Morocco, '15
Morocco is what a calculator turns out when you punch in the following: different + diverse + cheap + temperate x not too far away.
At some point above the North Atlantic Ocean, the drops of rain exhausted themselves, fell away and left the sky clear — a taste of things to come. Similarly, at this time the beauty of the views beyond the window and beneath the wing grew in a way that only alien, birds-eye-viewed landscapes can — lines and folds of long, scaling mountainous regions for miles around, with irregular pools of liquid attributable only to frailties of the eye or mind. Oh how I’d longed to travel again.
We landed at Marrakech Menara Airport and so commenced the song-and-dance: I’d introduce myself and exchange niceties in rudimental French, before passing over to Miles who practised his considerably more cultivated grasp of the language.
The road situation in Marrakech is a quaint tea party in comparison to Delhi, and a tender kiss on the neck compared to rural Laos, but it’s doubtlessly different to a mosey up the M4 on a Tuesday evening, so I guess it warrants comment. Consider that the comment.
Camels chill and chew by roadsides en route to the corner of Jemaa El-Fna, the largest of the market squares in the City, a hub of trade and something of a focal point for a lot of visitors. The taxi spits us out and we're met by a fellow called Mohammed, who wheels a rusted road bike and ushers us down narrow lanes to our booked hostel on the other side. Kaktus Hostel is a riad — an open-topped building with multiple floors and an interior courtyard or garden on the ground floor. Quintessential urban Morocco.
Mohammed was a good guy I'm pretty sure. He helped us heaps, and often sat in the lobby listening to the classical twangs of a Moroccan oud on the crude speakers. Only good guys do that.
Back up the super-narrow lanes to the merely narrow lanes and to that grand square. This journey, like so many in the country's cities, had us hyper-conscious. A gross proliferation of mopeds weave and swerve every which way your dazzled eyes dare gaze. On your toes. The stalls bustle and smoke rises from cookeries as the sun falls beyond the horizon of stone, leaving the sky a wonder of pale blue and fizzling orange. In a terraced restaurant overlooking the whole affair we experience our first tagine — a dish of (usually) slow stewed meat and vegetables in a rich sauce, cooked and served in a large conical contraption like a sloppy, savoury upside down ice cream cone. The meat falls from the bone with such ease that I can sometimes convince Miles it’s quite alright to eat meat on the bone. When a tagine is not cooked right and good and kindly, Miles moans incessantly about having to eat meat on the bone. Fortunately, as is custom, before any such palaver regarding meat on the bone, you're free as a bird to really take liberties on portions of bread and olives. Count me in.
The square is a regular medley of fiercely competitive orange juice salesmen and street performers. Despite its being one of the most developed countries in Africa, very many Moroccan people scramble and swindle to make ends meet. There’s a grit and a certain desolation to populous areas and outskirts alike. Somehow, and certainly saddeningly, these rough edges played a fair part in fuelling our desire to return to the third world. So here we were again, guilt-laden, privileged and post-colonial in our observations, striving to live differently to the absolute comfort of home.
Wednesday 26th August 2015
We walk to two palaces and then to the eastern side of the Kasbah, among the rocks and into rooms of modern art, including a short film on repeat of someone bashing the keys of a typewriter with a hammer, but ‘bashing’, indeed, with a kind of poetic enchantment.
Up the steps of the smaller towers at Badi, there are astounding views of the sheer beige and bloodstone pink buildings that span out for a significant distance in each direction, with taller trees sprouting between them at certain points.
Marrakech is not an especially big city, by modern standards at least, but it is certainly a sight to behold when you’ve a vantage point. An abundance of satellite dishes sit atop the traditional buildings, and stagnant, green-ish pools of water sit amid the palatial square.
The Saadian Tombs for more marble, more floral motifs, and more mosaics typical of Islamic architecture. Then, thankfully, with Miles at the helm on the map, we venture for a gigantic and wholly unnecessary walk around what felt like the entire city limits at a time which can only be described as the hottest period in the day.
A restaurant offered a three course meal for a reasonable price so we plonked.
"I wonder what the starter 'salad' will consist of" I say.
Miles responds, and this might be verbatim — "God I hope it’s not just cucumber and tomato, I hate cucumber and tomatoes’.
Quite naturally from the kitchen or front room of someone’s house emerges two mounds of tomatoey, cucumbery, oniony goodness surrounded by a delicate ring of cucumber slices with more tomatoes cut in half and put on top of them. A genuine spectacle.
Thursday 27th August 2015
Following a day rounding the Medina and its historical attractions, we figure the New City deserves a go. We head west via the grand Koutoubia Mosque, which stands before its own plaza and gardens. This — the city’s largest mosque — is also, by my unqualified estimations, also its most beautiful. There’s an incredible intricacy to its curved windows and peaked arches that serve to highlight the grandeur of the minaret above it all. Each side is crafted slightly differently to its neighbour.
In an excursion office (“where the hell are we going after Marrakech?”) we get all excited by the 700 dirham (around £50) quoted for a two day excursion to the Atlas Mountains. So we pay a deposit, smile at eachother and skip out of the place arm in arm, only to start sweating profusely, slip onto the floor, and slither around like a pair of prized eels.
For the avoidance of doubt: it is hot. Very, very hot.
In the New City, European influence manifests as glass storefronts and restaurant chains lining slightly cleaner streets. Luckily we take a wrong turn into the city's smelliest covered market (I'm well aware that can't be ratified), where vendors sell meat and fish of questionable freshness, a cocktail of aromas rendering us both nauseous and (somehow) starving.
I think the reason we head towards the New City in the first place is to eventually reach the ‘Jardin Majorelle’. A passion project of French artist Jacques Majorelle, these gardens are an oasis of 'burbling streams and pools filled with water lilies and lotus flowers'. Incongruous and really rather nice, all things considered.
On the way back to the hostel we get lost many, many times. As we scale some of the filthier back-streets we're approached by countless people reeling off that familiar spiel. "Oh, no, I’m just friendly, and, urm, I want to, to learn better English”. So returns the problem of trust.
