So here we all are again. It seems both moments ago and somehow a lifetime ago that my last set of Amazing Adventures ended, yet here the next begin. I will try this time however to be fractionally less verbose than I was in my adventures in Peru, as some of you rightly pointed out it was a bit of a marathon. That said I can't really start without attending to some of the formalities. Most significantly I wish to extend a hearty (and perhaps even resounding) welcome to all of you ('My Readers' as I have taken to thinking of you - I hope you don't mind) both old and new. At least I hope those of you who have never read any of my adventures before will read on, however as you were all part of this particular adventure if you see no point in reading about things you yourselves have done, then I bid you farewell.
OK, for those of you still with me, if you are sitting comfortably I shall begin. Now, from the title you already know I have been off to Morocco but some of you will be wondering why I chose to go there next. You may recall from my previous writings that I had an interest in seeing India. Within Africa I had expressed a desire to visit the pyramids of Egypt and see the animals of safari country, neither of which I chose this time. I must confess that for a very long time I couldn't decide at all but I did know I wanted to go to some part of Africa for the slightly odd reason that it was the only major continent I hadn't set foot on (excluding Antarctica which doesn't count). This narrowed it down a little and from here I investigated the safari options but I have to say that despite the camping that many trips included they sounded a bit too 'cushion class' for me. So looking for something a touch more rugged and challenging I came across the idea of climbing Kilimanjaro. Further research into this revealed not only the hidden costs of equipment but also the apparent likelihood of failing to reach the top. Although I have not permanently dismissed either of these opportunities for adventure, on this occasion however what both these options lacked was variety. So when I found a not too cushy tour around Morocco I had the perfect combination of a different culture, mountains to walk in, bustling cities to get lost in and the seaside. Oh, and I also had the chance to go to the Sahara Desert which thanks to watching David Attenborough on TV as a child, had always seemed both fascinating and somewhat unreachable.
Normally at about this point I would begin by detailing my journey from home to the start point of the real adventure. Not this time though for as I said I am trying to be a bit less wordy. Instead I shall skip all that and begin after clearing (the rather lax) Moroccan customs. Wandering out of the baggage claim area I soon spotted my tour leader and was directed to wait with some other people next to a pillar. These were some of the people I was to be travelling with and after the requisite number of us had assembled we were led through the dingy airport and out into the hot night air. It really was very hot especially compared to the rather average British summer I had woken up to that morning. Whilst waiting for our bus to turn up we were told that the week before it had been uncommonly hot even for the time of year - the term used was 'brain fryingly hot' although this clearly wasn't literally true. It did make me wonder if I had made a good choice, for despite having experienced temperatures in OZ that were significantly above comfortable I still regard myself as someone who prefers the cold. Anyway the bus turned up and we were soon speeding towards the Casablanca Hotel in (you guessed it) Casablanca, which is a city apparently quite unlike the film of the same name. Seeing as it was getting late we all went off to our rooms to be ready to start the fun stuff the next morning. The majority of the rest of the people on this trip were travelling in pairs and for those of us who weren't and who hadn't seen any reason to pay extra to snore in solitude we could end up sharing. This system had been in operation when I went to Peru but coincidence on that occasion had handed me a room of my own for free. This time was different and so I was shown to my room by Graham (our tour leader) to meet Phillipe who had flown in from Canada earlier that day. The rest of the introductions would come in the morning.
The morning duly arrived and with it breakfast. Breakfast in Morocco is definitely more functional than enjoyable and invariably consists of bread, butter, apricot jam and coffee. Fairly often there were eggs of some description on offer (usually cold by the time you got to them), and on the rarest of occasions there was orange juice. Moroccan food in general, whilst perfectly good, lacks variety as will probably become apparent as these tales continue. Anyway, after eating my bread and butter and trying for a third time to get the people at the hotel reception to change me some currency (they kept putting me off, I don't know why) it was time to meet the group. There were twelve of us including me and then there was Graham as well. Rather than listing them all off here I shall simply mention them as and when they turn up in the story. I will tell you that it was a typically mixed group with folk originating from the UK, OZ, NZ and Canada with the majority being of similar age to me - which was nice.
