TRAVEL | PANDEMIC STORIES | MOROCCO
Locked Down in Morocco — My Wildest Travel Story
A frightening and uncertain time!
This is a submission to the Globetrotters and Taking Off publications monthly prompt “My Wildest Travel Story.”
I have my fair share of crazy travel stories and have been waffling between a few different ones. Two that rose to the surface were certainly ones that caused me a lot of anxiety. There was a time that we arrived in Sudan after taking the bus down from Egypt to find out that foreign cards don’t work in any of the ATMs. Then there was the time that we had to get our visas renewed in Uganda and the only option was to send our passports off with a stranger on a motorbike and then didn’t see them again for a week.
Both of these situations caused me a lot of stress and anxiety, but thankfully it was pretty short-lived. But when Covid hit the world, my anxiety lasted for quite a while, and I know that I was more frightened in those moments, than I have ever been before in my life.
We arrived in Morocco on January 17th, 2020. As full-time travelers, we had planned to spend our full 90 days in the country, then would move on after that.
We spent the first week of our time in Chefchaouen, an adorable city in the North that is surrounded by the stunning Rif Mountains. We then traveled down to Fez and the Sahara Desert. We had joined a couple of others to do some sightseeing and we all chipped in on a rental car. It made it easy to get around the country, but when we were all finished with that, we decided to head back to Chefchaouen since we had enjoyed it so much.
Part of what we do as we travel is paint artwork in exchange for our accommodation. It is our way of spreading love through our art, and we do it as much as we can, eager to leave bits and pieces of our art scattered around the world. We quickly found a painting gig at a beautiful riad in the city, and began a blissful time of doing art, and wandering the charming blue streets of Chaouen, as the locals know it, in our spare time.
We enjoyed brilliant blue sunny days, and truly felt content and at peace with our lives. We heard the odd murmur from other travelers about the virus, but we weren’t watching the news. We totally thought that the virus was just in China, however, we had also overheard another traveler talking to somebody on the phone, and they were talking about it being in Italy.
“Weird that the virus is just in China and Italy,” I said to Chris one day, completely clueless.
While painting in Chefchaouen, we got word from a hostel in Central Morocco that wanted some art painted as well. We could see that three months in Morocco was not going to be enough, as we had already spent 6 weeks of our 12 weeks allotted on our visa, so we decided to go to the small Spanish enclave of Ceuta (Spanish territory on the Moroccan side of the water!) and do a border run to renew our visas for a further 3 months.
This way we felt confident that we wouldn’t be way out in the middle of nowhere enjoying ourselves when our visa was about to expire.
In the meantime, our friend from Germany, who we had met in Costa Rica back in 2018, wanted to come and visit us for ten days. So we made a plan to travel around with him a bit before we started our next project.
Shortly before he came, I remember messaging him and asking him if he was sure it was okay to travel. I was starting to hear more and more murmurings about the virus, and other travelers were cutting their trips short and heading home.
He messaged back.
Yes, the flight is still going and I am confident that everything will be fine! See you soon!
We picked him up at the Tangier airport on March 9th and immediately whisked him off to Chefchaouen as it was really close and we knew that he would love the rugged mountains and the charming vibe of the city. We would stay a couple of nights there, then we would continue to explore more of the country after.
We first stayed at Riad Baraka, where we had painted our artwork, then we decided to move to another hotel to experience a different part of the city. The morning we left, though, we got the news that the border to Spain had been closed.
“Closed? What do you mean closed?” I asked our host.
“Nobody can take a ferry or fly to Spain anymore. All flights have been canceled.” He told me matter-of-factly.
I was standing in the lobby and there were a few people sitting on the couches around the perimeter of the room. I slowly looked around me and took in the looks of blank stares and lines of worry etched on people's foreheads.
Our friend came downstairs and I told him the news. He was supposed to fly back to Germany through Madrid.
He immediately checked his flights and nothing had been canceled. So we continued on with our plans and moved to the other hotel. However, before that night was finished, his flight had indeed been canceled.
He immediately started the process of trying to rebook a new flight and figure out a new plan. None of us knew what was going on, but the hotel staff was certainly worried. I even got a bit sick that night and they were quite concerned that I had been infected with the virus. It was a very unnerving time.