We're looking for some museums in the general vicinity when a particularly interesting tout latches onto us. He seems nice enough at first and coins a classic: “oh all the museums will be closed, it’s a national holiday, I can show you your way”. Entirely feasible. He agrees to take us to some tanneries — the leather production spots scattered around the city — and for “no pay” as well. How fantastic.
He does take us to the tanneries to be fair, and they're fascinating enough should you not spend too long actually thinking about them. But then the tout lingers like a bad smell that swirls and mingles with the rich aroma of the leather dyes. Another, older guy hands us some fresh mint leaves to mask the smell of the tout, the dyes, and the many chemicals involved in the process. And then he takes us astonishingly quickly around the many concrete vats, half-explaining the process and stepping over languid dogs on the floor, clearly in a rush to get us out and to somewhere else.
It's all taking on that familiar rhythm, isn't it? We're ushered to a leather store where, needless to say, we don't want to purchase anything at the prices they're quoting, but when we leave we're bound upon by both the original tout and his wise elder, both of whom demand commission for the insightful experience they’d afforded us. We part with a few dirhams, but are altogether too hardy to accept their absurd requests. This makes them even more angry. It’s a shame really, because I can get onboard with transactions, but why not be straight up from the outset? "Yeah I’ll charge you a bit but I’ll take my time and I’ll be kind and here are the ground rules."
We fail to navigate the mazey medina and wind up in a steel-production area of the city, which represents the next level of noise and heat. Eventually, two of the youngest “15 year olds” in the business approach, no doubt sensing heightening desperation in our wide eyes and labouring limbs. Miles consults his map with them, and they point and nod and smile warm, helpful smiles. And so it goes. When we leave these kids, they ask us for a single dirham or a ‘stylo’ so they can do their homework. There’s some perspective for your sarcastic tones, Samuel. You entitled fuck.
The Souks of Marrakech are an explosion on the senses, with small storefronts stacked up selling colourful flourishes amid the relative darkness of the pathways. Here and there sublime rays of sunshine break through roofs of corrugated iron onto aged men smoking their pipes on a wonky step. Make no mistake, these Souks are even harder to navigate than the earlier routes. We may well pass each stall two or three times.
That evening, as we dined, the sun dipped behind a wavering Moroccan flag, crimson and stunning with its centred star.
I’d heard prior to our arrival and many times since that Morocco’s hashish game was strong. It’s a major producer, and its recreational use — though illegal — is tolerated for the most part. Mohammed’s earlier advice was to “do things quickly” and “not get ripped off”. Armed with these fine nuggets, I walk up and down to seek a fine nugget, waiting for a wayward youth to whisper ‘you want some?’.
One finally did, and I jump at my chance, nodding and raising my eyebrow as if to say “we’re in business here, chum, whayyagot”. He tries to take me off the street — something I was warned about. He tries to take me to his house — same. He tries to make me his friend — quite nice really, no? Credit where it’s due on that one. Unfortunately this new friend of mine is with two or three similarly wayward salesmen, and each want a chomp at the bit of this gangly white boy. They show me a sizable block of hash and assure me it's “good stuff, best stuff”. I'm astute enough pre-mission to only take a certain amount of money with me, around 250 dirhams if I recall — £20. They continually say “why you scare, why you scare” as I try to wrap up the deal swiftly. I also knew, via folklore and cursory tales, that occasionally these situations involved a local selling a tourist an illegal something or the other, watching them walk away with it, and then immediately notifying the police, with whom they’d exchange little portions of money and keep the entire wheel of urban corruption in motion. I was probably just paranoid. The smoking, no doubt. What a marvellous irony.
When I tell them I only have such and such amount, they grow restless, and the ringleader who initially reeled me in — my friend, may I remind you — tells the guy with the actual hash to chop it in half. Bish bash bosh. I walk away with a fair block, they get more money than its worth. Both parties flourish. Day done. To the mountains tomorrow.
Friday 28th August 2015
Well we're up very early indeed with the expectation of someone collecting us and escorting us towards the Atlas region, where someone else would then accompany us on our trek. All for 700 dirhams, yes? It seems like too much of a good thing, yes?
Yes.
In due time it of course became apparent that what we’d suspected was too good to be true was of course too good to be true — that the price we’d agreed on was for one day rather than two, despite Miles and I very clearly stating, outlining, punctuating, hell, even plainly and condescendingly chanting at them – it’s for T W O days right, two! (puts up two fingers). Alas. I sit on the ledge of a café, sipping on another milky, sugary coffee and smoking a cigarette. We walk to the excursion office, wait a short while for it to open, and demand our deposit back from the woman there.
The only thing left to do now — having packed a single bag for the both of us — was to go at it by our own accord. We jump in a taxi from town to the Imlil mountains. The pink stone gives way to dirt tracks and sporadic, unhealthy looking fields of either crops or nothingness. Eventually, the fields fall away and the road winds and hugs the side of steep cliffs. The old vehicle churns and splutters in the growing heat of the late morning, continuing to rise and turn, past mules carrying vegetation and young children, past collections of pottery on sale at the roadside, past and alongside some quite disconcerting valley drops, before it finally rolls into the small, busy town.
This instance marks the first time — quite spectacularly actually — that a tout or ‘guide’ manages to get into the vehicle and strike up a conversation before we even rouse the energy to disembark. But what alternative do we have? We are here because we want to see certain things. These people have knowledge of/experience with those certain things. Ultimately, we need them as much as they need us.
We ignore most of the people that approach us as we curve round the road on one side of the town and catch a glimpse of some dull-yellow mountainous ridges. Could we really go at it on our own? We're inexperienced hikers, but we're keen. The principal issue here is that we don't even know which direction to walk in; we just want to walk. A man named Omar, whose thick moustache held in it fighting factions of black and grey, follows us as we trail the road. His words soothe us, convince us, and he leads us up to his home, where we eat a fragrant dish of meat, egg and rich creamy sauce. Here, we iron out the plan of action. He tells us his son, Mohamed, will take us to the peak of Toubkal and back in two days. He tells us it will be hard work (oh boy was he spot on), but their family has a lot of experience travailing Toubkal and its surrounding peaks, so it's all legitimate and friendly and perhaps even fun. To this and the sound of 600 dirhams, we agree. Mohamed dances up the stairs to the balcony of his father’s home. He's immediately endearing. We sip mint tea and head off.
