What am I talking about? Read part one.
The next morning we met our transport in the main square. This time there was no man with a cart to help me. I quickly realized I had over packed as I struggled with my bags back through the streets. As we sat down to breakfast I looked blankly at the menu, written in French. I had assumed the since Morocco and Spain share a boarder my Spanish would be of some use. It was not. Many people spoke English but French was much more common due to the history of colonization in the country.
We left the city and went to a kasbah a short ride away. We toured the interior and I marveled at the beautiful architecture and intricate tiling, the likes of which I had never been exposed to before.
As we exited the building, a small pack of energetic children seemed to appear from nowhere, circling and darting among us. They begged insistently for cash, food, gum, whatever we might have on hand. One of our group offered something. A girl grabbed it and all the other children crowded around her, demanding one each. My friend couldn’t believe that they would want more, not content to share amongst themselves. What else are they supposed to do, I wondered. They are playful, but this is not just a game for them. They are waiting all day to beg a little something off of tourists.
I was part of a group of 10, some old friends and some were folks I had never met before. I was hesitant because travel can sometimes bring out the worst or most annoying in people, even ones that I thought I knew. I have learned the hard way that a good friend is not necessarily a good travel companion. I enjoy traveling alone, or with someone that I know I travel well with. My ideal would be to test out the situation with a small and comfortable weekend trip before doing anything else. However, I was already committed to 10 consecutive days with these people, in a very different cultural environment from what I am use to, and with basically no way to exit the situation if things became weird or otherwise insufferable.
I like to think that as I age I am becoming more mature and self-aware. It could also just be that I have fewer fucks to give. Maybe it’s because I’ve developed a better taste in friends over the years, or maybe it was just luck. Whatever the reason and much to my very pleasant surprise, the group dynamics balanced out pretty much perfectly. Everyone was warm and open, there was no weird middle school style clickiness or other less than ideal behaviors that can sometimes creep its way into adult dynamics, especially when folks are far from home, their normal routines, and their social lives. By the first night, I could tell this was going to be an amazing group to travel with and relaxed a bit more into the experience.
We visited during Ramadan, and even though our meal cadence could most accurately be described as feasting the entire time not fasting, we ate some dates, sweets, and a Harira soup with our hosts for the night and our drivers to celebrate the traditional breaking of the fast at sundown. There was live music and we danced hand in hand, trying to mimic the locals’ movements with frantic energy and a kind of sweet abandon that comes when everyone just jumps right into trying something new, and no one is worried about how they look or if they are good at what they are doing.
The next day we piled into a small dark and dusty room to see how pottery is traditionally made. We visited Aït Benhaddou, where movies like Ben Hur and Game of Thrones have been filmed. I’ve always been partial to deserts and I loved every minute as we continued through the county, a beautiful and brutal landscape unfolding .
For one excursion we took off our shoes at the entrance of a yall building and went up several flights of stairs to a room covered in layer upon layer of rugs. They covered the ground and the walls and were stacked on both sides of the room. A local Amazigh man explained to us the different materials and techniques used to craft the hand woven rugs surrounding us as women and younger men shuffled in and out with different samples. He gave a well rehearsed speech meant to inspire, speaking to us on how travel is the school of life, how we travel to learn, and how much buying these rugs would help the local community. It was totally cheesy and totally effective. Not just for me, I think every person in our group bought at least one rug.
We threaded through the Atlas mountains. We visited an oasis, a waterfall, the Valley of Roses. We went to the Sahara desert and camped with the bedouin who entertained us by firelight with live music, playing traditional songs and a style of music I had never heard before called Sahara blues. They let us play some of the drums with them and we got to pretend like we knew what we were doing.
We went off roading. My car was fortunate enough to have the young, fun driver so we had the best and scariest time. We rode camels into the desert, which was also scary, and fun for about 20 minutes and a literal excruciating pain in the ass for the remaining hour and a half. We went to a dried lake bed and passed a group of donkeys standing in the sparse shade of a pair of trees by a well. There was nothing around but desert in every direction for miles. One of the drivers pulled over and we all stopped. The donkeys backed away as he pulled up water for them and dumped it into the trough. They quickly trotted back and began to drink deeply. My friend explained that they were used to literally mule drugs into Spain. With the pandemic, business was slow so they had been abandoned.
As we approached a small town children sprinted up to the sides of our cars, running to keep pace with hands outstretched and asking for money. Mademoiselle! S’il vous plait mademoiselle! The drivers told them in Arabic that they should go to school. Once as we were traveling between towns, a little boy, no older than 7 or 8, sprinted with a truly incredible speed up to the cars from the foothill where he was tending goats. The drivers stopped and gave him juice and food. We passed the bedouin tent where his family was camped a short ways down the road with what looked like a few tourist cars parked in front.
We would stop to picnic for lunch. The drivers would find a shady spot by the side of the road and prepare sandwiches for us while we sat on blankets and chatted. During one of these lunches we found a field of tulips nearby. Another time we stopped outside of a restaurant that had closed, with nothing else around. There were a pack of street dogs milling about. I went off to go pee and as I was squatting a dirty white dog with swollen teats came up close and began barking at me. I wanted to tell her that I was just passing through, not laying claim to anything and would really prefer to not be marking up her territory, I just didn’t have any better option available at the moment.
Regardless of where we were staying, each night everyone would gather at a low table for dinner, the benches or floor covered in cushions. We would sit around chatting and being served tiny cup after tiny cup of piping hot sweetened green tea with fresh mint. Finally, it was on to the main event. A tajine would arrive, a large earthenware pot full of a deliciously slow cooked meats and vegetables. We ate tajine after tajine with new to me ingredients like harissa and preserved lemon, and new combinations like lamb and plum. If we finished a plate, more would always appear. We were served food until we had all over eaten and there was food left on the table. I tried oranges with cinnamon for the first time, and a Moroccan flat bread called Msemen with olive oil and honey for breakfast. I fell in love with everything.
We arrived back to the noise and hustle of Marrakesh. For our last day all of the ladies on the trip went to a Hammam, or Turkish bath house. We sweated it out in a steam room and were scrubbed one by one by the women working there. We got massages and I didn’t know what the woman massaging me was asking me in French. Afterwards, we went to the market and I bought as much as I could possibly carry with me, even though I was already overpacked and had my recently purchased full size rug to contend with. I loaded up on souvenirs in my usual way, buying one for someone else and one for myself. Sandals, purses, bags, clothing and trinkets. I took home scented oils, curry powder, herbal tea and almond butter. I was sweating and broke my nails trying to get it all to fit in my luggage and I regret nothing.
I left Morocco feeling inspired and refreshed. Amazed that I had created a life for myself where I am able to travel in this way. Grateful that I had people in my life that created this experience and cared enough to share it with me. And more than anything, ready as ever to expand my horizons even further.
If you are interested in the customized trip of a lifetime while visiting Morocco, please contact me so that I can put you in touch with my guide there.
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