The Marrakesh Express - Casablanca to Marrakesh. 

Monday 18/2/13

First up this morning we took a stroll over to Rick's Cafe (Think the movie Casablanca) for a late breakfast or early lunch. It was closed. Oh well.

"Play it Sam."
Yes, that is right. It's not play it again Sam.

Then we went looking for the Medina. We thought we had found it, but had wandered into the middle of the local's market. This was sooooo much better. We could wander around with out being hassled to buy anything, and really see how the locals shop. I also took this opportunity to sneak a few photos as well.

 Dirt path entrance to the market...

...which is being paved at a rapid rate by this team.

Six guys, and not one of them leaning on a shovel.

Local grocery shopping.

Suzanne bought more oranges. This lot were
one seventh of the price we paid in Fes.

Another local breezes past.

Once again, we needed to eat. We found a great little stall that was selling potatoes and eggs. We wolfed down a fried egg and a couple of deep fried mashed potato balls. They were so good we went back for seconds, then got some more on the way out. Yummo.

Lunch time.

Suzanne spotted a stall selling henna goodies.

Nice rack. Spice rack that is.
I'd like this in our kitchen.

After the market we didn't bother with the Medina. Just walking past we were being hassled. They are very good though. "Hello, welcome to my shop." "Please come in." "Where are you from? Ah, Australia, I have a friend in Sydney / Melbourne / insert name here. Welcome to my shop." I know they are just trying to make a quid, but it gets rather tiresome.

It was time to navigate our way toward Marrakesh. We're getting better and it only took us about half an hour to find our way out of town and onto the road that would take us there.

What a boring ride. Two hours of flat, straight roads with a very strong cross wind. Throw in some more coppers with hand held radar and it was like being at home, but this time I didn't feel homesick at all.

Are you sure this is the way out of town?

Um, I don't know.

Strawberries by the truck load.

We passed this cool little village.

We made it. Marrakesh.
Nearly all the buildings are this colour.

Finding Marrakesh wasn't that difficult. Finding our hotel however was another thing altogether. We stopped at a cafe, logged on to the web, checked out Google maps, and had another try. Ten minutes later we were no closer to our hotel when a moped riding fixer pulled us over and asked us if we were looking for a hotel. I'm sure his uncle / nephew / cousin would own a hotel nearby. When he found we already had booking, he said "Follow me" and rode off. A few minutes later we were at our hotel and it only cost us a few coins. He saved us so much aggravation it was well worth it.

Our first impression of Marrakesh? Traffic bedlam, dirty, with monotone brown buildings. Pretty ordinary really.

Our hotel however was a total surprise. The porters met us at the curb and carried our tank bag and pannier bag to reception area, and what a reception area. It was huge. The Mansour Eddahbi is a five star hotel, and is enormous. It consists of several small, four story buildings that are the guest rooms, and a large central building that houses the bars, restaurants, nightclubs (yes, there are two), and much more. As it's off season we were two of very few guests.

This was our building at the hotel.

The cost? Forty nine Aussie dollars. Oh, and that included breakfast as well. There was no free WiFi in the room, but there was in the bar. Cunning, and it works.

We lashed out and dined in one of the restaurants (The only one that was open). I tried the Moroccan soup. When it arrived at the table it came with a plate of dates. Dates? What? I was eating my soup, and enjoying it, when a waiter came to our table, topped up our glasses, then politely explained that I should take a bite of a date, then a sip of the soup. Are you kidding? I tried it and it works. It tasted great.
We finished off dinner and called it a night.

It's a nice hotel and we're enjoying it, so we might stay here for another night, or maybe even longer.

Fez to Casablanca. Will we find Rick's Place when we get there?

Sunday 17/2/13

We loaded up the bike early today and left for Casablanca. The guy in the car park wanted one dirham for looking after our bike for two nights. That's about ten cents. We're generous so we gave him two, and he gave us a big smile.

