All in all we drove 885 miles across Morocco in two weeks time – seeing everything from the markets in Marrakesh to the dunes of the Sahara Desert. We took 1250 pictures – of which 200 ended up in the blog.
Dave had little trouble driving. For us, we enjoy not being on someone else’s t…
We awoke at 2:30am, rolled out the door at 3:00am for the drive to the airport. Dave has been babying the clutch for some ways now. So just a few more miles to go. Dave turns on his phone and hands it to Melissa to navigate. She pulls up google maps, and, the phone’s screen gets all snowy and th…
We awoke to a cold blustery morning. We ate breakfast and then headed back to the room to read for a while. Dave isn’t feeling well, so Melissa heads out to souks again on her own. Today’s mission was to find some jars in which to put olives to take home.
In the souks two little girls a…
We awoke at 6:40am and decide to get moving. After a quick shower, Melissa puts on her watch which now says 6:00am. What the heck? Immediately she realized that our phones had automatically switched to the time in Spain (1 hour later) because they locked onto the Spanish cell network. So it was …
We realized last night that because Ahlam asked us to pay the bill last night, they missed charging us for the bottle of wine at dinner. So Melissa took another $20 US dollars down to the front desk. We continue to be amazed at how cheap food is here – a good bottle of wine in a restaurant back ho…
We continue to be delighted with Riad Alya. Here is a photo of the living room downstairs. The detailed tiles on the wall are original from when the Riad was built nearly 200 years ago.
And the plaster work in the garden area is exquisite. Ahlam explained today that the way this is done is t…
While in Morocco at Riad Alya, we took a cooking class, going in the morning to the market to buy the supplies and then later cooking in their kitchen. To read about the full experience, see this blog post.
The receipes and instructions are here.
Lamb Tagine for Two People
1 lb lamb s…
Came down to breakfast and were served an entire table full of breads. Croissants, flat bread, French bread, what looked like English muffins. Sigh. Breakfast seems to be the big challenge food allergy wise. Both of us are allergic to wheat and eggs among other things. We’ve had eggs every morn…
We awoke this morning to the cleaning crews sweeping up from yesterday’s sandstorm. The place was a mess – with sand and debris everywhere.
We paid the bill – which came to about $600 US dollars. Pretty cheap in the scheme of things. Three nights – two at the hotel and one camel overnighter…
We had breakfast with the people we met on the camel trek – Caroline and Danny. She had hurt herself badly the day before doing the sandboarding thing and had to be brought back to the hotel in a dune buggy as she had likely torn the meniscus of both knees. They have been in Morocco for two weeks …
We were awakened an hour before dawn at 6am by our guides – as we had planned to hike up the highest dune to watch the sunset. They had told us the night before it would take 20 to 30 minutes to hike up to amazing views. So piece-o-cake, right? We laid in bed debating how badly we wanted to see t…
We awoke at dawn to tour the city. The whole point in staying in the city rather than the more comfy hotels the other side of the river was that you can get up early before the hordes arrive and tour the city while its quiet. Here’s a shot taken from the top of city just after dawn.
We …
We awoke to more rain. We had hoped it might clear out so we could see the mountains before we have to depart for the day, alas its not to be. It was pouring when we left, and the clay soil had turned the rivers and streams red. We feared driving back down to the highway, having slid around on th…
Today we check out of the Riad and head to the Atlas Mountains. The rain has given us a break fortunately. We had to make a dash back to the main square to get some more cash to pay the bill. After which our host helped us take the luggage back to the car and ensure that we don’t get overcharged …
We slept in this morning. Didn’t roll out of bed till almost noon. Which we knew meant we had missed breakfast as they stop serving at 11am. Oh well. But Dave discovered when he went for a cup of coffee that they still insisted on feeding us breakfast despite the late hour. Moroccans are known …
Today we awoke earlier than we thought we might given the time change. But then we were in bed at 8pm and got up at 9am. So after only getting 4 hours sleep on the plane, sleeping 12 or 13 hours was refreshing. We went to the rooftop for breakfast.
We found that Riad Miski’s chef had co…
We left home yesterday at 11am. Our flight was delayed by 30 minutes, but no biggie as we had a 2-hour layover in Frankfurt. So, we had some lunch and a bottle of wine figuring it might be the last we see of good wine for a couple of weeks as Morocco is a Muslim country where alcohol is frowned up…