November 14, 2003
Morocco Was Magical
We spent last week in the wonderful country of Morocco. It was a week filled with medinas, souqs, snake charmers, berber villages, sand dunes, camel riding, and learning how to bargain.
We were convinced to go to Morocco by a fellow Canadian, Jeff, who we met on the camino. He set up a five day adventure for the three of us. All we had to do was meet him in Marrakech on Mon Nov 3rd. It seemed that easy. It turned out that getting to Morocco from Portugal was a two day adventure of rental cars, many hiccups, and constant thinking on our feet, but I guess that made the whole experience that much more memorable.
We knew before we left for Morocco that is was currently Ramadan. Morocco being a Muslim country celebrates the holy month this year from Oct 23rd to Nov 23rd. During this month, Muslims are not allowed to smoke, have sex, or let any food or water pass their lips between dawn and sunset (5am to 6pm). Fasting is meant to teach Muslims to resist temptation. It is also meant to help them have more appreciation for the poor and to be thankful for what they have.
We were quickly introduced to the Moroccan culture as we boarded the ferry to Tangiers. We realized that we come from a queued society. Bow and I would line up and hoards of other people would bud in, or so we call it. Everyone would do this to each other, but it was completely acceptable. The ferry ride was quite an experience! First of all, we realized as we were getting off that we sat in the mosque the whole ride, which is completely unacceptable for non-Muslims. We had actually thought it was a movie theatre with its comfy seats.
When we went to get off, we realized that we shouldn´t have ignored the very hard to hear muffling over the loud speaker because it was an important announcement about getting our passports stamped in order to get into Morocco. We had to wait almost an hour after the boat had docked to get our silly stamp, which meant a mad dash to the train station. We only had about two minutes to spare getting on the overnight train to Marrakech. We met a really nice Irish couple on the ferry, who we ended up travelling with on the overnight train right down to Marrakech.
We arrived in Marrakech at 8:30am on Monday morning. Bow and I jumped into a ¨petit taxi¨ to head down to the medina (old city). The ride was worth way more than the 20 dirham fee ($3). We could not believe the streets - cars, trucks, horses, donkeys, pedestrians, mopeds, bicycles, and other animals all making their way around the city. Once again, there was no order to the way everyone moved, no traffic lights, people would simply bud into the spot they wanted. Crossing a major road, you just would edge out to go through two or three lanes of traffic and people would let you willingly. No horns honked, no road rage.
We got dropped off and found our hotel, which was the most beautiful spot. It was about three floors of rooms looking onto an open-aired court yard with a roof-top terrace over looking the city. We immediately went out to check out the busy city. We spent most of our day in Djaema´a al-Fna square in the medina, which is famous for its freshly squeezed orange juice stalls, snake charmers, and many other bazaar type entertainment. We also headed into the thick of the souqs (markets) in the medina. There were souqs of all kinds - textiles, pottery, spices, etc - down the many thousands of streets in the medina. At first we would fend off people saying ¨no merci¨ as they called out to us as we walked along. But then, for some reason, we decided to get into the game and try to learn a bit more about bargaining. There were so many interesting things to buy. We stopped at a stall selling beautiful fabric throws. They showed us so many different throws and I fell in love with one. Bow and I tried a good cop/bad cop bargaining style and it worked well. We only walked away once before buying the piece, which probably means that we paid too much. But we were happy and he was happy and I guess that makes a good bargaining situation. As we left the stall, we realized that bargaining was actually a lot of fun and before you know it, we were bargaining for a beautiful piece of pottery.
We spent the rest of the day checking out the city. One of the highlights was a horse and carriage city tour, which took us past the palace, gardens and many mosques. Let´s just say our driver taught the horses a bit of a lesson with his whip. He also almost decapitated many pedestrians and cyclists. We laughed so hard our bellies ached all afternoon.
We met our friend Jeff at the hotel in the early evening. We decided to head out to get some dinner. When we got into the once bustling streets, they were completely bare. Everyone had stopped to eat since the sun had just set. Within an hour or so, the city came alive again. We decided to eat in the food stalls in the main square. There were about 100 restaurant stalls all selling the exact same dishes. As we walked down the aisles we were constantly approached by workers to come and eat at their restaurant. It was overwhelming. A young guy at restaurant #42 charmed us with his ¨we´ve got airconditioning¨ speil (they´re all outdoors), so we decided to sit with them. It was also a busy spot, which is always a good sign.
We sat down and we each could choose several small dishes that interested us. Each one was about 5 dirhams (75 cents). We ate a variety of delicious salads and veggie couscous, which was followed by traditional mint tea. In Morocco, they think of mint tea as their whiskey, since they don´t drink. But they definitely do smoke the Moroccan hashish. The young workers would be rolling joints and smoking them as they worked and then their speils would really start to get the white tourists to sit down at their stall. It was quite entertaining. That was Marrakech ... it will never be forgotten!
First thing Tuesday morning, Bow, Jeff and I headed off with Abdul and Brahim of Sahara Services in a land rover to start our five day adventure through the High Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert. Abdul was our guide and could speak English and Brahim was our driver and we could only speak French with him.
