Yip it's a tajine! Morocco, I'm back!
A lovely long Christmas break begs for some winter sun so a bargain flight via Ryanair brought me to Marrakesh on the 29th of December. The flight touched down in the week old Marrakech-Menara airport at 8pm so an overnight was needed before the trek to the coast. I stayed at Equity-Point Hostel. It's a fine hostel at the centre of the medina, of course it takes about 7 self-appointed guides to get there but it served it's purpose for the night.  I even squeezed in a dinner in the night market for old times sake. 

 The next day was spent on a pleasant 4 hour bus journey with Supratours Bus. Then with a pick up from  Surf Berbere the holiday had truly begun!
I had stayed in Surf Berbere after touring Morocco in the summer of 2015 and knew it was the ideal spot to practice my surfing and chill out over the Christmas holidays. 
There was a great mix of people coming and going over the 9 days I stayed there and I would definitely recommend it for a solo traveler. There were families, couples, groups of friends and many others traveling solo. The atmosphere and general vibe was as good as ever. (In fairness, with the sea pounding against the building lulling you to sleep- you cannot help being chilled!)
I got the yoga/surf week package which included breakfast and dinners each night, 5 surf lessons with gear and lunch and 5 yoga sessions. I added on two extra nights of b and b and had dinner out those two nights for about €10 each night.
I found the surf instructors to be excellent, very diligent and keen to ensure we all progressed. It cannot be an easy job for them with new guests arriving every day at every level of ability.
Each surf day started from 8am with breakfast in the Berbere cafe right on the waves. Then up to the surf shop to get your board, suits and load up the vans. Then the search for waves began! We'd park up, have a coffee and wait. Then into the water for the two hour surf lesson. Lunch was delivered at noon to us on the beach from the surf camp and then the afternoon stretched ahead for more surfing or  a spot of sunbathing. Bliss!
​We took a day trip to Imsouane which was class, a really cool fishing village. 

If you're looking for a great value, chilled out break with winter sun, you definitely cannot go wrong with Taghazout and Surf Berbere. I will be returning again and that I suppose is the best  recommendation! 

Mint tea is a Moroccan highlight. It is served at the end of every meal and is offered at the entrance of shops, homes and events. While mint is a main ingredient, it tastes like sugar is the main ingredient! It is laden with sugar and often a "tourist tea" was made with considerably less sugar. 
Tea is served in a small glass and the higher the pour, the better the tea!
​How to make Moroccan Tea.

First of all the clay has to be "made" in a process of drying, soaking and bleaching.

The potter starts with a lump of clay and with his feet stepping on the big wheel below he spins it around to form a jug or bowl or whatever he wants.
Then it's out to the sun to dry.

All the Fassi pottery is handpainted. We watched this man paint a bowl. It took about 10 minutes. 

The pottery is fired in one of these special ovens. 
​And the finished product......

.....my favourite porridge bowl!

Mosaics are also made in the same workshop. Think of making a giant jigsaw-forever! That's what making a mosaic seemed to be like. There are some similarities with the pottery process. The tiles have to be fired in the huge ovens. 

In this part of the workshop, workers have to break the tiles into small pieces for the mosaic making.

The pieces are then passed onto the mosaic maker. In the photograph above he is making a frame for a mirror. This mosaic will take him days. He lays out the pieces upside down and then glues a wooden covering to the back. It is a long, slow process, requiring a lot of concentration.
Some of the bigger pieces photographed take months. 

However, outside of these big cities, shopping is a lot different.

Moroccans do their shopping in their local médina or souq.
Most dictionaries define a médina as the old walled part of a North African town. 
A souq is defined as an open air market found in Asian and North African towns. 
As part of our tour, we had time to visit the médina's of Rabat, Fes and Marrakech. Each were interesting, busy and very loud!
While initially it seems chaotic, médinas usually have sections: meat, breads, spices, fruit/veg, clothes, furniture, household items. Local people know exactly where to go to get their fresh produce for their cooking. Look closely at the photographs to identify fruit and vegetables we find on our supermarket shelves which originate in Morocco. 

