Morocco - Top Five Fave

This whole “Top Five Fave” thing seems more than silly at this point but I’m sticking with it for now because it helps me to reflect on our travels and to convey an overwhelming, sometimes indescribable (for me), experience. So here goes...

  
  
Floyd and I traveled through Morocco for the holidays this year. I’m glad we booked this trip before the fire because it certainly wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and it made for the perfect antidote to our holiday funk. We knew pretty early on that we didn’t really want to do Christmas this year. I sensed that some folks were a little put off by that. Kinda huffy about it actually. But I think everybody deserves to take a year off. The holidays are really overwhelming, at least the way most Americans seems to do them, and taking the year off was refreshing. It makes for great perspective. To listen to people's experiences and not simultaneously reflect on your own holiday rituals. Their tales of the lines at the mall, the exasperated search for the one toy that every child MUST have this year, the live/fake/potted tree debate, to flock or not to flock... All told I think it was an appropriate year to skip it.

 Morocco is an Islamic country. Islam is the official state religion and King Mohammed VI, the country’s secular leader, is also the “commander of the faithful”. From the calls to prayer, to the passing glimpses into mosques and even during our commercial interactions...the Islamic faith was present throughout our travels. During our 12 days there we saw approximately two Christmas trees and one, very very scary Santa Claus. Perfect.

 We flew into Marrakech, where we stayed for a few days, then we rented a car and drove south over the High Atlas Mountains on the torturously windy Tizi n’Test road. From here we headed northeast along the base of the High and Middle Atlas Mountain Ranges. We took a brief foray into the Sahara Desert for a sunrise camel ride (had to do it) then headed northwest, up and over the Middle Atlas, through the beautiful cedar forests, then into Fez for another few days. It was an amazing trip and trying to pick out a Top Five Fave is a bit absurd but...them’s the rules.

  1. It’s really different. I know. Duh. But hear me out. I didn’t really realize how different Morocco is from the experiences/landscapes/people that I’m accustomed to until we were flying back into the UK. We broke through the clouds and my first response was to the color. So green! And as I was surveying the scene I spotted this big, spherical, stone object and I wondered, “what kind of a koubba or mosque is that?” ummmm...yea...it was a water tower. Then working our way through the London/Luton Bus Station Airport we were struck by how sterile everything seemed. Surfaces were gleaming. Right angles prevailed. And the attire?! Put some clothes on girlfriend! Just very different in so many ways. Going to a place that is so different really makes you take another look at your own place. You see things that may have been invisible to you before...and I think this is a good thing.

 
 
2. The landscapes. So varied. Fantastic. Unusual. Tales of geology....if I only knew the language. 

 3. Djemaa el Fna. Djemaa el Fna is the most amazing public square I have ever seen and, as our guide book says it “...so effortlessly involves you...” After collecting our luggage, we hopped a public bus (this is a very Floyd thing), which spit us out at the entrance to the square. I was completely and utterly overwhelmed. Here we are, in a "very different place", trying to figure out where we are, where our hotel might be, and basically just trying not to lose the plot when suddenly I had a monkey on my back (shall we say). Now, I loves me some monkeys. And I’ve never been fortunate enough to have a monkey on my back (?). But I do not loves monkeys in chains, which this poor guy was. I looked into his sad, freaky eyes and I wanted to change his life...but I knew I couldn’t...and that made us both sad. In the meantime his “handler” was shouting, “PICTURE!!!...PICTURE!!!...YOU TAKE PICTURE!!!?...” Of course it is customary for the tourists to want their picture taken with the monkey and, of course, you will pay for this. Not much by our standards, but enough to validate this guy’s job....and a monkey in chains. So we declined the picture and I bid farewell to the monkey on my back (if only it were that easy for everybody). This same basic interaction can be applied to the snake “charmers” (there’s nothing charming about it these days), the kids that hop into the center of your picture (without asking them to) and the guys that want to take you to “their brother’s carpet shop”. To be honest, if I could, I wouldn’t include these interactions in the “Top Five Fave”, but they’re integral and they can’t be stripped away.

But once you’ve (convinced yourself that you’ve) ditched the touts, the Djemaa el Fna opens up to you. This place is for real. This is where the people who live here actually come for entertainment. The storytellers wave their arms and point sticks at their audience and lure them into their tales. Locals stand three and four deep, watching, listening, absolutely rapt. There’s exotic music everywhere (interestingly, we only heard western music a couple of times-but none in this square). The challenge is to focus your ears on just one group of musicians. Once you allow the background noise to fade away....the music takes your mind elsewheres. The sheep heads lined up on platters and the vendors selling their snake oils and dried lizards. These things are not because of, or intended for, us...the tourist. They are a part of how these people have been living for almost a thousand years. It’s a magical place.

 
 
 4. The patterns. The architecture, the ornamentation, the mosaics, the textiles, the carvings.... The patterns are lush, vivid, intricate, and organic and they are synonymous with luxury and adoration. There was one restored Kasbah that we stayed in (a splurge after spending several nights shivering in a room so cold we had to sleep with every layer of clothing on, plus ski caps) and the ceiling in the dining room was so beautiful, so brilliant, that I just wanted to lay down on the cushions and stare up at it. How long did it take the craftsman to paint that? To carve that? To inscribe that detail into the plaster? But then the tajines came and my mind jumped tracks... 

 5. The people. I realize that Moroccans are as diverse as the people of any other country. There’s the good and bad and the naughty and nice, but you know how you just get a vibe? Most people were so wonderful to us. So kind. So warm. Usually smiling and laughing (and not always laughing AT us, thankyouverymuch). The great memories include drinking tea (..and more tea) and haggling with the carpet vendors (it's hard to haggle when you're comPLETEly wired), or the night of music and dancing with the mountain Berbers, or being dragged down a sand dune by our desert guide, or that guy that rode his bike through the dusty, dark town trying to find us because we couldn’t understand the directions to the hotel, or the sincerity and kindness of the woman that invited us into her humble home in the ancient Kasbah. I’ll even throw the touts back into this category because they were such memorable characters. I know these interactions are through the lens of the tourist, but I think that’s what makes them even more memorable. To recognize such great disparity and to overcome it, for the moment, with a smile.