This past winter break I traveled to Morocco with Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School for about 2 weeks. Throughout the two weeks, we visited local businesses, community organizations, multiple towns and cultural sites, ate amazing food, and had lots of fun.
On this trip, I enjoyed working with students from Mays as I am in the Masters of Maritime Business Administration and Logistics program at the Galveston campus. It was interesting to learn about the different programs and resources at Mays compared to the Galveston campus and to talk to students in other business disciplines. It was fun talking and teaching each other about our different majors and interests. I was worried coming into this trip about making friends or things feeling weird since I am from a different campus, but everything was excellent. I love traveling with Aggies because we always have a good time and we were feeling like a close group of old friends by the end of the trip.
Overall, Morocco is a beautiful country with so much rich history and culture. It also has very delicious food that is full of flavor but not hot/spicy, which I appreciated. I highly recommend visiting if you haven’t and I plan to return in the future to explore more. There were beautiful and interesting buildings and shops at every turn.
Throughout the trip, we visited 6 different towns. These included Rabat, Tangiers, Chefchaouen, Fes, Merzouga, and Marrakech. The first stop on our trip and the hub for the study abroad company is Rabat. In Rabat, we dove into activities with an orientation by the study abroad company IES, ate a homemade multicourse lunch at a local Moroccan lady’s home, a guided tour of the old medina, and then went to the welcome dinner at a beautiful restaurant with ocean views and live Moroccan music where we danced. The next day in Rabat, we visited the parliament and a couple small businesses. I knew from these first couple days that it was going to be a fun trip with lots of delicious food and beautiful sites to see. Rabat was also interesting to me because it had beautifully manicured gardens, shaped trees everywhere, and no litter on the ground despite it being a major city.
The second city we visited was Tangiers and we were there for two days. While in Tangiers, we stayed at an excellent hotel only a block from the beach and boardwalk. While there, we visited the old medina with its historic churches and shops, looked over at Spain, and visited a couple local businesses. My top favorite business organizations we visited were in Tangiers. The first was the Women’s Business Association that helps women learn new skills and provides them with the tools necessary to make money on that skill through independent business or working elsewhere. The other was a car parts factory at Martur Fompak International. It was fascinating to see where car parts come from and how many different manufacturers can be used to make one car.
The next two cities were Chefchaouen and Fes. I really enjoyed both of these cities because of their old and unique architecture with little allies and roads that led to the restaurants and hotels.
Chefchaouen was beautiful with its blue walls and mountain views. In Fes, I learned that it was a medieval city and was built over time to be like a labyrinth as a method to slow invaders. You can definitely see this by the narrow roads that are only elbow width in some areas and the little twists and coves off streets. Fes was exciting to visit as this was the town we were told to do our shopping in and it did not disappoint. We visited a beautiful textile store where I found a few scarves and a blanket. Next, was the famous leather tannery to see how leather was processed and a connecting store with floor to ceiling leather goods and an upstairs area with more leather jackets than I’d ever seen in my life with rooms of them that just kept going. We also visited an antique store with brass goods, a beauty store where the girls all got argan oil, and a ceramics business.
Our next destination was Merzouga. This was an odd little town in the Sahara Desert and we were here for one day. The town was a highlight of the trip because we got to ride camels in the Sahara Desert and play in the sand dunes. We also participated in a live concert with a small band of Moroccan musicians. The only downside to visiting Merzouga was the bus ride there and back was very long.
Our final city for adventure was Marrakech. While we were here, we toured the medina and a couple historical sites. We also visited the Yves St. Laurant Garden with its beautifully painted pots, towering palm trees, and enormous cactuses. At the end of our Marrakech visit, we were feeling ready to head back to Texas and we did the next day.
