The tour company was one continuous marketing sales pitch to buy trinkets at every stop. The tour guide gets a commission on everything we would purchase. This blocked us from learning about the Moroccan Culture.
Morocco IS NOT handicapped accessible; not at all. You have to crouch near the floor to use traditional bato. And every entry door has a step. Curbs very often do not have ramps. When a family member is handicapped, they are confined to their home. Nether right nor wrong, this is just their culture. Family takes care of family throughout their lives.
DO NOT TRUST THE GUIDE TO NEGOTIATE FOR YOU. They actively instructed the vendor to raise the price.
A driver typically costs about $40/day. A 10% tip is $4 to $10 per day.
10% tips are customary throughout Morocco.
Keep a pocket of 5 Durham (50 cents USD) coins to pay for restroom access.
Keep some toilet paper folded up in your pocket; not all restrooms have Toilet paper.
Keep a small tube of hand soap in your pocket, most restrooms outside major cities do not have soap available.
Traditional toilets here are two places to stand on and a trench around each foot that goes into a hole in the floor.
To clean yourself, take the bucket, fill with some water, use your left hand to to repeatedly clean your bottom, pour water on your left hand and repeat. Use bucket to flush toilet area. Then use the faucet water to clean your hands.
Only greet people with your right hand.
We should have gone online and travelled without a guide arranged by the tour agency.
We were asked and let it be known up front that we wanted Vegetarian options.
NO EFFORT was provided by the tour operator to provide us quality vegetable entrees. Cooking vegetables diversely isn’t difficult; but was NOT provided.
If traveling to more than one city, hiring a driver is recommended. Moroccans are very aggressive drivers and our driver would pass another car with oncoming traffic and forcing oncoming cars to go to the side of the road. This is somewhat normal here. There is an etiquette but I didn’t pick up on the nuances. But in other places police rule without compromise and he drove as expected.
The local tour guides selected for us just hauled us to places to have lunch. Their English was so poor they could not be understood, and they didn’t know anything about their own history, nor ability to express themselves beyond simple phrases. They could not even understand any questions we asked.
One guide at a Roman ruins was knowledgeable, but spoke a fast slurred voice that droned on without any expectation of being understood.
Don’t pay for guides in advance; they are really worthless. Make sure you meet them in-person or at least on phone to be sure they can easily speak English AND they know cultural significance to share.
Better, when doing your own research, download the website historical information to your phone. You will get 100 times more useful information about what you are looking at when you arrive.
Verizon worked most places we traveled except the Sahara desert.
Dial 0 01 area code and number to call US.
Morocco is a very safe place to walk around. They do sell alcohol products here. Women do not need to cover their hair. Women tend to dress more inconspicuous, casual modest clothing.
The buildings look in terrible repair on the outside. This I was told is out of respect for the less fortunate peoples.
However, most hotels are like motels in the United States. There are always things that fail to work.
In well kept hotels, I thought this provided a little cultural significance.
Television didn’t work in any of the smaller cities we visited. Casablanca and Marrakech were the only two hotels where televisions worked. We watched Trump win the election in Marrakech.
Exchange about $500 USD to $ Durham per week. The shops and most restaurants only take cash, and they want Moroccan Durham currency.
We bought a suitcase for $25 to bring back spices and fossils we purchased for coking and gifts.
I recommend taking a Moroccan Cuisine cooking class in Marrakech. It was fun ($70 USD)
Local banks and we didn’t have trouble with small exchange shops near other banks to exchange money.
We used a credit card in large grocery stores.
Relatively nice hotels were about $60 USD per night, and included breakfast.
Morocco is Carb rich in their meals. I gained 10 pounds. Every meal is bread and cheese. With options that distinguish breakfast from lunch/dinner.
A late dinner in the hotels was $15 dollars ($150 Durham).
Really, the provided guides are worthless.
One exception. In Marrakech the large market area had workmen making products by hand. That one guide provided more understandable information about Moroccan culture, than all the other 5 guides combined.
If you are Vegetarian, DO NOT eat anywhere a guide wants you to eat. The Veggie Tajin is exactly the same every day, in every city. BORING and a waste of our money and waste of time in our trip.
Vegetarians should search restaurants for themselves. You have to make efforts to find diversity in Moroccan Vegetarian entrees.
Made available to us: Examples: hard boiled egg, egg omelette without filling, exactly the same carrot/pitato/squash tajine(steamed), Shirazi Persian salad, (onion, tomato, spice chopped salad), pizza topped with part of a can of Libby’s mixed vegetables on a pad of cheese. This is what we were fed by the tour operator.
However, in larger cities you can find diverse vegetarian foods from other countries. My favorite was a Persian restaurant in Marrakech.
The tour operator did NOTHING to provide examples of diverse Moroccan vegetarian cuisine. Since meat is expensive for them, I cannot imagine they have no Moroccan vegetarian recipes.
Moroccans like the United States 50 years ago, smoke cigarettes everywhere. Any nice club will be filled with smoke.
Fez was low on our list of culturally significant Vito. The leather area smells very badly. They give you peppermint plants to breathe through to stifle the stench.
The leather work done here is crude. Not at all comparable to Venice and Florence leather products in Italy. We didn’t buy any leather products in Fez.
We were taken to a pottery shop where they supposedly produce ornate tiles by hand. But it was just a show. They worked too slowly to get any significant amount of product produced.
I did buy a pair of Italian shoes here and had the shoe cobbler stretch the leather to fit my feet. This is one of the significant cultural experiences here. Having workman actually do something useful, using their Moroccan skills. My shoes have a story I will remember.
The countryside is beautiful throughout Morocco.
Liter lines roadways everywhere. You can’t find a trash can anywhere. We would save our trash and bring it to the hotel to dispose.
Glass lines all the highways. People throwing bottles out windows.
We visited a private farm. Liter outnumbered the plants. Trash everywhere is a Moroccan cultural norm. There may be utility in this custom. No landfills. Sunlight breaks down the plastics. The farm dirt was soft from recent rains. But the land was more firm where the liter concentrates.
We visited a few old fortified homes, and fortified towns (Casba). Things our great/great grand parents would have used. That was cultural, and memorable.
Hiking and backpacking is allowed in Morocco. But find details before traveling.
Get all the recommended vaccinations, it’s dirty here.
Fleas and flies are a minor issue. I ordered insect repellent wrist bands from Amazon. I wore them around my socks and didn’t have any bites.
We brought mosquito head nets, and wore them in the Sahara to keep flies out of our ears and eyes.
We were told the tap water is not safe to drink.
I had loose stool after eating dairy products, that cleared up by the third day. Be sure to have a very light meal if you are going to be traveling that day. Bathrooms are not easy to come by out on highways.
W.C. Generally means toilet (Water Closet)
My favorite places were:
Marrakech, Cher chun, the Sahara (Marzuga), Atlas Mountains, a Fortified home, and Rabat
We enjoyed the museum on our own in Rabat.
Casablanca and Fez were far less interesting; if we come back we likely will not visit them. But I did buy my Italian shoes in Casablanca. A hidden out of the way winding street shop.