I’m not quite sure why it takes me so long to update my travel blog, the one you are currently reading pertains to a trip to Morocco that I took almost three years ago. Back when I was doing some serious traveling in 2002 - 2003, I used to update it about once a month. I'd find some local cafe and rework a few weeks of random journal entries into something that I considered semi-coherent and semi-interesting. Of course back then, I didn't really have much else to do aside from sitting aimlessly on the beach or sharing an occasional beer with a fellow traveler. I imagined that only a handful of my friends actually read my travel updates, and of those, nobody really cared about them.
Flash forward to the present day, November 2010. At a friend’s wedding in Florida a couple months ago, I discovered that I had been partially wrong, at least on the part about nobody really caring about these things. My friend Ryan, who I hadn’t seen in years, told me that when I had first set out on my travels back in ‘99, he used to eagerly await each travel update, digesting them word for word. I took it for flattery at first, but then he began reciting specific details that even I had forgotten. He mentioned, for example, an old photo that I had posted over a decade ago; me with orange hair, standing in a pair of rain boots with some Costa Rican guys and a red tractor in the background that was about to pull us up into the mountains. (In 1999, I spent a few months in Costa Rica as a volunteer nature guide. Out of boredom, I shaved my head and tried to bleach my hair white but instead it came out orange.) I was kind of flabbergasted and vowed to start posting my travel stories/photos again. So for Ryan Stevenson of Long Beach, CA, this travel update is dedicated to you.
Start of actual travel update
Ominous Clouds
Winter, 2007. My then-girlfriend Sarah and I wanted to take a trip together and spend the holiday season somewhere foreign, exotic, and warmer than the Atlantic seaboard. Morocco sounded like a nice choice. It was relatively close, relatively cheap, and relatively... well, exotic. Plus, since it’s a Muslim country, we wouldn’t have to deal with the endless droning of cheap Christmas music emanating from every street corner in New York. It was the first time that either of us had been to Africa, my first time in a Muslim country (Sarah had been to Iran before), and our first time doing any real traveling together. Little did we know that the seeds of our imminent break-up would be sown in Morocco...
We started our trip on good terms in the north of the country, flying into Tangier and immediately hopping a bus to the beautiful hill-side town of Chefchaouen. Chefchaouen was very charming, the old Jewish quarter was all blue-washed buildings and winding alleyways set on a lush green hillside. Unfortunately, we had rain and cloudy skies during our entire stay there. So after a few days of walking around in our raincoats, eating couscous indoors and constantly being offered hashish by the locals, we skipped town for the drier inland valleys and the medieval fortress cities of Meknés and Fez.
The Silence of the Lambs and Moroccan Delicacies
The beginning of our trip coincided with the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha. This annual holiday is the second of the two Eid festivals1 and involves the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of sheep2 across the Muslim world in commemoration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God.
According to the story, God commanded Abraham to kill his only son Ishmael for no other reason than to demonstrate his unquestioning faith to God. Just as Abraham was about to commit the foul act, God allowed him to sacrifice a ram instead of his son. While lucky for Ishmael, this change of circumstances has proven very unfortunate for sheep ever since. In Chefchaouen we were constantly haunted by the bleating of the poor ovines being led to their death, typically by bands of small children. In our next stop in the fortress city of Meknes, we came across a courtyard filled with slaughtered carcasses and sheep skins, and had to tip-toe over pools of blood. This didn't stop me, however, from later trying roasted sheep's head, a popular and quite tasty delicacy in Marrakesh's central plaza Dar Djemma el Fna.
Same Same but Different... in Morocco
The quirky Thai phrase “same same... but different” seems to apply to Morocco’s two inland medieval cities, Fès and Meknès. Both cities share many similarities; size, location, tourist offerings. But for some reason, the Fès medina (ancient, walled-in quarter) is just slightly more intricate and labyrinthian than Meknès. The Fès spice markets are ever-so-slightly more pungent and boisterous than Meknès’, and it’s fortress-like exteriors are just a tad bit larger, more detailed, and well-preserved than those of its western counterpart.
We spent a number of days wandering around the aforementioned spice markets, medinas, and tanneries, taking pictures and being woken up in the early morning hours by the call to prayer. A day trip to the ancient Roman ruins at Volubilis in the hilly countryside between Fès and Meknès, provided a welcome respite from hustle and bustle of the cities. After about a week, we boarded a train and were rushed off to Marrakesh.
Rule of Teeth
Short off-topic public service announcement: After traveling in Morocco for a few weeks and being taken by some of the gambits used by the cheats/touts, I started to formulate my “rule of teeth” to identify local scam artists. The rule is this: if you are approached by strange Moroccan men, especially in bus stations or other areas where tourist gather, generally the worse the state of their dental hygiene, the more likely that they are trying to cheat you out of something. We were taken a couple times by the old “Let-me-help-you-put-your-baggage-onto-the-bus...oh-by-the-way-there’s-a-20-dirham-fee-for-bag-handling” ploy and almost fell for the “no-the-bus-isn’t-running-today-but-my-cousin-has-a-car-and-he-can-drive-you...for-fifty-American-dollars” scam, all by guys in a terrible dental state.
Deserts, Oases, and Kasbahs by Minivan and Camel
As soon as we arrived into Marrakesh, we booked an incredible four-day whirlwind driving circuit into some of Morocco’s more difficult to reach places with a local tour agency. The next day, we boarded a minivan with a handful of tourists and were off! In four days, we covered hundreds of miles, including kasbahs (desert fortresses), gorges, small towns built around palm oases, carpet factories, and overnight camel treks into the desert. One morning after having spent the night in the desert, we woke up before dawn, climbed the highest sand dune and watched the sun rise over the dunes at Erg Chebbi and the Sahara Desert. It was definitely the highlight of my trip, a spectacular moment that I’ll always remember.
Marrakesh!
When we got back into Marrakesh from the intense four day rally car tour, we just wanted some down time to relax and enjoy the city. Marrakesh is definitely the tourist hub of Morocco, filled with more sights, sounds, smells and flavors than one person can assimilate in a lifetime. We stayed near the central plaza, Dar Djemma el Fna, splurging on a room in a beautifully restored riad (guesthouse) for a few nights. There, we celebrated the passing of 2007 and the birth of 2008. We had a massage and steam bath in a Turkish-style hamam. We tentatively bargained for souvenirs, got lost, then found ourselves in the intricate alleyways of the medina. Desperate to dine on anything besides cous-cous or tajines, we tried a gaudy Italian restaurant on the main strip that advertised “Traditional Berber music tonight!” (translation: “Dine on the worst food in Morocco while being distracted by grade-B performers”) and even invented our own “Moroccan burger,” consisting of kefta meatballs and the ubiquitous La Vache Qui Rit (Laughing Cow) cheese wrapped in a thick pita bread. I also ate snails and a quarter of a sheep’s head in Djemma el Fna and took pictures and videos of everything I saw.
Essouira
After New Years had come and gone, we ventured a trip to the nearby coastal town of Essouira. Beautiful, serene, and filled with fresh seafood, we spent our days wandering the old city ramparts, trying to decide which seafood restaurant looked the most promising, and bargaining for little orangewood jewelry boxes which I later gifted to my sister and friends. Upon my return to the US, I discovered that orangewood is actually a threatened species in Morocco (so don’t buy it no matter how beautifully delicate the appearance and aromatic the smell).
Hope you enjoyed this rather lengthy travel update. See you again, probably in about a year.
- Charles, November 28, 2010
1 The first Eid in the calendar year is Eid ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.
2 Other animals, such as goats or camels, may also be substituted for sheep.