Farewell Marrakech!
Three weeks flew by in Morocco. During this year away, we normally don’t eat out in restaurants much or do big tours. We are trying to live a more authentic lifestyle, not have a fancy 14-month-long vacation. Which, to be honest, would bankrupt us! We aim to experience living in other countries. We don’t just go to new places and hide out indoors the entire time! We do go to museums, explore our surroundings, indulge in plenty of cafes for coffee or tea, and things like that to become more acquainted with our new home for the month (or two or three!), learn some history, etc. And to be fair, café culture is truly a big part of local life in most places we have been so far. But, we also spend a lot of our time cooking, relaxing at home, reading, and trying to get the girls to keep up with doing some journalling (to help with their spelling, grammar, and writing abilities) and logic puzzles (to help with their math and critical thinking skills).
Morocco was very different for us. We definitely touristed it up! And we barely did any cooking. That was in part because our kitchen was so ill-equipped it was next to impossible to cook a meal or clean up after it. And also in part because the cost to eat out was so insanely cheap. We could go out for breakfast, lunch, an afternoon coffee, and dinner as a family of four and spend less than $75 (CAD) a day! We also wouldn’t have been able to immerse ourselves so fully into the culture of this country and learn so much about it if we hadn’t done the various tours and outings we did, including the hammam experience, cooking class, argan oil-making class, Agafay Desert and Atlas Mountains tours, camping in the Sahara Desert and the various sites we saw there and back.
Loving to see fascinating and different architectural buildings, we decided to also take a visit to the Bahia Palace. There are others, but some quick research told me that the Bahia would be most interesting for people visiting with children, as well. The palace was stunning. It had no furniture there, which is unfortunate. It would be amazing to see how they furnished the buildings. But the architecture and the craftsmanship were impressive. The mosaic and carvings throughout, the large courtyards and gardens, the hammam, and all the other various rooms were impressive to see. We saw a craftsman there doing some work and stopped to watch him. He was kind enough to take two of his small pieces of tile, carve them into heart shapes, and put the girls’ first initials on each of them. What a truly unique and amazing souvenir to go home to Canada with! We have seen a lot of castles and palaces this year, especially in the UK and Germany, but never a palace like this one.
We also really enjoyed the simple parts of our days. We explored the spice markets and bought some sandalwood, which we regularly burned on charcoal disks on our rooftop patio, along with the pieces of frankincense and myrrh that we bought in Germany. We bought Berber tea and would make our Moroccan mint tea to sip in the evenings before bed. We loved eating our Msemmen breakfasts, drinking tons of fresh squeezed orange juices, enjoying a small number of rooftop patios throughout Morocco (there are seriously so many!), and so much more.
We decided that since we were in a Muslim country, we would forgo alcohol during our time in Morocco. Neither of us really missed it all that much, unlike the pork that we did desperately missed! While you won’t find alcohol in most restaurants, there are still plenty of places (wine bars, nightclubs, lounges, touristy/high-end restaurants, etc) around that sell alcohol, mainly for tourism purposes. We did make one exception, as our Sahara guide, Hamid, told us that Morocco made some amazing wines in their region. We learned all about the French occupation of Morocco. The French loved making wine here and exporting it to France. Honestly, early on in our time here, we had even remarked that they ironically have an amazing wine-growing climate for an alcohol-free country! On our last full day here, we decided to try one of the Moroccan red wines, since I’m not sure if we would otherwise ever get this opportunity again. And it truly was a phenomenal red wine!
This was our first experience staying in a riad building, which basically has the entire centre open above. Most buildings have a glass or similar roof structure to keep rain out but allow light in, and allow windows to open to allow for tons of natural light. The rooftop patios are a key feature, as are the large sitting rooms. Our couch could probably have fit about 20 people on it! We really love this style and how open and communal everything is. It’s the ultimate in open concept! Unfortunately, I don’t like flat roofs in Canada, as they always end up leaking, otherwise I’d be tempted to build a house like this for our family in the future!
The Moroccan way of life was very different from anything we have experienced in the past. And we loved every second of it. Well, except maybe for the hour after my purse was stolen! There was so much chaos in the streets of the very busy city, yet so much peace and relaxation to be found on the rooftops of the buildings, the peaceful park, and in the hammams. This is definitely an area we would love to visit and explore more of!
