Morocco is a kingdom. It is modern and progressive economically. One example: it’s in the midst of a building program that will create 800,000 new housing units by 2021.  On the outskirts of Rabat I saw some of these apartment buildings from the window of the train as I traveled to Casablanca: row after row of identical modern buildings, each holding perhaps eight apartments.

Morocco’s tourism industry is a major part of its economy.  I experienced two newer structures that will play an important role in the growth of tourism in Morocco.  A new train station in Rabat and a recently built airport in Marrakech.  Both of these are spectacular.

You may be familiar with the high speed trains in France called TGV. The French are sharing this technology with its former colony, Morocco. The first high-speed rail line in Africa, Morocco’s TGV line, opened very recently, is in use from Tangiers to Casablanca with a stop in Rabat. It will eventually reach Marrakech. In Rabat an enormous new train station has been built in an area designated as that city’s new financial and transportation center.  Just completed in November, the station will have a number of banks, restaurants and shops although most are under construction now. Here are a photos of what I found there at the end of December 2018.

The new Rabat Agdal rail station.

Interior of the new Agdal train station will be occupied by banks, shops and restaurants. McDonald’s is already here! Can Starbucks be far behind?

The airport in Marakech has the most spectacular airport terminal.  It consists of buildings for arrivals and departures connected at the center. “Completed in 2008, the terminal extension of the Marrakech Menara Airport in Morocco—designed by Swiss Architects E2A Architecture…” This is a quote from an article entitled The Most Beautiful Airports in the World.

Another view of the arrivals hall exterior at the Marrakech airport. I like the “front porch cafe” but suspect it’s really the smokers lounge.

The interior of the arrivals hall.

The exterior of the departures hall.

The departures area interior

The front wall of the departures hall from the inside. I was truly delighted by this giant room.

Here’s a website about 21^st century African-Arabic architecture that provides more information about this airport: http://www.archidatum.com/projects/marrakech-menara-airport-extension-e2a-architecture/

And one you may recognize!

Note added 28 January 2019: I’ve just found this long, detailed article about Morocco’s new high-speed train system. You can read it here:  https://www.businessinsider.com/bullet-train-africa-morocco-casablanca-tangier-2019-1#i-bought-a-bag-of-chips-and-took-a-moment-to-take-in-the-landscape-as-it-blew-by-36

The word “medina” in Morocco refers to ancient original settlements behind protective walls. One source I found said that the medina was entire city of Rabat until the French arrived ca. 1900 and built all around the it for the next 50 years. I stayed for a few days in an old house there.  Rabat’s medina is a warren of narrow, old streets lined with old houses called “riads” and small shops. The main streets are filled with people selling things and with pedestrians, motorbikes and 3-wheeled mini-trucks. My guess is that the poorest residents of Rabat live in the medina and earn their living there, as have their ancestors for generations. It is an unpleasant place, unsanitary, unsafe to walk through, chaotic.

In the medina in Rabat, Morocco.

The medina in Marrakech is the major tourist attraction. It is also a walled and ancient city. Its center is the largest square in Africa, called Jemaa el-Fna. It’s bordered by “souks” – tiny shops selling mostly things tourists buy. The enormous center fills with street food vendors, snake charmers, people in funny clothes who want to be paid for having their picture taken. I was told that I was lucky to come on Monday because the “men from the mountains bring things their families make to sell on Monday.” Indeed, I saw a man selling a pile of rough wool sweaters which were being bought up quickly by Moroccans, not tourists.

In Jemaa el Fna in Marrakech, men dressesd in red are hoping for tourists to pay them for their photo. In the background notice the minaret of one of several mosques in this area.

One large section of Jemaa el Fna is for selling spices and other bits of aromatic plants. Smells great!

An example of merchadise to be found here: beautiful hand made soaps that smell wondeful (above) and shoes including Moroccan pointed-toe traditional slippers.

I found one beautiful quiet corner of the Medina as I left.

You may also know the word “kasbah.” This, I learned, is a word for an ancient fortress.  In Rabat the Kasbah is a well-maintained structure at the edge of the ocean, overlooking large beaches and a lighthouse. Along the way in and out there are few small cafés selling mint tea and CocaCola. The way out leads to the souks in Rabat – narrow streets of small neat shops selling leather goods and other high-end objects. Tourists come here by the busload.

The walls of the Kasbah in Rabat.

Beautiful wares for sale in the Kasbah in Rabat.

The view from the fortress walls in Rabat’s Kasbah.