We left Marrakech and spent the day travelling through berber villages in the mountains. It was so fascinating to pass through these villages to see some women washing their clothes in the river and other women walking with all kinds of things strapped to their backs and heads. Many men would be riding donkeys sideways and children were playing everywhere in the streets. In the afternoon, Brahim took us off roading to see less touristy villages and many old kasbahs (family fortress). As we drove along these roads that were less travelled, children would always come running from the fields or streets to wave to us. We would often see two or three small children way off in the distance leaving their parents to work in the fields as they made the mad dash for the road to simply wave to the passerbys. It was such a treat!
On our second day of the adventure, we spent more time exploring the mountain area and unique geography. After lunch, Abdul and Brahim took us to a carpet shop, since we had expressed interest in buying. We were served mint tea and were told about all of the different types of carpets from all across Morocco. Bow and I had only intended to buy a small carpet to put up on the wall or something but then we fell in love with some others. We narrowed it down to two and then the bargaining began. After an hour, many jokes, different offers back and forth, and two trips back into the jeep to leave, we came to an agreement.
After carpet shopping, we headed to M´Hamid, which is on the south border of Morocco. It is the entry point into the Sahara and only about 45 kms from the Algerian border. When we arrived, the sun had just set so we had stopped at Abdul´s restaurant so they could all finally eat something after another day of fasting. At sunset, wherever we were, people would always ask us to join them as they ate. This day, we did! We asked them many more questions about Ramadan and the Moroccan culture. Families usually have around 10 children, women usually get married around 19, men sometime in their 20s, you would then live with the husbands family. People really enjoy Ramadan because there´s a stronger sense of community and family during this time of year. It was very fascinating to be in a culture that is completely based on one religion, which everyone practices with no questions asked.
Before dinner, Jeff had suggested that we buy head wraps (sheshes) for the blowing sand in the desert. We went into a local store and before you knew it, Brahim (a different Brahim) had us completely dressed up in the full desert garb - the guys in long nomad dresses and me as a berber girl outfit (head wrap and bright coloured dress). As you know, I love all of that dressing up stuff so my camera was in full form. We all looked so funny, which meant that I couldn´t stop laughing. Bow kept trying to calm me down so I wouldn´t insult Brahim. Jeff looked like Chevy Chase in Fletch and Bow´s head wrap was out of control. After another bargaining session we happily left the store in our new outfits.
Picture this ... three white tourists in full desert garb walking down the main street of a small non-touristy town - everyone was watching and talking to one another about us. We knew that they were thinking ¨silly tourists¨or something to that effect. To top it all off, my laughter was uncontrollable, especially thinking about all of the fun we could have with those outfits.
After a tasty dinner of tagine (veggie stew), which is the main dish in Morocco, Abdul took us to the edge of the desert to stay in beowack huts, which were large tent type structures made of sand and hay and then lined with carpets. It was truly magical to be surrounded by sand dunes, camels, and many different huts. We explored the area under the moonlight before drinking mint tea and heading to bed.
The third day of our adventure was a trek on camels through the desert. Two young guys, Mohammed (19) and Ali (23), led the way. Bow´s camel was not a happy camper - he cried and cried and cried when Bow got on him. His cries sounded like Chewy from Star Wars. Thankfully we did buy the outfits because they kept us cool in the 35 degree heat all day. After a day of riding camels, we stopped in between two dunes to set up camp. It was just us, the dunes, and the camels. Mohammed and Ali sang bedouin songs as they made us dinner on the open fire. Bow and I slept in the tent with the guys but Jeff decided to sleep under the stars. He unfortunately didn´t sleep because a wild herd of 13-20 camels passed through our camp and he was afraid they would step on him. Mohammed got up to chase them away but they kept coming back.
The fourth day was another great day! We rode the camels in the morning. Well I guess Bow´s camel got him back because after two days of riding Chewy, Bow´s butt was chaffed! We said goodbye to Mohammed and Ali and headed off with Brahim to the Chagaga Dunes. These dunes in the Sahara reach up to 300 metres high and were 60 kms in length and 6 km wide. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the sea of dunes. At this camp there were other groups and many locals. They served us a delicious tagine and then entertained us with lots of singing and dancing around the camp fire. It was close to a full moon that night so before heading to bed, Bow and I explored the dunes by moonlight.
On our last day, we spent most of the day in the land rover. We travelled for eight hours to get back to Marrakech. Brahim dropped Bow and I off at the train station and we jumped on an overnight train to Fez. We arrived in Fez at 4:30am on Sunday morning. We got a hotel and slept for most of the morning before heading out to the famous medina with over 9000 streets. We were ready to get back in the bargaining game. Fez is less touristy than Marrakech - we only saw about four other tourists there. We spent the entire afternoon exploring the narrow and winding streets, checking out all of the different souqs and bargaining for pottery. We got some great deals! After a busy day in the market, we opted for a relaxing evening ... we went out for pizza (no more tagine!) and then relaxed and read all night.
We spent the entire day on Monday making our way to Marbella, Spain to stay with family. Our day started at 7am and we made our way by train, ferry, and then bus to Marbella. Ben greeted us with many laughs at 9pm as we came off the bus in our new berber and nomad outfits. We are now relaxing in Marbella with family and are absolutely loving it!
Until next time!
Jill