As we climbed aboard the the small barge called our bike the Muslim women across the road were calling out to us. Suzanne said they were begging, but I don't think so. They all looked very well dressed and presented to be beggars. As we rode off they all waved to us and yelled goodbye.

Our first stop was to get fuel for the bike. We pulled up at the pump and the attendant came over. Yes, attendant. They actually fill your tank for you here. As he was filling the tank he asked where we were from and we got the usual reaction when we said Australia. "Oh, long way!" Welcome to Morocco" and a big smile. They must have run a TV tourism campaign here or something.

Star Wars Sand Person working on his car.

This was the taxi drivers service station.

Then the mission of finding our way out of Fez, and the road to Casablanca began. We rode around heading in the general direction of Casablanca (West), rode past the Medina, and around in a big circle to nowhere. We did see a few sights though...

A little palace.

A Fez back street.

More road side stalls.

The old wall.

Then a guy on a moped stopped and asked where we were going. He was a fixer, and when we said Casablanca he asked why we didn't want to go to the Medina. We explained that we had been the day before. Instead of riding off he pointed us in the right direction, with a few simple instructions to find our way to the road to Casablanca. Thanks mate. We were on our way.

The road to Casablanca.

As we left Fes we were amazed at the large number of satellite dishes that were on roofs. There were thousands of them.

Pretty soon we were on the motor way, covering some serious miles. Then we caught up with a yellow van with the back door open. Hanging out of the back door were five or six guys, with a yellow flag, yelling and cheering. Then they broke into a song. We guessed they were football supporters or something like that. We passed them, then let them pass us and passed them again so we could take some photos. We stopped a bit further up the road to take photos of some cars, so we had to pass them a third time. Each time they were more vocal.

Passionate supporters, but of what?

It was here that I started to feel right at home. We were on a motor way with a 120 kph speed limit, and there were speed cameras in boxes on the side of the road. There were also Highway Patrol type coppers who had hand held radar. I reckon we saw about ten today. The cancer spreads.

Then we saw a lot of old Renaults going the other way. First a couple, then five in a group, then a few more, and it went on for ages. Suzanne and I estimated that there may have been two or three hundred of them. It must have been some sort of rally.

Old Renault Rally?

We pulled into a roadhouse for lunch, and as we rolled to a stop a bunch of guys were piling into a car, and they were wearing yellow scarves. I asked if they could speak English and got the usual "a little" reply. After a bit of back on forth we worked out that they were going to a football game. It was Fes versus Casablanca. They were Fes Tigers supporters, and now, so were we. I wonder if we could get to the game tonight? As they left one of the guys shook our hands and said "Welcome to Fez."  Thank you, and we're very happy to be here.

Our fellow supporters.

Carn the Tigers.

We had a burger and chips for lunch, then I ran across the motor way to go and have a look at a couple of the Renaults I saw parked in the service station. I couldn't believe my eyes, there were about fifty of them parked there. Add that to the hundreds we saw on the road and you have a serious car group.

A small (very small) sample of the cars involved.

Cars this old need constant maintenance.

A lot of effort goes into preparation.

I spoke to a group of participants and luckily the could speak English, so I asked them what was going on. My understanding is that a group of people drive from France down to Marrakesh every year and donate much needed items to the schools there. Along the way they drive for four days through the Sahara covering about four or five hundred kilometres. Then they drive back to France. Oh yes, they have to drive a Renault 4L that stopped being produced in the early nineties. 

The crunch came when I asked how many cars there were on the rally. Fourteen hundred! Yes, one thousand four hundred Renault 4Ls all going to the same place at the same time. That makes most of the cars older than the drivers. Oh boy!

Meet , Titouan Seguine, Lucile and her brother 

Maxme Pilot, and Vincent Coez.

Lucile and brother Maxme Pilot's blog can be found here:

http://www.lespilotesdudesert.com/ 

And more on the Renault 4L trophy here:

http://edition2013.4ltrophy.com/#/

I reckon this would be a bit of fun. 2015 anyone?