Some of these scenes are hard to describe, such is the extent of their brilliance and wonderment.
We walk through the upper reaches of the town and past Mohamed’s home in the quaint village of Aroumd. Past a floodplain of rocks, by which point we seem to have established a rhythm and a pace that worthy of our desires. We're almost always climbing; the gradient and difficulty of the surface varies, but we move steadily up through a valley behind the town.
At one point, after perhaps an hour, we ask Mohamed which visible peak in the distant distance is Toubkal. None of them. We've only just begun.
So we climb. Beyond the small settlement of Sidi Chamharouch, which is propped on the side of a rocky crevice, tiny shops sell drinks and mules graze on whatever minor sustenance they can find within the reach of their ropes. Light rain sweeps across the valley. Light rain turns all of a damn sudden into the torrential variety. Lashings of the stuff. It's dark and quite horrible. torrential, dark. From our cowered position beneath a doorway, we watch water accelerate off the surface of rocks and into the small stream beneath a bridge. The tap-tapping of massive droplets grows more severe on makeshift material roofs and bamboo stick shelters. We wait for a while but it doesn't ease.
This next stretch is where things get tough.
The corners of the mountains jut out, lending only a narrow path of cruel and unstable rocks to traverse. We lose footing, stabilise ourselves, repeat. The climb becomes steeper and narrower still, until eventually the 'path' is practically non-existent. Rain falls somehow harder. What of it? With each metre upwards, the sheer, imposing beauty of the landscape becomes more stark and easier to marvel at, despite the mist. The magnitude of our venture becomes increasingly apparent. Here's the hard truth: we were wholly naïve and unprepared for an excursion of this scale. We had heard the name ‘Toubkal’ the day prior, at the excursion office, and had later done a touch of internet research which revealed to us that its 4,167-metre-high peak was the highest not only in the Atlas, but in North Africa as a whole. Somehow we had still deemed it apt enough to pack merely a change of clothes (not particularly warm ones…”ah it’s Summer, it’ll be fine up there”), some light snacks, and a wee bit of water. Baffling idiocy.
We stop beneath some more leaking shelters and meet with a few travellers who stayed at Mohamed's the night before. A Spanish couple — Monica and Jonny — and a Brazilian gentleman named Roberto. We continue onwards with them for a while, but in the final push to the refuge our paces differ and we fragment. Water cascades down the mountainsides, making the scree slippery. Mohamed tells us that the refuge — our rest-point for the night — isn't far away. Repeatedly in that last hour, my body sends half-baked signals of despair and hopelessness and pain up to me. I'm soaked through and can barely feel my body. I want the refuge so badly at this point but the slope just continues, false peak after false peak. It's several hours until I finally glimpse its stone membrane, its mark on the horizon, rising from within the valley. Even then, it seems to grow further away with every onward step, an optical illusion put on by some malevolent mountain force.
On and on and on. Great downpours of hail and thunderous rumbles of wind as we pass a series of shivering mules being hit and hurried down the trail by their owners. It's a sad sight. God I wish I had a parka. Or a plastic bag. Something. Anything.
Somehow, despite it receding, we reach the refuge ‘Les Mouflons’ after more than 8 hours on the trail. It stands at 3207-metres in the High Atlas.
The tile flooring is slippery and cold. We're shrivelled and dishevelled. Mohamed escorts us to a musty room where we pile our sodden shoes and socks with everyone else's. Are we expecting them to dry out sufficiently here to start up again for the morning summit? Who knows.
We laugh it off. Any single other response would bring us crashing down from the rush of the day, the utter craziness of its rapid escalation. In the refuge, guides hustle in the small cramped kitchen, providing tea for their struggling hikers and putting in early work for the later supper. We attempt to warm our feet with thin blankets and our cores with a steaming brew. The three other walkers arrive slightly later on, and Roberto — who has a problem with his leg — is especially vulnerable to the cold. We wrap up and discuss the trail, which has been incredible to experience despite its treacherousness.
The weather outside calms to an icy nuisance of a mist, and the state of walkers entering and settling in the refuge grows more concerning. One woman starts to shake vigorously and uncontrollably, her face a light blue ever-fading to an absent pallor. Her lips droop with timid cries and accumulate globules of tears. She's surrounded by similarly shaking, frantic friends who sense there's a slight problem here. The woman passes out. People shake her and bring her to, willing heat into her fading skin. The woman passes out again. This went on for a troubling stretch of time.
The noise in the communal room is astonishing. People come and go, ridding themselves of sodden clothes on the refuge's single, saturated radiator. We don't have spare socks. Neither of have brought spare socks with us. Of course we haven't. Why would we?
The dorm at Les Mouflon comprises four rows of flat beds and a narrow walkway for frozen people to totter about. My body feels light and oddly jovial, no doubt a combination of exhaustion and light altitude sickness. We speak to an Australian fellow who’s set to start his DPhil at Magdalen College come the new term. He's been staying at the refuge for a few nights and going off exploring by his own accord during daylight.
After heavenly spaghetti and countless thanks to Mohamed, we all agree to rise before five and tackle the summit together. Sleeping is nigh-on impossible in the loud, dank dorm, but eventually a hush lingers for just long enough to catch some shut-eye. Now what?
Saturday 29th August 2015
Sadly, the abominable conditions stop us from summiting Toubkal. The dark clouds have risen and amassed further degrees of foreboding, so the peak's covered and you can't really get up there safely. Mohamed seems sad when he shares the news. It would have been nice to push our ill-prepared quest to its beautiful and highest conclusion, but such is life at altitude.
