Eat, Pray, Love In Morocco: An Evening at Khadija’s Kuzina
Mike Bernhardt April 18, 2018 2 Comments
Here’s an article I wrote for Journey Beyond Travel, about one of two cooking classes I took in Essaouira, Morocco last month!
Africa
A Guided Tour of Chefchaouen, Morocco
Mike Bernhardt April 4, 2018 No Comments
The first of a series of articles I’m writing for a Moroccan tour company called Journey Beyond Travel has been published! Here’s the link:
The Angry Sea
Mike Bernhardt March 18, 2018 2 Comments
Est-que vous avez les cartes pour Maroc Telecom?
Oui.
Deux cinquante dirhams, s’il vous plait.
It’s strange, coming back to a place that is so familiar while still being so foreign. I arrived in Tangier last night after an adventurous day traveling from Granada, Spain. Getting oriented in Morocco was easy the second time around. Getting here was not. …
A Week In Tangier
Mike Bernhardt January 24, 2018 3 Comments
Note: A slightly different version of this piece was first published on the travel site Journey Beyond Travel
On our first afternoon in the Tangier medina, a soft-spoken, bespectacled old man invited my wife and me to step inside his carpet shop to “have a look.” When we showed interest in a small piece, he suddenly vanished, to be replaced by “The Closer,” the younger and rabidly aggressive owner of the store. After being served mint tea and then cajoled, manipulated, pressured, and begged for far too long, we finally stumbled out, exhausted. Undeterred, we continued our walk, dodging one shopkeeper after another, each shouting: English? Espanol? Just have a look!
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My Week In Tangier
Mike Bernhardt July 31, 2017 3 Comments
I’ve been published on another travel site! Have a look!
https://www.journeybeyondtravel.com/blog/week-in-tangier.html
A Bientót, Morocco!
Mike Bernhardt June 25, 2017 3 Comments
I’m sitting in the back of our taxi as we drive, looping inland and then back to the Atlantic coast heading north from Essaouira. We’ve just begun the seven-hour drive to Salé, where we will spend our final night in Morroco. The sky is overcast. Forests of thuya wood stretch from both sides of the road, as far as the eye can see. As always, Yvonne is sitting in the front seat so that she can talk to the driver in French. I am half-listening, half writing.
The trees become scrub as we get closer to the sea. Unburdened donkeys graze by the road, no work this morning. Small herds of sheep and goats populate the hillsides, their keepers always nearby. Low stone walls make corrals for the occasional horses or cows. We mount a rise in the road, and suddenly the ocean appears, calm, the beach an endless stretch of sand.
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Jimi Hendrix, Where Art Thou?
Mike Bernhardt June 21, 2017 2 Comments
It was so windy in Essaouira the evening we arrived that my hat flew off of my head as I exited the car. That much wind was exceptional, but it isn’t called the Windy City for nothing; this coastal town and its tradewinds are world-reknowned for kitesurfing. The typical weather during our visit was cool and overcast in the morning, even foggy sometimes, while afternoons were sunny and breezy. It was much more like San Francisco than hot Casablanca, which is 200 miles north.
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Nomads and Villages
Mike Bernhardt June 16, 2017 4 Comments
After we left Merzouga, we took a long, winding road through the mountains, where we were about to spend a week seeing some of the rural parts of Morocco. The road wasn’t just a long and winding one; it was the ONLY road. Outside of the major cities, there really aren’t a lot of highways, and nearly all of them are two lanes. …
Ramadan
Mike Bernhardt June 10, 2017 5 Comments
We went to bed around midnight in Chefchaouen, only to be awakened at 1:30 AM by the loud, rhythmic banging of a drum. It started in the distance and slowly got closer. I looked out the window just in time to see a young man jogging by, banging his drum on the run. A woman across the street was looking out her window also, smiling and watching the drummer as he disappeared and his drum faded into the distance. Finally, the 1-man parade ended as I heard the final drumbeat.
But about 15 minutes later, just as I was falling back to sleep, the muezzin in the mosque next to our hotel called out for several minutes. Loudly. After that, we didn’t awaken until around 8 AM, despite an alleged call to daybreak prayer. …
The Dromedarians
Mike Bernhardt June 7, 2017 4 Comments
We spent most of a day driving through barren plains broken only by the occasional herd of goats and sheep, plus a visit to a fossil shop. We arrived late in the afternoon at a hotel in Merzouga, where we would begin our overnight camel trek into the Sahara Desert. Our tour guide, Ibrahim, said good night; a 4×4 drove us and another couple right to the edge of the dunes, where our camels were waiting.
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