After our interesting and informative lunch break we were back on the road to Casablanca. We rode through Rabat and two things struck us as odd. Firstly there were hundreds of families either camping, or picnicking among the trees on the side of the road. Why? Secondly, there were small stacks of things for sale on the side of the road. They were earth coloured, and looked a little like small upturned pots. What were they?

Can someone help us out and tell us what these are?

A few hours later we entered Casablanca. First impressions? It's much more western than Fez, a bit more touristy, and just another big city. It was a bit of a let down. Maybe I was expecting Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman to be waiting for us. "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into  mine." 

It does have a bloody huge Mosque though, and it's very impressive.

We stopped at a set of lights while we were riding around looking for our hotel and a young guy pulled up next to us on a scooter, smiled, and asked us where we were from. After we replied, can you guess what he said? Yes, "Welcome to Casablanca." Then he rode off. What the hell is going on?

We found the Ibis but it was the wrong one. It was the expensive one, not the cheap one. It had been a long day and we were tired, so we checked in anyway. We both wanted a hot shower after two days of just warm water. It was luxurious.

Then it was time to find out where tonight's football game was being held, if we could get tickets, and how to get there. It must have been an early start because when I turned on the TV it was half time. Oh well. Maybe next time. We sat downstairs in the bar and watched the game which ended in a nil all draw.

We'll have a poke around here tomorrow morning, then it's off to Marrakesh. I wonder if we'll see Crosby, Stills, and Nash at the railway station?

Fes. Welcome to the real Morocco.

Saturday 16/2/13

This  morning we were fogged in and it hung around until well after ten. We didn't see much last night so we decided to stay another day in Fez.

I spent a bit of time taking sniper photos of the locals from my hotel room window. Does that make me bad?

Yup, that's fog alright.

These girls are in their dressing gowns I'm sure.

Suzanne has decided she wants one, and I should
have the man's version.

A little more formal.

Then we went for a walk around to see what was happening in Fez on a Saturday morning. Lots. There were people everywhere. There were stalls selling fruit, locals walking around selling dates, or cigarettes, or crafty stuff, and even jewellery. Every single person we spoke to was very friendly and helpful, not at all like what we had been told about Morocco. I was surprised that the women here, young and old,  wearing the traditional head covering and dress, were very friendly and happy to return a smile and a nod in the street, something that doesn't seem to happen at home. The older men return a beaming smile in the same situation and many say "Welcome to Fez" or "Welcome to Moroc". Once again it's nothing like we were told before we got here.

We found a cafe and sat down for a refreshment. I had a very nice coffee, and Suzanne had a pot of mint tea made with tea, mint, and sugar. It was a seriously nice drop, so much so that once I had finished my coffee, I ordered one as well. This is another local delicacy we'll be taking home with us.

Mint tea could be my new favourite drink.

While we were at the cafe I snuck a few photos of the locals with the camera sitting on the table.

Now we're talking. A bit of colour and style.

Where am I?

On our walk I spotted this guy hanging around the phone.
I think he was making "cat calls."
I am soooo funny.

Then it was a visit to the local market. We found a pet shop (no surprise there eh?), a butcher, and stalls selling fruit and veg, fish, flowers, and anything else you could want.

Fresh fish. Really fresh.

Care for an olive? We've eaten so many olives over here. There are hundreds of different types,

and they all taste so good.

Suzanne bought a couple of oranges for about seventy Australian cents. I think we got stung. We've since found out that is about seven times the going rate. We don't care because the oranges here are so juicy, sweet, and tasty, that we'd happily pay a dollar each for them. We have also decided to turn our backyard into a vegie patch when we return home and grow our own vegies. Being away has made us realise just how tasteless, dry, and bland our fruit and vegetables are at home. We might get a few chickens as well.

A little stall around the corner took care of lunch. Fresh beef and chicken skewers, and a couple of sausages cooked over hot coals in a very neat little BBQ. Ten skewers and a coke came to the grand total of only $5 AUD.