Mohamed sorts us out with plastic bags to wrap around our feet, we take in the staggering V shaped valley beyond the refuge wall, and head slowly down once more. A slither of blue sky expands as the late morning progresses, rendering everything more visible and more staggering than yesterday. We're awestruck by the valley ridges, wavering peaks, troughs and progressions. I'm breathless in the breast of all that I don’t see daily. We wind between intermittent streams falling falling through gaps in scree heaps, past nomads and local workers who transport supplies to the refuge on the backs of their sad, slow mules. These peoples’ lives. These fully-formed, glorious men and women. There's so much wonder in observing them and...well...wondering.
Cheddars, it would seem, are unburdened by boundaries and borders.
They transcend culture.
We devour a pack that's been rolling around the base of our bag.
No socks, but Mountain Cheddars? Yep.
Once we're down at Mohamed's house we cool ourselves and watch flies frenzy in the heat. I ask how many times Mohamed has done this — trekked and guided Toubkal. The answer is near the 1000 mark. An incredible guy with a wonderful attitude to life and the environment. Very reasonable cheekbones, too.
We muster the necessary energy for the final descent to Imlil, where a woman in tight jeans and heels trips repeatedly. We watch as Mohamed’s sister picks up provisions of seeds and water from a relative. We help her carry them to where we meet Omar — the man who stayed true to his word, the man whose planning (and son) shaped this whole absurd venture.
The sharp corners of the Atlas pass the baton to Marrakech, where we hop out and spend a final night at Kaktus, entirely unsure of what to say to eachother.
Sunday 30th August 2015
We catch a bus to Agadir and then onwards to Taghazout, having heard good things about the fishing village from a few people at the hostel. Past carriageways and straight tarmac roads flanking the seafront, we haul our bags out and acknowledge the perceptible quiet of the town’s single road.
One fellow comes up to us — goofy-faced, well toned, with a fro of blond curls.
"No, no, we have a booking”, we say.
“Where?”
“Ah, Surf and Travel Hostel”
“That’s my place”.
“You’re Yassin?”
“Yes, I’m Yassin, come, come”.
And so we follow him to what is more aptly described as a converted flat than a hostel or guest house. We opt for a couple in the 4 bed ‘dorm’ and meet Taghazout’s biggest temporary patron — a fellow named Sahid. Over the road at his sister’s restaurant, we watch people come and go down the street, running errands and talking in quick tones of Berbere or French. Yassin tells us about how surf season is soon underway and that the waves might be fit to ride, and we respond with affirmations of intent. This got us into a nice little state of excitement.
Short lived. As we return to the hostel to decant some things from our bags we realise that somehow, anyhow, significant (but not debilitating) denominations of Moroccan banknotes have been removed from our wallets. To this day we do not know who took them. The prime suspects were a couple of Kiwi fellas who were staying in the room; they got up and got out pretty quickly following our arrival, which hadn’t seemed shifty at the time but maybe did with the tint of accusatory retrospect. For the next day or two they went and stayed and surfed elsewhere. It wasn’t Sahid, surely? A man of forty-something without a bad bone in his body, just a yearning for spiritual ease. The only other person staying there — who turns up not long after us — is a Moroccan man named Ibrahim. He's travelling alone for a few days before meeting with some friends.
Yassin is kind enough to reimburse us some of the money — clearly concerned with the reputation of his hostel. We shrug it off, not wanting it to taint our time away, and take a bus to Agadir to a rare alcohol tender for a crate of Stork. So the evening plays out with those fine stubbies, a few hash joints, and the company of Yassin, Ibrahim and Sahid (he comes and goes). The money is all but forgotten. Before the slight rush of Cheat or Bullshit is underway, one ear hears David Gilmour’s acoustic version of ‘Wish You Were Here’, and the other tunes in to a conversation on the politics and policies of NGOs.
Beyond the balcony, the ocean quietly laps against the shore, ushering us to a hot slumber and pleasant anticipation of another day.
Monday 31st August 2015
We ate crepes and sipped coffee at a small restaurant by the junction at the end of town. Yasin checks in some other guests, a German girl called Diana and Swiss sisters called Selena and Andrea. All three express a sentiment that matches ours — let’s surf!
So we stick on wetsuits and jump in a jeep with some boards, but I'm really quite clumsy in the water. We’ll put that down to high centre of gravity and otherwise general gangliness. The waves come in frequently, but they're pretty measly for the most part. Alas, we all watch on as Yassin goes fully and directly in on even rubbish little crests. Minutes turn to a good few hours on the beach and in the Moroccan Atlantic, enjoying the warm water of the late summer. Later that day, the terrace is a cauldron of grubby feet, sand, silt, wetness and fun conversation, where we trade travel tales with a growing crowd and even play Airplane Top Trumps. Andrea's really into planes isn't she?
Tuesday 1st September 2015
The two Kiwi men are back. We're operating with odd, skewed caution, but this fades with the hours. Yassin acknowledges the situation and claims to have an eye on them. It's all a bit silly.
A group of us — NZ chaps included — hop in a people carrier and snake along narrow dirt roads to Paradise Valley, which is in the Tamraght River valley about 20km north of Agadir.
The VW struggles to get beyond around 4kmph for the most part, allowing us to glimpse occasional spots of greenery, though they're dark and withering in summer’s stillness. Past small scatterings of litter and algae pools we follow Yassin with red faces and hot bodies. He leads us to the point where locals and tourists amass, but we press on to a deeper pool around which we perch and into which we leap intermittently. Sure, the water's cool and soothing, but flies congregate in staggering number, ushering their peers to sticky people and small piles of rubbish in the alcoves below. Some delinquents have planted graffiti tags on the roughened sandstone. The scene without these things is marvellous. The scene with them is enough to prompt a grimace. Yassin tells us that Paradise Valley has been over-promoted, and that locals are mostly to blame for the mess. He cites education as the main reason. The whole thing is a little underwhelming. We don't stay for long.
