GEEO Morocco Google Earth Presentation

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USA

Today, I’d like to share with you a great experience I had while traveling to Morocco through a non-profit organization called GEEO. GEEO helps educators travel abroad so that they can learn more about different cultures to share with their students. I was joined on my trip by educators and retired teachers from all around the United States.

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Africa

Here you can see the continent of Africa. Africa is larger than the United States, China, India, Japan, and much of Europe combined (see here).

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Sahara

Most of the land in Northern Africa is beige on this map. This land you see is the Sahara Desert. Many people mistakenly think the Sahara is the largest desert in the world. It is in fact the second largest after Antarctica, which is technically a desert. The Sahara is as big as the United States and crosses the whole continent of Africa. If you went directly west from Cairo, Egypt, you wouldn’t reach a significant town until you were on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, and you wouldn’t reach a city until you crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed in Jacksonville, Florida.

By the way, it’s fine to call it the “Sahara Desert,” but that name is technically redundant, because Sahara comes from the Arabic word for “desert,” so “Sahara Desert” is like calling it the “Desert Desert.”

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Morocco

The country that I visited in Africa was Morocco in the northwestern part of the continent. It shares borders with Algeria, Mauritania, and Western Sahara (a disputed territory claimed by both Morocco and the indigenous Sahrawi people). To the west of Morocco is the Atlantic Ocean, and to the north across the Strait of Gibraltar is Spain. The Strait of Gibraltar is a thin body of water connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. There are also two cities in the northern part of Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla, that are ruled by Spain.

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Casablanca

Casablanca is Morocco’s largest city, main port, and the economic and business center of the country. Over four million people live in Casablanca’s metropolitan area.

The city was originally settled by the Berbers, an indigenous ethnic group from North Africa. It became part of the French Empire in the early 1900s until Morocco gained independence in 1956. Most people in Casablanca today still speak the Berber language and identify with Berber heritage and culture, although French is also spoken by a sizable minority of Moroccans.

Has anyone heard of the movie Casablanca? In the 1940s and ‘50s, many Europeans lived in Morocco. At one point, Europeans formed almost half the population of Casablanca. The famous movie Casablanca was set in that time period.

Casablanca was made in 1942 while World War II was still raging. In the scene when La Marseillaise drowns out the Nazi song, almost all the extras were French refugees who fled to the U.S. The girl shown crying in the scene was a famous French actress named Madeleine LeBeau, who was forced to flee Europe with her Jewish husband.

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Hassan II Mosque

The city of Casablanca is home to the Hassan II Mosque, the second-largest mosque in Africa. The Hassan II Mosque was designed so that almost half of it hangs over the Atlantic Ocean, alluding to a verse in the Quran that states that God’s throne was built upon the water.

A mosque is a place of worship for Muslims. Officially, 99% of Moroccans practice Sunni Islam, although polls suggest Moroccans may be less religious than other Muslim-majority countries. Islam in Casablanca is considerably less strict than in other parts of the Muslim world. Women do not always cover their heads, and all kinds of fashion can be found in the city.

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Tangier

We then drove to the city of Tangier, located at the northern tip of Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar from Europe. The city is unique and fascinating, with a culture and cuisine influenced by North Africa, Spain, Portugal, and France. We were able to visit Tangier’s beautiful medina. A medina is the old part of a town or city in North Africa. Inside the medina, we learned about the city’s Kasbah. A Kasbah is a fortified area within a medina that historically served as the local governor’s residence. The Kasbah in Tangier overlooks the Strait of Gibraltar and has been a key defensive and administrative center through various periods, reflecting the city’s diverse cultural influences from North Africa, Spain, Portugal, and France.

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Chefchaouen

We continued from Tangier to Chefchaouen (pronunciation), a beautiful town in the Rif mountain range in northern Morocco. It is known as the “Blue Pearl” of Morocco for its traditional blue and white houses. The town was founded in 1471, and many Muslim and Jewish immigrants fleeing from Spain settled here during and after the Reconquista in the late 15th century. In the 1930s, the Jewish community began painting the buildings blue, a color symbolizing the sky and heaven, which adds a serene, spiritual ambiance to this already picturesque town.

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Volubilis

Next, we visited another UNESCO World Heritage Site, the ruins of Volubilis (pronunciation), a Roman city dating back to the third century BC. At its peak, the Roman Empire ruled much of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. During this time, Volubilis was the capital of a kingdom in northwest Africa called Mauretania, whose kings were vassals of the Roman Empire. Eventually, Mauretania was annexed and became two separate provinces in the Roman Empire. The province on the western fringe of Roman Africa was called Mauretania Tingitana, and even though the capital of that province was moved to modern-day Tangier, the administrative and economic center of the province was still Volubilis.

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Volubilis image

Volubilis was eventually abandoned by the 11th century, but the ruins of the ancient Roman city remained substantially intact until they were devastated by an earthquake in the 18th century. After that, stones from the ancient ruins were taken and used to build the nearby city of Meknes. The remaining ruins are still well preserved today, and some of the more prominent public buildings have been restored or reconstructed.

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Fez

Next, we visited the city of Fez, another UNESCO World Heritage Site that was also the capital of Morocco several times between the 9th and 20th centuries. Fez has a population of over one million people and is the second-largest city in Morocco.

The medina in Fez is the world’s oldest and possibly largest car-free urban area. The layout of this city reflects its ancient origins, with buildings positioned irregularly, which creates more than 9,000 narrow, winding alleyways that are too tight for cars to use.