With full bellies we grabbed a cab to Bab Bou Jeloud (The Blue Gate) the old centre market. It was like a cross between Aladdin, Star Wars, and Harry Potter's Diagon Alley. (And I think I saw Yoda as well.) It was full of Jedi and Sand People. The stall owners had been to the Bali sales school and believed if they followed, you and talked to you enough, they would make a sale. As Suzanne said, "At least they don't touch you like they do in Bali." Some of the things we saw included a camel's head in a butcher's shop (yes, really), lots of cats (not in butcher's shops), awesome shoes (according to Suzanne), and lots of long dressing gown thingies that people wear over here. I think they are called Djellabas. I want one.

Bab Bou Jeloud (The Blue Gate).

Entrance to the Ancient  Medina.

Now this is a market.

Fes courier service.

A good example of problem solving. If you're selling sweet delicacies, and the bees are bothering you, put some
product out just for the bees. It sort of worked.

These things are everywhere. Powered by a little 250 cc engine, I think. They cart huge loads.

It was an experience. The Medina was enormous and built on the side of a hill. We explored a small part and were exhausted then had to climb back up the hill to the gate. We deserved a refreshment and a cafe across the road took care of that with some mint tea. It was a disappointment compared to the morning's offering. I can see we'll have to do a bit of trial and error research when we get home.

Another short taxi ride and we were back in the hotel, sitting in the bar, and enjoying a bottle of Moroccan wine (it really was very nice) some chilli olives, and cucumber. What should come on to the TV? A show about a woman in Australia who cares for injured native animals. There were kangaroos, bats, possums, and more. This was accompanied by a soundtrack of (loud) local music from the next bar. It made an interesting mix.

After dinner we moved into the karaoke bar for a night cap, and the local Don Juan was taken by Suzanne. He sung to her and wanted to dance, but she refused.

Talk about biting off more than you can chew!

OK, just to keep the records straight, I have to admit that he did sing to me, and ask me to dance as well.

We plan on making an early start tomorrow and finishing our day in Casablanca. I wonder how different it will be to Fez, which we found to be fairly traditional and enjoyable.

We're in Melilla. Which way is Morocco?

Friday 15/2/13

Yahoo! Today we will ride into Africa. I'm hoping it will be something totally different and a new and enjoyable experience for us both.

Grumpy Tom Tom rant here,

feel free to skip this paragraph.

As we are now in Africa I have no maps for my Tom Tom, nor do I intend buying any. In fact I intend never buying any Tom Tom product again as long as I live. Yes, I'm pissed off. After a month of communication backwards and forwards with Tom Tom about all the problems I've had with this pile of crap, they have passed me onto another person who tells me, wait for it, it's a problem with my Cardo headset, not the tom Tom. I don't think so! Then a day later they had the gall to send me an email asking how their service was. Yeah, right!

Back to the good stuff. We rode around Melilla for a while and took a few photos. This photo is for our daughter Paige.

Yes, it's a Hello Kitty shop Paige.

Probably the last one of these we'll see for a while.

We found some cubic trees.

And a large, scary clown being dismantled.

We found ourselves in the local's market, so Suzanne decided to take a few photos while we were there. Having had some excellent training with hand guns in her youth, she was pretty good at shooting from the hip, even if the composition of some photos isn't perfect. Well done Suzette.

Haggle time.

I feel like I'm being watched.

Girls the world over...shopping, shopping, shopping.

It was time to go so after a while we went back to the port area to find a sign and that would point us toward Morocco. 

There was a range of very interesting sculptures along the beach front.

It's quite a pretty area.

We found a sign and headed out of town toward Morocco. Next stop fuel, then we sourced a map. We were now armed with a map and compass, good, old fashioned technology. We made our way south and found this...

Mt first thought was that must be a prison, then I realised the fence went on for miles. I think we found the border.

