Morocco, The Long Version (I.E. Brace Yourself. Take it in Bite Sized Pieces.)
We crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from Algeceiras, Spain to Tangier, Morocco with all the wild enthusiasm yet steely resolve of Columbus approaching his brave new world.
As the estimated 45 minute voyage lumbered into a three hour tour, however, we eventually abandoned our Titanic-esque post on the starboard deck and retired to read in a passenger cabin that smelled of urine. Which is where all similarities to our journey and that of America’s discoverer end…Though we may have made better time if we had in fact taken the Nina, the Pinta or the Santa Maria.
Having been prepared for the disembarkment in Tangier to be a chaotic feeding frenzy on uninitiated tourists, we hijacked two unsuspecting Mexican students from the University of Madrid to be our male escorts. Though not in the scandalous way that sounds. Disappointingly, we tranquilly strolled into town with nary a hassle from the locals, ate a quick lunch of strange, deliciously creamed cheese and bread and were on a bus headed for Chefchaoen within an hour.
Chef, as the pompous backpack crowd call it, is a tiny, amazingly undisturbed town tucked into the side of the northern Rif Mountains. It was beautiful, cold and an absolute highlight of the trip for me. We found a hostel with our young foreign friends Rodriego and Diego, still inexplicably under our charge, and spent the next day exploring the blue washed village of cobblestone streets, evergreen boughs and coved paths that rose and rambled and folded in on themselves as complexly as waves.
We also met a delightful gang of international characters at our hostel (Which was sadly sans heat. Causing Christine to sleep in a hat and gloves.) and when we were informed that the King of Morocco and his thousands of guards and servants were making a PR tour to Chef (part of the north he is accused of neglecting), and that all tourists would need to vacate the town stat to make room, our new motley troop paraded together on to Fes.
In Fes we were introduced to a Moroccan institution: The medina, with all its captivating and perverse wares, its enticing pyramids of dried fruits, nuts, elaborate pastries and kebabs. Its lecherous salesmen and persistent touts, calling and pulling at us from every doorway of the medieval beehive. My personal favorite attempt: “My darlings (plural!) - I will love you till destruction!” I’m not exactly sure what that entails, but it sounds like a major commitment.
It was an exhilarating and draining destination – and also the place where I encountered….
Hammam: The Ancient Moroccan Art of Public Humiliation. While researching the trip, I’d heard so much about hammams, the public baths where Arabic women congregate and commiserate – gossip and fellowship. Where weary travelers could be scrubbed and massaged and find a respite from the male dominated streets of Morocco.
So, leaving Christine comfortably back at the hotel (she being perpetually smarter than I), I giddily headed off to indulge and initiate myself into the inner sanctum of Moroccan culture (Insert eye rolls here. Really. It’s justified.).
Before we continue, however, I want to make it clear that I had previously asked our hotel manager no less three times for a hammam that spoke English and would be very accommodating for a first time foreign visitor. Armed with their confident recommendation, I was off.
My first omen should have been the decrepit, vaguely marked entrance, staffed by a 100 year old man who charged me less than 50 cents (clue number two) and wouldn’t let me pass in until he was done praying. Undaunted, I entered the main room, searching eagerly for any guidance. Instead, I found a sleepy, mustached, woman selling packets of Pert Plus. Shockingly, she spoke no English. She roused herself enough to pantomime that I should strip down and head off through an ominous doorway. Clad in my swimsuit bottoms and a towel “nonchalantly” clung to my front, I tiptoed down the hall into a series of steaming, cavernous pits that can only be described as a fresh level of Dante’s hell. As my eyes adjusted to the subterranean lighting, I realized I was standing in the midst of hundreds of naked, unappealing, strangely hostile looking Moroccan women, scrubbing at themselves and their children with unrestrained aggression. There was a succession of rooms and wells with varying degrees of scalding water and clusters of plastic buckets – which were NOT for public use, as I learned when I gingerly reached for one and earned a shrieking Arabic rebuke from a particularly ancient nude specimen.
After a few minutes of exploring the catacombs, delicately stepping over bodies and praying for the fabled spa attendants to appear and guide me to a lovely new room that didn’t smell of perspiration and feet, I decided to act as though I knew what I was doing. So I found a relatively clean spot on the floor, kicked aside a disconcertingly large clump of wet hair (vowing to later amputate that foot) and sat down. Half naked. Eyes closed. Feigning blissful relaxation. Every time I opened my eyes, I was rewarded with dozens of faces staring at me blatantly – still scrubbing at their armpits and nether regions – in disdainful confusion.
For five or ten excruciating minutes I sat pretending that I was in a sauna, praying for God to transport my mind from my body to a happy place as drops of pungent, unidentifiable liquid dripped onto my head and face torturously. And then, like the scaredy-cat, germ-phobic, bourgeois American I must be at heart, I leapt up, scampered back to my clothes, past the confused attendant and straight back to the hotel for the longest shower I have ever taken. And even after I decontaminated myself and even flossed my teeth, I still slept in the fetal position, trying to ignore Christine’s giggles.
