Morocco; bustling cities, beautiful mountains and a lot more.
Morocco, Morocco! Rich and colourful culture, breathtaking landscape and the beautiful people. Those are the main things that come in mind now after 5 weeks from our trip, but of course there's lot more to tell about that month. So let's open it up for a bit!
We started our journey from Catalonia, Spain by driving about 1200km to the south of Spain. Point of the trip was to travel with as little money as we could and that's why we stopped in a supermarket in Madrid to pack our car full of food.
First night we slept in a car in a parking lot next to the harbour. And the first thing in the morning we jumped to the ferry to take us to Tanger, Morocco. From there we had about 2 hours drive to our first destination which was a town called Chefchaouen. And from all the cities we stopped this was definitely my favourite one!
The whole part of old town is coloured with blue paint and it's really beautiful. Part that I liked a lot as well, was that it wasn't super crowed and in many places real culture wasn't blocked with touristic shop (even though you have those as well)
Near Chefchauen there's also a national park called Talassemtane where we got to make a nice few hours walk in the beautiful nature. In the end there was also a big waterfall waiting for us.
Next destination was Fes. One of the best things when traveling in one country more than in one city, is the amazing places you find accidentally between the destinations. If your not traveling by plane (or blindfolded) you can really find the real culture and beautiful scenery's where you weren't even looking for them.
So Fes was definitely a bigger city than Chefchauen and you could see it in many ways. For example amount of tourist shops and people trying to sell you something. Even thought I admit that it is a bit annoying to try and walk calmly while you have people talking to you all the time, but at the same time I understand why they're doing it. It is common mistake to say that in certain countries people just are like that and by that to categorize them as the "annoying" part. But I don't think it's about people being so much different than it is about the situations being different! I believe that anybody from anywhere could act in a same way, if their income was only depended on that.
In Fes we got to walk around the city, see the famous leather tanning place.
After the busy Fes for the balance we headed to the mountain Atlas. There's small roads going through mountains, which are full of beautiful landscapes and small villages. We spend altogether 2 days in the mountains and I really enjoyed this road. These kind of places allows you to see the real way people live in there and how they act.
So from the cool mountains we headed to the contrary, which was a hot and dry sand dunes in Sahara desert! 35 celsius really felt super hot after the mountains and luckily we found a nice and cheap campsite with a pool next to the dunes. Campsite was in Merzouga and we paid only 2€ each for a night.
One night we also found a local playing session right on the dynes! Being there in the middle of the sand, palm trees and clear night sky really reminded me of some stories of Aladin!
After Merzouga we headed to Ait Ben Haddou. While driving there we found some beautiful places again on the way.
We made it to Ait Ben Haddou late at evening and found a really nice spot on a cliff to sleep in our car with amazing view to the fortified city!
Ait Ben Haddou is a quite famous city and many movies like Gladiator have been filmed there. It is now mostly for the tourists, since there's only about 4 family's living there.
City itself was a beautiful, but to be honest some of those small towns we found by accident, were even nicer! What I noticed is that you can find many similar, but more authentic towns from Morrocco, without being filled with key chains or other stuff to sell! It's not too big, so few hours there, was more than enough.
From there we headed to the cost. It was a long way and we wanted to take it easy, so we drove there in two days. Like I said sometimes accidently you can find great places if you're willing to get lost. So that's how we found our next place to park our car. This lovely little village was like sister of chefchauen. Instead of it being blue, this one was completely painted red! Village it's called Agchtim and to end up there we had to take on of the little mountains roads.
So we spend the night in Agchtim and continued our drive on the next day. Before arriving to the coast we had time to get lost once more in these mountain villages and we found a gorgeous natural pools next to village called Anirgui. We had a great few hours bathing in the fresh water from the mountains!
We arrived to the coast late at night and spend the night on the car right on the beach near Agadir.
We had read about these natural arches in Legzira and that was our next quick stop.
From there we headed to Agadir. We found a nice camping site there and decided to stay for few nights. Place was on a hill, so we got a nice view to the sea and lovely sunsets.
Next day I woke up really excited, since it would be my first day trying surfing. I didin't have my hopes too high, knowing that it would take more than few try's to actually do it. So we went to look for a cheap boards to rent and found good ones for 4€ a day. So all I had to do now, was surf! It was definitely hard to get to the other side of the waves, but after a while (and few hits on my head from the board) it got a bit easier. Of course since we only went to surf two times, I had to leave the place without a cool photo of me with the waves. But I was surprised how in (almost) every wave you could see a bit of a progress. So for now I'll have to settle for a photo of my trying to surf while forgetting to try and look cool! ;)
So two days pretty much wen't sore from surfing (if that's what you can call the battle of me and the board, while the waves are trying to drown you all the time). After Agadir it was time for our last city in Morocco (at least for now), which was Essaouira. There we spend a nice day walking through the city and it was also a first place where I bought some souvenirs with me. Earlier I got a Ukulele for my birthday and in Essaouira it started to feel lonely. To fix this I had to buy a little drums to make it happy.
So after Essaouira started our long drive back to Catalonia. On the way we stopped to have a few hours detour in Gibralta where I got to see my first monkeys. It is kind of ironic, since these monkeys were actually from Morocco, but I had to come all the way Gibralta to see them!
