Morocco - March 2008

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It had been almost an entire month since I had returned home from a year of frolicking. In my book that spells time for a much-needed, well-deserved holiday.

I had no pre-conceptions on where I wanted to go, so I decided the next best thing would be to turn up at the airport and jump on a plane to somewhere or anywhere. Firstly, it’s quite difficult packing for an unknown destination, so I packed light and figured I would buy anything extra I might need on arrival.

I logged off at work, got changed in the office and headed for Heathrow. The first ticket desk I tried was Virgin Atlantic. Hoping to pick up a “standby” ticket, my bubble of optimism was burst when they informed me that the procedure was to purchase a ticket to a specific destination, then I could standby for a spare seat to that specific destination. Which kinda defeated the object somewhat. I was told that as Heathrow only serves scheduled flights I was unlikely to pick up a cheap last minute seat at the airport itself. Not to be deterred I went from ticket desk to ticket desk, most of whom conveyed similar advice. But not all. At the Japan Airlines desk, I was told I could fly that evening to Tokyo for £400. Bargain, I thought, and handed over my credit card to buy the ticket. As she was processing my payment, she asked:
“…. and what are you going to do about coming home again?”
Oh right, it was a single ticket only. So I quickly put a stop to that idea.

Several ticket desks later I was offered a flight into Reykjavík and could return to any of the European cities that Icelandair serve for £290. This would have been tempting were it not the completely wrong time of year to be visiting Iceland.

Finally, at just after 8pm, I reached the BMI counter. Most of their flights were departing at 9pm and some had spare seats. And so it was I bought a ticket to Tehran, checked in my luggage, and headed for Security. No sooner was I starting to warm to the idea of 10 days in Iran as I was holding up my beltless jeans whilst my gear was being x-rayed, that an announcement was beamed out over the tannoy,
“Would Mr Taylor please return to the BMI ticket desk”.

So I did.
“Have you obtained your Iranian visa?” I was asked.
We were both well aware I hadn’t. Tourist visas for Iran need to be acquired weeks in advance, so that was another non-starter.
“But you can go to Beirut”, the excitable ticket agent told me. It was now 8:20pm and the flight was due to leave in 40 minutes, so I was told to make a snap decision.
“Yeah, why not” I replied without having time to think it all through. So I was issued with a ticket to Beirut and fast-tracked back through Security to the boarding gate. As I was lining up at the back of queue to board the plane, it occurred to me I knew nothing about Lebanon, spoke next to no Arabic, had no hard cash in case my bank card did not work, and unsurprisingly there was little travel literature available on Beirut in the departure lounge. Maybe this was not such a sensible idea after all. At 8:50pm, with the rest of the passengers aboard the aircraft, I enquired if it was too late to cancel my ticket. Luckily they were well aware of my spontaneous purchase and allowed me a full refund on return to the arrivals hall. Unluckily my luggage didn’t make it back to the arrivals hall to meet me. I’m assuming my bag did not actually stay on board the aeroplane - to some people it may appear suspicious that someone ran up to a ticket desk at the last moment, checked in a bag to a war-torn Middle Eastern destination, and then decided not to accompany that bag on board.

I filled out the forms for my luggage to be delivered to my home address (not having an address, that would be my mum’s address). The courier agent informed that next time it may be more fruitful to try Gatwick or Luton airports for last minute deals.

My luggage was couriered to me the following day. Later, I went to Luton airport and bought a cheapo ticket to Marrakesh, Morocco, leaving at 6am the next morning. I only bought a one-way ticket as I was still not sure where I would return from, or how, or when (but not if).

Marrakesh is a bustling city in the centre of Morocco, shielded from the Sahara desert by the Atlas mountains. I met a few other independent travellers on the plane and we shared a taxi to the medina (the old Arab part of the city) in the centre of Marrakesh. We all checked into a Riad (a traditional Arab guesthouse) besides the medina. I would meet many random people over the next few days, but the least random of all were my mum and sister who just so happened to be on a 5 day holiday in Marrakesh themselves. “Surprise - It’s me!”. I located their hotel to say Hi, and as much as they insisted that they didn’t mind me crashing on the floor of their twin room in their 5-star hotel, I couldn’t do that to them. In fact, I only met up with them sporadically - mainly when I wanted some pocket money or to use their pool or to sponge from their all inclusive breakfast buffet.

The central plaza in Marrakesh’s medina, named Djeema El Fna, is the heartbeat of the city. Snake charmers (or chargers?) demand a small fee to take a picture of a rearing cobra; strange ladies try to paint henna tattoos on your hand - for a small fee; and the souks sell everything a wealthy tourist might or might not want to buy. But it is at night that the square really comes to life. Food stalls spring up everywhere, with every Moroccan Gordon Ramsay vying for your trade (one of the chefs has gone so far as to name himself Gordon Ramsay, though he looked more like Manuel from Fawtly Towers). Moroccan food really is something. What that something is, I have no idea. I do know that boiled sheep heads and brains make their way onto the menu and if you are either experimental or fail to correctly translate the Arabic menu, then they also make their way onto your plate. I expect this is not traditional cuisine at all, but the locals having a laugh by seeing how many entrails and organs that would otherwise go in the bin they can fool us into thinking is all part of the cultural eating experience. The more traditional fare is couscous or mezze or fresh olives or tajines - meat or vegetable stew served in conical pots.

I left Marrakesh for a trip across the Atlas mountains to the desert beyond. We crossed the Atlas mountains over the Tizi n’Tichka, a pass of some 2,000m altitude, then descended down into the Draa valley behind. We stopped at a kasbah near the town of Ouarzazate. A kasbah is a medieval Arab citadel or fort constructed out of dried mud and clay. According to our learned guide, the settlement inside the fort has unchanged over hundreds of years. That is if you ignore all the satellite TV dishes fixed to each rooftop. Even an isolated Arabic family craves MTV, presumably so they can Rock the Kasbah!

