Magic of Morocco
February 27 - March 8, 2022
Mike and Judy Henderson
I'm going to leave the trip map at the beginning of each page so you can see where we are.
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3/7/2022 (Monday) The last day of the tour (except for going home). We go to Essaouira today. Essaouira was known as Mogador until the 1960s. The name Essaouira comes from the Arabic "Es-Saouira" meaning "beautifully designed".
There were several tour choices today. There was a cooking class, a massage, and the trip to Essaouira. It turned out that only Janet, Judy, me, and Anita and Richard chose the trip to Essaouira.
We boarded the bus at 7am this morning because the bus ride was about two and a half hours each way. Along the way, Nourdine talked about the argan tree that grows only in the area around Essaouira. The fruit of the argan tree is collected and the nut is ground to produce argan oil. Argan oil is used for cooking and for beauty products. Although the argan tree is a cousin to the olive, the outer portion of the fruit is not edible for humans. The tree is similar in size and appearance to the olive tree, but the foliage is a darker green. The argan tree is native only to this southwest part of Moracco and part of Algeria.
Goats in the area feed on the argan tree, eating both the leaves and the fruit. The goats have been known to climb the trees to feed on the leaves. While the goats feed on the argan fruit, they regurgitate the nuts and spit them out. This spreads the seeds for new trees. The nuts do not pass through the goats as some people believe. [The goats are ruminants, which means that they regurgitate some of the contents of their stomach and chew it again, knows as chewing a cud. In the process of chewing the cud, they spit out the seeds - they only eat the outside of the argan nut. Here's a discussion.]
The fruit is collected after it has dried and fallen to the ground. Oil is then produced from the nut in a labor intensive process. I'll discuss the process later.
As we drove along the highway, we came to two argan trees with goats in them. While in nature the goats climb the argan trees to feed on them, it was very clear that these trees were set up as tourist exhibits. You can see the platforms that have been put in the tree for the goats to stand on. I suspect they put the goat into the tree each morning, perhaps using a ladder.
Here's the goat owner in front of one of the trees. He asks for payment for you to take pictures of the tree and the goats.
A close-up of a few of the goats in the tree, with some of them merely standing on a branch.
He had a baby goat which he let people hold.
Here's Judy holding the baby goat. He was really a cutie. He's probably earned that goat herder a bundle.
Janet with the baby goat.
Chris in front of the goat tree.
And one last shot of Judy with the baby goat.
A little further down the road was another goat-tree. The sight of goats in the second tree at a distance was so unusual that they looked like cardboard cutouts. Those were the only two goat-filled trees we saw, further indicating that they were "set-up" for tourists.
After we left the goat-trees, we stopped at a women's cooperative that produced argan products.
We were met by a woman who will explain the process to us. She spoke excellent English.
Some women were processing the argan seeds. They were seated on a raised platform and each did one step in the process.
The woman on the right cracks and removes the dried fruit part of the argan, leaving the hard inside shell. The woman to the left cracks that hard shell to reveal the oil-containing seed.
Here, you see the shell of the argan on the left and the oil-bearing seed on the right.
The seeds may be roasted if the oil is to be used for cooking. Roasting improves the flavor. If the oil is to be used for cosmetics, it is not roasted. This woman is grinding roasted nuts.
The "mash" from the oil extraction step is then mixed with water and kneaded to get some additional oil from the mash. When finished, the mash is used as animal feed.
This woman is grinding the un-roasted seeds for cosmetic products.
Judy and Janet tried working the grinding stone.
They had some samples of argan oil, including infused into honey.
Here I am, sampling some of the argan oils.
Then, of course, they led us into their store. There were only five of us but we did buy a few things.
Then we continued on to Essaouira. The bus stopped at the entrance of the souk. The entrance is through the arch in the background.
We walked down the main street. The street is being re-paved and was a bit irregular to walk on. Here are a few souk pictures, beginning with a butcher.
Some spices displayed in an interesting way.
Janet and Judy in the souk.
Judy found this display of ants, with bodies of argan nuts, and bought a few. Everyone needs ants at a picnic.
While Janet bought a wooden camel. Nourdine is helping her make a good purchase. Bargaining is expected unless there is a sign indicating fixed-price, and we're untrained in the skill.
