My love affair with Morocco

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It hasn’t even been 10 hours since we arrived back in Bamako, but I’m so eager to commit my memory of our Morocco trip to writing that even having recovered little from our red-eye flight I will attempt to do so now.

Nora and I had left Bamako last Monday at 3:30 am, arriving in Casablanca at 7. With 6 hours to kill before the arrival of Nora’s sister, Sarah, and her boyfriend, we hopped a train into the center of town with the intention of eating breakfast and heading to the Grand Mosque. We were a bit disoriented, and so our attempts to walk from the train station to the mosque delayed us a couple of hours, putting us a bit behind on our goal of catching the 11 am tour. Fortunately, we made it to the mosque just 10 minutes into the tour. Back in September we had only had the opportunity to view the mosque from the outside, as we had arrived on a Friday, when tours are suspended. Then it had been hot and rainy, adding to our disappointment, but this time the weather couldn’t have been more different: cool and relatively clear. Even the tremendous relief from the heat of Bamako couldn’t match the splendor inside the mosque, though.

The enormity of the mosque, which is immediately apparent from the exterior, still cannot adequately prepare one for the spaciousness of the interior. Looking over 500 feet down the length of the main hall, one only gets a sense of how large the mosque is from the tiny figures milling about the giant columns supporting the arcade well over 200 feet overhead. Normally, vertiginous heights, whether above or below me, give me some discomfort, but, looking up, the illusion of proximity created by size is disarming. The chandeliers, which must each be at least the size of a school bus, look close enough to reach up and touch. Beyond the size, the intricacy of the tiling and woodwork is unfathomable. We were told that 15,000 craftsmen labored each day, 10,000 each night for five years in the effort. Even with that workforce, it is hard to believe that they finished.

After our tour, we took the train back to the airport and had to wait only about 20 minutes before Sarah and Warren appeared, looking exhausted from their 20+ -hour journey. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we boarded a train for Fes, a city 4 hours to the northeast of Casablanca. Our compartment was very comfortable, and we immediately struck up a conversation with an official from the Department of Tourism. He told us all about his hometown of Fes, how to find an official guide there (there are a lot of unofficial guides, but, in an effort to promote the tourism industry, the government licenses official guides and imposes severe penalties on unofficial ones), and suggestions for our itinerary.

As we neared Fes, the landscape became more hilly and lush. Many of the green slopes supported olive groves, vast fields of corn and grains, and verdant gardens. Every so often we passed tidy villages of tightly concentrated white adobe buildings perched precariously along ridgelines. When we finally made it to the new section of Fes, where the train station is located, we encountered modern buildings with restaurants and retail shops situated around elegant squares, reminiscent of a southern California enclave for the rich. We quickly found a taxi to bear us away from the cosmopolitan New Fes and headed to the Medina, the walled-in section of town dating back to the early Middle Ages and home to the vast souks.

We arrived at the “Blue Gate”, one of several gates in the vast wall surrounding the Medina, around dusk. Given that cars are prevented from entering the gates, we took to the streets to find the riyadh where we would be staying. Inside the gates, restaurants, cafes and shops encircled a small area about 25 yards across, where two streets leading into the labyrinthine Medina converged. We had read that there were over 950 streets in an area covering just a couple of square miles, so we had the good fortune of being asked by a teenage boy where we were going. When we told him, he took off down one of crowded streets, and we breathlessly tried to keep up.

It was on this short walk that I fell in love with Morocco. For anyone who has been to Casablanca but not elsewhere in Morocco, they must know that the capital is the poorest of representatives of this country. However, even the 700-year-old parapets and pointed archways of the massive walls surrounding the Medina, which for me conjured imaginings of old Jerusalem, could not compare to the magical sensation that I got walking through the winding paved streets of the Medina, particularly the one leading to our riyadh. The buildings of the Medina were two to three stories structures of white adobe and brick. They loomed over the narrow streets in varying shapes, many with ornately carved wooden doors, window frames and supports dating back to the 14th century. Although the adjoining buildings and the vendors’ stalls at street level crowded the streets such that it would have been difficult to walk five abreast (and this was veritably impossible anyway with the steady bustle of pedestrians, horses, mules, and motorcycles), the perfectly arranged goods lining the streets leant an order that somehow made the scene intimately enchanting.

The vendors’ stalls occupied small niches at the street level of the buildings; many were as small as 5 by 5 feet, the larger ones (about 20 by 20 feet) serving as cafes or restaurants. On our street one could find the following in less than 10 paces: a small stall with vegetables compactly arranged on a sloping display table; two butchers working behind a small glass enclosure featuring camel meat (evident by the head hanging from a hook over the counter); a small counter with 12 or more bowls bulging with olives of various varieties; stands with small barrels of dry goods such as dates, nuts, and grains; spice counters loaded with pyramided piles of richly colored seasonings; stalls with caged chickens and even baby hedgehogs behind the counter; tiny pastry counters loaded with uncountable varieties of cookies, baklava, and other unknowable delicacies; and carts loaded with various fragranced oils and tonics.