The sun's hotter than a rash on a sunbed, and stays as such into the evening, when we head out for grub with the two Kiwis. You know what? They're fucking cool guys. We eat fresh sardines, nicely spiced and BBQ’d in front of our shining eyes. The chef cuts a whole squid he's caught like an hour earlier into small pieces across the counter, covers them in batter and crumbs, and tosses them into a vat of oil. We taste a few from the batch when they come out fresh. Sensational. That's all there is to it. Duwan and Chris tell us of their time in Morocco and further afield. We share our own views, devour the freshest seafood, and laugh it all off. Have we fallen at the feet of Stockholm Syndrome? Have these ruthless robbers had their merry way with our cash and rubbed salt into the healing wound by befriending us and making us chuckle? Anyone's guess.
Back at the hostel, some Aussie guys check in and tell us "all we’ve done in Morocco is drive from cool town to cool town, sit on the roof and smoke joints”. They were planning to rent a car and head towards the Southern Sahara. Dusk falls, and all of those present — squeezed slightly in the square space — tell stories. We meander from one to next. Another night of learning the lives of others.
Wednesday 2nd September 2015
In note form, this day reads as such:
‘A lot of bus and a little bit of the worst hotel known to man’.
Let me flesh this out but only slightly. Afford me the right!
Our trip isn't long enough to justify staying in Taghazout for another night. The coast has served us well enough to feel A-ok about seeking another scene. We bid adieu and, back at Agadir, ask some Moroccan blokes how to get to Casablanca. We want to spend some time either there or in Rabat. We eventually get on a bus but it soon reveals itself to be quite the crackden — chicken bones half-gnawed and strewn on the floor; empty bottles and wrappers; mysterious matter, half-solid half-liquid, jiggling on seats. Eventually the wheels jolt to life and we ride out the west coast for hours on end. Young sellers board at intervals, frantically pitching their melted chocolate bars and chewy sweets. The topless driver ushers them off. I watch a man wash his bare feet with a bottle of water outside, massaging them and splashing water on the hot curbside. Darkness dissolves in as sand and roads and sand and roads flicker past us.
We enter Casablanca late. Proper late. We’ve literally been travelling all day on this nasty bus, slipping in and out of consciousness and listening to nice albums, at times not even concerned with where the road legitimately led. We've no chance of getting to Rabat at this hour, so we mope around like fools at the the ‘bus station’ (dubious usage). Asking people for guidance results in an incessant stream of vested interests and hiked prices. A rat-like man latches onto us and befriends us, assuring us he doesn't want any cash. Why of course. He takes us down a dodgy road and away from the station, and in a café he talks in smooth tones and hoddles off to find names of adequate hotels. When he returns, I sip the final sugary froth from the bottom of my glass, duck to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling, and walk out. Miles hails a taxi. Of course, the man wants cash at this stage. He taps on the window incessantly but the taxi driver steps on it before his insistence could register as truly concerning.
Naturally, the driver doesn’t know the hotel. He has a better idea — “cheap and close to train station” — from which he’ll no doubt draw a dribble of commission. Tired and bored, we agree. The receptionist is in an off-white vest and green jacket that falls loosely from his fat shoulders. He tells us “this place is not fancy, it just beds”. This is the kind of place you absolutely make sure the guy gives you back your passport right there and then. Wi-Fi? Have a very real, very slow, and very elongated laugh. He ushers us up a dark, dank stairwell to the third floor, where ominous doors line the mould-stained corridor. The room itself is staggering. There's poo on the floor, I think. The taps slowly spew green gunk. The walls are dirty with stains of questionable origin. A few people seem to have scratched their last will and testament into the crumbling stone. It's amazing. We laugh so much, dry brush our teeth, and try to play a single game of chess. The bedsheets are musky and thick and itchy. The blanket is even more the the latter, an old pallid army rug with red marks. The last words I hear: “I can feel myself getting bitten”.
Thursday 3rd September 2015
We walk out the unforgettable, unforgivable hotel feeling altogether unforgiving, and round the corner to the train station. Sod this area. We dish out for a train to Meknes, so we're moving central again. The journey is a pleasant one, shy of three hours past cattle farms and hot, dry plains.
Morocco is a staggeringly diverse country. I still talk about this. In our time there we span big cities, little coastal villages, mountainous terrain and desert, and that’s without giving due heed to all the in-betweens. The north-western tip of Africa should be high on the list of anyone seeking a short(ish) escapade rich with variety and cultural difference.
We pull into Meknes in the late morning. The sun commandeers the sky's geodesics as it rises to its top spot, casting an absurd, thick heat over the whole affair. Down small, stone walkways with wilting flowers towards Meknes Medina, the scale of the city reveals itself. The high stone walls around the Medina separate the Imperial and New cities, but can't quite stem the region’s creeping modernisation. We stay close to the big square El Hadim and the prime attraction — Bab Mansour. Riad d’Or is a bit on the fancier side. I mean, it sounds like a fragrance or some niche George Clooney promoted coffee capsule, does it not? It's proper glorious — adorned throughout with white and blue tiles, dark brown wooden tables, dramatic doors, gold flourishes and polite staff.
Who can blame us after Casablanca? On the Riad’s rooftop there's a small, cool pool and terrace overlooking the city, which we then roam. Drinking tea and playing cards, we thank our lucky stars for the lack of poo on the floor. Class place. Creature comforts.
Friday 4th September 2015
Obviously the Casablanca debacle has been more toiling for my companion than for myself.
We can title this one: ‘Miles is Infected’.
I give thanks to whatever motions led to our bed decision that fateful night of rat-man and tap-gunk.
A true 50/50 situation, but evidently he opted for the one with little blighters nibbling at him all night because his legs and feet are covered with red itchy spots that he just can't leave alone.
Needless to say, we're not particularly active. That grand gateway Bab Mansour is spectacular for but a few minutes. I go and get the poor guy some choccie to soothe his chagrin but instead of allowing the bar to melt and rubbing it into his flary wounds he just eats it all and smiles at me, which strikes me as a real waste. The Medina's right nice. The pool's even nicer.
