For many years, brothers Dan and Bill have talked about visiting Morocco.  In May 2007, we finally did it.

Our journey lasted fifteen days.  We flew to Rabat, took a train to Marrakesh.  From there, we rented a car and drove south through the Atlas Mountains and then east along the edge of the desert to the oasis town of Merzouga where we went on an overnight camel trek into the Sahara Desert.  Back in our car, we drove through the Middle Atlas to Meknes and Fes before taking a train back to Rabat for our flight home.

Below is a chronicle of our trip.  Click on any of the pictures to see larger versions.

After a transatlantic flight and a six-hour layover in Paris, we finally arrived in Rabat  Rabat is the capital of Morocco and was once home to the piratical Republic of Bou Regreg which raided the Mediterranean Sea, setting sail from the Kasbah des Oudaias.  We spent some time just hanging out on the beach below the Kasbah and watching the surfers.  On the opposite side of town from the Kasbah is the fortress of Chellah, one of the oldest settlements in the area, dating back to 154 A.D, but now a stork-infested ruin.

From Rabat, we took a train to Marrakesh, nestled in the Atlas Mountains of central Morocco.  In the center of the medina, or old city, stands the Djemaa El Fna.  By day the plaza is empty except for a few food stalls.  At night it fills with storytellers, musicians, snake oil salesmen, vendors, pickpockets, con men, and thieves.  One of our favorites was a father-son combo we call "The Chicken on the Head Band."  The son played drums and sang enthusiastically and the father played banjo while a live chicken sat on his head.

The rest of the city holds the souks, or shops, a twisty maze of narrow passages and streets where knock-off designer clothes are sold beside handmade leather and pottery.  Down some streets, you can watch the artisans at work.  One shop, off a plaza full of women trading second-hand clothes, was run by Zakaria who sold herbs, spices, dyes, and animals (living and dead) to be used in Moroccan magic.

The most impressive site was the stunning El Badi Palace.  Built by King Ahmed el Mansour (the Victorious), the Badi Palace was financed by ransom money from a crushing Moroccan defeat of the Portuguese in a battle called the Battle of the Three Kings.  Upon its completion in the late 16th century, El Mansour turned to his court jester for an opinion on the new palace.  "Sidi," the jester replied, "this will make a magnificent ruin."

After several days in Marrakesh, we rented a car and drove south into the Atlas Mountains.  We spent the afternoon hiking around the mountains and visiting the Agadir n'Gouj (a fortified granary) and the Tin Mal Mosque.  Tin Mal is the only mosque in all of Morocco that non-Moslems are allowed to enter, because it is technically a ruin (although it is still used for Friday prayers).  It is over 850 years old and was once part of the town where the Almohad Dynasty (1147 to 1248) began its conquest of Morocco.

We left the mountains via the winding (and dangerous) Tiz n'Test pass and emerged in the flat land of southern Morocco.  We spent several days driving eastward, staying in various hotels (in old kasbahs or stone buildings) and driving past many sheep, small rural towns, oases, and ruined kasbahs.  Discovering that our rental car, a Renault Clio, had a slow oil leak lent a little excitement to the drive, as we were regularly checking and filling the oil and waiting for a complete breakdown (that never happened).

One of the most amazing sites in southern Morocco is the ruined city of Ait Behhaddou.  While the age of the site is uncertain, there have been buldings here since the sixteenth century.  They may look familiar as many movies have been filmed here, including Lawrence of Arabia, Orson Welles' Sodom and Gomorrah, and Gladiator.  The ruined structure at the top of the hill is an agadir, a fortified granary.

We visited two famous gorges along our route to the east.  A side road runs up and into the Dades Gorge, which is marked by bizzare rock formations.  The red rocks provide striking contrast with the green of the oasis running along the banks of the river in the midst of the gorge.  Further east, the Todra Gorge is smaller but more dramatic, deeply slashed out of rocks that look golden in the light of the setting sun.

In the Todra Gorge, we met this Berber woman carrying fodder home for her animals.  She made a little extra money by requiring tourists to pay to take her picture.

In the deep south, we visited the town of Merzouga near the Algerian border.  The paved road ends here, and a line of huge sand dunes, the Erg Chebbi, rise up to 150 feet from the desert floor.  This is the only offical part of the Sahara Desert in Morocco.

We stayed at Nomad Palace at the southernmost edge of the dunes.  Our host, Ali, arranged a number of outings for us.  We visited Gnaoua Drummers and a lake that appears when the rains are heavy enough; the lake can linger for several years and support a wide range of water fowl.  We were accompanied on many of these trips by a retired American schoolteacher, Judith, who is fast becoming a regular resident at Nomad Palace.   Between adventures, Dan tamed one of the kittens that lived in the palace.

Our biggest expedition was an overnight camel trek.  Led by our guide, Muhommad, we rode several hours into the dunes to a small oasis.  We climbed the dunes to watch the sunset before sharing our dinner with some oasis cats who wandered over to beg.  The weather was fine, so we skipped the tent and slept under the desert stars.  The next morning, we woke in time for the sunrise and then rode back to Nomad Palace.

Heading north, we left the desert for the Middle Atlas.  Covered in vast cedar forests, this part of Morocco was once home to elephants and lions that the Romans would capture for sport and to use in the colliseums.  A handful of troops of Barbary apes remain; this troop lived by the roadside, watched by park rangers, and fed by tourists.

Within the Middle Atlas is some of the most fertile land in all of North Africa, thick with farms and vast fields of flowers.  We stopped to eat lunch at a roadside cafe at advertised by hanging a dead goat from its awning.  Later, we pulled over at the stunning Passage d'Ito, a high-point where you can see as far as 70 km across a vast, almost-primeval landscape of fields and volcanic rock.

Outside Meknes, we visited the Roman ruins of Volubilis.  Originally a Carthaginian settlement founded in the third century BC, Volubilis was a Roman outpost until 285 AD and an active town for hundreds of years after that. 

Volubilis is famous for its many well-preserved mosaics on the floors of what used to be houses.  These include scenes from Roman life and mythology.

Our final stop was Fes, famous for its two medinas.  Fes el Bali is a maze of tightly-packed, winding streets, impossible to map.  We stayed in a beautiful riad (a bed-and-breakfast) near the Bab Boujeloud, one of the entrances to the medina. 

On our way into town, we secured the services of a guide named Idriss, who drove us around the city our first night and took us on a tour of the streets and shops the next morning. 

We visited several elaborately-carved medersas, or Koranic schools, scattered throughout Fes, including the Nejjarin Medersa and fountain--one of Dan's favorites.

We also toured the famous tanneries where fine Moroccan leather is made using methods practiced for thousands of years and jobs are passed down from father to son.  In the potteries, pots and plates are still painted free-hand by skilled artists.  And the busy streets teem with men and women in traditional dress.

The Moroccan flag was everywhere during our visit, because King Mohammed VI was in residence in Fes at the time.

On our final day in Fes, we packed a snack of nuts and dried fruit and left the city visit the Merenid tombs.  No one knows who was buried in the tombs, but their hilltop location has become a popular picnic spot and provides spectacular views of Fes and the surrounding countryside.  Along with several families, groups of teenagers, and a goatherd and his charges, we watched the sun set over the hill before walking down for one last meal at a cafe in front of the Bab Boujeloud.

The next day, we did some shopping and took the train back to Rabat for our flight out, but that evening was our true farewell to Morocco.