Morocco: Desert and Medina Time

                  Our trip to Morocco, where we will join an Intrepid Adventure travel group, began in Tangiers, a short ferry ride away from the hip and charming town of Tarifa in Spain. Yes, in Tangiers, and later, in Casablanca, we had taxi drivers to brush off, a faux-guide to humour, a melee of potholed streets, sidewalks, intersections and bleating traffic to negotiate, but these initial impressions were soon overtaken by one heartwarming experience after another in the two weeks we spent exploring this country.

                   Just a few of those memories include a child in the city of Fez reaching for my hand, a storekeeper selling me a few dirhams of raw meat to help feed a pregnant cat adrift in the frenzy of Fez’s medina, children in the mountainous Medelt region keen to examine ‘Ali Babba’s (my partner) camera and delighted with the unsolicited gift of ‘un stylo’, singing with the Berber drummers at our camp in the Sahara.  And the ever tajines,‘Berber’ whiskey (mint tea) and steamed milk, the eager-to-please cooks, waiters and hotel attendants.  One is well cared for in Morocco; always the extra mile taken, the extra kindness given.

                        Especially memorable was our tour’s camping venture into the Sahara, at the southern edge of Morocco.  Ochre sand, piled as perfectly as whipped cream, and impregnable to sound, formed an impossibly rich backdrop for light.  Bathed in a warm incandescent glow, we crossed the evening desert in a camel train, our rhythms and silence perfectly matched to sweeping shadows of sand and light.  The camels – calm, surefooted, stoic – transport us to worlds beyond time.

     Once reaching the camp, the camels are unloaded and led to area where they will sit saddled and chained together all night, moments from readiness to do it all over again the next day. We would race each other to the top of ‘the dunes’ to get a better view, and slide back down, singing as we went. It was at once a place that inspired a sense of awe and a sense of play. What kind of magic is that?

                        Unexpectedly, other than the Sahara, it was the cities in Morocco that intrigued us most.  The layers of culture and history (Arab, Jewish, Berber, French, Spanish) embedded in the vieux pierres of the streets and buildings piqued our imaginations  And what was most visually staggering in the cities were the medinas – i.e. enclosed street markets that have been operating since the Medieval period. 

      While every medina was an assault to the senses, the medina in Fez capped them all by its enormity.  No less than 1800 tunnelled alleyways to get lost in multiplied by thousands of stalls and thousands of merchants perched proudly atop mountains of merchandise.  The wizardry in their urban planning awed:  ten alleys devoted to blacksmithing followed by ten for babouches, butchers, textiles, cushions.  As noteworthy was the cleanliness (the donkeys wore diapers to keep down the waste in the streets!), and the amazing traffic flow, given the number of people, motorbikes and laden donkeys. 

   Amidst the cacophony of colour and sound in Morocco’s medinas, you could feel the poise and purposefulness in the goings-on.  People were doing what had been passed on for centuries! Even the children and the cats seemed to be tuned in!  What a dazzling eyeful!  What an unforgettable experience and education! Should we try this at home?