Morocco with Berber Tours

For those ITN readers who might be searching for an experience which is more customized than a standard tour, I recommend the outfit which guided my 21-year-old son, Stephen, and me in Morocco: Berber Tours (Boutique Lac Iriqi, Ave. Mohamed V, 45900 Zagora, Morocco; phone 212-68-51-50-87, e-mail U.S. representative Jeffrey Teachout at admin@berbertours.net or visit www.berbertours.net).

While the land price for our 9-day tour in March ’05, $3,500 for the two of us, was not inexpensive, the tour we had was quite personalized for just the two of us. We had as our guide one of the owners of Berber Tours, Daoud Bouhaddou. The attentions and knowledge of Daoud and his family insured that we did not feel like tourists.

We arrived in Casablanca, perhaps the least attractive city I have ever been to; ideally, we would have preferred to arrive in Marrakech. We were met outside Customs by Daoud and immediately left for Marrakech. We spent 2½ days there, exploring the city and the souks and immersing ourselves in the life of the Djemaa el-Fna, the square that is the heart of the city’s street life.

From Marrakech, we embarked through the High Atlas Mountains, following an old road used for hundreds of years as a trade route to the interior of Africa, and arrived in Zagora, in southwest Morocco near the border with Algeria. Once there, we went into the desert for two days using camels and experienced what few tourists undergo.

We then explored more of the southwest part of Morocco, having meals with Daoud’s family, being guided through various souks and sights and having the desert dust eased from our pores in a hamam (bath) in Ouarzazate. That, in my son’s opinion, was one of the best experiences we had: with no Westerners around at all, we were washed, scrubbed, stretched and invigorated, all the while laughing and smiling with other bath attendees without understanding a single word they said. . . yet feeling accepted.

During our visit to Morocco we felt welcomed and totally safe and quite often were embraced by the people. In each place we visited we were exposed to how the locals lived, felt and thought.

As we left Morocco for our return to the U.S., we reveled in the knowledge that we had experienced the country and the people. It was a wonderful vacation and I highly recommend our guide(s) and their company.

— JON SHASTID, Anchorage, KY