New millennium New Year in Morocco!

This year we treated ourselves to a winter holiday too... and so we decided to spend New Year in Morocco... in the warm! We set off as always with our camper van towards France, Spain and Gibraltar, and take the ferry across the strait... at last we've arrived and we set about exploring the northern area... that is, only Tangier is worth noting, even though we immediately understand which way the wind blows, and we decide to leave, given the high crime rate due to the not exactly cultured people there, eheh! Fez is quite another matter, very pretty, it looks like the typical Arab city with its mosques and the medina (the old part of the city).

We visit the royal palace and here too, as already in Turkey, we are fascinated by the kindness of the people; they competed to offer us tea or some local product!! Leaving Fez, we move on, but not far, to visit the small town of Moulay Idriss, very important because of its namesake founder, who was the founder of the first imperial dynasty of Morocco... indeed it's a place of pilgrimage for the whole country, and we almost seem out of place! We say goodbye to this graceful little village and move on to Meknes, a city famous for the Bab Mansour, a gigantic entrance gate to the city... which seen up close is really more beautiful! We come across our first souks... and my father doesn't waste time making himself noticed, managing to get chased by a seller all through the market until, exhausted, the man gives in and sells us the goods at a rock-bottom price...

he wanted to rip us off!!! It's time to head towards the coast... we can't wait to have a nice swim in the ocean! Obvious destination, the capital Rabat... which is the capital, but absolutely not the first place to visit, since besides the Mausoleum of Mohammed there's very little, just a few fine big gates... but after seeing the one in Meknes, probably none will be at its level. Far more famous is certainly Casablanca, and not only for the film! The Hassan II Mosque, with the tallest minaret in the world (210 metres), is spectacular... I've seen minarets and I'll see more... but so big, wow... impressive. As impressive are its markets... stalls everywhere, sellers who sell anything unimaginable on the face of the earth for two pennies... practically you buy something even if you don't need anything! Now we set off for the desert... but first, an obligatory stop...

Marrakesh! We admire its mosques and the great squares of the city, where, needless to say, sellers pop up everywhere... by now it's a duel between them and us... whoever wins makes the deal. The day slips by... and the next day we spend between the visit of the mausoleum and the Koutoubia mosque, which towers over the whole city with its great minaret... strangely entry is allowed, since in many mosques entry is permitted only to Muslims... all the better! And now the desert, where we're about to celebrate the new year too... and its 3 stages we had set ourselves: Merzouga, Rissani and Erfoud. Merzouga is a small town at the foot of the desert... indeed we take the jeep and head into the Sahara... going over the dunes is spectacular, like taking a ride on a comfortable camel, and a calm one at that, that doesn't make you nervous! But the fantastic thing was seeing the dawn...

the sun rising is something hard to describe, with its rays covering the desert in resplendent yellow... wow!! A fairly quick visit to Erfoud and a dash to Rissani, to admire the beautiful mosque and get ready for New Year... everyone in the Bedouin tents cooking meat to their heart's content and toasting the new year... I felt as if I were at home among friends! Just time to enter the new millennium, and our slow climb back towards Italy begins, passing through the spectacular Ziz valleys, a kind of canyon among the greenest oases of the desert... truly a fine sight! Our journey ends here... for me it was my debut in African territory... in some ways it felt like being in prehistoric times, given the scant technology and the Moroccans' ways, but seeing them, they seem to be better off than us!!