{"id":10,"date":"2010-06-20T22:35:25","date_gmt":"2010-06-21T02:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jalyhe.wordpress.com\/2010\/06\/20\/whither-in-morocco"},"modified":"2020-11-02T04:24:54","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T04:24:54","slug":"whither-in-morocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"Whither in Morocco"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

We don\u2019t prefer the \u201cbeen there, done that\u201d type of
\nwhirlwind travelling. To us, a trip is only worth as much as what we can learn
\nsomething from it, about the people, the culture, the history, the geology, the
\ntechnology, whatever. And for the maximum amount of learning, one needs to
\nprepare before the trip, and follow up afterwards. It\u2019s a lot of work, but
\nmakes the travel more interesting.<\/font><\/p>\n

Morocco
\nwill be our first experience with Africa. We
\nchose it because of its relative safety, and because of its close vicinity to Spain. In our
\nprevious trips to Spain, we heard of people\u2019s fears of Moroccans\u2014it\u2019s very much
\nlike Americans\u2019 fears of Mexicans; and we\u2019ve seen in Cordoba (southern Spain)
\nthe Great
\nMosque<\/a> built by the Moorish people. Not far south from Cordoba,
\none meets the Gibraltar Strait, where Morocco is visible with naked eye.<\/font><\/p>\n

Once we mention Morocco, many people asked: \u201cAre
\nyou going to Casa Blanca?\u201d This is a testament of the power and success of the
\nmovie. But for those who\u2019ve been to Morocco, Casa Blanca is a
\n\u201cmust-not-go-city\u201d. Not that it is dangerous or bad in some other way, but it\u2019s
\nmodern, well-developed, and would not show off the most unique cultural
\nheritage of Morocco.<\/font><\/p>\n

Instead, the tourist attractions are mostly in the Imperial Cities,
\nFez (or F\u00e8s), Meknes,
\nMarrakesh and Rabat. Of these four, the present-day capital
\nand the current King\u2019s seat is Rabat,
\nwhich makes it less attractive than the others. This is not a commentary on the
\ntaste of the King and Queen, but the mere fact that their adapting Rabat to modern living necessarily makes Rabat less ancient than the rest. Besides,
\nall that extra people and traffic that commensurate with a modern capital\u2014just imagine
\nWashington DC\u2014would be a hassle for navigating the
\nstreets. So we\u2019ll take the other three Imperial Cities. <\/font><\/p>\n

In addition, we\u2019d like to visit the Sahara,
\none of the biggest natural wonders in that part of the world. Well, the real Sahara is hard to get to, and for a short visit,
\nespecially in the hot summer sun, we\u2019d settle for a view of a corner of a dune
\nnot far from it. Traditionally there are two places to do this, and following
\nthe advice of many people on the web, we chose the town of Merzouga. There, we\u2019d be able to pick a hotel
\nroom, and see the dune from our window. Going into the desert will still be a
\nchallenge, as in the summer heat not even camels would want to go in. That is,
\nduring the day. There might still be a chance to go into the desert after
\nsundown, and get back out before daybreak. We\u2019ll see.<\/font><\/p>\n

By now the trip has come into shape. We\u2019d start off in Marrakesh, go to Merzouga to see the desert, and then to Meknes\/Fez
\n(these two cities are very close). Then we go up to Tanger (or Tangier), where
\nwe can take a ferry to Spain.<\/font> and <\/p>\n

To round off the trip, we\u2019ll stop by Ait Ben Haddou (or A\u00eft
\nBenhaddou), where supposedly the movie Lawrence of Arabia<\/a><\/i> is shot.
\nAnd right next to Meknes,
\nwe will visit Volubilis, a Roman city in ruins. Whether we can finish all of
\nthese, or some of it, it would be a fabulous trip. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We don\u2019t prefer the \u201cbeen there, done that\u201d type of whirlwind travelling. To us, a trip is only worth as much as what we can learn something from it, about the people, the culture, the history, the geology, the technology, whatever. And for the maximum amount of learning, one needs to prepare before the trip, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}