The médina passageways are really narrow and you can only imagine how hard it must be for the shop owners to bring their produce through.  Donkeys, hand carts and motorbikes are used. There doesn't seem to be any restrictions on motorised vehicles -once it fits, it's allowed to go through!

There were many craft areas/workshops at the edges of the médina. In Fes and Marrakech we visited the leather souq, the furniture souq, the carpet souq and the ceramic souq. Craftsmen work on their products in their workshops. Nowadays, a display or show for tourists is ready for viewing. Usually the owner or manager with fluent English will lead tourists around the workshop explaining the process and finish in the shop where the tourists are encouraged to buy souvenirs.

As part of our tour of the Medina of Fez, we visited a tannery. Unfortunately the tannery was just after a clean and refurbishment so we could only imagine the process of a working tannery and browse the shop.

A few weeks later in the Médina of Marrakech when I lost my way (again!) a "helpful" man offered to show me back to the main square....via a tannery! While the pop-up tour was a bit annoying, it was a working tannery and it was very interesting. 
The first impression as you walk closer to the tannery or leather souq is the smell. It is horrendous.
My guide gave me a bunch of mint leaves and told me to keep smelling the mint when I got inside. 
In Marrakech there was no balcony for tourist viewing, I was brought into the floor of the "factory". This process hasn't changed much in 900 years.

Yes, that's a donkey and cart!

Watch this video to get an idea of the leather making process.

Most of the leather is from sheep or goat hide. Many of the shops claimed to be selling camel leather but in reality most of the leather was sheep or goat!
As Abdel explained in the clip above the process starts with
​1. Washing the skin
2. Cutting the skin so it can lie flat.
3. Limestone is then put on the skin and after 4/5 hours the wool is taken off. 
4. Wool is put on the terrace to dry and the skin is taken to the white lime pool and left there for 15 days. The water and lime is changed every 5 days.  This part of the process removes all stains from the skin.
5. The skin is then taken to the wheel to wash for 1 or 2 hours.
6. The skin is put into a pool of water and pigeon poo. The pigeon poo is high in ammonia and softens the skin.
7. The skin is taken to the wheel again for a wash.
8. Time for the dyeing pool. As Abdel explained above, the tannery only uses natural dyes. 
9. The skin is then dried and ready to be used to make shoes, clothing, handbags or furniture. 

The use of the pigeon poo gives Moroccan leather the edge on other leathers. Thankfully the finished products don't carry the awful smell! Apparently people keep pigeons in Morocco to sell their excrement to the leather souqs. Who knew this common bird could be so useful!
Working in a tannery as you can see from the photos is not an easy job. The men wear very little protective equipment, have uncovered feet and wear no masks or safety goggles. Added to this is 40 degree heat and dangerous fumes. 
So what did Ms Treacy purchase you might ask!
Well...eventhough my Marrakech tannery tour was more or less forced on me, I couldn't leave the leather shop behind without making a few purchases. One of these was this pink purse. Goat leather I was told!

I splashed out in the factory shop in Fez and got myself this beautiful Camel leather pouffe.  I like to rest my feet on it in front of the fire and remember the same heat from the Moroccan sun!

My first breakfast was at the beautiful Dar Oulanda Hotel.  My breakfast table was by the pool and I got my first taste of the Moroccan carb loaded breakfast!

On the breakfast table we can see a lot of the usuals:  coffee, orange juice, yogurt, soft cheese, chocolate spread, toast.
The orange juice is freshly squeezed and orange juice stalls can be seen in many of the cities in Morocco. 
The coffee comes in one of the big flasks and the other big flask contains hot milk. Why do you think most of the milk on the breakfast tables in Morocco was boiling hot?
In a restaurant you would order this coffee by asking for a café au lait.