Some colorful hats in the souk. I just thought it was a nice picture. I think the Moroccans call these hats "kufi". The taqiyah hat is worn for religious purposes and may be plain white. I believe these hats are crocheted and not knitted.
We wound our way through the streets of the medina to the Bayt Dakira Museum, located in the Jewish Quarter. That's when I realized that we were never taken to a Christian site while in the country. All of the non-Muslim sites were Jewish. This led me to some research.
First, it is against the law in Morocco to attempt to convert a Muslim, with a penalty of six months to three years in prison. In Islam, if a Muslim converts to another religion s/he is guilty of apostasy, for which the punishment is death. Judaism is an inherited religion. That is, Jews believe that the children of Abraham are the chosen of God and only someone who is born of a Jewish mother can be Jewish (conversion by a gentile to Judaism is possible, but not frequent). Jews are not evangelical and do not seek to convert others to Judaism so they are no threat to Islam.
In a country like Morocco, I suspect a tour itinerary has to be approved by the government, and the government may not approve tours that include Christian sites. I did a search and there are Christian sites in Morocco. Christianity in Morocco goes back to Roman times but it was suppressed after the Islamic conquest. About half the population of Casablanca was Christian during the time of the French Protectorate. After independence Christians left Morocco and there are only a small number left in the entire country, just as there are only a small number of Jews in the country.
With the formation of Israel in 1948, some of the Moroccan Jews moved to Israel. Then, in 1967 when the Six-Day War occurred, the Jews in Morocco did not feel safe and more left. Over time, almost all the Jews left Morocco for other countries - many to Israel, but also to Europe, the US, and Canada. There are only 2,000 to 2,500 Jews left in Morocco today.
The third line in this plaque is written in Berber script, in which many characters are similar in appearance to Greek. Its an ancient language.
We went in - it's a small place. This may be, or may have been, the Torah Ark.
A view of the interior.
After we left the museum, we went to the Fortress of Mogador, also known as Scala del Mar, on the Atlantic Ocean.
A view down the cannon line.
Then we walked to the port where all the fishing boats are based, and where the daily fish market is held. The boats are all about the same size and all painted blue. Fishing is a major industry in this town, and it was crowded with people looking to buy entire catches, or just enough for the day.
Here are a couple of fisherman baiting hooks, probably for long line fishing. Sardines are used for bait, and these were held in a salt tank.
Fishermen selling their fish.
After walking the port area, we headed to a restaurant not far away where we had a nice lunch. It was called "M Beach".
Here's the group right after lunch. The question was, "Who would like coffee?" Moroccan coffee is delicious.
Essaouira is a coastal resort town that is very popular with native travelers, and it has many apartment/condo buildings that are quite costly. But it was time to leave, and this concluded our visit to Essaouira. We were happy to have seen it. We boarded the bus for the return trip to Marrakesh. We had to be back to the hotel by 5pm so that we could take our Covid test for travel tomorrow.
As we approached Marrakesh, we could see the High Atlas Mountains in the distance, covered with snow.
We arrived at the hotel in time for our Covid tests and received the results in a couple of hours. Everyone was negative.
This evening we have the farewell reception and dinner, held in this building behind the hotel. The reception was on the top floor and the dinner on the first floor. Morocco was casting its magical spell.
The bar on the top floor for the reception.
Looking back at the hotel from the top floor.
Dennis, Marta, Judy and Wally at the reception.
Chris thanking us for taking the tour. He gave each of us a traditional Moroccan tea glass. Unusually, it was blue instead of clear. Although it's hard to see in the picture, he has one in his hand. These particular glasses were manufactured with sand that was from the exact desert that we had visited, where we had ridden camels. They will be a touching reminder of our travels.
Our last Moroccan sunset, seen from the top of the building.
Then we went down to the first floor for dinner. I only took a few pictures at dinner - I quit being a photographer for a while. Here's part of our group at a table.
When dinner was over, we said our good-byes. Everyone had a different departure time in the morning, so we won't see each other again.
We went back to our room to finish packing and to get ready for our departure tomorrow morning.
3/8/2022 (Tuesday) We depart the hotel at 7am. A car will take Judy, Janet and me to the Casablanca airport. The car was on time and the trip to the airport was uneventful. It was a two and a half hour drive, and the driver even stopped at a gas station for a rest room break.
