We certainly didn’t suffer our whole stay in Morocco. On the contrary, we threw ourselves headlong into the café culture, enjoying a cuppa or two in the wide boulevards of the Ville Nouvelles and in tiny Medina cafés. We discovered the most charming feature of Moroccan cities in these old, walled towns where it’s said that life in their cramped and winding streets has carried on in much the same way for hundreds of years. You’re liable to believe that claim when you see mules teetering along the cobblestones, burdened with their loads, so long as you can ignore that the treasures they carry are as often bootlegged dvds and gold lamé caftans as the traditional carpets and hides. We explored a bit of Moroccan cuisine, enjoying simple couscous and lamb tagines. We celebrated the reintroduction of dairy to our diets, gorging ourselves daily on yogurt drinks and cheese. We improved our French, though found it entirely impossible to decide which language to use since we were regularly spoken to in English, French, and Arabic, in addition to being heckled in Spanish.
Morocco had a few downsides. In addition to dealing with our mounting travel fatigue, we had to unlearn the rules of Africa and acquaint ourselves with the customs of the muslim world. Among the most unfortunate casualties in this new adventure was the nerve I’d gained through so many weeks at the farm – commuting solo to and from the library, or even just approaching people, asking questions, or taking chances with new experiences. Unsure if the scrutiny was real, I began to rely more on Sam to do the talking for us and started to imagine that I felt less safe here than I had in the arguably more dangerous territory from where we’d come.
Still, our experiences had hardened us against that thing most commented upon in the travel books: namely the persistence of the Moroccan touts and shop owners who, if you’d believe what’s written, would stop at nothing to lighten the load on your wallet. On the contrary, we found it refreshing to be able to constructively respond to the people engaging us – a smile and a sincerely uninterested “no thank you” seemed perfectly polite and sufficient, whereas we had always previously been at a loss for a response to “Hey, white man!”
By the time we were feeling reasonably recovered from our illness, we had already experienced some great travel highlights across the country.
In Casablanca, the most cosmopolitan and European of Moroccan cities, we gaped at skyscrapers and the dizzying heights of the Hassan II grande mosqué, the second largest mosque in the world. We drank coffee and ate sandwiches, french fries, chocolate, and sorbet.
An utterly civilized commute by train brought us to El Jadida, a modern and relaxed town catering to Moroccan holiday-makers, West of Casablanca on the Atlantic Coast. Around the quiet cité portugaise – the Portuguese medina – we walked the bastion walls next to the sea and peered at the wooden fishing boats docked at the pier. Inside the medina we visited the old, sixteenth century cistern: a dark, vaulted room out of a fairy tale, where a single circular opening in the ceiling reflects the many pillars in a shallow pool of water. Despite our sickness we couldn’t resist our first dip in the Atlantic, though we had to work hard to muster our courage among prying eyes.
We pressed onwards to Essaouira (“Ess-a-wi-ra”), the self-titled “wind city” which lived up to its name. We took a long stroll along the wide, blustery beach while simultaneously dipping our feet in the sea and politely dodging the persistent touts offering camel and horseback rides into the dunes. We walked too far, got sunburned noses and then painfully sniffed and sneezed our way through a delicious seafood lunch.
In search of our cure in a warmer climate, we headed by bus to Marrakech. We wound over green hills lined with olive trees and wheat bales and believed we were in Italy. When the ground had grown flatter and the mountains moved higher into the distance, we pulled into the city and found a taxi to the main medina square. In the Djemaa el-Fna, this expanse of bustle and noise, we saw snake charmers, musicians, storytellers, and henna painters weaving in and around the crowds buying freshly squeezed orange juice from a neverending line of stalls. We decided that the best tasting juice was the sweet, chilled and already-squeeze variety – sold as “freshly-squeezed” and emphatically looked-down upon by our guidebook for its reputed adulteration with water and squash.
We visited our first real souqs, those winding market streets where only the bravest beams of sunlight penetrate into their narrow, trellised alleys. We saw carpets and lanterns, silver kettles and trays, tea glasses and colourful slippers piled up against layer upon layer of all manner of fabric and cloth. We walked around the gardens by the Koutoubia Mosque, visited the grounds of a ruined palace, and marveled at the intricate zellij tilework of the Saadian tombs. We ate at McDonalds.
One night in Marrakech we mustered our courage and ventured out after dark into the square, which had transformed over the course of the afternoon. Now filled with hundreds of outdoor food stalls, crowded with smoke and touts and eager diners, we picked the most local-looking one we could find (free of tourist wranglers) and waited our turn to grab a seat at the narrow counters surrounding the grill. Under the halo of incandescent bulbs, two of the frenzied men in aprons doled out sausages and bread on small metal plates, and poured tomato salsa from a pitcher. When our turn came we ate as more and more people gathered round to wait their turn and the cooks kept their pace through the noise and billowing smoke.
From Marrakech another train brought us back through Casablanca and on to Fes, home of the oldest living medieval city in the Islamic world. Reputed to be a tourist-swallowing labyrinth of streets and dead-end alleys, we proudly found our way in and out with relative ease. Staying on the top floor of a sparse little medina hotel, we could peer out of our “tower” down to the pedestrian arteries of the old town, or out over the sprawling roofs which betray nothing of the city below. With five minarets within shouting distance of our window, we were regularly blasted at all hours by calls to prayer.
We suffered a resurgence in our illness but recovered in time to brave the souqs and emerge triumphant but sweaty from our first real experience in bargaining. We wound through the back alleys to the famous leather tanneries, where the cramped city suddenly opens into a sea of dye pots, ammonia and drying hides. Through the heinous smells and the sun’s heat workers wade in and out of the colourful paint pots as a neverending succession of donkeys tramp in and out. Among the piles of poop Sam might have felt nostalgic for his days at the farm, but he didn’t say. We visited another medersa – one of the religious teaching colleges – and admired more spectacular tile and plasterwork.
Nearing the end of our journey we spent one night in Chefchaouen, an unusually beautiful and isolated mountain town where the buildings are awash in white and blue, and the friendly residents have an unfortunate-though-luckily-bygone history of murdering tourists. (Just the first few, really.) Next in Tangier we opened the hold of the bus to unhappily discover that our bags had spent the journey marinating in a liberal dousing of olive oil. Despite views of the Med the city was likewise damp, depressed, smelly and forlorn (but how much can you really expect from just one country?) and so we left.
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