Morocco

First Arrival
I wasn’t working and Kieran had to take some leave before it expired so we thought what the heck lets go travelling, as you do (especially when 1 person is unemployed). We decided on Morocco as it was warmish, cheap and in the dates we were free. That was to change upon arrival.

Finding the cheapest way there we landed in Marrakech on the Friday night before our tour was to start. In order to meet up with our group and guide we had to be in Casablanca by 7pm Saturday night. We woke in the morning and headed down to the train station went there by taxi and paid way to much, will tell you about money a bit later on. Walked up to the counter and found that our train was leaving in 3 mins. We hurriedly bought 1st class tickets (125 each = $20) and ran to our train. Making it onboard and in our seat just as the train was pulling away from the station.

It was a really nice journey in our comfy seats and watching the country just float on by. It was our real first look at Morocco. I was amazed to see that it was so green all along the train tracks and the rolling fields of green. Here we were thinking that this country would be almost desert and barren.

Arriving in Casablanca after our 3.5 hr journey we made our way to our hotel and settled in. The taxi there was much cheaper and we were learning to start how to haggle and what we should be paying.

Met up with tour group at 7pm only to find out there were 5 of us!

Eating Camel Meat

When I first heard that the Moroccans ate camel meat I knew I had to try me some of that. Always up for tying a new flavour, we spoke to our guide who took us to a restaurant that night to get a Camel meat Tagine. Along with me there were 2 others eating the dish.

When it came out it looked gr8 and smelt good too. After the photo shot of the food I finally got some one my fork and stuck it in my gob. It was totally not what I was expecting to get in my mouth. I could be that it had been slow cooked in the tagine but it tasted wonderfully delicious. Just like a perfectly cooked leg of beef. There was no flavour like that of game meat or the taste of kangaroo. It was very much like a steak The meat just pulled apart and tasted gr8. Part of me thought “ nahhh that wasn’t camel meat, it was too good and not tough enough”. I sure do hope it was the real deal I will be having that again. I must try and find it again and cook it myself to see if it really is that tender with the same taste.

Prices in Morocco
Morocco might not be an expensive country but as a tourist with 1 person out of work it was sure was to us. Granted we are probably being biased here as we have been to Egypt where everything was good and cheap without too much ripping off the tourist. We half expected Morocco to be

exactly the same. Now as a tourist and a white person in a foreign land you know that the prices are going to be hiked up just for you. After a few days in we started to get more saving and realise how much things should cost and how much we should be paying for taxis, etc. We made sure we would buy our water in a supermarket in stead of a corner shop as they don’t have prices on them.

We found the smaller (petit) taxis were the cheapest and on our last day

we had limited funds to get to the airport so we looked for the small taxi. The drivers of the big taxis were saying they are the same price as the small ones, yeah we know buddy we have heard that one before. Time spent haggling with them saying we only have 50 to pay for the both of us to the airport and then triple confirming that they agree we hopped into the big taxi. Upon arrival the driver says after I handed over the 50 that it was 50 each. We said nooo we told you 50 that is all we have and that is all you getting. He gave us a look of ‘ok alright you got me but it was worth a try’.

Hot tip, So make sure you learn your prices as soon as possible so you don’t have too many days of being ripped off.


Crappy Tour Guide
We had been warned that the tour guide for Morocco had been CRAP! We had hoped we got a different guide or the crappy one had left. Nope that was not the case, we started out by giving this guy the benefit of the doubt and with only 5 of us it could be a different story he might actually be good.

We were WRONG! Turns out if anything he might have been even worse for our group than the others as it was so small. We left Morocco feeling that we had not learnt anything about the history of the county or most of the builds. We did learn a lot about how there are 5 pillars of Islam, how pretty the girls are on our tour and that the guide has a wife in the US who sends him money. Didn’t learn all that much, as a result we can recommend to not use TRAVEL TALK as a tour company for Morocco.

Sights
Ok sure their might be a bit of negativity above and well we were swayed

by the guide and the blatant ripping off style of the locals in the big cities but we would recommend it as a place to go, just not with the company we went with. We saw some amazing sights and how nice the country side is.

One of the best places we went to was the Sahara desert when we got the chance to watch the sun set. It would have been amazing to stay out on the desert at night all on your own.

Last day without tour group - Waterfall
A girl on our tour Michelle was joining up with the next leg of her tour in Marrakech the same place we were flying out of so we had the whole of Saturday to do something. Michelle had read/heard about this waterfall that was really nice to go look at and she really wanted to go there. We had nothing else to do so kier and I agreed to go along. After finding a tour company to take us there (for ½ the price our tour guide got from a taxi man) we had a private 4 wheel drive to take us down there with 4 hr at the falls b4 we had to return.

At the falls we went to do a walk around but found it easier to get a guide. Glen didn’t want to get a guide and wanted to legg it down the hill with out any directions. I couldn’t see the point to hiring a guide when there were paths all over the place. We had 4 hrs to kill and could afford to get lost.