Lets look closely at the pancakes/pastries:

On the left we have crepes or pancakes as we know them.
Moving right on the bottom are Beghrir pancakes.  
On top is a Moroccan doughnut and to the right is the very interesting Rghaif .
These square shaped Moroccan pancakes were at most breakfasts and are made by kneading a small ball of dough. Flattening and rolling it out, folding it into a square and frying it.
All of these pastries and pancakes are delicious on their own or with honey, chocolate, lemon, sugar....the possibilities are endless! 

The tagine was possibly my favourite Moroccan dish.  It reminds me of a stew.  It comes in a pot like the one on the left. 
My favourite tagine was the top left-egg and meatball.  You eat your tagine with bread.

I didn't eat a lot of couscous in Morocco, I preferred the tagines. Generally in restaurants it was a choice of one or the other!
The Couscous pictured above was my first one and the most impressive couscous I have ever seen!
It is a meat couscous and there is also a lot of vegetables in it.  At the bottom is the couscous which is like rice but is made from semolina. 
On the left is a bowl of gravy which you pour over the couscous, as much as you prefer.

I only had this once in a restaurant in Fez. This pastilla is made of warga layered with chicken (often pigeon!) cooked with carmelised onions, lemon, eggs and toasted sugared almonds and dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar.  It was delicious! At the start I was wondering how this little pastry would fill me up properly for lunch but I was so full I wasn't able to finish it all. 

Every dinner started with beautiful salads.  Can you recognise the different vegetables?

Being such a hot country, Morocco is home to a lot of interesting fruits.  Can you name the fruit in the pictures? Look closely at the fruit you buy in the supermarket. It may have come from Morocco!

There are many websites about the amazing Sahara Desert, here are are my favourites:
Ancient Africa - Sahara Desert
Sahara Desert Facts for Kids Video

As part of the 10 Day Imperial Cities Tour with Nomadic Tours, a camel trek through the Sahara Desert was part of the itinerary. It was one of the most anticipated part of the tour....however Morocco in July is very, very, very hot! 
For that reason our camel trek to the Berber camp started at 5pm. The Berber people are indigenous/native people of northern Africa. 

We met our camels at the edge of the Sahara desert and were led by our Tuareg Camel Men.  Before we sat up on our camels, we had to dress for the Sahara! Our camel guides patiently twisted our scarves and shawls into headpieces that protected our heads and faces from the hot sun and gritty sand. 

We rode our camels for an hour to the Berber camp. It really made me appreciate all those Berber and Tuareg people who traveled through the desert for days on end. I was pretty sore after one hour!  
We were staying at a "traditional" Berber camp (with a western toilet onsite!).  We watched the sunset over the sand dunes and some of the group did some sand boarding!  We had a huge lunch earlier in the day so I was expecting that the desert dinner was going to be very light. I was to be proved very wrong. It was probably one of the best meals I had in Morocco!

We had the choice of sleeping in the tents or dragging the mattresses out under the stars. Naturally a night under the stars was the preferred choice! It was refreshing to have a night free of wifi, TV, phones and sound.  We all hit our desert beds by 9pm and were woken by a drum at 5am for our sunrise camel trek back to our bus. 

First of all we see the brass and tin cups. These were used by the customers to drink from.  Long before "Reduce, reuse, recycle" these water-sellers were 100% eco-friendly.





The water-seller carried water from cisterns in the outskirts of the city to the busy market areas. 
How did he carry the water?

Working outside in the relentless Moroccan heat needs sun protection.  This traditional Berber hat is eye-catching but it also provides good shade. 

Finally, the water-seller has to make himself known to the medina.  He uses rings his bell, toots his horn, sings, chants and sometimes dances. 


All around Morocco I encountered these entertainers. They were always brightly coloured, in traditional dress.  Some don't wear the cups and bells anymore and focus more on their entertaining.
Below is a very short video of one in Fez who knew a lot of English pop songs!