Well, a couple of days in and here are my early observations on Morocco so far:

1. Thank Christ for my schoolgirl (albeit to GCSE A* and one of the highest A Level grades in the country standard – just sayin’) French. C’est absolument nécessaire ici, and particularly so when negotiating prices with the, let’s say, “over-optimistic” taxi drivers, when it comes to number of Dirham payable per mile.

2. It certainly ain’t easy to get a drink! I knew that to a degree coming in of course, but had understood that all the local Carrefours (a very welcome legacy of French colonialism*) here did sell alcohol at the very least. Not so, as it turns out – as I found out to my cost this morning after walking a mile to the nearest one, only to learn from the staff there (again thanks to long latent French-speaking abilities) that this only actually applies to a select few larger Carrefours after all – cue a not insubstantial taxi journey out of my way to finally successfully stock up on wine at the super-modern Menara Mall. I realise that the level of time and effort I was willing to put in on this front probably says far more about me than it does the Moroccans, but fuck it! I’m on holiday and a sundowner or two is practically obligatory, at least for us debauched, decadent Westerners at any rate…

3. It turns out that the Moroccans are also cat people! There are a lot of street cats here, particularly in the Medina area, which local people collectively feed and look after, so much kudos there. In fact, speaking of felines, I had a truly horrendous dream last night that I had given away my own much beloved cat (the aptly named Princess Kim Chi, the Official Goddess of Sapphire-eyed Floofiness), due to her somewhat “demanding” nature at times, and then later regretted it horribly. I woke up in a massive panic, only after long sleep-addled contemplation finally coming to the conclusion that this wasn’t actually the case, then fell back asleep only to repeat the very same traumatic dream all over again…

Anyhoo, moving on…. Over the course of the last two days, I’ve been mainly exploring the historic Medina area, including morning visits to the Bahia Palace, Koutoubia Mosque and the Ben Youssef Medersa. As you’d expect from this North African neck of the woods, there were a lot of traditional mosaics and ornate wood carvings involved here – pretty snazzy, I think you’ll all agree.

From there it was onto the souks, which were mercifully far less hassly than I’d been previously led to believe. As all of you know by now, I loves me a market at the best of times, and the below constitutes just the teensiest tiny fraction of all photos taken here as a result…

By far the most interesting thing about the souks, however, was the myriad of miniature one-man hole-in-the-wall type businesses, which included: old-school blacksmiths, iron-mongers, tailors, booksellers, leather workers, haberdashers, shoemakers, carpenters, butchers (each with some decidedly unhygienic looking wares on offer…) and probably many more I just didn’t manage to get to. How these people ever make any kind of living in this age of mass production I really don’t know, but it was really quite incredible to see close-up – almost like taking a step back in time a century or two. I didn’t take any pictures of my own (just felt too intrusive to do so), but here are some I’ve unashamedly stolen off t’interweb, which will hopefully give you some sense of the place instead…

And that’s it for the minute, bar a few final random pics I took along the way…

As for now, I’m just taking a chance to catch my breath before joining up with the group later this evening and officially embark on this next segment of my trip. Sorry Tara and Stuart once again for the distinct lack of sex, drugs and rock n roll so far here, but – given it took me best part of a morning just to source a semi-decent looking merlot here – I think you may well need to lower your expectations on this front…. 😉

Until next time then, à bientôt!

* Technically Morocco was “just” a French protectorate rather than full-blown colony, but close enough.