Unfortunately, no description could do justice to the instant intimacy that I felt with this scene. As I mentioned before, we arrived at dusk, but light filled up the street from thousands of light bulbs arranged above and behind the counters and display cases. Even with all of the lights, the effect was not to wash out colors but to actually give objects a glow that was not as apparent during the day. Walking down that street was like walking into a dream or fantasy. I can’t place the source of the archetype for that fantasy, but the feeling was one of warmth, of belonging, of there could be nothing beyond this that could capture my attention so long as I’m in that place. Even this does not suffice to relate what I saw and felt, but I’ll leave it at that.

Our riyadh was on a small street a little ways down from the above street. It was a 13th century house, the rooms of which were converted into hotel rooms. We stashed our stuff and immediately headed to the ‘Kasbah’, a restaurant we read about in a New York Times article on Fes. It was right around the corner from the main street, off of which our riyadh was located, and within sight of the Blue Gate. At the street level, we encountered two men behind a counter enclosing a small 6 by 6 foot space. The maitre d led us up a very narrow staircase past the small kitchen (about 10 by 10 feet) half a floor level above the street, the second-level dining terrace, and on to the third-level dining terrace. A small, narrow balcony was already crowded with 8 people so we sat inside, although the building contained only two walls at that level. Like the streets below, the restaurant was crowded within a tiny space (15 by 15 feet) but was at once invitingly intimate.

After eating various combinations of tagine (vegetables and meat baked/pressure-cooked in ceramic containers) and couscous we explored the second of the main streets leading away from the Blue Gate. That street, although similarly compact, crowded, and intimate, featured more items that appeal to tourists, such as scarves, leather goods, and jewelry, and consequently, the vendors paid a lot more attention to us. After not too long, we retreated back to our room for some much needed rest.

The next day, Nora and I ventured out too look for breakfast, heading down the sloping main street into the Medina rather than up towards the Blue Gate. We passed a few counters with crepes stacked under glass cake containers, but we pushed on until we were called over to a small shop owned by a thin aging man. Although he was intent on speaking to Nora in Arabic (most Moroccans we met asked if Nora and Sarah were Moroccan), we managed to request tea and pastries. We sat in a small opening afforded by the intersection of two streets as he prepared what he described as “Berber Whiskey”. After a few minutes he brought us two glasses of stuffed full of mint leaves steeping in hot water. Much to his credit, I was immediately hooked. I was so full of praise for the sweet minty mixture that he soon produced a postcard sent by a couple of British people who raved about his tea. After that, I made a point of visiting him at least another four times in the next two days for tea.

After breakfast, we roused Sarah and Warren and took to the streets again. We walked along the walls of the Medina, checked out a giant garden that would not open until 2010 (we didn’t find out that we were not supposed to be in there until we had spent 30 minutes walking around in it). We then headed on toward the Jewish section of town. We had been told that the Jewish section was, like the Medina, also quite old. Though it was founded by Jewish people, none of the original 365 families remained, having moved to Israel when Britain carved out that state after WWII. Despite being a tourist draw, we did not find anything too enchanting about the Jewish quarter, so we headed back to the Medina.

In the late afternoon, we climbed a nearby hill overlooking the Medina to watch the sun set. Unfortunately, the sun set behind yet another hill, but we treated ourselves to a beer in a five star hotel on the way back, which along with the view of the Medina definitely made the walk worthwhile.

The next day, we woke up early so that we could meet a guide that the owner of riyadh had called for us. We had been told that he was not an official guide but that he was trustworthy and spoke good English. Sure enough, like many people in Morocco, we found that he spoke very good English, but we found him to be quite humorless, and when we asked him to see a mosque, which is one of the main attractions in Fes, he told us that it was too far away. Furthermore, when we asked him how long he would be guiding us, he told us that he would be available for only 2 to 3 hours, even though we had agreed to pay him a 6-hour rate. Before we could process thid, he was off, with us struggling to keep up. We had read that unofficial guides often walk separately from their groups for fear of being spotted and arrested, though we had been assured that he would not do so. With the last warning flag up, we quickly decided that we did not want to go on the tour with him. When we told him, he became quite agitated and rude, which made us feel all the more justified in not going with him. Unfortunately, we were left without a guide and without a way to find one for another hour (the tourism office would not open until then). We went back to our riyadh and let the owner know what had happened after which we got breakfast. As we were finishing up breakfast, the unofficial guide approached us and told us that an official guide was waiting at the riyadh for us.

