’ll figure it out…

Wanting to support local business, I bought the oil and by god to this day, best purchase ever. Makes your hair soft, takes away the frizz, can also be used as a face serum, apparently it’ll make me look 21 again?? Liquid gold if you ask me. After scooping up the purchase of a lifetime, Abdul decided it was the perfect time, in 40ish heat in the middle of nowhere to sit us down in a rickety room, stick a map on the wall and tell us all about the geography of Morocco. No idea what he said, was too busy sweating out my body weight in water. Question time and only one person put up their hand, I think everyone else was close to passing out just like myself. After what felt like an eternity we were back on the bus and finally beach bound. No more stops but a definite slow down for us to snap pics of the infamous goats in trees. For reals, goats climb up the trees to nibble on the leaves. Apparently this time of the year it’s not natural for them to do it so any goats in trees are staged, so no stopping to give money to the dudes that put them up there, I’m with you on this one Abdul. Did snap a pic from the bus window cos I’m a tourist and can’t help myself…

At the hotel in Essaouira and it HAD to be wine o’clock. Why had? Well it’s wasn’t no 5 star hotel so no bar fridge in the room meant cold wine needed drinking ASAP. Yes there’s a fridge on the bus and it could have been drunken at a later date but whatevs. And lucky for us, there was a gorgeous pool and outdoor area for us to all sit and chat. Would have loved a swim but this dork didn’t have bathes, remember the story of the hungover packing?? All good, more time to chat, and although most of us were aussies, the majority were living and working in London so awesome to hear about life in London, future planning!!

Abdul rounded us all up and it was off to the beach and main square in Essaouira. I know Australia has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world but Morocco is giving it a run for its money! Stunning and with old fort like buildings all along the esplanade, made for fun climbing but probs wasn’t the best idea in a dress when windy, may have given the locals a eye full, yikes, Muslim country Holster!! Anyhoo, check these pics out and tell me this beach would be home in AUS??

Remembering the evil awaiting in the square of Marrakech, I was braced for more evil Cobras but instead, got fire dancing! Hells yes!!!! After a wander with Abdul we were let loose for dinner. A largeish group of us took over the first floor of a local joint, rearranging the furniture to fit us all then settled in for a yummiest of yum dinners. Beef tagine, vegetable tagine and couscous. Yes I could eat all that myself but instead shared with a few others. We also ordered some Frying Old Soles cos when you see them on the menu you have to see what they are. Turns out they are fried fish, and not the good kind! The beef tagine was one of the yummiest things I’ve ever eaten so made up for it…

With about 15 of us squished into an itty bitty room, it was the perfect chance for us to get to know each other a wee bit better. Amongst us was an Aussie chef who worked at the Michelin Star restaurant The Fat Duck in London, there was a cute American newly wed couple who were travel bloggers, another awesome American couple, the dude looked like James Spader and the chick a Moroccan Princess then there were us aussies, mostly living in London. A fun as hell bunch who were a barrel of laughs. Mind you, when we explained what the famous AB takeaway in Adelaide is, they were mortified, yeah us Aussies are a weird bunch at times! With stomaches at breaking point we wandered along the esplanade back to the hotel and happened to stumble across a beachside bar with an acoustic guitar player, funny how we always happen to stumble upon a bar… It’s well known that there’s always space for wine, it fits in the gaps, but did not expect all the tapas the lovely waiter bought out as freebies. Just when you think you can’t fit any more… The guitar player dude was an absolute wonder, I’m not an Ed Sheeran fan but when sang with a Moroccan accent, hells yes!! His rendition of Shallow bought a tear to the eye and his close of a beautiful Arabic song was the icing on top of an epic epic day in Morocco. At 10.30pm we had to call it a night, with an 7.30am BOTB scheduled heading for Casablanca and the blue city we all needed our beauty sleep to make sure we were Insta ready!!!