Field notes
Morocco
Get acquainted with the character and the corners of Morocco.
The character
Morocco treats commerce as theater and tea as diplomacy. Getting lost is a reasonable use of your afternoon. Nothing has one price and nothing happens fast. Both are features the country has refined over roughly a thousand years of practice.
The medinas, the old walled cities, are mazes by design. Fez's is the largest car-free urban area in the world, thousands of lanes that swallow GPS signals and spit out donkey traffic. You'll get lost. That was always the itinerary.
Your job is to slow down to local speed. Accept the mint tea. Make a counteroffer. The seller respects the negotiation more than the sale, and a visitor who refuses to play is leaving the conversation early.
When to go
Spring and fall, roughly March to May and September to November. Summer in Marrakech and Fez regularly passes 38 degrees Celsius, which is weather for lying down, not for souks.
During Ramadan the rhythm of the day inverts. Many cafes close until sunset, then the streets fill with life late into the night. Traveling then is rewarding if you adjust, and exhausting if you refuse to.
Money
The currency is the dirham, and it's a closed currency. You aren't supposed to import or export it in quantity, so change money on arrival and spend down before you leave.
Haggling in the souks is expected and unhurried. A common opening price runs well above what the seller will accept, and the gap is closed over tea, slowly. Fixed-price shops exist and are marked, for days when you have no performance left in you.
Getting around
The trains are good and getting better. Al Boraq, Africa's first high-speed rail line, has linked Tangier and Casablanca since 2018 at up to 320 kilometers per hour. Standard lines run between Fez and Marrakech by way of Rabat, comfortably.
Petits taxis handle cities, grands taxis handle the gaps, and a hired car with a driver is the sane way to cross the Atlas. Inside any medina you're on foot, which is the entire point of a medina.
Do this
Get lost in the Fez medina on purpose
Put the phone away. The lanes have routed people without satellites for a millennium. When genuinely stuck, a shopkeeper will point you out for the pleasure of it, or a kid will guide you for a coin.
Take the tea ceremony seriously
Mint tea poured from a height, three glasses, increasingly sweet. Refusing the first glass is a transaction. Accepting all three is a relationship.
Sleep in a riad
The traditional houses are blank walls outside and tiled courtyards inside, the entire architecture organized around not showing off to the street. Book one in the medina and let the city go quiet behind a door.
Go to the Sahara properly, or not at all
The dunes at Merzouga are a long drive from Marrakech. Give it two nights minimum. The desert at dawn, from a camp, is worth the road. A one-day sprint is just the road.
Skip this
The snake charmers of Jemaa el-Fna
The square at dusk is real theater. The snakes are defanged props kept in conditions welfare groups condemn, and the photo costs more than agreed. Watch the storytellers and the food stalls instead.
Tannery viewpoints with a free guide
The Fez tanneries are genuinely medieval. The free guide, the mint sprig at the door, the leather shop at the exit. One package with one price, and you're it. Go with eyes open or view from a marked terrace.
Worth knowing
- The University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez has operated since 859, which makes it, by UNESCO and Guinness reckoning, the oldest continuously operating university in the world. It was founded by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri.
- Morocco is one of the world's largest producers of sardines, and grilled sardines on the coast cost almost nothing and outclass most of what the fancy restaurants serve.
- The blue town of Chefchaouen repaints itself blue continuously. Several explanations circulate, all confidently delivered, none agreed upon. The town has decided the mystery sells better than the answer.
The notes end here, for now.
We're writing the books one country at a time. The Norway guide shows what the full treatment looks like, and the quiz doubles as our mailing list.