Morocco is NOT What we Expected | Our True First Impressions

Well, welcome to Morocco. We are in Africa. That's right, we have finally arrived and this week we're starting to make our way down the coast, stopping in ancient old towns, gorging on all the gorgeous food we can get our gobs around, we're diving into some of Morocco's famous medinas for a taste of local life and we also pay a visit to the largest mosque in Africa. We hope you enjoy coming along with us. It just feels crazy that we just hopped on a ferry and went to a different continent, right? Absolutely. It's not sunk in yet, the culture feels so different, we've got no idea what's going on. We got off the ferry and made a beeline for the coast and arrived at one of the first towns that we did a little bit of research about. This place is called Asila and yeah, we've just come in to explore. We don't know what happens at what times of day in Morocco. It seems like everything's kind of just setting up, right? Yeah, but it's almost one o'clock. Yeah, exactly. So, I don't know, we've got a lot of stuff to learn but we are very, very excited to be here. I've no idea but I saw someone else getting it and it looked and smelled delicious. I thought, well, may as well give it a try and it's burning my hand, it's so hot. It's delicious. Have you figured out what it is? Yeah, chickpeas, yeah. It's like soft in the middle and then like crispy on the top, almost like a bit of cheese. So yeah, our first bit of Moroccan street food, right? What's it worth out there? 16 pence. 16 pence, that's amazing. This town Asila is well known for its art and in fact, each year, they give the walls a fresh coat of white paint and invite artists from all over the world to come and create new murals. The town is surrounded by fortified walls which date back to the 15th century when they were built by the Portuguese and incredibly, they're still completely intact. One of the main reasons why we've been really looking forward to coming to Morocco is to try the food. I thought you were going to make a joke about me having a plate of chips or something. There's a tagine underneath. You can take the last out of Yorkshire. So this is something to get used to, no? Having stray animals all around us while we're eating. Aidy loves it. She can't concentrate on having her dinner because she's just like, oh, pets. We had a pretty chilled day yesterday and after we'd had a look around the Medina and had some lunch, we went back and just chilled out at the campsite. This morning, we are heading out to somewhere that I've read does a really good Moroccan breakfast. No idea what that is, but it sounds good. This is our first experience of breakfast in Morocco. Really quite excited about it. It looks great, right? It looks amazing. Aidy's raring to get going. I think she's hungry. Yeah, we've just gone for a selection of a few different things. And yeah, it looks really good. There's not really much point in eating in the van because that breakfast was absolutely amazing. It was like a feast. It was huge. There was so much food and it came to three pounds. It's just ridiculous. Well, we stayed in town and had lunch. Not that it's particularly far away. It's like, I don't know, what would you say, a 10 minute walk? To the campsite. But we thought we'd get lunch while we were in there because Jay remembered that he'd read that it's couscous Fridays and it's Friday today. I think it's a bit like we have like fish Fridays in the UK. So a lot of restaurants only serve couscous on a Friday. Like it's a speciality. So that's what you had. It is, yeah. It was good, no? It was really good. No, I don't like couscous usually. I've never had a couscous that I have liked. And this was a completely different flavour to what I expected. And I've just Googled all about it and it's flavoured with this clarified butter or fermented butter here, which gives it like this kind of cheesy flavour. It was really, really delicious. We actually loved it so much here that we decided to spend Christmas in Issylla. And so it took a few days of downtime just to relax and explore the town outside of the old walls. We are finally leaving the campsite. Yes. We've been here how long? Just under a week, six days. Yeah, it's not that long actually. No. We're just settling into Morocco, you know, finding our feet. Yeah, and a great place to do it as well. Now I have a question for you friends. What is the capital of Morocco? Did you say Marrakech? I bet you did. If you said Marrakech, you were wrong. And if you said Casablanca, you were wrong. If you said Fez, you were wrong. It is in fact a place called Rabat. And I must admit, I did not know that until last week. We have just rocked up in Rabat now. We don't really know a great deal about it, but from just having driven through it for the past 10 minutes, it looks pretty incredible. It seems like a real mixture of the ancient and brand new, because there are some really old buildings and some fantastically new structures as well that are just being built. We are really excited to go out and explore, so we're going to head out and do that now. The place that we are parked at is just a standard car park. It's got security there and it closes overnight, although they did say it's fine for us to stay there during the night. So we've got to be back by 10 o'clock because that's when they close the gates and I'm assuming we would get locked out and not be able to get back in. Quite possibly. Because the van's locked in. So yeah, that's where we are parked. It seems great. It's right next to the Medina and a restaurant that we just went to that we were recommended by a friend of Jay's brother. He's been