In Morocco we slept in riads — simple ones, traditional ones, modern ones, and one that was simply beautiful; in rooms and suites and on rooftops under the stars; in hotels, pensiones, hostels, and in the homes of Moroccans who generously opened their doors to us; on bus seats, stiff and cramped through the night; in immaculate places, in apparently clean ones, in dirty ones, and in a few that came with plenty of cockroaches; on rock-hard mattresses, normal ones, soft ones, one stuffed with scraps of foam, on a rug, in an armchair, and on sofas; in the maze of the souk, in the heart of the medina, in the new part of the city, on the edge of the desert, and in the crumbling old quarter of a town that had seen better days.
Sleeping on a rooftop, under the stars
In Morocco we ate vegetarian tagines, lemon chicken tagines, and kefta tagines; various couscous dishes, brochettes, Moroccan salads and mixed salads; meats of uncertain origin; sweet and savoury crêpes; all kinds of omelettes; sausages; pastries and cakes; ice cream; dates; cactus fruit; Berber spaghetti; bread, bread, and more bread; and the occasional more European dish when the stomach demanded it.
Vegetable tagine
Moroccan sweets
In Morocco we drank huge amounts of freshly squeezed orange juice, peach juice, and mixed fruit juices; Berber whiskey (tea); weak coffees and slightly stronger ones; tap water and bottled water; Moroccan soda with passion fruit (called Hawaii); and we even tracked down a bottle of Moroccan wine.
Petit taxi in Tangier
Berber whiskey
In Morocco we travelled by petit taxi, by grand taxi crammed with six people (driver, two in the front passenger seat, four in the back), on city buses, on local buses that stop whenever someone waves from a hilltop, on coaches from the bigger companies, on short and long-distance trains.
Shared grand taxi
In Morocco we talked with friendly vendors who kept refilling our glasses with Berber whiskey; lived the daily reality of young Moroccans caught up in the hash trade, smoking and drinking coffee one after another to kill the appetite until late at night; said no to every interested approach — politely at first, then firmly, then with increasingly colourful language — and said thank you for every genuinely disinterested act of kindness; shared dreams and projects with wealthy Moroccans who owned several houses, shops and guesthouses; and shared the quiet resignation of commission-based sellers with no greater ambition than to drag themselves through another twelve or thirteen hour day.
Hours talking with this friendly vendor
In Morocco we walked through the alleys of the medina; went into the tanneries; haggled in the souks (and for taxis, and in the riads, and in the hotels, and buying a couple of pieces of fruit, and in restaurants…); explored a kasbah; walked alone into the desert and climbed the highest dune for miles to watch the sunset; wandered through no-man's-land between villages to avoid paying for a taxi; and stumbled across the odd oasis.
Ksar of Ait Ben Haddou
Erg Chebbi desert
In Morocco we experienced fifteen days in a Muslim country where law and religion go hand in hand; an Arab country that's significantly Europeanised, where the Western tourist's way of life is respected and minds are slowly opening, but where freedoms remain limited; a country where being an unmarried couple can get you thrown out of someone's house the moment the father finds out; a country with high unemployment where a person can wait patiently for years to find work while living with their family; a country where the life goals are to have a job and get married, where a relationship can become a source of shame, where one meal a day can be enough.
We lived it. That's how we've told it.