After our trip briefing we packed our stuff back onto the bus as we were not to spend any great time in Casablanca and set off towards Meknes. Well, Meknes was our days final destination but even before we had left town we had stopped off for a breath of sea air (Casablanca is a commercial sea port) and to visit the Hassan II Mosque. Morocco is a Muslim country which means amongst other things it has a great many mosques. Of them all however this one is the grandest and at an astonishing cost of US$600million it is even more expensive than the Scottish parliament building. It has a minaret 210m high from the top of which a powerful laser beam shines out towards Mecca (not that we could see this in the day). It is thought to be the third biggest religious monument in the world and you could apparently comfortably house Notre Dame in the prayer hall, which whilst cavernous is only one part of the complex. It took 10000 craftsmen 5 years to complete and it shows both in the overall magnitude of the edifice and in the minute handcrafted detail that covers its every inch. Some of you may already know that in general non-Muslims are not permitted to enter Islamic religious buildings but this tourist attracting showpiece is an exception for obvious reasons. Prior to doing so however we descended beneath the mosque into the humid air of the equally splendid and lavishly decorated subterranean hammam (bath house) and ablution rooms. Prior to the mosques completion (in 1993) it had been thought that these baths would be open to the public but so far at least they have not been. I was personally far more taken by the ablutions room. In accordance with Islam the practitioner must perform ritual cleansing of the body prior to prayer which depending on circumstances could be done with just a bucket of water or in the desert just sand. However as with many things in life there is a corresponding opposite extreme. The ablutions room beneath this mosque is a sizeable chamber held up by numerous columns between which rising from the floor are some huge mushroom shaped fountains from which water would pour. Encircling each of these are a number of smaller lower mushroom fountains all carved from white stone (probably marble). It was a bizarre sight and reminded me a little of Mario Land. Returning to the surface the outside air now seemed cool by comparison and was markedly less steamy but all too soon it just felt hot again. Next it was time to take off our shoes and enter the mosque through one of several sets of seriously huge (and highly decorated) titanium doors. We were told at the time that these doors despite being about 7 tonnes a pair could be opened with ease on account of some counterweight system however since then I have heard that they are electrically assisted. It is probably a combination of the two but considering some of the other technologies seamlessly integrated into this building I would have to suspect that electricity is playing a part. The inside is unsurprisingly also decorated from the heated stone floor to the carved cedar wood ceiling. A ceiling which can be opened for ventilation and which would presumably allow the sun to shine down on the two parallel watercourses which form a symbolic corridor for the King to walk down on his rare visits.
Having all been suitably impressed and our camera fingers all well exercised it was surely almost time for lunch. We headed out of the countries largest city and headed towards its capital Rabat. Rabat is generally considered as secondary to Casa' despite being the countries administrative centre and were it not for the fact that we were passing by and needed lunch we probably wouldn't have stopped there at all. Anyway, this does bring me back to the subject of Moroccan cuisine. This being my first encounter with a menu in this country it should not be surprising that I was at a bit of a loss. Firstly it was written in French (one of the languages they use alongside Arabic and Berber) and secondly speaking French wouldn't have helped as all the names of the food were local. By the time the waiter came round I still had little idea what anything was and so I took a lucky dip and just ordered the first thing my eyes came to rest on. This is a method I can recommend only if your prepared to eat whatever turns up. On this occasion what turned up was pastilla, a round parcel of very thin ouarka pastry topped with icing sugar and cinnamon. It contained a sticky sweet mixture of vegetables, dates, lemony egg sauce, almonds and (obviously) shredded chicken. Sometimes described as a Moroccan chicken pie and certainly nothing at all like an English chicken pie it was a novel combination. I felt afterwards more like I had eaten a dessert which happened to have chicken in it.
