Menu
Travel to Morocco
TRIP has been cancelled.
Experience Morocco with Addi Ouadderrou of Moroccan Caravan Tours. This unique travel opportunity was scheduled to take place February 14 – 28, 2025, with a portion of proceeds beneffiting UMA. This trip has been cancelled.
ABOUT
Experience the trip of a lifetime with a tour of Morocco in February 2025. Urban Media Arts (UMA) is partnering with Addi Ouadderou (a Malden resident and friend of UMA) from Moroccan Caravan Tours, to offer an unforgettable travel experience, with proceeds to benefit our community media arts organization.
Addi is a Moroccan native, an expert on Moroccan culture, and an official guide with the Moroccan National Tourism Office. His tour company has more than 25 years of experience in facilitating and directing deep dive cultural tours of Morocco. Along with tours for the general public, Addi has partnered with area universities and organizations for specialized tours.
LANDSCAPE & CULTURE
A Moroccan Caravan tour takes you on a journey across the magnificent landscape of Morocco – from the coast, across mountain peaks, and to rolling sand dunes in the dazzling south. You are introduced to the guide’s homeland in a very personal way, with the opportunity to get close to the culture, meet and learn from local people.
Because this tour helps to support Malden’s vibrant community media arts center, you also have the option to participate in a multimedia documentation of your experience – through photos, videos, drawings, poetry and storytelling, to share with others when you return.
Help spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested in this unique travel opportunity (tour itinerary and cost found in section below). For general questions and the connection to UMA, email Felicia at felicia@umaverse.org. For tour questions, email Addi at addi@moroccancaravan.com.
TOUR OVERVIEW
Morocco’s unique geographical location in North Africa, with shorelines on both the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, between Europe, the Middle East, and the rest of Africa, makes it one of the oldest and most vibrant trading posts in the world. It has long been a crossroads for the exchange of food, arts, ideas, languages and cultures.
With expert guidance and exclusive access, participants will delve into this exotic nation to soak up its natural beauty and vibrant culture. Trip highlights include hands-on cooking lessons and demonstrations, behind-the-scenes exploration of cultural antiquities unique to Morocco, camel trekking through the Sahara Desert, exclusive entry into private venues and musical performances, enhanced tours of sites, public parks, and many surprises!
A full description of the trip itinerary—the cost, what’s included and other details—are provided at the link below.
Deadline for registration and full payment is October 15, 2024.
INFO SESSION
UMA will host a Zoom information session early September 30, at 6:30pm
ARTICLES IN NEIGHBORHOOD VIEW
Bonnie Blanchard captured her experience participating in one such tour in a series of articles entitled “The Road to Morocco from Malden” published in UMA’s Neighborhood View. The tour itinerary she took is very similar to the “Cultural Tour of Morocco” to benefit UMA.
The Journey Begins
Originally published September 24, 2017
By Bonnie Blanchard
Riding a camel only looks romantic. Sore and tired, I ease myself next to a wood-burning fire; it had been a long and lumpy journey on the back of the camel into the Sahara Desert. I find myself staring up into a sky studded with stars big as dinner plates, thinking that despite my sore body, I had achieved a life-long dream. As a kid, I would pore over pages of the National Geographic, staring at the photos, and think that someday I would visit exotic, faraway places. Now, I wasn’t reading a magazine; I was actually here, in Morocco, the quiet of the desert enveloping my group like a velvet blanket. And to think I was only here in Merzouga, Morocco, because I noticed a sign in Somerville, Massachusetts, 12 years ago.
The Medieval City of Fez
Originally published October 8, 2017
By Bonnie Blanchard
Our extensive tour of Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca was overwhelming. But the journey was just beginning. We headed to our van for a 5-hour ride into the hinterlands of Morocco towards the medieval city of Fez. (Which is sometimes spelled Fes.)
Along the way we stopped for a traditional Moroccan tagine (a clay cooking utensil with a vented conical top that cooks in the oven or stove-top) lunch and relaxed into our new home away from home – the van – for the next two weeks. Finally we arrived at our hotel, welcomed by most gracious hoteliers.
After a refreshing buffet dinner in the hotel, and fresh from a good night’s sleep, our group was ready to explore the ancient city of Fez.
Into the Sahara
Originally published October 22, 2017
By Bonnie Blanchard
Getting on a dromedary is like straddling a furry bathtub. It’s not the most graceful of feats. You begin the mount while the beast is lying down. You have to figure out how to get your feet across both sides; their bodies are wider than that of a horse. There are no stirrups to lock your feet into, only a steel bar in front of the hump to hang onto. A layered blanket pack is the saddle. When each member of my group was finally aboard their ship of the desert, we started our journey into the Sahara. As I bounced and hung on, I had visions of rolling off to the side and being deposited on the desert floor. It was a premonition of things to come.
Marrakesh
Originally published November 5, 2017
By Bonnie Blanchard
One of the most colorful open air markets in the world, Djemaa el-Fna is something not to miss in Marrakesh. It would be akin to going to church and not praying. It is a dramatic open-air theater featuring everything from snake oil to snake charmers. The men wearing brightly colored red costumes with tasseled hats are water sellers who walk around market places, ringing their bells and for a small fee serve water in brass cups from a bag made of goat hide. These water sellers also spread messages in the community and help with lost and found objects as they connect people who found objects with others who lost items. If you correctly identify your lost item, you get it back, of course for a small fee.
A Pressing Event
Originally published November 19, 2017
By Bonnie Blanchard
Our whirlwind visit in Marrakesh left our imaginations, memories and cameras full of sensations, stories and pictures. With a visit to the city of Essaouira we were winding down for our journey back home.
Like vagabonds we wound our way to a rambling little coastal town with a view of the ocean from our lovely little hotel. We unwound with a walk on the windy beach. Camels and horses were competing for ride business, but we were not too eager for repeat lumps, so we contented ourselves by walking along the village shoreline.
Essaouira is a laid-back old port town on the Atlantic Ocean. In the mid 1700s the then installed sultan liked the area and engaged the services of a French architect to create a city there. It is rather off the beaten path and windy, so there are not too many beach goers. Essaouira remains a fishing village where folks can buy their catch of the day and have it cooked on shore.