Morocc’an around Marrakech!

Feb 10

Helloooooo!!!! Be warned, this is gonna be a long one- I have SO many things to share! This weekend I went with 8 friends to Marrakech, Morocco, allowing me not only to check off a new country but a whole new continent! I cannot say this trip went off without a hitch, but after our first crazy day of travel, we had an amazing time in the city exploring new gardens, new markets, and new foods.

Feb 7

Bright and early 7:40am flight out of Madrid airport to Marrakech! Ryanair has amazing leg room in the exit row, which I was very grateful for as we spent an extra two hours on the plane. There was some serious fog when we descended into Marrakech and after we had circled around and tried to land three times, the pilot made the call to land at the closest airport in Agadir. Sure, Agadir is a 30 min flight from Marrakech, but a 3 hour bus ride, as we soon discovered. Landing in Agadir, Ryanair arranged 3 coach buses to drive us through the Moroccan countryside to get into Marrakech a mere 7 hours after we were supposed to land. Definitely saw more of Morocco than we bargained for! We absolutely ransacked the gas station the buses stopped at halfway through for various snacks and multiple cans of Pringles.

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After a “Lord of the Rings”-length trip over the mountains and valleys of Northern Africa, we reached our riad, our home for the weekend. A riad is a traditional Moroccan style home built with a central courtyard designed to hold trees and a garden. This design insures all rooms have natural light, whether to the outside or to the courtyard.

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After our AMAZING host Ali gave us a quick tour of the neighborhood and the surrounding streets, and a restaurant recommendation, we were on our own. Using landmarks such as “belt stand street”, “crazy boys sign” and “left at parking lot red car”, we made it to dinner! Google maps does work in Morocco but some of the streets we used are not included on the maps as they are too small and twisty for cars to come down. Our first dinner place was a little too touristy for our liking, but nevertheless a safe call after such a long day.

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Feb 8- THE BIG DAY

Saturday was the pièce de résistance, and we all knew it. I have been waiting to do this excursion since I first found the company freshman year. A sunrise hot air balloon ride, traditional Moroccan breakfast, AND camel ride! In 5 hours! YES I KNOW RIGHT?!??! Marrakech by Air was an amazing company and got a gleaming Yelp review from yours truly after an absolutely perfect morning and checking “hot air balloon ride” off my bucket list. We were picked up in the parking lot down the street from our Riad at 6:30 am, and drove an hour outside the city to the desert. While drinking coffee and orange juice and eating croissants, we watch as the staff inflated the hot air balloon. 17 people hopped into a 20-person basket, held on to the takeoff ropes, and we were off! The hot air balloon was surprisingly stable with no swaying or jostling as we rose to 3000 feet. Almost as if this wasn’t their first rodeo, we floated into the perfect viewing position for a sunrise over the fog on the sands of Marrakech. We took in the breathtaking view as the pilot queued up “Circle of Life” from the Lion King on the speakers. Many pictures were taken in the air and on the ground, because does it mean anything if I don’t pictures to share on my blog?? Just kidding, of course it does. I will never forget how quiet we all were taking in this amazing experience that we are all so lucky to be having in our abroad.

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As if we hadn’t already gotten our moneys worth, after landing the hot air balloon we sat in a Berber tent for a traditional Moroccan breakfast with LOTS of refills on the mint tea. So many refills that we were practically shooting back mint tea so we could get as much as possible. Yaya, Boppa, I looked into buying mint tea for your house to add to your international collection, but the traditional way of making their national drink is by adding a fresh bunch of mint to a hot kettle of loose green tea, steeping them together. Then you add a TON of sugar, and voila!

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AND as if it couldn’t get any better, we then went on a camel ride! Honestly, we’re pretty sure the camels were just chilling in a parking lot, but there were palm trees so it was a picturesque parking lot. Lots of camel pictures here, mine was so photogenic!! I felt something akin to these weirdly proportioned ostrich horses, which is why me and Ralph (the name I gave my camel on our walk) got along so well.

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After getting back and resting from our exhilarating morning, a smaller group of us took to the streets! Anddddd quickly returned as a Saturday at 3pm is the BUSIEST time we could’ve walked into the big square. Jamaa el-Fnaa is the main square of Marrakech, full of men carrying around monkeys to try and place on your shoulder for money, vendors yelling from behind their street food stalls, others trying to sell “real Gucci here! Almost free! Good price!”. I’m sure with more investigating you could find some good things in the stalls, but for us, it was a tad bit too overwhelming for the afternoon after our crazy morning adventure. So, we ventured back down “parking lot street” (as we called it), and stumbled upon an AMAZING bakery. So amazing, we may or may not have gone 3 times in 2 days. Who am I kidding, we definitely did! Some of the pastries looked like traditional baklava I have had before, but some were completely new to me!