After lunch we set off out past Rabat's city walls and shortly turned off the main road to another walled area. These walls (that looked like stereotypical castle walls) had been built by the Merenids and enclose the necropolis of Chellah inside which are the remains of the Roman city of Sala Colonia. Spotting the arrival of tourists the local, err well, buskers I suppose, appeared from the shade of the gate house and began to bang drums and jig about spinning their hat tassels around. We had been advised to ignore them and get past them as swiftly as possible without taking photographs for which we would be charged. Having managed this we encountered another of the locals who wasn't as easily dodged. We had already paid to get into the place but this fellow insisted that we needed to now pay him to give us a guided tour of the ruins. Graham knew this not to be the case and spent some time trying to get him to leave us alone but he just wouldn't give up - tourists are seen as cash cows by some Moroccans. Eventually the price he was prepared to accept got so very low that Graham agreed and off we all went. Wandering downhill past olive, fig and orange trees we arrived at a (modern) viewing platform where our guide mumbled something in broken English which I have to admit I wasn't really listening to. From the platform I could see down the hillside and over the ruins some of which were typically Roman and others had a clear Islamic influence. It is only to be expected that Roman structures should by now be ruined but they were further damaged by a significant earthquake in 1755 and despite the efforts of whoever maintains the site there is still a fair bit left to undo. Our little tour took us down to the ruins of the Jupiter Temple and then down past a number of excavated baths into a rather nice garden like area. From here we passed into the Islamic area which contained a mosque and Koranic school and if I had been listening more closely I may have discovered how this came to be built in a ruined Roman city. I do remember that it was in a better state than the Roman parts and some bits still stood tall enough for storks to build their nests on. On our way back uphill towards the entrance we passed something called 'bassin aux anguilles' which was basically a smallish pit full of water containing some eels. It was thought that infertile women could change their situation by feeding the eels hard boiled eggs. This pit is still home to eels (although probably not the original ones) and by way of demonstration a young local girl was throwing small bits of egg into the water. She tried to entice us to take some egg and chuck it in (presumably for cash) only the women in our group seemed as inclined to do so as the eels were to eat the bits of egg already at the bottom. From here it was only left for us to run the gauntlet past the tassel twirling beggars and back onto the bus to go to Rabat's most famous landmark prior to our final drive to Meknes.
The landmark in question is in some ways a previous attempt to build a simply enormous mosque with the highest minaret in the Muslim world. Back in 1195 however this only required it to be designed to reach 60m high and due to the ambitious project being abandoned four years after it began it only ever got to be 44m high. The work was stopped because the sultan who had wanted it built died and further misfortune struck when the site was damaged in the same earthquake that Sala Colonia was hit by. Before we got to see it though we first had to navigate another collection of locals all vying for our attention and therefore our cash. One common sight in Morocco were the water sellers. These men were usually old, gap toothed and wore wide brimmed colourfully decorated hats and had attached to them all over a great many highly polished brass cups. Over a shoulder would be hung a goatskin bag full of water and for a small fee he would pour you a cupful to drink. This once essential occupation probably only survives in the modern day for show to tourists as there is hardly a shop or stall in the whole country that doesn't sell bottled water and some have fridges too. They probably make more money charging people to take their photos as I for one would definitely not drink that water. Next on the human obstacle course were the henna tattoo women. These folk wanted to apply simple short-term (low quality) plant dye tattoos and sometimes tried to extract payment from unsuspecting foreigners by distracting them with questions while their friend set to work. Fortunately the last of the locals we had to pass were already being paid to do their job and so didn't bother us. They were the mounted, flag bearing, royal guards between which we passed to at last enter the site. Despite being an Islamic ruin it actually resembled a Roman ruin more on account of the fact that the vast stone floor was covered in a regular grid of segmented stone columns. There was no roof and the columns which had been reassembled having fallen down in the earthquake were of uneven heights. It was a bit like walking on a chess board from the Land of the Giants. A side attraction to this site was the rather more modern and typically Moroccan styled Mausoleum of Mohammed V. This was the days second anomaly for as well as mosques generally being off limits to non-Muslims so too are Islamic burial grounds and this one contained the tombs of the Kings father and grandfather. The inside was again covered from floor to ceiling in colourful mosaic patterns and sculpted plasterwork. We passed more Royal Guards to enter at gallery level from where we could look down on the sunken chamber. As interesting as this place was I think the reason I lingered so long in there was that the building which had entrances on all four sides acted like a wind tunnel causing a lovely breeze inside whilst it was pretty still and hot outside.
