Seductive Morocco
27 Mar 2018
Home to romantic riads, mesmerising medinas and kasbahs that rock, lose yourself in the magic that is Morocco.
Seductive sandalwood swirls around the stables like a whirling dervish, but in Turkey, where these spinning Sufi dancers are at home, I am not. Rather, I am in Morocco, which is rapidly stealing the spotlight from its Muslim neighbours as the Islamic country to visit.
This 13-day journey begins in chaotic Casablanca with your bare feet caressing the cool tiles as you wander through the Hassan II Mosque, the world’s third largest, which opened in 1993.
The only mosque in Morocco open to non-Muslims, it can hold 25,000 worshippers at any one time on its magnificent marbled floor.
Explore the blue basement used for ablutions before prayers, gaze at its gargantuan roof that creaks open during hot weather to capture breezes from the Atlantic Ocean upon which it is perched, and listen for the prayers of past, present and future echoing around the mosaics.
Explore Rabat
Intrepid’s Morocco Uncovered journey moves at a punchy pace, out of Casablanca and into edgy Rabat, the kingdom’s capital and home to Morocco’s Parliament.
It’s late afternoon and a flirty fog is rolling in from the Atlantic Ocean, curling around the colourful Kasbah of Rabat. This fortress was built so that no enemies could approach unseen from the coastline, for Rabat is a place of pirates, and politicians, with some modern Moroccans claiming it’s difficult to distinguish between the two.
Explore Rabat’s Roman ruins which were hidden until the 20th Century when archaeologists stumbled across traces of an ancient civilisation including a main road, shops and a 2000-year-old spring.
The gates of Meknes
Two hours from Rabat, east in the direction of Mecca and past rolling hills of olive groves, you’ll arrive in Meknes, the capital of agriculture and once considered the ‘grainery of Africa’.
The gates of Meknes are considered to be the most beautiful in all of Morocco and it’s among the palace stables, once home to 25,000 Arabian horses and 1000 riders, where you’ll smell the swirling incense.
Our tour guide, Bushra, says the sandalwood is for luck.
“It’s about benediction and relaxation as well,” she says.
“Hopefully we don’t lose these traditions. It’s a shame when you sacrifice everything for modern life.
“We get lost between cultures.”
Visit the nearby World Heritage- listed archaeological site of Volubilis and learn how it was once one of the Roman Empire’s most remote bases.
All the colours
Several hours and a little north- east later you’ll arrive in Morocco’s famed blue city of Chefchaouen.
Lose yourself among these aqua alley ways and slump among the slippers, sandals, silver, kaftans and cats, for a fragrant mint tea served with an ice-berg of sugar.
Pause for plump pomegranates at a roadside stall on the four-hour journey to Fez, the kingdom’s spiritual and cultural capital, where a turmeric sunset sweeps over the riad rooftops.
Enter Morocco’s oldest medina, a mesmerising maze of 10,000 streets, and visit the pungent tannery where camel, goat, sheep and cow hides are fashioned into leather goods; haggle in silver tea shops and with carpet sellers; and dodge camel heads at butcher shops and passing donkeys laden with goods.
Travel through the Middle Atlas Mountains, known as the Switzerland of Morocco, and you’ll arrive in the High Atlas Mountains.
You’ll pass the Ziz Gorge, whose river runs for 300km, before you eventually arrive in the Sahara Desert.
Traditions traditions
Here, board a camel for a one-hour ride through this starkly, stunning landscape and ride over the Erg Chebbi sand dunes before camping out in traditional, yet comfortable style in the desert for the night.
Continue on to Todra Gorge before arriving at majestic M’Goun where you’ll spend the night in a traditional Berber house. This trip travels through the Rose Valley, home to the Rose of Damascus, before you arrive in Ait Benhaddou, Morocco’s carpet capital.
Not only is this historic 11th century site known for its rug weavers, but it is also the destination where films such as Gladiator were shot.
It’s a windy road to Marrakech, through Ticka Pass and North Africa’s highest point at 2260m, and the acclaimed Moroccan argan oil.
This journey ends in Marrakech, which means ‘land of God’, and the capital of tourism.
Wander Morocco’s iconic square at Jemaa el Fna, home to snake charmers and charming rogues, where you can buy anything from human teeth to tea pots, before disappearing into the medina.
Morocco is hot, sweet tea crafted from freshly-plucked mint leaves, and poured with flair and a flourish from a height. It’s a stream, not a trickle, of constant awakenings.
To Morocco, you must go.
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