May 28, 2017 - Casablanca to Fes, Morocco

Today has been an incredibly busy day seeing many diverse sites!

We started with 7am breakfast at the hotel and on the bus at 8am. “Yellah!” Let’s go!



Our tour guide, Abdulwahab, along with our bus driver, Kahlid, started us with a driving tour of Casablanca, pointing out the highlights of the city. We stopped at the huge Hassan II Mosque which is the largest in the country. The mosque took five years to build and was completed in 1995. The minaret is 220 meters tall and there is space for 100,000 people to come and worship here!


In Casablanca alone there are 18 McDonalds and because Ramadan has started, it was a coffee stop for our group.


We also stopped along La Corniche, the waterfront promenade in Casablanca. There was a large picture of the royal family. They are loved by the people and known to send their children to the public schools and seen in the streets. King Mohammad VI is the man in the center on the top row. He is 51 years old!
We continued on to the political capital, Rabat. Our stop there was at ornate Mausoleum of King Mohammed V. We saw the changing of the guard on horseback, then inside to see the mausoleum.



The guards were happy to let us pose with them for pictures.
The architecture and carving, as well as the mosaics were incredible.

Continuing through the city, it was amazing to see much construction and renovations. This “casbah”” is being restored and turned into an outdoor theatre.

In Meknes we stopped a the medina to get a small glimpse of the shopping area of the old city. These were the gates into the medina.



Across the street was the large market square and through a small entry, we passed into the large market.

It was filled with wonderful sights, sounds, and smells.


There were sweets made of pastries and nuts, covered in honey. Bees were everywhere!

Tables of olives filled some of the stalls.

Spices of every kind were fun to see.

Our stop was short, because we had miles to go before arriving in Fes. We passed fields of every kind. Vineyards, wheat fields, olive trees, beautiful jacaranda trees, and cork trees.
In Fes we checked into our hotel and relaxed a while before going to the Restaurant Fassia for a traditional Moroccan dinner with entertainment. Several courses were served – soup, dates and sweets, pastilla (a pastry pie with chicken), tajin (chicken cooked with onions, olives, saffron), followed by melon, coconut cookies and Moroccan tea.


Our entertainment included musicians, a magician, and belly dancers.

It was definitely a full day and was difficult to narrow down the pictures! Tomorrow we have another busy day here in Fes, so stay tuned!

May 27, 2017 - Casablanca, Morocco

We boarded our overnight flight from Montreal, Canada to Casablanca and took off on time at 7:05 p.m. The plane was half empty, so we arrived almost an hour early into Morocco – 5:30 am instead of 6:30! Customs was pretty fast so we had about two hours to wait for our hotel transfer with our tour!

We met our tour guide and shuttled to our hotel, the Grand Mogador. We passed quite the diverse landscape on the 45 minute ride into town. Wheat fields with horses, cows, and sheep; agave fields, prickly pear cactus, and palm trees!

There were miles of apartment buildings, all with satellite dishes and many hanging their laundry.


Because Ramadan began yesterday, there are few restaurants open between sunup and sundown, so we had lunch at the hotel. Tobey, the adventurous eater, tried the Moroccan soup and tea. The soup had lots of celery, some carrots, and chicken. It was really pretty good. The Moroccan tea is a sweet mint tea and also good.

We took a long walk after lunch to explore the area. We are near the water, but the ports are industrial and not really accessible. We kept walking and found a local fish market which was packed with people shopping and different varieties of fish.





The fishermen were also busy mending their nets.

Looking back across the bay, you can see the city and one of the prayer towers.
We wandered through the streets on our way back to the hotel. Some of the buildings are ornate and interesting, but most are plain block style construction.

The drivers are crazy here and we are glad we don’t have to deal with the traffic. Motorcycles and motor bikes are popular forms of transportation and they weave in and out of traffic, seemingly carefree! This side street had an area set aside for motorcycle parking.

Vendors were set up selling everything imaginable, from spices and fruits to beautiful lace cloths.

We were back to the hotel by 3:30 to rest and freshen up before our welcome dinner and tour orientation this evening.

May 26, 2017 - Fort Collins, CO to Montreal, Canada - en route to Casablanca, Morocco

We had a 3:00 am wake-up to begin our trip to Morocco with our friend,Wendy. Our little dog, Penny, was most confused by the early alarm! Off to meet at Wendy’s house. We left Wendy’s at 4:00 am for the airport and were able to breeze through security, arriving at our gate before 6:00 am. Our good luck came to a screeching halt after that! We boarded the plane, pushed off from the gate at 7:05 am on time, then sat on the runway. There was a problem with one of the onboard computers, so back to the gate we went. After an hour of the service techs onboard, we were given the the go-ahead to take off …. 8:30 am!

Tobey and I were booked on a 2 pm flight to Montreal, Wendy was on the 3pm flight. We  had to clear customs, take a shuttle bus to another terminal, and dashed to our gate. The airline had rebooked the 2 pm flight people onto another flight, but we made it in time to get on the original flight, so they rebooked us back. Because we had checked bags, they wouldn’t let her fly standby with us, so she arrived an hour later into Montreal. 

We are hanging out in the Priority Club Lounge waiting for our overnight flight to Casablanca and the start of our Morocco tour. We are all tired and feeling a little “zombied” and hope that we are able to sleep on the overnight flight. More to come!

March 1 - 6, 2017 - Tulum, Mexico to Raton, Mew Mexico

Our time in Mexico came to a close Wednesday morning. We took the bus from Tulum to the Cancun airport for our flight to Phoenix. It was a great month and a pretty easy flight back to the US.


We spent five days with our moms before gathering up our spoiled dog, Penny, and heading back to Colorado. It was a busy time – helping my mom get all of her outside windows and screens washed and Tobey getting his mom’s taxes done. It was the least we could do after they watched our dog since Christmas! We also had a chance to have dinner with our friend, Roger, who came from Tucson. It was fun to see him.

We headed out about 8:30 this morning with Penny riding co-pilot on Tobey’s lap. She missed her “dad” and wanted to stay pretty close.

The desert is really green and full of wildflowers as we headed north on Hwy 87 from Scottsdale.

East of Payson, on Hwy. 260, near Kohl’s Ranch, we ran through a section where snow was still on the ground. Welcome back to the mountains in the spring!

We made a stop in Las Vegas, Nevada to drive into the Old Town Historic Plaza which serves the setting for the TV program “Longmire.” It was so windy and cold that we didn’t spend much time – just a quick walk around the square and back on the road.


We are stopped for the night in Raton, New Mexico before our final drive home tomorrow.