Eventually, our friend found a flight out of Marrakesh. It was to leave the day after he was originally supposed to leave, and was direct to Frankfurt. Because our next mural job was on the way to Marrakesh, and we were heading there anyways, we decided that we would all travel together to the hostel, then he would continue on from there.
We decided to stay a couple more days in Chefchaouen and took in a hike in the next valley over to a beautiful waterfall. It was here that we started to notice strange behaviors from the locals. As we would pass people on the trail, women, in particular, would take their scarves and cover their mouths. We all laughed at this, of course thinking that it was ridiculous. But we could see that they were threatened by us which was certainly unnerving.
The morning we were set to leave Chefchaouen, we came downstairs to the restaurant of our hotel to find that all the tables were stripped of their tablecloths and there were no diners to be seen. ‘How weird is this?’ I couldn’t help but think.
The owner begrudgingly gave us a small breakfast but didn’t explain to us what was happening at all. We ate our breakfast and gathered our things to go outside. It was here that we noticed that the restaurants weren’t open and there were barely any people in the usually busy main square of the city.
Not giving much thought to it, we caught a taxi to take us to the bus station. We were headed to Fez where we would sleep the night, continuing on to Tinghir the following morning.
The three of us got on the bus and noticed that the back was empty. So we instinctively all filed back and filled in the last two rows of seats on the right-hand side. This was one of those buses that had a door close to the back end of the bus, and we pretty immediately started to notice that Moroccans were entering the bus, looking left at the three of us, then they would shuffle their way to the front of the bus as far as they could get away from us. Again, very unnerving.
I started to have these thoughts of ‘what the hell is going on?’ I felt like there was some big secret happening and everyone knew about it but us. Well, it turns out that that was exactly the case. We were completely clueless.
We made it to Fez and found our way into the normally busy medina. Chris and I had been there before and were familiar with the territory. There was one particular area that I was anxious to show our friend because I had loved it so much when we were there the last time. But when we rounded the corner to it, instead of dozens of cute little french style bistro tables and cute shops selling their pastries, it was completely empty. I mean, you could have kicked a soccer ball through it.
I looked at Chris astonished. “What the fuck is going on?” I asked him wide-eyed.
It was at this moment that my knees literally went weak. Something big was going down, and we truly had no idea what it was. I was in shock.
As we continued on down the medina to look for our hostel, a frantic man came running at us. I could see that he was a fellow traveler, “You guys, do you have like 20 dirhams that I can have? My flight has been canceled and I spent all of my money. I just need enough to buy some minutes so I can call my sister and figure something out.”
We all dug in our pockets, eager to help this man out. “Where are you guys headed?” He asked.
“We are trying to find a hostel for the night,” I told him.
“Well, I hope you do. The place I was staying shut their doors and kicked everybody out.” He told us quite panicked.
‘Holy shit.’ I couldn’t help but think. First, the restaurants are all closed and now possibly the hotels and hostels. What the hell were we supposed to do?
We made our way through the alleys, my legs moving independently from my brain. I’m sure if anyone listened hard enough, they would hear my knees knocking together. I was starting to panic. ‘This is bad, this is really bad.’ I couldn’t help but think.
We finally found the tiny alley that would take us to the hostel. Just as we arrived, a man was coming out of it. “Welcome guys. How are you?” He was a young man in his twenties. He turned and started to lead us to the door of the hostel.
I didn’t answer him I just said “Are you open?”
“Yes, yes of course I am open. Of course.” As he led us inside, I continued to hear him say, “of course I am open.” In sort of an incredulous manner.
“Thank you so much,” I said breathlessly and with much relief as I followed him down the corridor to the door.
We got in and got settled. After a few minutes, I finally had the courage to ask him what was going on. “Why are all the restaurants closed?”
“It’s to do with the virus.” He said with a look of disbelief. “Everyone has gone crazy.” I took in his words, registering them but not quite believing them.
The puzzle pieces of the day finally started to click into place. Of course, I figured that it had to do with the virus, but I was still trying to compute how things spun out of control so quickly. We were clearly naive when it came to knowing what was happening in the world with regard to the virus.
