Hey everyone,
I know it’s been awhile, and
I know you’re probably expecting a ponderous massmail about my adventures in Morocco, but unfortunately I seem to
be lacking the inspiration this time around. It’s been about three weeks since I
got back, and nothing. So some of you can sigh in relief and some of you can
write angry letters to the editor. I will say that Christy and I had a fabulous
time, although in two different senses; I had a fabulously expensive time away
from
I will say that the muggers
in Morocco are quite sporting. I wasn’t
there, but apparently he cut her purse strap and started running until she
started yelling “Hey! Passport! Passport!” He actually came back and held her at
knifepoint while he rummaged for cash and then gave her purse back to her. So he
was nice.
Other than that, and, oh
yeah, the fact that Moroccans are not only the inventors of, but also the
absolute reigning High Grand Masters of the Hard Sell theory of retail, we had a
great time. But whatever you do, NEVER EVER for even a second consider entering
a carpet shop. If you do, they’ll sniff it, and you’re doomed. You’re
practically doomed anyway, even if you’re not considering it. You must be
absolutely rock hard in your resolve to ignore them. Lacking that sort of
internal fortitude, well, you will leave Morocco
with more than you bargained on.
I’ll say straight off that
both Casablanca and
Marrakesh has at least one
thing making it worthwhile; the main square, Djema al Fna. If you’ve ever heard
anything about Marrakesh, then this is what you’ve heard
about. Snake Charmers, fire eaters, charlatans, guys with monkeys, insane
people, unsane people, story tellers, (though if you don’t speak Arabic, the
stories are rather wasted on you. They are, however, also included in the
insane/unsane category, so they can still be fun to watch.) and oh yeah, lots of
invasive people trying to sell you stuff. And that includes the snake charmers
and monkey guys. I have two photos I’m not very happy about, as within my first
five minutes there, both a snake charmer and a monkey guy grabbed me and thumped
a snake/monkey on my shoulder, grabbed my camera and guerilla photographed my
gullible western tourist butt. And then demanded money for the privilege. There
was also this funny show where people paid to box against this really old skinny
guy. Skinny as in the less-well-fed class of the starving Ethiopian type. So I
got a picture of this guy beating the crap out of a twelve year old girl. They
grabbed me and made me pay for that, too.
So you can spend a day
there, but that’s about it, really. The rest of Marrakesh is nothing much to write
about.
Volubilis, a once upon a
time Roman City in Morocco, but now a Unesco World Heritage site, about a
half-hour taxi ride from the city of Meknes (also a very interesting city) is a
fun day trip. It’s all in ruins now, as the Roman’s city upkeep program has
rather been lax for the last millennium or so. So the bar scene is rather dead
and there’s no shopping, but on the other hand there’s no carpet shops, so it’s
rather a nice break from, well, Moroccans. One thing happened in Volubilis that
has never happened to me before; There was a tour group there which consisted of
teenage Moroccans. Christy and I were the only white folk there, I think,
because this group of teenage girls waylaid us and begged us to have our picture
taken with them. It was kind of a reverse scenario of the time I visited Lancaster, PA, and grabbed a bunch of Amish folk and made
them do funny poses with me. It was kind of weird, but now I know why those
silly bearded guys kept trying to run away.
