Objectively there are a lot of places better than Morocco. Immediately prior to visiting Morocco, I was in Spain and I loved Spain. Spain had a well developed tourism industry, excellent public transportation (probably the best in Europe), amazing food and so on. In short, there’s nothing not to like about Spain. Morocco on the other has some buses and trains, in larger cities like Marrakech there are pickpockets and young men constantly trying to run one scam or another, the cities are comparatively rundown and not much to look at. Being not quite (actually quite far from) perfect makes Morocco interesting. And interesting often trumps good.
Morocco is chaotic. Morocco has three official languages: Standard Arabic, Berber and French. According to my food tour guide in Marrakech, Moroccan Arabic is not pronounced the same as standard Arabic and Arabic speakers have trouble understanding Moroccans speaking Arabic. Berber is an indigenous language to Morocco and was not a written language for most of its existence, therefore many native Berber speakers cannot read or write the language. Moroccan French also poses some challenges for French speakers., it is heavily peppered with Arabic and probably Berber. It also seemed that most of the people around the major cities dabbled in Spanish and English. With this many languages being spoken to one degree of fluency or another, it’s a wonder that anyone can speak to a Moroccan. To think, many Americans get uptight about one additional language. Moroccans seem to move between three to five effortlessly. Having a base in all of these languages makes learning new ones easier and expands the mind.
The three large cities I visited all have medinas, which are basically the old cities comprised of a labyrinth of narrow streets that are laid out on anything but a grid and surrounded by a wall. GPS systems don’t work well there and no accurate maps exist. I tried Google, Apple and Maps.me in Marrakech, Meknes and Fes and found no appreciable difference in their inability to figure out where you are. They are only good for giving you a point on the map to navigate toward. The streets do not match reality. As a word of caution, everywhere you go you will be told by locals that you are going the wrong way, that the road is closed ahead or the tannery is that way (don’t go to a tannery), or the big square is this way or the way out is over there. Some of these people may legitimately be trying to help you, but be aware this is a well known scam in Morocco. My understanding is that basically they run you down some alleys and before you know it you’re in a dead end alley with three Moroccan guys and you need to buy your way out. I ran into this more in Fes and Marrakech than I did in Meknes. In Fes and Marrakech it happened on every street and around every turn.
If you read any travel blog about Morocco, it will have a list of the best things to see/do in whatever city they are writing about. Inevitably one of the items on their list will be something akin to “get lost in the medina.” My experience is that getting lost in the medina is part of everything you will do in one of these places. There’s no reason to declare it a separate activity. The medinas were my favorite and simultaneously the most frustrating part of any Moroccan city. Whatever you do, don’t avoid the medinas. Dive right in, ignore all the people trying to give you directions. Just remember, they did not ask where you are going, how could they possibly know, you’re going the wrong way?
The medinas will have everything you ever thought you needed. The ones in Fes and Marrakech had more of an eye toward tourists, where the one in Meknes had more of an eye toward locals. What this means is that the ones in Fes and Marrakech had more crafts and souvenirs. Meknes had more track suits and Chinese imports. All will have restaurants and hammams. All will have food stands, hostels, hotels and a camel butcher. The medinas are a functioning city with neighborhoods and each neighborhood will have a mosque and a fountain for muslims to clean themselves. There are a number of sites to see in the medinas such as mosques, madrassas, tombs and palaces. They will all be difficult to find and probably not as interesting as the hunt itself. After spending hours wandering these three medinas and visiting the sites noted in various guidebooks and on travel blogs, I honestly didn’t find any of these to be as interesting as the medinas themselves.
The food sections will have dried fruits, including dates and figs. The camel butcher will be easily identifiable by the camel head on a hook and the hump of fat hanging at his stall. Stop and watch for a while, as cuts meat on order, he adds a little ft from the hump. The owner of my hostel in Fes said that camel is not widely eaten in Morocco, but there are a couple of camel butchers in Fes. No restaurants have it on the menu, but you can buy the meat and take it to a restaurant and have it prepared for you. There are also stalls with live chickens for purchase. So, basically anything you want, you can buy in the medina.
Outside of the medina, these cities are more modern. The streets are wider and straighter, the buildings are more modern. It looks more like what a westerner would recognize as a modern city. In all three cities, Fes, Meknes, and Marrakech, the tourist sites were in or near the medina. However, wandering the streets outside the medina is a worthwhile experience to feel the city.
To move between the cities, Morocco has a good system of railways and the roads are good also. It seemed like there were plenty of police checkpoints along the way, so I don’t recommend driving there. To get from Marrakech to Fes, I took a three day/two night tour that went through the high Atlas and the mid Atlas mountains and into the Sahara. One night was spent in a hotel in the mountains. It got down in the 30s and the hotel had no heat, so it was quit cold. I had the misfortune of visiting the Sahara when it snowed for the first time in 40 years. The second night was spent in a tent in the Sahara. To get to the tent, we had to ride a camel two hours each way. My advice on camel riding: don’t ride a camel. A couple of laps around the parking lot would have been plenty for me to understand that I do not like bouncing up and down on my balls and would prefer a car. There was no need for a two hour ride to the camp.
Of course, the Sahara is the Sahara and well worth seeing. It is difficult to walk in, which you know if you have ever walked in dry sand before. The night sky can be stunning, though it rained when I was there and was cloudy.
So, why did I love Morocco? The only thing that was unfalteringly good was the food. Everything else had moments of frustration, uncertainty and and discomfort. I guess constantly being happy just isn’t enough to sustain me. A trip where everything is perfect is both intellectually and physically lazy. Having to think and evaluate and walk make for a more interesting experience and that is good.