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University of Al-Qarawiyyin

Fez has the oldest continuously functioning institute of higher education in the world, the University of Al-Qarawiyyin, founded in AD 857. It was founded as a mosque and effectively run as a madrasa (a school for the study of Islam) until after World War II, and it was reorganized as a university in 1963.

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Fez Tannery

The Fez Tanneries are some of the oldest in the world and still function manually without the use of big machines. A tannery is a place where animal skins are turned into goods like leather bags, coats, shoes, and drums. In Fez, sheep, camel and goat skins are turned into high-quality leather products.

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Madrasa Bou Inania

The Madrasa Bou Inania is a madrasa in the city of Fez. It functions as both an educational institute and a congregational mosque. “Madrasa” literally means “a place where learning and studying are done.” In Arabic, the word madrasah simply means the same as “school” does in English, whether that refers to a private, public, or religious school. The Madrasa Bou Inania in Fez was built in 1350.

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Merzouga

After we left Fez, we traveled several hours south to the village of Merzouga. This village is located on the northern edge of the Sahara. If you traveled south from Merzouga, you would not see another town for over one thousand miles. (The first town you will eventually come across is the legendary Timbuktu on the southern edge of the Sahara.)

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Sand dunes

In Morocco, there are two major “seas” of sand dunes called ergs. One of those two main dune seas, Erg Chebbi, is located near Merzouga. See how the sand looks like waves? Sand dunes are created and changed by the wind. We had the chance to learn how to mount and dismount a camel and how to tie a turban to keep the desert sun and blowing sand off your face.

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Todra Gorge

We then left the desert and traveled northwest to the Todra Gorge, one of the world’s most spectacular canyons. The canyon is carved out of the High Atlas Mountains by the Todra and Dades Rivers. In places, this gorge measures just 33 feet across, but the cliffs are up to 525 feet high on either side. The river has since dried up, leaving only the imagination to picture the powerful natural forces that once carved out this region.

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Ouarzazate

Have you ever seen the movies The Mummy or Gladiator? How about Game of Thrones? Those movies—and many more—were filmed in Ouarzazate in Morocco. Outside of the film industry, the city is known for being mostly inhabited by Berbers and the Kasbahs that they built. Do you remember who the Berbers are and what a Kasbah is?

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Aït Benhaddou

Aït Benhaddou (pronunciation) is another UNESCO World Heritage Site in Morocco. It is a historic ksar near Ouarzazate on the former caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakech on the other side of the Atlas Mountains. A ksar is a fortified village built by the Berbers in North Africa. Only about ten families still live in Aït Benhaddou today, as the rest have moved to more modern houses on the other side of town. Aït Benhaddou has been used in many movies as well.

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Tizi n’ Tichka Pass

After spending a few days in the Sahara, we continued our journey back north into the Atlas Mountains. This mountain chain stretches for 1,500 miles across North Africa, separating the Mediterranean climate zone from the Sahara. The views from the road are incredible, and you can see the countryside of Morocco, which is much different from the busy cities. The road must be shared with donkeys and flocks of sheep, and small children leading them across the road.

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Imlil

We made it to Imlil, a village high in the Atlas Mountains. It was originally known for walnuts, apples, and cherries, which are still grown there today. Today, the economy is also boosted by tourism.

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Aroumd

High above the town of Imlil is the village of Aroumd, another small town that is the starting point for some great treks through the Atlas Mountains. We hiked for about one hour from Imlil to Aremd, where we stayed for the night.

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Essaouira

The next day, we hiked back to Imlil and continued to our next stop, Essaouira, a city on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Straight across the ocean from Essaouira is the state of Georgia.

Essaouira was formerly known as Mogador (the Portuguese name for the city). The city has a mix of Portuguese, French, Berber, and Arab culture and architecture. With its rich mix of cultures, over 300 days of sunshine, and warm but not sweltering temperatures, Essaouira has attracted artists and filmmakers and has a flourishing art scene.

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Port

Essaouira has a very large fishing industry. This is the port filled with traditional blue-painted fishing boats. Parts of the movie John Wick 3 were filmed here.

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Medina

Here you can see Essaouira’s medina. Just like Fes, you can see how the buildings are not arranged in a grid like modern cities are. Medinas in Morocco are always old and dense, with meandering alleyways that are almost always too narrow for cars.

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Marrakech

Our last stop on this trip was Marrakech, one of the most famous cities in North Africa. Like the other cities we visited in Morocco, it has a medina—the old part of the city—and a newer, more modern area.

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Jemaa el-Fna

Jemaa el-Fna is the city square in Marrakech and has one of the best markets in Africa. The market (or “souq”) is visited by locals and tourists alike. In the morning, stall owners set up their stands selling spices, orange juice, and mint leaves. There are snake charmers, monkey trainers, acrobats, storytellers, and other entertainers. After sunset, restaurants around the square start serving dinner while Berber musicians and Gnaoua dancers begin their nightly performances. The market is one of the most amazing places in Morocco and an extraordinary place to visit.

The tall tower in the center of this image is the minaret for the Koutoubia Mosque.

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Koutoubia Mosque

A minaret is a distinctive architectural feature of many Islamic mosques; they are tall, slender towers attached to the mosque. They are primarily used to project the Muslim call to prayer five times a day. But like the steeples on Christian churches, they also serve as landmarks and symbols of Islam’s presence.

The 800-year-old Koutoubia Mosque is the largest mosque in Marrakech. The mosque’s minaret rises almost 230 feet, and it can be seen from much of the city.