Saturday 5th September 2015
Miles' bites ease and we head to the New City for a bit. New City. Why? Why is it that, in developing nations, or perhaps all nations, there's this inclination from governments, councils, developers and the general populace to press forward with such spaces? What possible example are we setting with our our own shiny, so often shambolic countries? So often, such spots feel odd propped up next to ragged roads. The appeal is questionable too. It's incredibly quiet. The streets are sparse, the café’s nigh-on empty. We can't even find a travel office to chart a course.
So we sit and mull it all over. And that's how we end up bound for Merzouga.
A journey of seven or eight hours.
But it’s the Sahara.
You'd be right daft not to.
We faff and flap our way to the local bus office and book two tickets for tres early. Look at me and my French. We spend the rest of the day chilling, mostly. Beneath the evening sky’s cooling colours and the pre-dusk bustle on the streets, we walk on down to Bab Mansour and stand before it again. An ornate and grandiose archway of yellow and pale green, its small tiles are laid within the stone in gnarly but consistent patterns next to one another again and again and down. Opposite, in El Hadim — like Jmaa’s younger cousin — we eat succulent Tagine and watch as kids buy popcorn or pose with horses. Past our guest house, narrow streets house mounds of shoes outside a concealed Mosque, and a labyrinthine set of square market paths ripe with fake designer clothing and kooky, black market paraphernalia. It's a weird corner, with more than its share of shifty characters. More so, it's enduringly odd to see the elders scuttle into the Mosque up the way, washing themselves before entry, as the younger population, raised in a world of increasing globalisation, social media and technology, wander the musky corners of the city. Who's here to argue for secularism?
From the roof we hear prayer calls and political marches on the streets below. I smoke a cigarette and think for the umpteenth time just how unbelievable it is to simply be elsewhere.
Sunday 6th September 2015
Over two hours late and sounding rather janky, the bus pulls up in the wee hours and welcomes us into its weird, metallic embrace. The bus is of course not equipped with the legal apparatus required for one to stap oneself in, so we ride strapless. We ride strapless so we don't sleep. We don't sleep as the road stretches out, out, out into sand.
Then the stuff's everywhere. That drive in the sweeping dawn is amazing. To have left Meknes in the early hours and now be in the midst of sprawling, staggering desert — another testament to the diversity of this relatively small country.
A man swathed head-to-toe in a rich blue, traditional cloth asks people if they've got accommodation sorted. We obviously don't, so we have little choice but to pay attention. We get to Auberge Rose de Sable and, over mint tea, flatbread and honey, negotiate a couple days' excursions with the owner Ali — a large man who joked and smiled with spacey teeth.
I listen to the Ben Howard song Evergreen a lot. Whenever I hear that track now it reminds me of that hot, pink room with its hot, pink bathroom and the hot, orange sand that surrounded and filled everything. I sit on the sand out the back of the Auberge, looking out at the fine, seemingly deliberate silk pattern of the dunes.
Another fellow named Ali rocks up. We'll call him Neo-Ali. He's dressed in his own dark blue Gandora. The gold trim on its front fades into the light cream of the main body. He's far more slender, is Neo-Ali. He ushers out front to a grey Jeep and the three of us drive around the staggering, sandy landscape for a few hours. Neo-Ali lives nearby with his family and is excited to see how Merzouga develops its tourist trade. He's also hyper-conscious not to spite the raw, astonishing dunes. We make several stops, including an outlook from which we can glance over the Erg Chebbi region, stretching and sweeping its orange hand into the far distance. Peaceful as anything.
But there's also the ruins surrounded by grubby coloured silt and rock — an area that apparently became dilapidated during the Morocco-Algeria conflict of 1963. My history isn’t good, but it seemed an odd and somewhat humbling spot (slightly sci-fi-esque, too). These remnants of a settlement sit on the east coast of the country, 50 kilometres from the Algerian border, and each swimming blanket of sand serves to symbolise a past disagreement in the quiet air. Hearing the tale of its destruction from Neo-Ali may not have been the best time for us to hear a loud explosion. Stunned, our guide exclaims ‘gunfire, get down, get down!’ in a voice rife enough with good humour that the two of us don't actually launch ourselves face first into the stifling specks. In this same tone, he points over to a crevice in some rocks to our left — “a Quartz mine”. We drive there next. The miners smoke and install explosives in the rocks with small derricks. They don't speak English, but Neo-Ali's exposition struck a serious nerve. Quartz mining here is a seven-day job for these men. Every single day they labour to extract Quartz to support their families. That very Quartz is reducible to a material that forms the foundation of mascara.
We eat on the straw matt floor of a nomad tent. Neo-Ali summons a couple of friends to join us. The food is a remarkable three course extravaganza of fresh, local cuisine, spanning sundried tomatoes and caramelised onions in a tossed salad through to seasoned meat and vegetables between two cooked layers of puffy dough. Like pizza, but not. Like calzone, but better. The roaming cat takes what we can't manage. and soon after falls into a slumber. We come close ourselves. A hollowed out animal hide hangs up in the corner of the low tent, no doubt containing water. Flies buzz around us. When we eventually leave, Neo-Ali takes us back via a well, where we reel up a bucket of cool water to splash ourselves.
Onto some camels. Another kindly local gentleman guides us, helping us mount the thin, gangly beasts. I take as much as I can on these smelly, adorable, chafe-inducing swayers before opting to dismount and go it on foot, snapping photos of the immaculate sinuous rills around me as I go. The underfoot is unbelievably soft, and still so very warm. Smoother than in India, with fewer shells and rogue jagged items. Most alarmingly, it seems completely untouched. Such is the power of the wind that swills in new cover every day. One step. The sun starts dipping below peaks of sand. Another step. There's the big golden orb again, accentuating the rich orange of the sand.
We walk and ride for hours into the desert, before arriving at the Berber settlement, a series of tents arranged in a pentagon with an opening in the middle. No other tourists tonight. Just us and the locals. Trying to sand-board mostly comprises failing to sandboard. And then we dine with the three Berbers on a small wooden table, chowing down on bread, olives, tagine, potatoes rice.