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Saturday night was when we asked for dinner at the riad, again organized by our amazing host Ali. He made us briouates (similar to an Indian samosa), chicken and preserved lemon tagine, tagine of lamb with prunes, apricots, and eggs, vegetable tagine, and a HUGE tagine of Berberé 7-vegetable style couscous. The 9 of us didn’t even make a dent in this couscous, the serving dish was as large as a pizza pan and as tall as a layer cake. Ali and his two staff really outdid our expectations, serving us on the roof of the riad with individual chocolate layer cakes for dessert.

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Feb 9

If you didn’t think Ali could be an any better host, he whipped up breakfast for the remaining members of the group on Sunday morning. Some people left early Sunday morning to study before classes on Monday. Monday class, what? Studying, what? What’s that? Anyways… full on our delicious breakfast we ventured to the neighboring Bahia Palace. Walking off the busy street of cars, motorbikes, bicycles, tourists, and locals, into a calm serene palace with gardens and exquisitely tiled courtyards was amazing.

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To continue our garden trend, we then ventured onto some new city streets in search of the Jardin Secret. To this point, Ali had walked us down or at least shown us the way to everything we had done so far. But to the Jardin Secret, we relied on my inherited sense of direction from my dad, the downloaded Google map on my phone, and my inflated sense of self-confidence of a weekend of everyone calling me “Cruise Director”. So off we went! And we made it! Anthropologie would KILL for this aesthetic.

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After shamelessly stopping for more pastries at our bakery, which we learned the name was Corne de Gazelle (after the most popular Moroccan pastry design – which we didn’t realize we hadn’t tried yet, so we just haddddd to go back), we had some time to rest before dinner. On Yelp, the photos showed the restaurant having an awesome rooftop terrace, so of course we asked to be seated there at 7:30pm. Being winter in Morocco, no one had been sitting on the rooftop terrace and none of the lamps worked. It was, hmm, romantic? Luckily we took a few pictures before the sun went down completely.

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Feb 10

As if this blog post couldn’t be longer, Abby, Kayla and I had the morning to spend in the city before heading to the airport. We went down the street to the Moroccan Culinary Arts Museum, and learned almost all there is to know about couscous. Each room was dedicated to a certain dish, whether it be tagines, salads, pastries, couscous, tea. This museum is also a riad that had been neglected but restored by someone interested in protecting traditional design and architecture. My favorite exhibit was the spice room, which my camera could not capture for the LIFE of me, but alas, it had a display of all of the most important spices in Moroccan cuisine.

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This is where our weekend ends, with a (luckily) uneventful flight home, a rush to make it home for dessert, and a quick unpacking of the backpack with all of my clothes and a repacking of my backpack with all of my school work tomorrow.

I learned a LOT on this trip, that Moroccan motorbikes are not afraid to cut around sharp street corners, that the strategy to try and intrigue a group of girls to come look at your street vendor goods is by yelling “spice girls!!!” as if they don’t know the most iconic girl group, TLC? I mean, come on, the Spice Girls are British!! Moroccan people are NEVER afraid to crack a joke, whether it was the hot air balloon pilot roaring the fuel while explaining the “very important rules of flying in the balloon” or our taxi driver asking us which terminal we were flying out of which threw us into a panic before he enlightened us with the information that there is only one terminal. As a group of young, American women (and Camron) venturing to this country for the first time not being able to speak either of the official languages and being constantly warned by family and friends about being safe and cautious, I cannot say I wasn’t apprehensive going into this trip. With the help of our amazing host Ali and our own drive and willingness to explore, we really made Marrakech our b**** this weekend, and I am very proud that we all came together to enjoy an amazing culture we have never experienced before. Thank you mom for trusting me that I would be responsible and safe and smart and, although I know you were nervous, look at these pics! And I have a present I got all the way back to Madrid in one piece for you!! (it’s a surprise!).

Love you all SO SO MUCH!!!!! – Grace

P.S. Yes, I know it may seem like I never actually go to school here, and while that is basically true, this coming weekend I will be spending in Madrid studying for my midterms. That is not to say we will probably be sick of studying an hour in and go do something fun instead, but, I do do homework every once and a while!!