We continued along R9 as the terrain became sparser and more deserted. Upon reaching the town of Zagora on the edge of the desert, we took a 2 hour camel ride to a Berber camp in the desert. I think this was supposed to be a memorable scene riding the “ships of the desert” into the sunset becoming distant silhouettes of ourselves. What will remain most memorable for me was the sheer discomfort of it all. Much of which was down to my own ill-preparedness. Firstly, I was regretting the lack of protective facewear as the sand continuously swept into my eyes and mouth. Secondly, I was regretting the lack of appropriate legwear as the friction of the side of the camel against my calves gave me a leg wax that a beauty queen would be proud of. Thirdly, I was regretting the lack of protective trouser wear - as a father-of-none who may one day want to be a father-of-some and in a heated climate, the rhythmic tapping of undercarriage on camelback was unbearable. After 30 minutes of torture, I decided to walk.

The Berbers are nomadic tribespeople who have made the Sahara desert their home for centuries. Is it so offensive to ask, “Why?”. I mean, come on, surely you’d rather set up camp somewhere with a little less sand and a little more water? Try the seaside or the comfort of the city. They are not such a long distance to relocate to. You are nomads after all. Other than the nightly spectacle of star-gazing in the total absence of artificial light, there’s not much in the way of entertainment out here. The nearest cinema is a 400 km round trip.

After being treated to a huge communal tajine and a chorus of Berber music, I found a comfortable looking dune to be my mattress for the night and fell asleep with dozens of “shooting stars” burning up in the atmosphere overhead. But the romance of sleeping under the stars is somewhat of an irrelevance, as the wondrous sight tends to be blocked by closed eyelids. I woke up at sunrise to watch the sun rise and paint the desert landscape a deep red, then orange, then sandy coloured.

Retracing our tracks to Marrakesh, I jumped on a overnight train to Fez, famous for the hats designed by Tommy Cooper. I saw very few Fezzers actually fezzed-up. Just like that, I was expecting to see all the men wearing the eponymous headgear, but I guess that would be like expecting everyone in Wellington to be wearing rubber boots or everyone in Jodhpur to be wearing tight riding trousers. Most of the mean I saw in Fez were wearing head scarves instead. And very few of them did light entertainment.

I stayed one night in Fez, in a small guesthouse near the medina. Being a Muslim country, most Moroccans observe the ritual to pray to Allah, which very much like fruit, should be taken 5 times a day. The minarets call faithful Muslims to prayer at various times, one of which is 4:45am. This call to prayer woke me up. And once I was awake I couldn’t go back to sleep until I had popped to the bathroom across the hallway. My contact lenses were not in either, so I was half-blind. This unfortunate set of circumstances resulted in me tripping over the owner of the guesthouse who had his Arab forehead on a prayer mat on the floor in the corridor. I decided it was best to check out that morning before a fatwa came my way.

Leaving Fez I took a train to Tangier on the Mediterranean coast of northern Morocco. Tangier is nothing to write home about. Er, but I am. So briefly then, there’s a kasbah on top of a portside hill and a medina and a couple of museums and a ferry port connecting Morocco to Europe.

From Tangier I took a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar straight to Gibraltar. “The Rock” is on the tip of southern Spain and remains a British enclave. Another one of Britain’s contentious land holdings, which we refuse to concede to Spain because of its strategic importance. Especially if Spain decides to play hardball again on the whole cod rights, we’re perfectly positioned to batter them! The other argument to keep Gibraltar is that the people here “feel British”. Using that rationale it won’t be long before Poland claim rights to Southampton. The first thing that hits you about Gibraltar is just how British it is. Full of fish’n’chip shops, Ye Olde pubs and street names such as Winston Churchill Avenue. Moreover, it’s very ‘sixties British - red phone boxes and old-style minis with Union Jacks painted on the roof. Were the policemen somersaulting down the street you’d have a living reconstruction of the opening scene to Austin Powers.

A day in Gibraltar was enough time to visit the war-tunnels, the forts, bastions, batteries and other sights that symbolise Britain’s ability to defend themselves from sieges. And of course there’s the Barbary macaques - those cute little tailless monkeys that, given half a chance, will swap your lunch for rabies.

I walked to the Spanish town of La Linea and took a bus to Malaga. Coming in the other direction were a wave of British university students doing the annual “Morocco Hitch”. A thousand or so of the tax-dodgers set off from their respective universities each Easter break, hitching down through France and Spain and congregating in Morocco to celebrate their accomplishment with a round of mint teas. Listening to their stories, it made me want to do the same in reverse, but time waits for no man and I needed to get back to the office, get changed back into the creased shirt and trousers that were stuffed in my top drawer and log back on and be a corporate professional.

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Photos

Camelback
During 30 minutes of agony

Camelshadows
(As taken from the more comfortable walking position)

Comments

[Fatima Ibrahim]

any tips?
Hi Tim, please tell me you went straight back to work from the airport?! I really enjoyed reading about your adventure. Anyhow my friend Liz and i are heading to morocco in May, is there anywhere you would say we absolutely had to visit before leaving the country? Fatima x

[Toolman]

Morocco
Hi Fatima, It really depends what you're looking for and how much time you have. Marraskesh is undoubtably the most toursit-centric city, and has the best "buzz". The souks and the medina are superb. I really enjoyed venturing out to the desert and the mountains. Also, many people went to Essouaira for the beach, which is apparently great. If you like the idea of Marrakesh but without the tourists, then Fez is perfect. less hassle too. hope this is a starter for you, but you should find your own adventures.