The stars break out from beneath their cloak to become the principal source of awe and wonder. We smoke hashish and repeatedly look upwards. The damn clarity of it. The Berbers — a little taken by the hash — bring out their drums; we gather round playing strange impromptu rhythms and listening to atmospheric music. The night is a complete spectacle. No two ways about it. We are, essentially, alone in the desert. Miles and I drag our beds outside and drift off to the soothing sounds of classical, gazing up at vast swathe of stars and the smearing effect of the Milky Way.
Monday 7th September 2015
Rising early with the sun, we ease our heavy heads and blow off the cobwebs with a mere look around, and small sips on rich cups of coffee. The camel ride back is far cooler and more comfortable. We ascend a stretch of Erg Chebbi before returning to the auberge.
Then: Sand.
Every possible nook and crevice and corner and cranny: sand.
We sought out a bus to Fes, but all we could find were shacks selling water guns hanging from nets and...well...sand. For dinner we're enjoying a massive rustic roll filled with crisps, because all the people equipped to cook actual food are off praying.
Light dissolves slowly on another day in Morocco, nipping beyond the stone ruins and palm groves of other small towns as we passed through. I watch a woman in a wheelchair with a young child on her lap. They both wave their hands and smile wide at the passing bus. Flickering consciousess takes us into...
Tuesday 8th September 2015
Fes at 4am is rogue. The cool morning shakes us into life, and obviously there's no onward travel to Chefchaouen because it's Fes at 4am. We sit at a café on a corner of shady crossroads and try to piece together some plan of action. Watching people is distracting, mind. The café owner's dealing drugs to cars that hover and speed off. A series of strung out, homeless souls stumble up, down, and round the block. I offer a cigarette to one particular gentleman because he lingers for a hell of a time, but he just puts it in his mouth, makes an odd, aghast noise, and tosses it in the road.
A couple of other travellers are in the same predicament. One of them is a wonderful Slovenian fellow called Jošt. A couple of years older than us maybe, his face seems at most moments vaguely familiar and at all times entirely kindly. The other is Aya. She's meek, Chinese, and very young. The four of us opt to negotiate a sprawling taxi to Chefchaouen. So it goes, via crazy slopes and hills of fantastical greenery and stone valleys and agricultural flats and the sun spends the entire time slowly creeping up again, over a new place and a new scene. Hour into hour into hour, before we prop up over a mound of tarmac and set our impossibly tired eyes on the blue sea of Chefchaouen stone. Closer still, the blues and whites contrast with greater punch and zest. The truth is, photos do the town far more justice than words ever will. And another truth: that taxi driver was a lifesaver.
A tout takes us through mazey two-tone streets to Riad Baraka — a real gem on the backpacker circuit. An English woman called Anne owns the place. In the lobby we meet an American guy called Cole, a brunette Aussie girl called Case, and an Essex lass — Hayley. The latter summons us with a cuddle. "I don't do handshakes." These three play a big part in our time in Chaouen.
If Marrakech is a regular medley of sand-coloured brick, this picturesque town is its brighter brother. Not that such beauty renders it any more navigable. We get very lost for a little while before settling in a square for a bite. Classic Morocco. Difficult to categorise this place though. It's either a town acclimatising to its growing popularity, one that has already done so, or one that has always just been this cool and now happens to draw more people into the Rif mountains to enjoy its spectacle.
We eat eggs and drink tea, still silly tired from the drawn-out journey. We don't stand a chance.
I wake up before Miles and head downstairs, where I chat to Cole for a while. He's only just arrived here too, so is just as keen to discover the true beauty of the place. The hostel is a haven, boasting a relatively quiet rooftop with heaps of cushions and chillspots. In the evening, we sit in a circle with Jošt, Cole, Case and Hayley, each of us patching out the vague shape of our respective existence and marvelling at any commonalities that may emerge.
Wednesday 9th September 2015
Ah this place is nice. The sprawling buildings are stopped short by the mountain and the blue sky. People are cool. The pace of life is right. It's one of those places I now recommend to everyone. EVERYONE. Even if they didn’t ask. My friends, my family, strangers on the street, Argos till workers, street entertainers, and young priests on remote islands. No one is safe from my recommendation.
The uptown reaches of Chaouen hug the sides of the Rif mountains, so upward urban sprawl seems the flavour of the day, with countless works in progress to further the town's 'commercial' promise. Miles, Hayley and I wander up and out of the town's bubbling core towards the Spanish mosque. Winding roads lead to winding paths that lead to things you can't really call paths at all, more patches of stone that people have evidently used to get to the mosque before. Among the stones there are wooden crosses and plaques, each a grave on the hillside. Okay, find another way.
The view from the mosque is mighty fine. The Rif range curves around the town, dips, and rises again in the middle distance. With legs dangling and eyes wide, we turn to see an elderly woman in kooky colourful garments approaching from the shrubs beneath. She's herding goats, so naturally we now have to alternate glances between these cute little fuckers and the half-structured jumble of blue parallelograms dotted out ahead. A sumptuous and surreal spectacle.
On the trail beyond the mosque, the land is open and the grass dry in the heat. Further round, we try to climb a scree slope but it's stupid. Like, gnarly cuts on your palms kinda stupid. Back down towards town there's a bridge crossing over a small stream, people selling cool drinks, and, for some reason, peacocks on platforms being photographed for money. Most peculiar.
We got together with Cole and Jošt to take in that same, sweeping view at sunset. When we ask Jošt if he fancies it, he considers it for very few seconds, nods, says yes, turns back into the dorm, grabs his camera, and comes along for the ride. The dusky walk up is a dream, and even though we miss the sun falling below the mountain line, there's a beautiful, cooling colouration across the sky, an atmospheric litmus paper, a pH indicator of our fondness for nature. Eventually we shake off our inertia as some local guys offer us hash. We follow them to their ‘farm’. It's not a farm. It's a garden. And the weed plants are sparse of bud and sort of sad-looking on a sorry patch of soil outside a battered hut. Ah. We are intrigued for a short while — beaming, perhaps, given the rarity of being this close to the plants — but when we try to leave the guys expect us to pay them. And then their tones change. And here we go again. Fortunately, there are four of us all clearly not folding at the feet of their coercion tactics, so we had our way. Potentially the worst weed farm known to man. But let's be honest: probably not.
