Morocco Trip Day 4: March 25

We arrived in Marrakech in the mid-afternoon. The train ride was quite long, but it was very scenic. Rabat and Marrakech are on the coast, but Marrakech is inland towards the Atlas Mountains. The train wended its way through scrubby desert that reminded me a bit of the American West--Tahoe and SoCal, perhaps. Re rock, sparsely populated by cactus and thin, wispy trees. We would pass an occasional group of low houses and the small children waved at the train. at one town, the train stopped to let another pass on the same track. Most of the train spilled out to the desert, where we stretched our legs and tried to hit trees with rocks.

Marrakech feels like a very big, cosmopolitan city. There are Moroccan flags, policemen, and soldiers everywhere. This was probably because there were more tourists here than anywhere else we've seen. Smith was very keen on seeing snake charmers, and as soon as we found the medina, we indeed found a group of men playing horns and taunting a clutch of irritated cobras. The men worked the crowd, draping snakes around tourists to take pitures. As they became more aggressive about asking for money, we got ourselves lost in the medina again. Unlike Fes' chaos or Casablanca's selection of knockoffs, Marrakech struck a nice balance. Just when we thought it was too tame, we'd turn a corner and see jars topped with sheep heads or be led to a tannery with the smell of rotting flesh. We found delicious warm bread, fresh peanuts, and remarkable fried bread in the shape of a doughnut, dropped into a pot of roiling oil and fished out with a thick steel hook and so hot that it was threaded onto a piece of grass tied into a loop from which we could eat it piping hot.

We leave very early tomorrow morning for Marrakech's airport.

Morocco Trip Day 3: March 24

After a leisurely breakfast in Rabat, Smith and I hurried on to our next destination: Casablanca. The train ride skirted the coastline--the ocean is a beautiful green here.We got off the train at the port area. Everything smelled very strongly of fish. We wandered a bit before grabbing a taxi. The driver took us to a hotel--for a commission, of course--but that seems to be how things are done around here. After dropping our bags, we set out exploring.

Casablanca's medina is in some ways not quite as interesting as those in Fes or Rabat. It's mostly poor quality knockoffs of Western brand names. But our walk was very pleasant. On the far side of the medina was one of the most amazing sights i've seen in my life.

The Mosque Hassan II is the largest mosque in Africa and it sits right on the coast. The minaret is absolutely enormous and certainly seems as tall as an American skyscraper. It dominates Casablanca's skyline. Dressed in shorts and t-shirts, we would not have felt right about going in, but the exterior architecture was plenty to gawk at. Afterwards, we took a very long walk down the beach to a lighthouse. Smith and I made a very odd pair by local standards, so the children were eager to stare and chat. We responded in terrible French. The beach was covered in little soccer games and drum circles of considerable musical talent. We waded in the warm water and sunned on the big white rocks. Afterwards, we walked back through a very wealthy neighborhood of mansions that would not have looked out of place in Seattle's most exclusive areas.

We had a bit of an adventure after dinner. We were eating outside a small cafe when our neighbor wanted to start a conversation. We quickly established that Smith and I did not speak French and Joasin, our new friend, did not speak English, so things looked grim until I told Joasin that Smith had studied Italian. He knew a bit, so Smith and he struck up a bit of a conversation. When we had finished our "the al a menthe," Joasin invited us for drinks. Muslims do not drink, but there are a very few bars that cater to tourists and more secular folk. We learned that Joasin was a doctor and 27 years old. He bought us the local beer, Especiale, which was very bitter but also very good and delicious in the warm evening. He introduced us to his friends, a professor English, who was able to translate a bit ("Is Morocco savage by American standards?" he asked), a painter, who offered me a portrait, and an older fellow who, we were told, was a famous Moroccan actor and had, in fact, collaborated with Americans in the movie "Casablanca Express." Joasin urged us to visit his house and meet his mother and friends the next day, but Smith and I plead time, as tomorrow we had to get to Marrakech: four nights; four cities! Joasin reluctantly took us back to the hotel, but only after giving us his address and extracting from us a promise that we would write to him from England.

Morocco Trip Day 2: March 23

This morning, the hotel manger invited us to see his uncle's pottery factory. It was amazing. Smith and I got a personal tour from the manger, who walked us through the entire process. They quarry gray clay from about 8km away. All the clay in Morocco is red except for this gray quarry near Fes. They soak it in pits before drying it in the sun and then wetting and pounding it to make it malleable. They then throw them on traditional wheels powered by the artist's legs. Absolutely everything is done completely by hand. After the pieces are shaped and dried again, they are painted. This is also done entirely by hand and completely done from the imagination of the individual artist--no stencils or preset patterns. Each piece is absolutely unique. The pigments are all natural minerals--kohl for black, saffron for yellow, but the proud, especially local product is cobalt. Painted on in a gentle lavender, firing turns it an intense, dark blue. The kilns are fueled by crushed olive pits, which are spread in mounds and plots around the factory, baking the in sun. The kilns reach almost 1,000C and it takes about a week of gradual cooling to prevent the sudden temperature drop from shattering the contents. Most of what is cooked is tile for making mosaics. Each tile is chipped by hand into one of about 750 standardized shapes for mosaic tables, fountains, mirror frames, etc. Everything is done by hand with a broad chisel. On any given day,the manager told us, there are about a hundred men working in the factory, laying tiles in the sun, shaping teapots and dishes, painting intricate designs, fueling the kilns, chipping the tile, and chiseling the enamel.