here loads of times, so he's given us loads of good recommendations. And it was good, right? It was really good, yes. Delicious food, the actual building itself was beautiful, the decorations and stuff, and a really nice atmosphere. So we have had an excellent day shopping this afternoon. Yes, it's been really fun, actually. The market here is incredible and not as busy or as... Hassley. Yeah, that's the good... I was going to try and find the right word for it. Not as hassley as we expected because we've read a fair amount about Morocco and particularly about the Medinas. A lot of people just say that you get hassled to death. We didn't at all. No, we didn't. We were able to look and choose what we wanted and obviously people want to sell you things. Very friendly and not pushy. It was fine. We had a really peaceful night's sleep last night. To say we're right in the city centre next to the Medina just didn't really hear anything at all. Heard the guard outside with the guard dog now and again checking on things. But yeah, it just felt really safe and yeah, had a cracking night's sleep. This morning we are heading out into the Medina again to find some breakfast. Well, it's a quarter to 11 but it kind of seems like everything's only just getting set up, right? Yes, there's a few places that are properly open but most places are just swinging their doors open and getting their stuff out. So yeah, we might have to wait a bit for breakfast. I'm not entirely sure. I'm going to ask the name in a minute but it's some sort of a flatbread and it looks great. And it's still hot. Oh wow. Well, I just asked the lady at the stall who sold them to us what they were. She said they're crepes. A little bit embarrassing. She also laughed at me but I'm going to try it now anyway. It's delicious. Is it a crepe? No, not as we know it. We're really enjoying wandering through the market today. We came down this exact part of it yesterday and it just wasn't here. All of these food stalls and stuff were not anywhere to be seen. So it must change at different parts during the day and I reckon the fruit and vegetables and the meat and everything that we can see today must be kind of early morning stuff because we were here later in the day last night. So we're going to carry on having a little walk, see what we can find to buy and where we end up. We weren't too hopeful that we would like Rabat because being the capital city and a major port as well, we wrongly assumed that it might be a bit rough around the edges and too busy for us. In reality, it's a really cool modern city full of life and we ended up loving it. Plus, my mate Aziz does a mean fade and beard trim for just £1.59. Adi's just woke up. It's so weird that she must go to sleep and wake up in a new destination. But yeah, she's already just absolutely besotted by the chickens that are out there. So I reckon she's probably going to try and catch one later. She won't want to leave here, that's for sure. We've only just got into the market here and we've already stopped at one of the first stalls. It's got all these amazing sweet treats on, so we are trying some of those and going to take some with us. You're going to have to brush your teeth after that, you know? I know, they're super sweet and I think you poured sugar onto them as well. He's just given us a load of tasters and they're absolutely delicious, so I'm looking forward to having these later. Don't they look amazing? Yes, I've not seen these anywhere either. These look like habaneros. Scotch bonnets. So something we've noticed they do here in Morocco is that you just put all your fruit and veggies in the same bag and they just weigh it. As one. All the same price. Yeah. Jay, have you seen that they've got sprouts? Yeah, I know. Who would have thought, eh? I know, we could have made a Christmas dinner. We are out with our new friends today, away with the Steiners. Hello! I'll let you guys introduce yourselves. We're a traveling family. We have been backpacking around the whole world, around Asia and the Middle East for four years now and we have recently just started van life in Europe and Morocco. So we just arrived in Morocco about two weeks ago and... Pulled up next to this white stealth-looking Steiners. Yeah, which we were much in awe of and we've been sort of like, yeah, a bit of a convoy down the coast, so it's awesome to meet you guys and thanks for outing today. If you're not familiar with these guys yet, then we'd highly recommend you check out their awesome YouTube channel. They've been to tons of really interesting places and they're an absolutely lovely family. Plus, they make really immersive videos that make you feel like you're there with them on their travels. These guys discovered this market the other day. They heard about it from the people at the campsite that we're staying on and they said it was really cool and it is proper local. It's not touristy in the slightest, is it? No, it's not. And it's got tons of fresh produce, so I'm like in heaven here, just picking up stuff to cook with. And they're going to take us to this donut shop that they found the other day, so I'm really excited to try those. We thought we'd come to the end of the market, but this place is absolutely vast and across the road and there's a whole other section. It just goes on forever. I know you said you weren't going to cook that much because it's so affordable to eat out here, but this fruit and veg is just amazing, right? Yeah, it's incredible. I just want to buy everything. It just looks incredible and it just smells amazing. It's like perfectly ripe. Yeah, love it up. It's really good. Very sweet. A ton of sugar in it, but yeah, it's very