Indeed, when we returned to our room, there was an older man waiting for us in the courtyard. Despite his appearance (my first thought was that he looked like a Catholic cardinal, what with his long white robe, white hair, and red cap), we immediately found him to be energetic and enthusiastic. His name: Missouri. We soon learned that Missouri had lived in the U.S. in the seventies and Germany even before then. He spoke English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, and even a little Italian. He was also a bit nutty. We immediately warmed up to him, and after each joke he would pause from walking to laugh out loud, after which he would say, “That is unbelievable” in such a manner that I would momentarily think that Dick Vitale was leading the tour. He also greeted some people with a loud string of what sounded like Arabic that included a long staccato of rolled ‘R’s. We later learned that this was just gobbledygook. Before we had gone 100 yards, we heard from several people that Missouri was one of the best guides in the city, but in all confidentiality, he was also kind of crazy.

Our first stop was at a Madersa, an Islamic school, just around the corner from our Riyadh. From there we went on to the Jewish quarter, where Missouri was able to show us a lot of architectural and cultural pieces that we missed on our earlier visit. We also visited weavers, dyers, bronze workers, mosques, and so on for the better part of 7 hours. By the end of the day we were exhausted but also even more appreciative of Fes.

The following day we took a bus to the nearby city of Meknes. Meknes is not really known as a tourist spot, and, indeed, we seemed to be the only tourists around, but we found it to be quite agreeable. After lunch we took a taxi to Volubilis, the site of Roman ruins about 30 km outside of Meknes and the main reason for our stop in Meknes. It was a sprawling site on a hilltop, nestled amongst rolling farmland of olive trees and fields of grain. Even though most of the structures were reduced to five-foot and under piles of rubble (due to earthquakes), it was quite the grand setting.

After a few hours there, we headed back to Meknes and checked out its Medina. The Medina of Meknes had little of the charm of the Fes Medina, but it was a fun diversion. After dinner, we strolled along the streets a little bit, but we found that after dark, the cafes and restaurants were solely the haunt of leering men. Of course, the one place where women could reliably be found: the ice cream and pastry shops. Not surprisingly, that’s where we chose to end up.

The next day we took the train to Marrakech, which was 6 hours to the south of Meknes. Although we had heard that Marrakech was the tourist hotspot (meaning that we would not want to spend a lot of time there), we were still excited about seeing the main square, where supposedly there were snake charmers. We arrived in Marrakech around dusk, and true to word, it was a veritable circus. We stayed in a hotel just off of the main square, which put us at the epicenter of the tourist trade. After getting a chilly dinner (not only was it cool in Marrakech, the wind was fierce!) on the fourth floor of a restaurant looking down upon the square, we descended into the action. Unfortunately, we missed the snake charmers (apparently they pack up after the 6 pm call to prayer), there were massive circles of revelers gathered around storytellers, musicians, and even drag queens). There were also huge stalls set up for purveyors of mouth-watering foods, tea, apple cider, CDs, etc.

We hung out among the throngs until the cold was unbearable. The next day, we got up early to see the Yves St. Lauren garden. Although this is one of the main tourist attractions, we did not linger too long. Not only was it relatively underwhelming, the crowds were pushing in by mid-morning. We spent the rest of the morning walking around the square, and, yes, taking in the snake charmers. Warren actually conceded to having a snake draped around his neck, and proceeded to sit in front of a cobra. I admittedly fled as soon as the snake charmers approached me. A good thing, too: one the men demanded 200 dirhan ($25) from Warren after a few minutes of monkeying around with the snakes. A fight nearly broke out when Warren offered just 10 dirhan.

After lunch, we headed to the bus station and ended up waiting 3 hours for a bus to Essaouira, a town on the coast. We arrived at night, shuffling through ancient stone streets to our hotel. The next morning, we rose early and headed to the ocean, which was just a couple of blocks from our hotel. Although it was much too cold the swim, the beach was full of people, mostly playing soccer or doing some other activity unrelated to the water. We sat on the beach until noon and then went to one of the fish vendors for lunch. As in Mali, one tends to find similar establishments with identical goods right next to one another in Morocco. Such was the case with the fish vendors, who had about 15 stalls along the side of a plaza abutting the main city piers. Despite their identical offerings, though, each vendor fought tooth and nail to get us to sit at his table rather than another vendor’s table.

After settling on a place we were able to pick out what we wanted from a large ice-covered table displaying the day’s catch. For $6 apiece we were treated to successive rounds of grilled squid, cuttlefish, flounder, shrimp, and red snapper. We spent the rest of the day strolling around the Medina, picking up gifts and settling down for tea. In fact, this was how we spent the remainder of our time in Essaouira. The following day, we had a final meal of grilled seafood, after which Nora and I began our long trip back to Bamako. After a six-hour bus ride and a 45-minute ride in a taxi, we reached the airport 2 hours before our 11:30 pm flight. We got to Bamako at 2:30 am, our house at 3:30 am.

Admittedly, we were both not looking forward to returning to Bamako. It’s ridiculously hot; the landscape is not as beautiful as Morocco’s, the cuisine not as tasty, but being back is not so bad. Mali has at least one thing on Morocco: stepping off of the plane this morning into the wet smack of hot air actually felt a bit like coming home.

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