Good to know my feats of self mortification aren’t bound by national borders, eh?
Anyway, now that I’m done blushing at the memory, let’s continue.
From Fes, we visited Meknes – an equally charming and more hassle free Imperial city – and then took an overnight bus to Merzouga, a speck of a town in the Western Sahara Desert. The bus ride was eleven hours long, uncomfortably cold and peppered by a stupefying number of rest stops for charred meat products.
But at some point, after I surrendered the notion of sleep, the moon rose in the middle of an endless, inky sky and I think I’ve never seen a lovelier night that that one spent bobbing and cresting through snow crusted mountains, sparkling under a heavenly glow.
Christine and I spent a couple of days in the desert, drinking pot after pot of sweet mint tea, eating tangines and hand made flat breads, touring a Berber community and taking an amazing — if later discomforting – camel trek out to an oasis. We scaled a monstrous dune, ran recklessly back down and rode home into a Saharan sunset and then under a silent starry sky. It was a completely touristy, singularly amazing experience.
We drove back through the ochre-hued Todra Gorge and over the Atlas Mountains, which were humbling and stunning, and then spent a few days in Marrakesh and the coastal quiet haven of Essouira before packing Christine off for her flight home.
Morocco was tough at times. The overwhelming “man status” as we began to call it, in most places was wearing. Most days, Christine and I were the only women conspicuously patronizing restaurants trimmed by rows of proud Moroccan men, sipping at warm drinks, keeping watch over their domain: public space. The insincere come-ons and the tireless, occasionally nasty, sales pitches grew old.
Regardless, in retrospect, I am already nostalgic. For the warmth of the people after the comparatively cold reception we received in Europe. For the chaos and the spice, the color and the solemn customs – so much more prevalent than I’d imagined. The majority of men still wore the traditional jelaba robe and a surprising number of women still don head scarves. I have such a tender collection of minor memories…The warm, soft, flour dusted bread. The scent of the medinas. The pitying waiter who sneaked extra servings of fried calamari, shrimp and fish to me at a little joint in Casablanca. The old man who gave me a little bouquet of Star of Bethlehem in a flower market and wouldn’t accept a penny in payment. The calls to prayer that half heartedly disturbed every early morning’s sleep.
We had some challenging days and intimidating moments, but in all, Morocco was a gentle introduction to Africa and an irritatingly addictive sample of all the exotic secrets this world still holds.
Tags: Travel
February 16th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Erica, Thanks for taking the time to describe a few of your adventures…I feel like I was walking down the street, riding the bus with you…you are amazing with words! Think about you everyday and look forward to any word from you!!
February 16th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
The adventure continues!!! I love reading about the things that you get yourself into! If you get lonely — call me maybe I can pop over and catch up with you. By the way Bill B. misses you!!!
February 17th, 2006 at 10:59 am
Erica, Erica, Erica you left out the one great story of our Moroccan adventure. The marriage proposal on the bus!
February 17th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Ah Senator - you made me laugh out loud in the middle of a Ghanian internet cafe. Or hut, as the case may be.
Thanks - because being the only white person in the room really wasn’t distinguishing me enough….now they *really* know I’m here!
Erica
P.S. *Which* marriage proposal, CK? People, I could have been lousy with goats and carpets if I had only agreed to give this girl away in marriage.
February 19th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Erica, It has been a joy to read your blogs. Not only are you great with words, your fun, warm spirit comes through clearly. Marcia and I talk about you often and dream of being able to have a similar experience sometime in our future. Thanks for showing the rest of us how to live life to the full!
March 5th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Erica Ann aka My Huckleberry Friend
Get in touch with me the MINUTE you land in Paris. I have a rather exciting idea- in my humble opinion anyway! If I am able to arrange a last minute flight, I would scoot over to spend a day- or two- or three with you in The City of Light. I am serious as a heart attack- so CALL ME!!! Call collect 303.475.9185. If you can’t catch me give your Mom details about where you are, for how long and how to reach you. Let see what unfolds. I love you! xoxo-am
March 25th, 2006 at 12:49 am
Hello Erica,
Kudos on the adventure of a lifetime… or the adventure of your 20’s that is… 30 will bring its own fun I’m sure.
Your tales are classy and well drawn. The Hammam story brought me back to wrinkled, stark naked Japanese women standing in the public baths and asking, “Basketball? Do you play basketball?”
Hmmm… perhaps classy was the wrong word? :O) Good luck, and keep the stories coming! They’ll keep me warm during my cube-life. Unfortunately, cube-life is also an adventure in strange culture and water-fountain humor. Yes, let’s all say it… I’d rather be reading.
Peace from MN