The absolute high point of the whole trip was our visit to Erg Chebbi, a
region in the south east of
Anyway,
the continued existence of the Kasbahs depend upon people coming to go for a
Camel ride out in the dunes, which I need not say, is why we were there. We got
on our Camels (Dromedaries, actually; one hump not two) at about 4:00 pm, and
were led out into the desert by a barefooted Berber. These guys are nuts; we’d
be out there and not able to see anything but sand in any direction, and some
Berber guy would pop up over a dune and just be wandering around playing a banjo
or something. Barefooted. That sand is hot. So it was about a three hour trek out
to camp. There were a few other people out there and they provide snowboards; I
grabbed one and hiked partway up a dune for some sandboarding! That was sweet,
glad I did it, but I still prefer snowboarding. We were served some desert
Berber food, Tajine, which is basically cous cous stew. Vegetables and beef and
stuff. Very good. Then they played some drums; very africany berbery stuff. That
was neat, but then they tried to make me play along with them. There are two
problems with this. A) I have little to no rhythm to begin with but B) you have
no idea how self-conscious I feel trying to play bongos while sitting
squat-legged in the desert. I kept thinking of another old Stoudsburg friend of
mine, whom Christy knows, who was one of those totally long haired neo-hippy
doofuses who enjoyed a good drum circle. Nice guy, but come on, I think
everybody knows someone like him, and can understand how I felt. Needless to say
the Berbers smiled politely and quickly took the bongos away from me. (Actually,
I have to be honest here; really they were tired of playing and kept trying to
push them on me, no matter how bad I would play. They were unfortunately very
encouraging. I think they were hoping that, as in City Slickers, the more I
fumbled around in the wilderness, the more my wild nature side would try and
come out and improve my spirit and I would drum like a fiend, thereby learning a
valuable lesson about myself and becoming a better person, bringing the wisdom
of the desert back to civilization with me. Unfortunately, due to the innate
sense of irony bred into all members of my generation, such epiphanies are
nearly impossible these days.)
The main reason I was so
excited about spending the night out in the desert was next; the stars. I am a
huge space buff/dork, and I was really excited. I don’t think that I’ve really
seen a clear night sky since my days at Deerfoot Lodge. (That’s a camp I went to
for 8 years as a boy. Way out in the middle of upstate New York's wilderness.)
(Ohh... did that whole “as a boy” thing make me sound old? Zoiks.) So I grabbed
a blanket and slept outside, even though there were very nice Berber tents
available. Awesome. I haven’t seen the Milky Way like that... maybe
ever.
So that was all great and
everything. The next morning we got up and dromedaried back to Le Kasbah. I
could have spent several nights out there, I think, except time on a two week
vacation is an issue. And also they might have continued their efforts to make
me a hip desert bongo guy, and I couldn’t have any of
that.
After Christy departed Morocco, (we parted company in
I know I’ve made Morocco and Moroccans out to be these
pushy, irritating things you have to deal with rather than enjoy while traveling
there, so let me tell you a story about something that happened to
us.
Right after Christy was
knife mugged, she wandered to the nearest place where there were people. A nice
little Moroccan man named Ahmed saw her first and helped her out immensely. He
brought her to the police station and helped to translate her situation. It
turns out that he was an official guide; something which the Lonely Planet guide
book strongly recommends that you make use of while in most major cities, as
they can help you find your way around the immensely large and confusing Medinas
(old towns) while simultaneously keeping everybody, which is in fact, EVERYBODY,
who wants to sell you something away from you. He felt really bad for her, so he
offered to show her around Fes for free the next day, and he would buy her
a souvenir and take her to his house for tea in the afternoon to meet his
family. She asked if I could come along, and of course he was totally fine with
that.
So the next morning he met
us at our hotel and proceeded to show us around. He took us to an old Medersa,
(an Islamic school) which was very nice, and then... he took us to a carpet
shop. I was appalled. Luckily by this time both of our skins were rather
hardened, and were resolute in not buying diddly. It still took way way way too
long to get away, though. And then Ahmed took us to the tanneries, where you can
watch them tanning and dying leather (Very stinky process, by the way. Don’t
recommend it for the sensitive of nose, nor for those with dysentery.) And then,
Surprise! you are subjected to a hard sell for leather products. I had
considered buying a leather jacket there previously, as Moroccan leather is
famous, and as I’ve said before, if you consider for even a second.... well they
have a seventh sense about these things, these Moroccans, and I was dead in the
water the instant we first set foot on the street which led to the tanneries.