nice. Well, unfortunately, we got to the donut place and it was closed. We don't know why, but it was just all shut up. It was the only place in the market that was closed. However, yeah, it was a real shame. But we went and found a really cool place that did mint tea, so we stood there and had a few of those and just had another one through the market and it is absolutely fantastic. Really enjoyed it. The campsite that we're on has a restaurant attached to it and they do take away to Jeans, so we've got ourselves one tonight and we're just going to sit outside the van and enjoy it. Wow, that's good. It looks really good. Well, after nearly a week, we are leaving the campsite that we've been at. It has been amazing, right? It's been really good, yeah, really enjoyed it. Just a relaxing week, basically, exactly what we needed, but we're ready to get back on the move again and see some sights. We are heading down to Casablanca today, to the big city. We are going to do some exploring there, but just as exciting as going to a new place is we are going with our new friends. We're going to be meeting Away With The Steiners there and exploring Casablanca with them. We've parked up right next to the mosque that we are going to visit. It's basically on the next street, right? Yeah, it's in its shadow. It was 50 dirhams to park there for the night. It's just like in a guarded car park. Looks safe, so fingers crossed that's going to be okay. We're going to actually go to the mosque in the morning though, right? Yeah, we had a quick look this afternoon and it was just really busy. There was loads of queues, loads of tourists there and I had a read on a blog post that basically said that in the afternoon a load of tour buses turn up and that's when it's most busy. So because we parked just outside it, we may as well take advantage of that and go first thing in the morning. Yeah, no, it sounds like a good idea and right now we are going to try and find the medina which we looked on the map and it's like a 45-minute walk away but it looks like it's through loads of interesting alleys and streets and stuff. So yeah, we're heading down there now and going to have a little explore. Well, we thought it was quite a walk away but it's actually not. We've walked like five minutes and we're already in it. I think it's just that big that when we kind of googled where it was, it showed us the centre. But yeah, we've just got into the edge of it and yeah, it looks great. Welcome. So this keeps happening everywhere all over Morocco that everyone thinks he's from here he was just talking to those guys back there they were like you look like you're from Marrakech. One of the things that has been so welcoming about Morocco so far is the hospitality we've had. We just sat down for a mint tea at a cafe and one of the other guys there poured it for us. He showed us how to pour it, how it's drunk and stuff and at the end he paid for it as well. He wouldn't let us pay. So just incredible hospitality. The next morning we were up bright and early before sunrise to get ready for our trip to the Hassan II Mosque. Just straight away the scale of this place is absolutely huge right? It's just absolutely mesmerising. Like I've been for a run this morning down the front, down the promenade and just like running back with that like in the foreground it's just like it actually made me feel a little bit emotional like it just looks so beautiful in the sunrise. Incredible. The size of this mosque really can't be emphasised enough. It can fit a whopping 20,000 worshippers inside, 80,000 outside plus the balcony holds 5,000. So 105,000 in total. 99% of the materials used in its construction were sourced from within Morocco which makes it even more special. It's easy to see why this is Casablanca's most famous landmark and we'd highly recommend visiting if you're in Morocco. We've just finished the tour of the Hassan II Mosque and it was incredible. Just absolutely beautiful inside. The craftsmanship that went into making it all was just unbelievable. It took 10,000 craftsmen working in shifts 24 hours a day, six years to build it. I mean six years is incredibly short time to build something on that scale. It is. But you can see where all the work went in. Absolutely beautiful. The tour was pretty good. It was quite short and not in too much detail but I enjoyed it anyway and just being inside that building made it all worthwhile. I think my favourite thing that we learned was that the roof opens. How does the roof open? She said it opens in three seconds and shuts in two seconds and they have it open in the summer. It's not just like a gimmick that they don't use. They do actually use it. Because they don't have air con. Yeah, that's incredible, right? It is, yeah. We've just made a quick stop off then at a place called Oulidia, I think it's called. Something like that anyway. It's supposed to be famous for its oysters. Seafood in general but in particular oysters. Now, I'm not even sure that I really like oysters. I think I've only had them like once or twice. So I'm not sure whether we will get any or not. But we're just having a walk into town now from the campsite that we're staying at anyway and we're going to see about some lunch. On the beach where we are, they have got tables and chairs and stuff set up and they've got barbecues set up here as well and they've got boxes of fish that they freshly caught today and that they are cleaning and preparing to put on a barbecue for us to have for lunch. Absolutely amazing. I'm really excited about this. Does it look good? It looks absolutely brilliant, yeah. And what a setting though, it's just absolutely incredible. I know. So included