The Grand Tour of Morocco.

Morocco gets over 300 days of sunshine but in November its still pretty cold in the shade. You need a thick jumper in the early mornings & once the sun goes down. Many people, almost everyone over the age of 35, wear the djellaba & they're looking pretty tempting to me right now!  They call Marrakech ' the red city' because the buildings are all made from a pinkish terracotta which absorbs, rather than reflects, the light from the sun. The people seem to dress in coordinating colours; browns, greys, mustard & black with the occasional flash of turquoise or purple. To me, the colours of the city are terracotta, dusty copper & the green of the gardens & riads, it is a city both parched and yet rich with water. Bejewelled yet also bedraggled. I'm getting a crick in the neck from looking at things, when we're walking about, on the bus & especially when trying to cross the road! I want to look at & see everything from the faces of the people & the different styles of clothes, to the juxtaposition between the hand of fatima door knockers & the mobile phone stores that seem to pop up on every street corner. Casablancans seems a lot more modern, like their city. Fewer djellabas & headscarves, no ladies in the full burkas with only their eyes on view. It's a city of commerce & industry, it could be anywhere in the world with the signs in Arabic the only distinguishing features. Hussain II Mosque was beautiful architecturally and, like cathedrals in the UK, a peaceful space with a reverent energy. I'd love to see what it would be like during prayer time, to feel the energy & watch the flow of the faithful at worship. I imagine it to be similar to when a room of people are practicing sun salutations, it's a moving meditation. As we travelled out of Casablanca, the white city, I saw from the bus, a man with his prayer mat at the side of the road praying towards Mecca. He was only ten minutes walk from the mosque, even less in his car but he chose to pray on the pavement rather than miss it or be late. It reiterates the question that has been going round my head during this trip, how do Muslims fit their worship five times a day into their everyday lives? Casablanca has none of the faded glory of other towns like Havana, it looks like it started developing in the 70s/80s then got left behind. There is a lot of construction going on now but it looks half hearted, forgotten and yet the streets are busy with traffic, the pavements bustling with people, the ubiquitous motorbikes weaving in between cars & buses occasionally riding across the pathways for a sneaky shortcut. I've yet to work out the traffic systems here, it's all very random but there are no near misses, the only beeping comes as a warning from the bikes of their approach or from cars if someone takes too long to react to a green light. It may be just the tone of the horns or because they are usually just a gentle toot toot but they don't seem to have the same aggressive feel as some of the drivers in much busier places like New York. Casablanca has no style, not like Marrakech. I'm glad to be only spending the morning here. Woo! Just swam in the Atlantic Ocean while the sun set into the sea. I tried the infinity pool here at the hotel but it was deathly cold, I jumped in & jumped straight out again! Mum managed to spend about ten minutes in the pool, the sea was much warmer but very strong. Storks nest in the tops of the trees coming back each year to add a few more sticks & twigs to the structure. They clap their beaks together to make a loud noise that sounds like castanets. Last night I swam in the Atlantic Ocean, tonight I'm staying in a £200 a night hotel with the sound of the Mediterranean Sea to lull me to sleep. Bliss. Tangier has two seasides, one on the Atlantic & one on the Mediterranean.   Kasbah means a walled city or fortress, a Minaret is the tower of a mosque. Muezzin is the call to prayer that happens five times a day starting at sunrise with the last call at sundown. A Souk is the marketplace. Tangier street crossings are very entertaining, the little green man is animated, slowly walking across the road. Above the green man is a timer counting down from 50seconds and as the countdown reaches zero the green man speeds up until his legs are a blur. Tangier's playground of the bohemians is more correctly translated as the playground of the lazy people. It's an area where young, unemployed people would come and lounge about in the hope of somehow getting to Spain without exerting any effort at all. Andalusia is only 12km away. The birds here in morocco are very fast, it's difficult to identify them. We have seen sparrows everywhere including in the hotel restaurants we