“Can we buy food and cook it here?” I asked. Suddenly more concerned about getting food for dinner than anything else.
“Of course,” He said, “the market is still open, you can get supplies there.”
We left the hostel and went to find food. When we returned we found other travelers had made their way to the hostel as well. We all exchanged information and talked about where we were going and what our plans were. Our German friend went and hung out with a couple of other Germans talking about what was happening. Their flights had been cancelled also and they didn’t know where to go or what to do.
I was sitting at the table and drawing frantically on my iPad. I find that when I have stress or anxiety, it helps to do something creative to get my mind off of things. But it wasn’t going well. I couldn’t focus, I was too freaked out. I decided to scroll my phone for a minute and the headline that flashed up made my heart sink.
Canada to Suspend All International Flights and Close Borders
‘What the fuck is going on?’ This was really serious! I couldn’t figure out how this virus was affecting Canada. I mean, I could understand Europe, because, well it was in Italy, after all, but Canada? It made no sense.
Just as I was finished reading this, our friend came out of his room, “Jill, my other flight has just been canceled and Germany is closing its borders.”
Holy shit, holy shit, HOLY SHIT!
He had a numb look on his face. He was as in disbelief as I was, and was also in shock. Unlike us, he had a job and a life to get back to in Germany. It wasn’t possible for him to just be shut out of his country and stuck in Morocco.
“I’m going to message my embassy.” He said in a sort of catatonic state as he returned to his room.
I was a wreck that night. The stress of the last couple of days came pouring out of me in waves of tears and frustration. “What the hell is happening?” I wailed.
Thoroughly frustrated with me, Chris said “I don’t know. But we have to get some sleep.” We had a 6:00 am bus to catch to Tinghir, and it was now 3:00.
Our friend decided to come with us anyway, as he hadn’t heard back from his embassy yet. He instinctively felt that heading to Marrakesh was his best bet anyways, and of course, it made sense to stick together. In the morning, we all silently made our way out of the hostel.
There was a forlorn feeling in the air. Usually, hostels are full of exuberance and happy travelers. But this was certainly no usual time.
We again sat at the back of the bus, and the locals again treated us the same way. We guessed that they were all scared of the foreigners, of course blaming us for bringing the virus into the country.
We even had moments in the day when taxi drivers wouldn’t speak to us, and another where a girl saw us from across the parking lot and quickly covered her mouth with her cell phone, of all things. At one point we were sitting in a taxi waiting for our driver to talk to somebody, and a woman was yelling at us through the window. It was surreal.
We thankfully made it to our hostel safe and sound and literally collapsed after a 9-hour day of traveling. We were all exhausted, but we were relieved to have gotten somewhere safe. We had no idea what was around the corner for us, but at least we had a bed to sleep in, a roof over our heads, and hosts that didn’t seem to think that we were bringing the virus into the country.
Our friend was told by his embassy to make his way to Marrakesh where they would be sending a few rescue flights. So he left a couple of days later. We said goodbye to him with a huge hug, and I felt like we might never see him again. He prodded us to return to Canada, but at that point, we had decided that we weren’t going anywhere. Besides, the options to get back to Canada were very limited, and there were a lot of Canadians in Morocco.
Many people had houses and jobs to get back to, we didn’t need to take room on the plane from those people.
In a couple of days, the highways and roads would close across the country, and the border would be shut tight. We were locked down in Tinghir for 2.5 months, only leaving the hostel walls 5 times.
There is so much more to this story, and I actually started writing a book about our experience. Maybe one day I will get back to it. It took me a few weeks to shake my fears and realize that we were actually very safe in Morocco. Looking back, we really couldn’t have chosen a better place to land, and we are very grateful for the warm hospitality and the kindness of the Moroccan people during such a crazy time.
We stayed in Morocco for 9 months in total in 2020. It was an adventure, and certainly a very interesting time in our lives.
Thanks for reading about my wildest travel story! Maybe I will get a chance to write about the other ones as well:)
To read more about our time during Covid in Africa, check out my series of posts starting with the one below.
For another hilarious ‘Wildest Travel Story’ read, check out Kim Baker’s tale of sailing to Cuba!
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