This thing was made up of four or five fences, one electrified.

Someone definitely wants to keep someone else in, or out.

So if we have found the border fence, it's logical that if we follow it we'll find a crossing. Off we went. Within five minutes we found a long queue of cars lined up. That has to be it. I assimilated and rode down the wrong side of the road for a few miles til I reached the front of the line, and took my place behind a few cars. 

Jumping the queue, border crossing style.

Smart boy. Set up a fruit stall at the border crossing.

A Spanish policeman promptly told Suzanne to stop taking photos at the border crossing. Oops. After a few minutes another Spanish copper walked over to us and explained (in Spanish with a smattering of English) that we couldn't cross here. (I think it was a border crossing for nationals only.) There was another crossing "That way" and pointed in the direction we had just come from.

No problems, we turned the bike around and headed back. Oh boy! Ten minutes later we were in a gigantic traffic jam, cars everywhere, people yelling at each other, blaring horns, and to top it off, a police van in the middle of it all. It had it's siren on but had no where to go, then a little Spanish female cop jumped out of the van and started yelling at everyone to move their cars. It was gridlock, and nothing was moving. What a mess, this must be the crossing. We had found it. 

The upshot of this morning was that it was a whole lot less frustrating and stressful finding our own way out of Melilla using a map, compass, and street signs, than it has been using a Tom Tom sat nav.

In the middle of all this turmoil a guy on a scooter tore past me and motioned for me to follow him. He was riding a little scooter between the gaps in the cars and when I pointed at the panniers on my bike he bashed on the roofs of cars and told them to move over and make room for us...and they did! I was stunned. I couldn't let all his hard work go to waste, so I followed him. A few minutes later we were at the checkpoint. I thought "fixer" so Suzanne offered him some money, but he refused. OK, now I'm confused. He parked his scooter and disappeared.

Suzanne and I were standing there wondering what the hell we were supposed to do next, and watching people, push bikes, and scooters going past carrying loads that we would use a truck for in Australia. It was incredible.

This was a small load compared to most.

A couple of minutes later our friend returned with some paperwork for us to fill in. He helped where he could, but his English was about as good as our Arabic. No, it was actually a hell of a lot better that our Arabic. He'd point at a place on the form, then at our number plate on the bike, and we'd fill in the details. This continued for a while as we did the bike, our passports, and so on. Eventually with the paper work completed, he asked for our passports. I was a little nervous about handing over our passports, and he sensed that so he motioned for me to follow him. We hurried over to one little office, then another, then a third where they sent us to another where a guy who looked very important checked our paperwork, and stamped it with gusto. We then returned to one of the previous offices, showed the papers for the bike, and received another stamp, then presented our collection of paperwork at the booth on the border. Here we were asked how long we would like to stay. Suzanne and I were thinking of staying for three or four days, but I thought telling him that might be a little rude, so I said "We'd like to stay for a couple of weeks if possible". The border guard smiled, gave us another stamp, and said something in Arabic...then our friend said you're done. Off you go into Morocco, you can stay for up to six months.

We now knew our "friend" was definitely a fixer and wondered how much this was going to cost us. Even after all of the warnings about setting a price with fixers first we just got carried along for the ride. He'd just spent forty five minutes running around for us. When we asked him how much, he just beamed a huge smile and said "Nothing. Welcome to Morocco." and tried to leave. We had to forcibly give him some money. He then rode off into the dust, waving goodbye. To say we were surprised would be a huge understatement. Once again, everything we have read proved to be wrong. I have no idea how long it would have taken us to get across the border without our friend. Thank you.

Fifty metres later we were in Morocco. It was exactly what I expected. The road was atrocious, it was dusty, dirty, there were people everywhere, grotty shops, bunky cars, little road side stalls, hundreds of mopeds, plastic bag litter everywhere, men staring at us, and not many women around. I thought it was fantastic. At last, something completely different to experience. We were in Morocco, on the road to Fez, and loving it.