On the descent the bugs hum and the blue, high-walled walkways are infinitely more calming. Back at the Riad, scran in hand, we again convene with a heap of people. Case had separated from a long-term partner and sought some escape in southern Europe before heading to Morocco. Jošt and a small group of friends in Slovenia had a sort of community centre where they got together to collaborate on niche production projects and creative ventures. Hayley was a complete free spirit. Cole was especially interesting as a character — he’d been working away from the U.S for a good few months, and had spent a stint walking from Belgium down to Spain. He’s especially memorable because his mannerisms, voice and concise unassuming wit were all of the most unbelievable likeness to Jack Black.
Thursday 10th September 2015
Parfait, noun: a light and pleasant breakfast. A good one. A suitable one before we take a light and pleasant walk — Miles, Cole and I — beyond the mosque into the mountains, where vast fields of marijuana plants stretch into the distance, each as tall as me and each sprouting dense buds. Cole practises his Spanish on the farmers there, who are polite and welcoming without pushing an agenda. We set off from the hostel with Jošt but lose him somewhere amidst the labyrinthine blueness, so we're pleasantly surprised when we get out of one plant field and look upwards on a narrow dirt road to see him strolling down in his flip flops. These surroundings are oh so surreal. We're miles away now, beyond the evidence of Chaouen as a settlement, nestled in between sloping, dark ridges. The odd church or rural home pops up on our journey, but otherwise it's quiet bar the breeze.
Friday 11th September 2015
We're going to go and chill by a pool all day if that's alright with you? Sure. Sure sure sure.
In the late afternoon it's time for ‘couscous Fridays’, which contrary to its all-encompassing title, actually belongs solely to the late afternoon. In the town square we eat piles of tasty couscous (who'd have guessed?) with soft chargrilled vegetables, succulent meat, and sauce so evidently packed with herbs and spices that to merely say it contains herbs and spices borders on sacrilege.
There's a candle on the table with all sorts of dried wax in different colours creating crazy patterns down its side. Back at the hostel, we all ask questions and listen to the answers. We take polaroids and laugh loudly. We hush to respect the call to prayer — the cacophony of tones and harmonies, the passion present in the quivering voices, hitting the mountains and returning inwards to the masses. And to us. Just as grateful, I'd hope, I'd imagine.
Saturday 12th September 2015
The morning's slow for obvious reasons. We don't really want to leave, but such is the nature of things. Jošt is sticking with us to the coastal town of Asilah, a semi-familiar spot with a high-walled Medina, cobbled squares dotted with cafés, and colourful art spanning western styles and localised cultural techniques. The buildings are white where artists have not yet cast their hands, and as we flank the coastline, we get a sense this is a small, sleepy corner of the country, somewhere that Morocco’s burgeoning tourism trade is yet to fully penetrate.
Mind you, it has everything you’d want from an escape — a relative lack of crowds, a sandy beach, a small and focussed centre, eateries with fresh food, and heaps of dazzling art. For a long while we sit on a coastal wall and look out at the rocks protruding from the land. They sink into the sea in jagged points. A few people fish down the way. In the evening we eat at a pizzeria and get our first good night's sleep for god knows how long.
Refreshing.
Sunday 13th September 2015
As we stop off at café for a dark espresso and a light pastry, an unhinged figure flits about the front of the place, apologising oddly for his own derangement. It's far from the first instance in this country. Morocco's mentally ill are largely ostracised, cast onto the street and left to be observed in their ways by people like us. It's very sad.
We spend most of the day chilling on the beach, where an abundance of building sites line the beachside. Maybe our initial calculations were a bit off. Most places are closed, but down the shore we stop for fried calamari and grilled fish. We spend the evening drinking beer and reflecting. Miles and I have that odd sensation you get when you feel your travels drawing to a close. It's a raw, real feeling, despite having only been away for a few weeks.
Monday 14th September 2015
We say goodbye to Jošt at Gare Asilah. Our swell, Slovenian sire is off to continue his peregrinations elsewhere. For us it's Tangier via wavering lands of sitting water, where storks perch and unused brick farmhouses dot the sparse landscape. So much excavation and development in Morocco. What will Morocco look like in five years? What does it look like now? It's been nearly ten. Is it unfinished? Is anywhere ever finished? The journey takes us a couple of hours, and we feel like proper bums as we walk into the slightly nicer spot in the city. Hotel Rembrandt houses us for our final two nights. It's cool and spacious. It's got a pool. It's got a restaurant, bar, five gold rings and an array of moderately affluent clientele. It's what it is.
The streets of Tangier are similar but dissimilar to Marrakech, with heaps of fruit markets and smelly meat stalls stretching all the way to the port. Beneath a hive of flies and the wafting scent of smoke we eat fresh food off plastic plates at a local spot. It's tasty.
Tuesday 15th September 2015
A final day to soak in the the dusty roads abuzz with moped motors. We take the long way round to the kasbah, where old architecture looms over craft stalls, crockery, and giftshops. High time for some impulsive purchases, wouldn't you say? Prime example: Miles buys a tagine pot, which obviously shatters completely on the way home.
Stepping out of the kasbah onto elevated ground, we can see across the busy bay of Tangier, where imports arrive from across Europe via Spain — a landmass just about perceptible beyond the waters. Mostly we sit by the pool. It's been non-stop. Later, in the Hotel Bar, half-written characters from sub-par crime novels amble in and mumble orders at the staff. The man behind the counter chain smokes cigarettes the entire time, and the music on the crackling soundsystem mingles with the air that smells like alcohol. We retreat. Good night, Morocco.
Wednesday 16th September 2015
On the way to the airport we spot a vast mural wall with Charlie Parker blowing some big note on his saxophone, surrounded by gnarly patterns and blasts of red and black paint. To that tune, what a remarkable nation, and what an outstanding little time within it.