So we had a really great time in Morocco! It is a beautiful country with landscapes from mountains to sand dynes and from beaches to busy cities! I'll keep on waiting for the summer season to start here in Taüll and starting to plan next travels ;)
We started our journey from Catalonia, Spain by driving about 1200km to the south of Spain. Point of the trip was to travel with as little money as we could and that's why we stopped in a supermarket in Madrid to pack our car full of food.
First night we slept in a car in a parking lot next to the harbour. And the first thing in the morning we jumped to the ferry to take us to Tanger, Morocco. From there we had about 2 hours drive to our first destination which was a town called Chefchaouen. And from all the cities we stopped this was definitely my favourite one!
The whole part of old town is coloured with blue paint and it's really beautiful. Part that I liked a lot as well, was that it wasn't super crowed and in many places real culture wasn't blocked with touristic shop (even though you have those as well)
Near Chefchauen there's also a national park called Talassemtane where we got to make a nice few hours walk in the beautiful nature. In the end there was also a big waterfall waiting for us.
Next destination was Fes. One of the best things when traveling in one country more than in one city, is the amazing places you find accidentally between the destinations. If your not traveling by plane (or blindfolded) you can really find the real culture and beautiful scenery's where you weren't even looking for them.
So Fes was definitely a bigger city than Chefchauen and you could see it in many ways. For example amount of tourist shops and people trying to sell you something. Even thought I admit that it is a bit annoying to try and walk calmly while you have people talking to you all the time, but at the same time I understand why they're doing it. It is common mistake to say that in certain countries people just are like that and by that to categorize them as the "annoying" part. But I don't think it's about people being so much different than it is about the situations being different! I believe that anybody from anywhere could act in a same way, if their income was only depended on that.
In Fes we got to walk around the city, see the famous leather tanning place.
After the busy Fes for the balance we headed to the mountain Atlas. There's small roads going through mountains, which are full of beautiful landscapes and small villages. We spend altogether 2 days in the mountains and I really enjoyed this road. These kind of places allows you to see the real way people live in there and how they act.
So from the cool mountains we headed to the contrary, which was a hot and dry sand dunes in Sahara desert! 35 celsius really felt super hot after the mountains and luckily we found a nice and cheap campsite with a pool next to the dunes. Campsite was in Merzouga and we paid only 2€ each for a night.
One night we also found a local playing session right on the dynes! Being there in the middle of the sand, palm trees and clear night sky really reminded me of some stories of Aladin!
After Merzouga we headed to Ait Ben Haddou. While driving there we found some beautiful places again on the way.
We made it to Ait Ben Haddou late at evening and found a really nice spot on a cliff to sleep in our car with amazing view to the fortified city!
Ait Ben Haddou is a quite famous city and many movies like Gladiator have been filmed there. It is now mostly for the tourists, since there's only about 4 family's living there.
City itself was a beautiful, but to be honest some of those small towns we found by accident, were even nicer! What I noticed is that you can find many similar, but more authentic towns from Morrocco, without being filled with key chains or other stuff to sell! It's not too big, so few hours there, was more than enough.
From there we headed to the cost. It was a long way and we wanted to take it easy, so we drove there in two days. Like I said sometimes accidently you can find great places if you're willing to get lost. So that's how we found our next place to park our car. This lovely little village was like sister of chefchauen. Instead of it being blue, this one was completely painted red! Village it's called Agchtim and to end up there we had to take on of the little mountains roads.
We arrived to the coast late at night and spend the night on the car right on the beach near Agadir.
We had read about these natural arches in Legzira and that was our next quick stop.
From there we headed to Agadir. We found a nice camping site there and decided to stay for few nights. Place was on a hill, so we got a nice view to the sea and lovely sunsets.
Next day I woke up really excited, since it would be my first day trying surfing. I didin't have my hopes too high, knowing that it would take more than few try's to actually do it. So we went to look for a cheap boards to rent and found good ones for 4€ a day. So all I had to do now, was surf! It was definitely hard to get to the other side of the waves, but after a while (and few hits on my head from the board) it got a bit easier. Of course since we only went to surf two times, I had to leave the place without a cool photo of me with the waves. But I was surprised how in (almost) every wave you could see a bit of a progress. So for now I'll have to settle for a photo of my trying to surf while forgetting to try and look cool! ;)
So two days pretty much wen't sore from surfing (if that's what you can call the battle of me and the board, while the waves are trying to drown you all the time). After Agadir it was time for our last city in Morocco (at least for now), which was Essaouira. There we spend a nice day walking through the city and it was also a first place where I bought some souvenirs with me. Earlier I got a Ukulele for my birthday and in Essaouira it started to feel lonely. To fix this I had to buy a little drums to make it happy.
So after Essaouira started our long drive back to Catalonia. On the way we stopped to have a few hours detour in Gibralta where I got to see my first monkeys. It is kind of ironic, since these monkeys were actually from Morocco, but I had to come all the way Gibralta to see them!
So we had a really great time in Morocco! It is a beautiful country with landscapes from mountains to sand dynes and from beaches to busy cities! I'll keep on waiting for the summer season to start here in Taüll and starting to plan next travels ;)
Hola nana. Hace tiempos que no escribiste algo, que paso en tu magnifica vida esos dias? :)
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