Different and challenging, but interesting.

Wagons are very popular, drawn by horses or donkeys.

This caused a double take.

I still don't know what it is.

Once we were about fifty kilometres away from the border things changed dramatically. It was cleaner, the roads improved, and people began waving to us as we rode past. It's almost as if Morocco has a cunning plan to keep visitors from crossing the border.

One of the little towns we rode through.

...and we were heading toward rolling green hills.

In between the villages there were little stalls set up on the side of the road like this...

I think they were selling petrol by the litre,

 in plastic containers.

As we rolled down the road toward Fes we saw a lot of shepherds looking after their sheep and goats. Then a herd of sheep went across the road in front of us. 

They're out to get me I tell you.

What is it with me and wild life? Nearly every shepherd we rode past smiled and waved. I keep hearing the penguins from the movie Madagascar in my head saying "Smile and wave boys. Smile and wave" and chuckle to myself. The animal mix then moved in favour of cows. First a few, then a lot. It was starting to look like the south west of Western Australia.

We then came across a fairly new motor way with a sign saying two hours to Fez. We were in. It cost us about eight dollars to travel the two hundred and fifty kilometres, but it was a bargain. The terrain changed as was now more like Kalgoorlie than the south west at home.

We'd been on the bike for a while now and my backside was screaming "Give me a break" so we stopped at a roadhouse for lunch. Once again we encountered bi-lingual menus - French and Arabic - not much help to a couple of monolingual Aussies. With a bit of pointing and rough translating we ordered. We ended up with a huge piece of bread like a flat loaf, an omelette, and a mixed grill consisting of lamb chops, beef on skewers, and small, rissole like delicacies. It was fantastic. Yum! I think I'm going to like Morocco.

We had a guest outside the window though.

The poor pus didn't have much of a nose.

Back on the road to Fes and the terrain changed again, back to green rolling hills, with hundreds of olive trees, no fences, and lots of livestock including donkeys and camels.

Nice terrain again.

We experienced a wide variety of scenery today.

Our last hour was spent riding straight into a sun set.

And I mean "straight into."

Fes hit us in the face like a brick. It was dark, the traffic was all over the place, and there was lots of it, and we had to find a hotel. We found a cafe, but didn't have internet access so finding a bed for the night wasn't going to be easy. Then Sahid, the owner of the cafe spotted us and asked if we needed a hotel. Um, yes. It just so happened that Sahid owned a hotel that "has very good roof, has hot water." We were tired so it sounded OK to us. I mean, how bad could it be when a room costs fifteen Aussie dollars for a night? With directions in our head off we went. We rode around for about twenty five minutes in the dark and couldn't find a thing. 

We managed to blindly find our way back into the centre of town, and found a hotel, but it didn't offer parking. The Grand Hotel around the corner did, so we paid our forty dollars and went to our room. Alright, it wasn't fantastic, but I've stayed in worse back home, so I was happy. Suzanne was as well. we had a room for the night and the BM was in a garage. All good. Sorry Sahid, we really tried to find your hotel, but just couldn't get there.

It was food o'clock. Downstairs in the bar we ordered a bottle of wine and were presented with a Spanish white that was very nice indeed. Before we knew it we had a bowl of chilli olives, and cucumber, then some very tasty Moroccan fish, then more olives and so on. Who needs dinner? Not us, not now thank you.

Next to the bar was another smaller bar that had (can you believe my luck?) Karaoke. As my friends know, I love Karaoke. NOT!!!! At least when it's sung in Arabic you don't know if it's bad or not, but I'm guessing it's as bad in Fes as it is in Perth. The music was pretty good good though, and made us really feel like we were in Morocco.

Oh yes, the bar had about four resident cats, who all looked very healthy and well fed. I did see a couple of them treated to some fish by the locals, so I'm guessing they're not starving.

That was the end of a very long day. Tomorrow we'll explore Fes in the daylight and see what treasures we can uncover.