eat breakfast in. The second morning in Marrakech, mum had to shoo them off the croissants. Moroccan Muslims bury their dead lying on their right side, facing towards Mecca. Cremation is not allowed. Before burial the corpse is taken to the immam for the last ablution. Unless they are needed for an autopsy etc the corpse must be buried within 24 hours of death. Tetouan medina was quite literally amazing. A total maze with something unexpected around each corner. We were guided through too quickly to properly appreciate it but my appetite has been whetted in readiness for the medina in Fez. Given the choice I would have traveled through at a slower pace, there were many missed photographic opportunities though I did get a few shots worth keeping. It's a good thing I'm a lazy photographer so I don't bother with different filters etc. Epic Happy New Year meal; Mint tea with sesame cookies,tomato & olive salads, huge basket of bread, chickpea soup with olive oil & cumin, bowls of olives, sardines cooked in garlic & tomatoes, bowls of carrots, potatoes & cauliflower, a tagine of chicken with lemon then clementines & green grapes to finish. Morocco may have 300 days of sunshine but its rained twice & today we had thunder & lightening. Talk about taking the weather with us! Fez is amazing, the medina is a labyrinth, you could spend days in there & never get bored. You'd also never get out, even the guide said he got lost in there as a boy. The view of the medina from on top of the hill shows it to be a dense, compacted place, this is reiterated once you're in by the narrow pathways barely wider than your shoulders and by the fact that the only form of transport is to travel either by foot, donkey or mule. If you hear the shout of 'Barat! Bharat!' Then make way because there is a donkey, mule or hand pushed cart coming, they move quickly & they don't stop! The day before yesterday at Volubilis we were sweltering in the hot sun, now we are entering the Mid Atlas Mountains there is snow on the ground & I have five layers on! It's about 2,000 metres above sea level and some of the way has been fogged up with cloud cover. We have seen nomad settlements & as we passed through a cedar wood forest we saw one of the Barbary apes that live wild there. The nomads that live in this area at this time of year build stone settlements rather than living in tents, they keep donkeys & sheep and weave rugs for their own use or to trade at the markets.  The houses they build are single storey with only three rooms; a bedroom, a kitchen and a room to hold the loom on which they create the rugs. The loom is the only piece of furniture they will have. In December, when there is heavy snow fall, the nomads will move further south returning to the mountains after March to avoid the 50 degree heat.  Just saw two rainbows! Even out in the sandstone High Atlas Mountains the Berber built Kasbahs have satellite dishes.  Today we travelled through the Atlas Mountains, when we left Fez it was grey & rainy, the mountains were cold & snowy then when we arrived at the edge of the Sahara it was hot & sunny. It was a quick stop at the hotel (much more authentic than the others) then we jumped into jeeps & headed off road. And I mean off road! We travelled through the town & out onto the wastelands on a single lane Tarmac road which simply ended & we continued on the bare, dry earth. I have no idea how the drivers knew the way, there were no landmarks & though there were tracks in the dirt we never seemed to follow any particular one & didn't follow the other two jeeps at all! After an hours exciting drive being thrown around the back of the car we spotted caravans of camels sitting in amongst the few buildings. We parked up & headed towards our herd. The camel I had (Bogart) was surprisingly comfortable, the lurching way they get up & down was the only precarious moment. Once you got into the rhythm it was a very calm ride into the dunes. We watched the sunset sitting on top of a sand dune & rode the camels back to the jeeps. We drove back as darkness fell & stopped to look at the stars. There's no point describing the whole experience as ill never come anywhere close to how it felt or looked but it was bloody amazeballs. After tea me & mum visited the shop attached to the hotel & made friends with the assistant; Abdul. He offered mum 1000 camels & she took him up on it without even haggling! He was a lovely guy & showed us how to wrap a turban toureg style with a beautiful cloth about ten feet long.  Yesterday I was sold again, this time for a better price; a Berber rug shop. The hotel room I was in had a balcony over looking the high Atlas Mountains and before tea we sat in the jacuzzi under the stars.