Afterwards, he took us to a
ceramic factory, with a tour and a gift shop, a lace shop, a blanket shop... so
we were subjected to more commercial abuse in the company of this official guide
than we had been on our own, and actually saw very little of anything worth
seeing. We did meet his family for tea. That was uncomfortable. Got pictures.
But wait, it doesn’t end
there. He asked us at some point where we were headed after Fes, and we stupidly told him. We’re going to Erfoud, we
say, which is where we’d planned on catching a taxi to the sand dunes and
Kasbahs. What! He exclamates. Don’t go to Erfoud! I have a cousin in Rissani,
which is closer to the sand dunes, and I will take you to the bus station now
and change your bus tickets. I will call him and have him meet you at the bus
station in Rissani, where he will take you to his house and eat breakfast with
his family, and he will arrange everything for you! I say, ummm... really, thank
you, but we can do it on our own... “No! I insist!”
We were really tired of all
the attention and just wanted to be left alone, but our official guide, who we
thought would protect us from all of that, had turned out to be the worst of
them all. We could not dissuade him short of telling him to #@@!# off, and so we
agreed, only to get him to shut up. Luckily, the bus to Rissani stops in Erfoud,
so we got off just to avoid the clutches of the official guide’s cousin, who’s
name was Hassan, I think. This was unfortunate, really, as he was correct about
Rissani being a better departure point than Erfoud, but by that time we knew
that to get off in Rissani meant madness.
So we made our way to the
sand dunes and had a merry time, as you know. After finishing our lovely desert
experience, we caught a ride to Rissani, as that is where the bus to Marrakesh departs from.
While eating lunch in a totally random restaurant there, awaiting our bus for Marrakesh, a man
sitting at a table near ours was looking at us. He leaned closer and asked, “You
are the friends of Ahmed (our Fesian official guide, remember?), no?” Too
terrified to do anything but nod, we waited for his next sentence in horror.
“Why did you not meet Hassan here?” “Uh, are you
Hassan?”
“No, but I know
him.”
“Huh. What are the odds? How
do you know who we are?”
“You were described to me
very well. Two Americans, bald with a goatee and glasses, and a tall pretty
redhead.”
Okay, this is just too much.
Moroccans are way too involved in the comings and goings of their tourists.
“Jeez. Does everybody know who we are here?”
“Well, Hassan described you
very well.”
“I’ve never met Hassan!”
“Ahmed described you very
well to Hassan.”
“Great”
“Why did you not meet
him?”
“Got off at the wrong bus
stop. Speaking of which, we have a bus to catch now. Tell Hassan hello and sorry
and all. Bye bye now.”
Man we ran out of there. Ran
fast, before he tried to sell us something or call Hassan on
us.
So, there are two morals to
this story; The Lonely Planet guide isn’t right about everything, and don’t let
the very thin surface of hospitality in Morocco fool you; they all want
something from you and they’re all creepy.
So now you pretty much know
the gist of our experiences in Morocco, and I hope that I’ve
imparted some of the broadening aspects of travel which I’ve gained. And also,
hey, I lied. I guess this did turn out to be a rather ponderous assessment of my
adventures after all. Sorry about that.
Otherwise, things are pretty
much back to normal for me here in Baghdad. Lots of work, lots of heat, lots of
Buffy. (Been keeping myself busy after work by obsessively watching the entire
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series on DVD box set.) So it’s not all bombs and
insurgents and prison scandals and stuff. It looks like our company is about to
sign our contract for another year, (I can’t believe I’ve been here almost a
year already!) and I’m not sure what that means for me just yet. I may stay, I
may not... I will probably stay at least a few months longer than my contract
requires to make back some of the cash I blew in Morocco... Plus
it kind of feels like home, now, so I’m fairly comfortable for the moment.
Anyway, I’ll keep you all posted.
Bye for
now.
Love,
Mike
hie i really like your post,its soo good.
Posted by: Leather Biker Jacket | October 30, 2010 at 05:23 AM