Maddy's Travels

Let me begin my story with a little Moroccan vocabulary.   A “souk” is a market found in a “medina” (walled city) where a man with a cart will take you and your luggage from your taxi through the labyrinth of carless streets to your “riad” (guest house). There are hundreds of shops and stalls and the streets are not wide enough for a cart and scooter to pass each other. When one is about to embark on a vacation to exotic Morocco their friends alway tell them to be careful. They are probably referring to pickpockets or the guys luring you into their shops. Really though, the only thing to be careful of in Marrakesh, Morocco are the motorbikes and donkey carts, attached to motorbikes and bicycles. Scooter accident is a more common cause of death than gun violence which doesn’t actually exist because guns are illegal, highly regulated and no one has them.  My only other worry was leaving the riad, fearing I would never find it again.  My friend Claire and I tried to use photos to mark the path as Hansel and Gretel did with bread crumbs. It didn’t work, we became hopelessly lost.  Our group of 10 women was organized by my client Marsha, a lover of  Morocco who wanted to share her experience. We were led by a highly qualified guide and a driver.

    Our trip began and ended in Marrakesh.  As I sit on the roof of  my “riad” on the last night writing this story, I hear the call to prayer from at least a dozen mosques at the same time. It is a cacophony of sounds and it is loud. Then they fade out one by one.  It feels like a reflective time  to me.

    I was in Morocco searching for the perfect lamb dish.  Everyone talks about the food, the spices and “tagine” cooking. A “tagine” is both a conical clay pot, sort of a self contained oven that nomads in the desert could use to cook on the go, and, the name for the style of cooking. I had a tagine of lamb with prunes, walnuts and exotic spices for my first dinner.  They take the lid off in front of you, aromatic steam rises and the clay keeps the food piping hot. Every meal is served with olives and fresh flat bread. Delicious. Sometimes we ate “Moroccan Style”, ie no utensils, sitting on the floor. Some of us enjoyed the spa experience, hammam (body scrub) and massage, museums, food tour and learning the correct (and respected) way to bargain.  Offer 30% of asking price, negotiate back and forth, then firmly walk away if you can’t get it at 50%.  I don’t know if young Olivia will like the slippers I got her, but after the seller actually ran after me accepting my price, I wasn’t going to not take them.

    The trip involved a lot of driving. The country is beautiful to see, but is was a lot of car time.  Our driver Mohammed loved Phil Collins and we had a lot of sing alongs.  As we drove up and over the Atlas Mountains to the dunes of the Sahara desert we could see the change not only of scenery, but culture.  Morocco is a mix of cultures and languages. Berber (been there forever), Arabic, Jews forced out of Spain by the Inquisition in the 1400s, sub Saharans brought up as slaves by European traders, and the French who colonized in the 1900s. Most people speak many languages. None of the main languages (Arabic, French and Berber) are ones which I understand.  There is a smattering of English and even less Spanish (proximity to Spain).  Communicating is really hard, you should have seen me try to buy a bottle of lotion.  Morocco is a moderate Islam country, but as we moved farther from Marrakesh and into the mountains, we noted a change. More women wore hijab and many more wore the full deal with varying degrees of face covering.  That didn’t mean you wouldn’t see them on the back of a motor bike.  The men’s garb, a jalaba, was like a full length bathrobe with a pointed hood.  Women wear them too. It seemed a bit like being in your PJs all day.

    The absolute highlight for me was the camel ride in the Sahara at sunset on the night of the full moon, spending the night in luxury tents and waking up to sunrise in the dunes. We were head wrapped in Bedouin scarves against the blowing sand (which wasn’t blowing but looks great in the photos). The camel’s movement is undulating. If you lean way back when he is going up or down the hill, you will not fall off.  My only difficulty was trying to take photos with my new iphone.  The facial recognition software did not recognize me with my head covering and kept asking for a password.

    The treasured experiences, probably unique to our group were some people to people visits.  We literally dropped in unannounced to visit family members of our guide Brahim in the town where he grew up.  Mint tea and a plate of nuts were instantly produced. The Sahara is not just dunes, it also includes a gravelly and fossil filled terrain with scrubby bushes where nomads build their camps, seemingly in the absolute middle of nowhere.  It is a life impossible to comprehend.  We toured the area in 4 wheel drive vehicles and visited a nomadic woman.  She also produced mint tea and a plate of nuts.

    After all the driving, we spent two nights in Essouira, a small walled city on the Atlantic coast. Our time was unscheduled here. We relaxed and finished our shopping. I came home with bags of spices, scarves, cool Aladdin shoes, real Argan oil and fresh dates.

    I must add in a few final tidbits such as the largest field of solar panels in the world will soon be completed in Morocco.  We also visited the movie studio where Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, Babel,  and the Mummy were shot.

    I feel enriched to have experience the sounds, aromas, colors and light of Morocco.