Smith and I then took the afternoon train to Rabat. For several hours, the tranquil, rolling Moroccan countryside flew by our window. The compartment was just the two us at the beginning, but it filled quickly with a diverse group, speaking French and Arabic into their cell phones.

Rabat is the capital, and is quite modern and Western in comparison to Fes. After finding a cheap hotel and watching a bit of Arabian basketball on television (go Al Nasir!) we explored the older part of the city. Spying a beautiful wall, we decided to see what was behind it and we found ourselves in a massive graveyard. As we ascended to the top of a hill, we were quite startled to see the ocean. We had no idea we were in a coastal city. We walked along the beach and out onto a jetty, enjoying the company of hip youngsters. After grabbing some delicious potato chips fried right before our eyes in an enormous kettle of oil, we explored the old fortified casbah and the sultan's palace gardens before walking back through a lively night market to our hotel. The gardens had some of the sweetest smelling plants I had ever experienced. Orange blossoms, lemon grass, and a tree of enormous white flowers with a name that I couldn't understand. Tomorrow, Smith and I intend to explore Rabat a tiny bit more before continuing our whirlwind tour with an afternoon train to Casablanca.

Morocco Trip Day 1: March 22

Greetings from Morocco! It's been only a few hours into the trip, and it's already been an amazing adventure. Smith and I took the early bus out to Luton and we hung out a bit before taking the 6:30a flight to Fes. My luck with flying partners never seems to fail. You might recall the woman sitting next to me on my initial flight to London who managed to start vomiting before we had taken off. But I digress. The woman sitting next to my right was terrified of flying. Her friend sat across the aisle tightly holding her hand as she desperately tried not to sob openly. I was afraid she would be sick or have some sort of violent episode, but the worst it got was some frantic questioning of things going on in the plane and, later, leaning her head and crying into my shoulder.

As we walked out to the plane in London, it was snowing a bit, which made the contrast in weather all the more apparent. Morocco was bright and sunny. The airport was surrounded by palms and the orange trees in the parking lot were fruiting. The airport was like any in Europe, but we eventually started noticing differences. On the bus trip into town, as we passed little cafes, we also passed shepherds ushering their flocks alongside the road. The animals didn't end when we got into the city.

The middle of Fes is a district called the medina, and it is essentially an enormous market--there are thousands of streets and it's incredibly easy to get lost. There are not mapsfor the tiny alleys that make up the district. Fortunately, there are children everywhere that know the place intimately and will take you anywhere for a few coins. However, one has to look out for hustling grownups, who eagerly offer to act as guides, but in reality take commissions from the shops to which they divert unsuspecting tourists!

The market really defies description. Storekeepers shout at every tourist. Guides lead groups of Westerners through the narrow streets, squeezing past heavily laden donkeys and avoiding the stray cats that run about everywhere, lapping at puddles and nibbling the merchandise. The voices are a chaotic mixture of French, Arabic, Spanish, and I was greeted in Japanese more than a few times. Smith and I were really wanting an authentically Moroccan lunch, so we wandered for hours, getting let to overpriced tourist traps. Finally, we ran into a friendly local who took us to his own favorite lunch place. They served us spicy stews with their ubiquitous loaves of chewy bread shaped in puffy brown circles. We're now kicking it in our luxurious hotel room, listening to the bustling sounds of the medina floating up through the metalwork of our window.

One of the highlights of the medina was the tannery. The smell was absolutely horrific. Trying to listen to the explanation of the process while not choking and gagging was a feat of concentration and poise. I made the mistake of expressing interest in a camel skin attache and it took 15 minutes to express that I couldn't afford it.

...


Smith and I just got back from a nocturnal jaunt around the medina. We got cornered by the world's most persistent guide, a young fellow by the name of Hamad. For a mere 40 dirham--say $5--he took us to the ruins of a castle, high on a hill and overlooking the city. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. It as perfectly clear and there was a huge, bright crescent moon. There was an old graveyard with scattered white stones--"Moroccan alabaster," said Hamad--up the hill behind us.

Hamad told me my skin was light "like cheese" and that I could pass for a Berber. Accordingly, he offered to sell me a Berber "aphrodisiac rug," which would guarantee me "many mistresses." smith and I declined as politely as we could. We wandered for an hour or so, sipping from enormous glass 1 liter Coca Colas and gnawing on more chewy, round bread. The entrepreneurial spirit here is the healthiest I've ever experienced. In a short walk tonight we were offered hashish, heroin, cocaine, and prostitutes both Moroccan and American. On the one hand, I've never felt so harassed. But on the other hand, it's tremendous fun to chat with the locals. I've traveled to a lot of Western European countries and the contact with the people who live there is practically nonexistent. In our little walk with Hamad, we covered all sorts of politics, theology, and he even gave me a little lesson in Japanese.

Tomorrow, we are off to see the big pottery factory. They are supposed to have amazing coloring through the use of cobalt and silver. Afterwards, we are planning to take the train to Rabat, the capital.