Back on the bus the temperature situation had got worse. We had about three hours driving through fairly featureless terrain and it was 40C inside the air conditioned bus. Now, some of you may have spotted a possible contradiction. I stated earlier that one of my reasons for choosing this trip was a relative lack of cushiness and air conditioned busses would under my own criteria be judged as cushy or even luxury. Allow me to explain. It may sound strange to some of you and mad to the rest of you but the fact that the transport on this tour was to be almost entirely on the same air conditioned bus actually almost put me off. Not just because of the 'cushion class' factor but also because I like a bit more variety. It is preferable in my view to use a selection of transport types including public transport, trains and where appropriate boats. Now there is no getting away from the fact that we would be using the same bus but there was getting away from the idea that it was air conditioned. The bus did have air conditioning but it could never do its job because all the windows on the bus were kept wide open all the time. This meant that if it was 40C in the bus then it was at least 40C in the shade outside the bus and somewhat hotter in the sun. Anyway, it was only for three hours during which time I was pleased to notice out the window that the gum tree has made itself at home in Morocco.
We arrived in Meknes with just enough time for a quick shower before getting back down onto the street for a nocturnal 25 minute walk across town to our restaurant. The streets were still bustling and the roads were busy too. Whilst driving in Morocco seems to be rather better than it is in Peru I can still see some room for improvement, not least of which would be better facilities for pedestrians to cross roads. We were given a 'do or die' crash course in the art of crossing multilane junctions; firstly you choose your moment to start and once you set off you just keep going safe in the knowledge that the people driving right at you have seen you and are anticipating your future road position by the time they would have hit you - so you don't dither and you don't stop! The system clearly works as none of us got killed, which is lucky as that would have ruined dinner for the rest of us. We left the main roads behind and entered the vehicle free maze of narrow passageways that made up the Medina of this old imperial city. As we progressed deeper into this warren the streets got narrower and the high walls on either side got more decrepit, the lighting was dim in places and fewer people passed us by. All of a sudden Graham vanished through a narrow wooden door in one of the walls. Following him we were suddenly surrounded by greenery and there was the unmistakable smell of water on the air. At the end of this foliated corridor we entered what was like some ancient urban oasis, a large high walled garden hidden in the dusty labyrinth of Meknes. Here we were all to feast on what is quite probably Morocco's most common style of food the tajine. This is a shallow earthenware dish with a tall conical lid inside which all kinds of stew (type of thing) are slow cooked over a fire. On this occasion huge tajines were placed in the centre of our tables and we all dug into the layered mountain of chicken, carrots, courgettes, cabbage and cous cous. As well as being traditional and vastly in excess of what we could eat it was also rather excellent. Perhaps the countries chefs realised early on that they were onto a winner and simply stopped experimenting with new ideas, needless to say we would have the chance to enjoy this dish again (and again and again).
It had been a long day and not being used to the heat yet had made it a little draining but for all that some of the group weren't ready to hit the sack yet. Apparently what was needed were 'frosties' which I believe is a term from Kaylie's New Zealand vernacular meaning cold beers and not sugar coated corn flakes. This leads us seamlessly onto the third anomaly of the day for Muslims are not supposed to drink, however legal bars do exist for the use of non-Muslims (which essentially means non-Moroccans) yet in the bar we found we were the only people of conspicuously foreign appearance. You may safely assume that these local looking folk were not drinking lemonade. It was getting late and having agreed earlier to meet some of the others fairly early for breakfast before setting off back to the Medina to explore the souks I went back to the hotel. In my room it had cooled to a mere 33C and the traffic outside still roared.
And so the first full day ended as does this instalment. You may be aware that I am already home from my trip in Morocco which is a point I will just mention again 'I am already home from my trip in Morocco'. Some of you last time (Peru) didn't spot this nugget of information and imagined I was still traipsing about the world months after my return. I can say I wish this had been true but sadly it wasn't then and isn't now. I will however be issuing forth these stories for some months to come so if you like you can pretend I'm still there. Just as usual I have no idea just how many parts this will end up being but if this part is anything to go by it will be the longest yet; so much for my intended brevity. Oh well, we'll see.
Until the next time,
David.