Just a quick word about using money in Morocco. There are plenty of ATMs in the cities, and exchange bureaus. I changed a bunch of money at the airport, where $1 (USD) netted me 8.7 MAD--Moroccan dirhams.
But the effective conversion rate is 1:10. Most merchants that I encountered were willing to conduct transactions in US dollars at the rate of 10 dirhams to one dollar. It almost made no sense to change money, since none of the exchange bureaus would give you that good of a rate.
More interestingly, they also treated euros at the same rate--10 dirhams for one euro. So toward the end of a trip when somebody was out of dirham, she pulled some euros out of her pocket and they happily accepted those.
Surely there is an arbitrage situation available here? But there are some serious transaction costs, since you have to convert dollars into merchandise first. They will sell you something that costs 100 dirhams for $10, and if all you have is a $20 bill, they will give you a 100 dirham bill for change. But unless you can sell whatever it is you bought, it's not really an opportunity for financial wizardry.
The problem we ran into is that it is hard to get small change--1 or 2 dirham coins are valuable in a way that dimes and nickels are not, because when you tip a Lantern Man, or a Water Man, you do it at about 1-5 dirhams.
More critically, the restrooms we encountered regularly have an attendant sitting outside the door, who keeps the place clean, and often is the dispenser of toilet paper as well. So you need to give her (and it was invariably a woman) a couple of coins for each visitor.
Because I had changed my dollars at an exchange bureau, I had plenty of 100 dirham bills, and almost no coins. When I bought my 15 dirham pastry at the coffee shop, I only had a 100 dirham bill, and they had to collect payment from several other patrons before they had enough change to give me. And I needed that change! (See above, re: bathroom attendants.)
It's a completely different culture, and it is in the small things like "tipping bathroom attendants" that you realize how completely different "normal" can be. Morocco has free health car, free birth control, and free college education for qualified students, but you pay to use the bathrooms. That might be a deal I would be willing to take!
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