The Kasbah in Marrakech is south of the Medina and separated from it. There’s a very large mosque at one end with a beautiful minaret (tower). It was much like Rabat’s medina: crowded, chaotic, filled with shops and shoppers.  I think it served its residents much more than tourists.

Marrakech’s Kasbah is entirely different from the one in Rabat. Here you see some of the omnipresent security forces. Note the large mosque in the background and its minaret on the right.

Perhaps my favorite picture: early morning, oranges on the tree, Moroccan pink wall and one woman alone.

I hope these photos will give you a sense of these places in Morocco.

Libbie

It’s impossible to go to Morocco without visiting Marrakesh! Recently I decided I had to go there. I put my bags into a taxi and went to the Rabat Ville train station. As I arrived a porter, a poor man, offered help with my bags. Once inside he helped me find the ticket window and then led me to the train. The wrong train!! Once at my destination I learned that the train  me that took me to Casablanca did not continue Marrakech! A couple of hours later, with the help of a Belgian who has become a Moroccan strawberry farmer, I was on the way, humming to myself  the tune of that old song, Marrakech Express!*

I traveled for two and a half hours across a landscape that changed every few miles.  It was beautiful much of the time. I would love to have taken photographs but the windows of the train were so dirty pictures would have been useless.  Instead I took notes, which I’ll share here with you.

Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the ride was how often the landscape changed in the course of a two and a half hour ride. The first section of green beautiful farmland was very much like Pamlico County. (For readers who aren’t my eastern North Carolina neighbors, that’s a place that’s very flat and agricultural.)  Almost immediately I began to see old farm compounds on a couple of acres of land, always surrounded by walls. The enclosed houses had flat roofs and were often painted dark red. I continued to see those farm house enclosures (sometimes newer, sometimes larger) throughout the ride.

As we journeyed on, the land became softer, slightly rolling, often hosting small groves of trees that may have been almonds or fruit or olives. Once I saw an old almond tree in full bloom. One thing I’ve never seen before: cactus farms. In Rabat people were selling cactus fruit about the size of a tennis ball in the streets.

As the land varied from flat and green to rolling hills of small trees and back to dry and arid desert-like, I was reminded of rides I took long ago across west Texas and Nevada.  As the train moved farther south I saw plants that looked like tumble weed.

Here and there small villages appeared. These were always walled and often every building was painted pink. As the train headed south I began to see crops in the fields, showing six or eight inches of new growth. The nearer we came to Marrakech the more often pink towns appeared. Some were quite large. The train only stopped at one of them, a city named Benguerir. Google tells me this is a university town, quite a large place, and like all the other towns I saw, mostly painted rosy pink.

As we approached Marrakech the best views of all appeared: the High Atlas Mountains. Visitors to Marrakech often hike or ride through these mountains to find Berber settlements and the Sahara desert. When I saw them in January they were shining in their cover of snow as the sun sank lower. Gorgeous!

Libbie

The photo at the top was “borrowed” from a travel blog by Daniel Vogelein. I hope he won’t mind. For great photos of his experience in Morocco, including some of the rural countryside I’ve tried to describe here, please visit his blog at http://www.photosomnia.com/2015/392/morocco/

*Crosby, Stills and Nash, 1969   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzB5eRu6HOk
The first verse says this:
Looking at the world
Through the sunset in your eyes
Trying to make the train
Through clear Moroccan skies
Ducks and pigs and chickens call
Animal carpet wall to wall
American ladies five foot tall in blue – They described me!

I’m in Africa!  The northwest corner of Africa, where the sky is extraordinarily clean and blue. North Africa, of which Morocco is an important part, is not a great deal like Equatorial Africa or South Africa.  It’s the site of the Sahara Dessert and the Berbers.  As it continues to be today, the country has been ruled by one dynasty since 1631. An elected Parliament sharing governance with the king. Morocco is primarily a Muslim country – at certain times of the day the call to prayer can be heard coming from three minarets.

I’m staying in Rabat, the capital city of Morocco.  Certain sections of the city are brand new (such as the area where the new rail station shown above is located. Other areas (such as the Medina) are ancient – though no one there seems to be without a mobile phone. There’s an active commercial district filled with western-style stores and where today I found McDonalds, Starbucks and Pizza Hut.

Here are some scenes of Rabat you may find interesting:

Here’s a view of the “souk.” Much smaller than the famous one in Marrakech, it covers several blocks of streets. Most merchandise seems intended to appeal to tourists.

Rabat has a number of tall ancient towers erected in the memory of kings.

In the oldest parts of town the streets are filled with merchandise and buyers. Many shops, like this one, display goods inside and out.

A street in the Kasbah quarter.

On the left is the door to the house where I’m staying.