Morocco - reflections on our trip

As promised in last week's blog, these are reflections on our experiences in Morocco. This was our first visit to this country and having the luxury of being there for over a month, we feel we had the opportunity of starting to get to know this fascinating place.

We’d done a lot of research before the trip and were well equipped in practical terms but nothing can prepare you for the effect of travelling independently in a country so different in every respect from the UK.  

We were both very much looking forward to visiting Morocco but of course, you can’t be sure you’ll like somewhere until you actually experience it.  Our research had thrown up some issues that others have encountered, such as being constantly hassled by over-persistent vendors in markets or people coming to their motorhome on campsites wanting to sell their wares; street dogs making a nuisance of themselves or being aggressive towards their dogs; grotty campsites and toilet facilities and pestering solo women have experienced when going anywhere alone.  Also, reports of road conditions being poor and local drivers being rather erratic!

We’d agreed that if we didn’t like it, we’d simply cut short that part of the trip and spend longer in Spain and Portugal.

We needn’t have worried on those scores - as you’ll have gathered from our blog, we loved it! As you’ll have seen from our photos, Morocco packs a big punch where the scenery is concerned in terms of the huge vistas, the likes of which we’d never seen before, and the variation in landscapes as we travelled the length of the country between the various mountain ranges.

The High Atlas Mountains were a particular spectacle with their passes, gorges, plateaus,  and dramatic rock strata as well as the remote Amazigh villages. 

The desert was another highlight, the immense sea of sand dunes - another first for us both. 

On very much an equal par with the scenery were the Moroccan people. We didn’t experience any unfriendliness at all, we felt safe and the people couldn’t have been kinder or more welcoming.

Many Moroccans live a materially simple life, often in remote and challenging areas but without exception the people we met welcomed us openly and seemed genuinely happy to meet us.  As we drove through the country people smiled and waved so warmly that it was genuinely touching.

The history and culture in Morocco was a fascinating aspect of our trip and a real highlight for both of us was the visit to the ancient medina of Fes; it was like stepping back in time.

We’ve travelled to a lot of developing countries with ancient and fascinating cultures but we’ve never seen anything like Fes.

As for hassle, this turned out to be an unfounded concern for us. 

You have to remember that income from tourism is what puts food on a lot of families' tables, so it's understandable that people would like you to buy their goods. There are however, only so many rugs and trinkets that you want but declining with a smile was always accepted with good humour - and the banter is what makes the experience such fun. We weren’t hassled for money by adults, sometimes children asked for sweets and a few dirhams but that was it.

Our dogs are pleased to report that they weren’t hassled or interfered with by any street dogs... however...

we did witness on one occasion a pack of street dogs circling two dog walkers on the beach which must have been frightening. 

We met a sweet little dog that was very friendly. We’d have loved to adopt her, but Millie and Pip weren't so keen!

Our experience was that the local drivers were more patient and accepting of us driving a slower and larger vehicle than anywhere else we've been - and certainly the UK. We generally tried to avoid busy city centres, however we were routed through the middle of Fes during rush-hour by Google maps - which focussed the mind, it was very busy but not the mayhem we had feared!

We were very impressed with the condition of the roads overall. Obviously in a heavy motorhome you don't want to be crashing through potholes and along rutted, unmade roads all day - either from a comfort or a damage point of view. If you divide the roads into three categories, much like the UK... motorway, 'A' roads and 'B' roads, we'd say that the motorway surface was far better than the UK. The 'A' roads were on a par, or better and the 'B' roads (in which we'd include mountain passes and minor roads) were generally worse than the UK, however there's a massive road improvement scheme going on and large sections of many of these smaller roads are now re-surfaced.

In terms of day to day living, there were plenty of places to buy food, fill up with diesel and Ad Blue, get cash and top up our SIMs and no shortage of restaurants if we wanted to eat out.

In some campsites, you could even order home-cooked tagine to be delivered to your motorhome which we did a couple of times! 

The food was generally very good, the tagines particularly so, although dishes weren’t perhaps as spicy or as highly flavoured as we had expected. 

Travelling and living are very cheap in Morocco, we paid as little as 99p per litre for diesel, and for campsites we typically paid about £7 per night with electricity. Being a Muslim country, alcohol isn’t widely available, but some supermarkets and restaurants do sell it. A bottle of Moroccan wine costs around £4.00 and is very drinkable! We generally ate evening meals in the motorhome with the occasional meal out - these would cost around £24.00 for a two-course meal with a bottle of wine.

Although our experience was so positive, that isn’t to say that the trip was without challenges and in the interests of giving a balanced view of the country we will mention them. 

There is a lot of rubbish littering large areas of the country, much of it plastic.  As you drive along you often see rubbish dumped on the roadside on the outskirts of towns and villages and the ground often glistens with broken glass. The Moroccan government has acknowledged the issue and in 2016 banned the import, nationwide production and sale of plastic bags. It’s clearly a complex problem and will need a lot more work to be done in terms of education and infrastructure.

We hadn’t understood that the environment in southern Morocco would be quite so demanding; there was a fine dust in the air which coated everything inside and outside of the motorhome and in the desert the very low humidity made our skin and lips very dry.  We had to remember to keep the fly screens closed during the day as there were quite a few flies who were keen to join us in Lionel. This was however one of our favourite areas in the whole trip and we wouldn’t hesitate to return.

The biggest irritation of all were the incessant police checkpoints! Typically we would pass through about eight in a day.  These checkpoints involved vehicles having to slow from 80 kph to a halt within a matter of about 50 metres only to be shown the display on a speed gun by an over-enthusiastic young (or are we just old?!) police officer. Nick became quite a dab hand at talking us out of being fined for speeding - however not always successfully!  

So… our trip to  Morocco turned out to be so much more of an adventure than we had ever anticipated. We appreciate that this review only reflects our own adventure and that other people at another time may have a different experience, but hope we have given you a flavour of our journey in these blogs and perhaps whetted your appetites to visit, travel around, and let yourselves become immersed in all that Morocco has to offer.

We're now back in Europe with two more blogs to go as we travel back home through Portugal and Spain, we hope you'll join us!