Morocco guide ‘outstanding’

My wife, Marie, and I took a 2-week Morocco holiday, Sept. 30-Oct. 12, 2007, and were introduced to an outstanding guide. I would like to share his name and our experience.

After meeting our inbound flight from Paris at the Casablanca airport, Said Baadoud (phone +212 76 3020 41 or e-mail saidbaadoud2001@yahoo.fr) escorted us for a week through Casablanca, Rabat, Volubilis, Meknes, Fes and Marrakech.

After a few days in Marrakech, Said then guided us on a 3-day trek through the High Atlas Mountains and onward to the coastal fishing village (small city, actually) of Essaouira for three days, with many great photo ops. He then took us back to Marrakech for farewell shopping excursions in the endless souks.

Said is one of those rare individuals who demonstrate outstanding “people skills” with both his native Berber brethren and Western tourists with their peccadilloes. Not only does he possess a great reservoir of factual knowledge of his country and its history, he has developed tremendous social, economic, religious, cultural and political insights into both historical and modern Morocco.

Intellectual and thought-provoking, Said truly “gave his all” in providing us a window into his unique country. From a practical perspective, I was most impressed with his excellent knowledge base of local restaurants and hotels in each city to fit a wide variety of travel budgets.

Said maintains a busy schedule contracting his services to local tour companies representing international agencies, but he does enjoy assignments from individual groups.

Four of us on the tour each paid the agency for which Said worked $1,600. This included 2-star hotel accommodations (with breakfasts), ground transportation and local tours in each city. The 3-day “Atlas Walk” portion included all meals.

TOM MYERS

Longboat Key, FL