We were concerned about whether Air Maroc would have our tickets, but when we checked in, all was fine, and we cleared customs and security without any issues. Our flight was at 12:50pm so we went to the Air Maroc lounge and waited for our flight.
As we were walking to the gate we came upon this statue of a lion.
It's made from pieces of tires.
I had been texting with Jennifer, our travel agent, as we worked our way through the airport. She was standing by in case we had any problems like we did coming over. Luckily, everything went the way it should.
When we were on the plane, before I put my phone on Airplane Mode, I took this picture of Judy and Janet on the plane and sent it to Jennifer. She replied with "Yayyy, thank goodness!". Unfortunately, our trials were not yet over.
The flight to JFK was fine and the Air Maroc service was great. The trouble appeared when we landed at JFK and I turned my phone back on. I had an email from American Airlines saying that our seats had been changed from 7A/7C to 2A/2C. That was strange because on the A321T, row 2 was in first class and only had one seat on each side of the aircraft.
After we landed, we went through customs with Global Entry and then collected our bags for security check. When we departed the international arrivals there was a counter where you put your bags back into the system. So far, so good.
We took the Air Train to Terminal 8 where American Airlines is, and went to the counter to get our boarding passes for the flight to LAX. Judy and I received our boarding passes but Janet was told that she'd have to get her boarding pass at the gate. That's never a good sign.
I specifically asked the agent if there was an equipment change for the flight and she assured me there wasn't.
We went to the lounge and waited until time for boarding. When we got to the gate, we learned that there was an equipment change and Janet had been bumped to economy. Both Judy and Janet tried their hardest to get that changed but they were unsuccessful. There weren't enough first class seats and a number of people were being bumped into economy.
When we boarded we found that the aircraft was an old A321S with standard seats, not the lie-flat seats that we paid for. The A321T aircraft, that was supposed to fly the route, is that American calls their "super premium" product with a super premium price. Here's a map of each aircraft, with the A321T first. You can see what a significant difference there is between the two aircraft.
Janet wound up in seat 22D. We were served a meal and given a pillow and blanket but Janet was given nothing. There was no food service in economy class. If we had known all this in advance, we could have had a little bite to eat while in the lounge, but assuming we would be fed in Business Class, we didn't eat. Mike and I were OK, but Janet was hungry. We took a cheese plate that was served to us and a blanket and pillow to Janet.
Even with the "first class" seats, the flight was miserable. The seats only reclined a small amount so it was like attempting to sleep in a chair. As bad as it was for Judy and me, Janet had it much worse in a narrow economy seat.
Just to put a picture in, Judy got this picture out the window as we were departing JFK.
After six pretty miserable hours, we arrived at LAX about 9:30pm. The Carey Limo driver was waiting for us and our baggage showed up on the carousel. It turned out that the driver was from Morocco - he had come to the US in 1997. The Carey supervisor had called me during the Tauck reception and I told him we were in Morocco, so I wonder if he scheduled this particular driver. We had an interesting conversation on the drive home.
The drive home was uneventable and fairly quick at that time of night.
As you can imagine, we were not pleased with American Airlines. The screw-up on the outbound portion of the trip was clearly American's fault. And the equipment change - and significant downgrade - of the aircraft on the return was totally unacceptable. They did offer to refund the difference in fare to Janet, but offered nothing to Judy and me.
Before we left, I had read complaints about American Airlines on the web, and since I published the first part of this blog, we've received comments from others who have also had problems with American. We three agreed that we will never travel American again unless it's the only possible choice.
3/9/2022 (Wednesday) No trip is over until we pick up the girls. Here they are running to us, Annie is in the lead and Lizzy is right behind her. They are the sweetest, most loveable girls you can imagine. Our memories of picking up Skipper will always be with us. He has a special place in our hearts.
Later in the day, we took Janet to John Wayne airport for her trip back to Portland. She reported that her trip was fine, a lot better than the trip to LAX.
That concludes an interesting adventure for us. Morocco was so much more than we expected. We would both recommend a tour of Morocco and may go back one day. Maybe we'll ride the new "Marrakesh Express."
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