in the price which was 200 dirham for a big fish and salad and bread I think comes mint tea as well which is pretty cool. Wow, look at that. Good? That is really delicious, yeah. You're gonna love it. Straight in. Oh man, this is amazing. So good, isn't it? All right, we have just walked past an oyster stand and it looks great, right? It looks good, yeah. There's some guys there that look like they're really enjoying them and they look like they know what they're doing. They look like oyster fans. So we're gonna get in there. Take an oyster. Do you want an oyster? I don't know. Yeah, go for it. Okay, okay, I'll do it. Yes, please. Okay, here we go. It's good. Yeah? It's good. You're only meant to chew them once I think but I gave it a good chew just to test. Really tasty. It's like properly salty, sea, foodie but delicious. I don't know what this one is. Looks like some sort of a clam. It's good. Completely different texture. Yeah. This is quite chewy. Okay. And the juice is running down my beard. It is good, yeah. It's good. It's just like ceviche. Yeah? Yeah, it's a similar kind of thing, right? Yeah, true. But you don't get much fresher than that. Yeah. No problem. Yeah? No, that's nice. It's really nice, it's good. Yeah. Different. It's not what I expected those to be like. No. Yeah, it's delicious. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. You don't look so sure about that. You've got to get it down. Not for you. No, it's too... It's very fishy. We've just taken a very short trip a bit further down the coast. It was about an hour's drive this morning to a town called Safi, which we've heard a lot of good things about and we were planning on spending a few days here. However, the parking spot that we looked up on Park4Night, which had decent reviews and is right in the city centre, we've just arrived and the guards here have said that we actually can't stay the night. I don't know why. It's a little bit annoying because there is a campsite here, but it's half an hour outside the city centre and it's got terrible reviews. So we are just going to explore Safi for the afternoon, go and grab some lunch and then see where we are, if we can travel a bit further down the coast or stay somewhere else around here. This seems to be the place to come and get ceramics then. There's just like pottery everywhere. We got into the market and we've not even found the usual fruit and vegetables yet. There was a few stands with clothing and shoes and stuff like that and then it just started pottery, pottery, pottery, pottery, pottery, pottery. So yeah, I don't know. It's a bit of a different market than what we've seen so far. So we found a really cool little restaurant in the Medina. I'm so excited to try it. They're literally just like frying up the sardines there on the side in the hot oil and it just looks incredible. They look great. Yeah, I'm so excited. I mean, they just gave you a little taste to entice us in. They did and it tasted real good. Okay, we weren't exactly sure what we ordered, but it looked amazing. I know, we were like, oh, we don't know if we're just going to get like one or two or it's going to be a whole feast. Turns out it's a whole feast. Look at this. I've got no idea how much food we've ordered or how many courses are coming, but we've just been given some more sardines. These are like filleted, butterflied, I think. And then they're stuffed with, I don't know what. I've just tried one and it is absolutely incredible. This is amazing food. You know a place is good when there is a queue like that outside here. And I'm telling you, these guys have not stopped since we got here. It's just been absolutely jam-packed and you can see why. Absolutely delicious. Well, we thought we were done, but I literally just got up to pay and one of the guys brought over something else. I know, I don't know what it is. It's like the barbecue? Barbecue fish and it looks like it's kind of minced up with, I don't know, onions, garlic, herbs, spices. It looks amazing. I'm absolutely stuffed, but we're going to have to try and force some of it down. Oh, it's good. Yeah? Yeah, you're going to love this. Safi has been a bit of a funny one. We'd actually planned on spending two or three days here because we'd read that there was quite a lot to explore, but obviously the parking situation put paid to that. And then when we did get going, my first impressions weren't actually that great. It's a bit of an industrial town. And while there's kind of some older stuff around that looks quite interesting, like the city walls and the Portuguese forts, it didn't look like it was somewhere that we would actually spend two or three days. However, at the end of it all, it has been a really, really fun visit. We really love the Medina here. Completely different from any of the other ones that we've been to and a little bit sad to be leaving, but we do have to go because we can't stay here. So we're going to head on a little bit further down the coast, probably only about half an hour to a little spot that we have found on Park4night. And that's where we're going to leave it this week, friends. We hope you enjoyed it. If you did, then please give it a big thumbs up and drop us a comment down below. This is obviously our first video in Morocco and we'd love to know your thoughts on it. If you're new around here, then we would love you to subscribe and don't forget to hit that little bell button while you're there so you get notified every time we post a new video. Next week, we're carrying on down the coast and we're on a bit of a mission to try and find someone who can help us with a few bits and pieces that we want to do on the van. Catch you then.