We’ve now arrived back in the UK after spending a month in Morocco. Before turning our minds to the planning of our ‘proper’ sub-Saharan Africa trip, I thought I’d take a moment to sum-up my views on Morocco, as we experienced it. Note these are my views only and–crucially–not those of Squiffy! I’ll come right […]

We’re en-route from Oulidia to get our flights home from Casablanca and have stopped off in El-Jadida along the way. It’s another coastal town with quite a bit more going on than in the [currently] sleepy resort of Oulidia. I’d really like to be able to tell you a bit more about the place, but […]

After reuniting ourselves with our bags we settled into our room at Motel-Restaurant à l’Araignée Gourmande, which was a very welcome setting compared with most of the grotholes that we had checked ourselves into throughout the past month. The room was spacious, clean and even had a balcony for us to sit out on. Even […]

Here in Morocco, I’m often asked what country I’m from. When I say ‘Wales’ all I get in return is a puzzled look. So I try in French, ‘Pays de Galles’. Ne comprend pas. Then in Spanish, ‘Galles’. Nada. Last night, the shopkeeper couldn’t get it either. I remembered that I bought a little diary […]

You know how your heart sinks and panic sets in when you suddenly realise you’ve locked yourself out, or left your mobile phone on a pub table or similar? Thanks to an incompetent baggage handler, that’s how I was left feeling when our bus driver opened the luggage compartment and our backpacks were not there. […]

Squiffy’s write-up of her Hamman experience is fairly similar to my own, with the following marked differences: I was not coached on whether to remove my underwear or not from under my pinafore. I had a separate scrubber and a masseur. They were both wearing nothing more than the same style pinafore as me. That […]

Boy, I wish I had a better aptitude for learning languages. My GSCE in French may mean that I’m able to buy train tickets and order a coffee, but it certainly didn’t equip me with the vocab necessary to understand an attendant briefing me on the intricacies of hamman etiquette. A ‘hamman’ in Morocco is […]

This made us laugh. It’s a breakfast menu in a Casablanca cafe. Click on the picture to enlarge it. We have no idea what’s in the bowl of the Traditional breakfast (first item). But wait, what’s that in centre-stage of the “Exotic” breakfast (last item) — yes, it’s plain, old TOAST! *giggle* It appears that […]

Casablanca is more interested in business than it is in the tourist dirham, with the exception of the Hassan II mosque which is the world’s third largest mosque and is open to the paying public. (The two largest are in Saudi Arabia, including Mecca.) An impressively-scaled building, built on reclaimed land in the Atlantic ocean. […]

After our recent shake-ups in Er-Rachidia and Rissani, and mentally prepared by our guide book, we both donned our emotional battle-armour and entered the Fez medina ready for a carpet-fight. However, there was none to be had. As we soon learnt, this town is much more relaxed than is written. Friendly, even. Fez has a […]