There and Back Again

I’ve tried several times to write about Morocco without success. It was just too big and there is just too much to write about. So, I figured the best way to do this was to pretend that I was being interviewed and who better to interview me than Jon Stewart. So here how it would go if Jon Stewart interviewed me about my trip:

JS: So, tell me about Morocco. How long were you there? What did you do?

Me: I was in Morocco for four days. I traveled with a group of friends. There were eight of us in total.

JS: Go on….

Me: We traveled all over. My friend Stacy had contacted a guide and set the trip up. I was just lucky enough to be invited to go along.

She had told the guide that we wanted to see the Atlas Mountains and ride camels. The rest kind of fell into place—we made a quick stop in Casablanca to see a mosque and eat lunch,

Mosque in Casablanca

Mosque in Casablanca

then traveled to Marrakesh. After spending a night in a local riad,

Our riad

Fruit seller in Marrakesh

Medina at night

we drove through the Atlas Mountains

Atlas Mountains

Berber village

 to the very edge of the Sahara where we rode camels to a nomad camp. The next day we returned to Marrakesh, and then drove to Casablanca to board our ship the following day.

JS: Any surprises along the way?

Me: I had a sense that it would be about 3 hours to get to Marrakesh from Casablanca, but I had no idea that it would be 8 more hours to get to the Sahara! By the time we reached the camels, we were almost in Algeria.

Map of where we traveled

Sedate camels

JS: Let’s get the unpleasant things out of the way. What were your least favorite things about the experience?

Me: So, I didn’t love riding the camels.

The camels were pleasant enough. I named mine “Serenity,” so I could yell “Serenity Now,” if I needed to. Actually, I think the camels were drugged--they were very sedate.

But a camel saddle is about the most uncomfortable thing ever designed. It’s not made for a woman.

JS: I know from personal experience that it’s not designed for a man either. They are Uncomfortable [insert a silly Jon Stewart voice].

This is me trying to smile while thinking, “When can I get off this camel!”

Me: I know! I wish each ride came with a free tube of “Baby Butt Paste.”

JS: Ok, so if the camel riding wasn’t your favorite. What was?

Me: The tagine’s were wonderful. We ate a tagine for just about every meal.

It was interesting to see how they were cooked. Each tagine had it’s own flame to cook the food.

Tagines

 

My first tagine in Casablanca. Lamb and prunes.

 My favorite thing, though, was looking at the stars in the nomad camp. I don’t think I’ll ever see a sky so clear again. There was a meteor shower that night and I saw one shooting star that had a green tail that streaked across the sky.

[Close your eyes and imagine a sky filled with so many stars that you can’t pick out constellations. Add in the milky way. Then some shooting stars. Put the desert in the background. There, you’ve got the night’s sky at the Nomad camp]

Nomad camp at sunrise

As I said before, I also really enjoyed the group I traveled with. We laughed a lot and made even uncomfortable experiences funny

 Seconds later our group was chased by a snake charmer demanding money for the photo—I think this will be funny eventually, but not yet.

JS: Do you “heart” Morocco?

Me: To be blunt—no. I loved the people I traveled with and I loved that I got to see so much of the country, but I didn’t fall in love with Morocco. Much of it had to do with the local people I interacted with. I felt that as an adult woman who was clearly not married, many of the storeowners and wait staff didn’t really know what to do with me and therefore ignored me.

I tried to order tea at a shop for five minutes only to be ignored completely. When I tried to barter for gifts to buy, it would take a long time for me to get the shopowner’s attention and then after I gave a price they would often just say, “No” and that would end the negotiation. But, that was just my experience. I’ve heard others that they had very different and more positive interactions.

[pause to thoughtful push a piece of hair behind my ear]

I think if I spoke French, it might have been different. I didn’t realize how many people in Morocco speak French.

JS: That brings up an interesting point. Morocco claims to be a fairly liberal Muslim country in terms of women’s rights and cultural norms. Did you find this to be true?

Me: One of the guides mentioned that a few years ago Morocco passed a law that increased women’s rights. Before then women were only considered ½ a person according to the law. I don’t know enough to really speak about this.

I did notice that women were wearing a wide variety of clothing. Some were wearing modern clothes and a hijab (headscarf) on their heads. Some had on an abaya (full robe over that goes over the clothes) and a hijab. Some had the abaya and their full face covered with a niqab. It was interesting to see groups of women traveling together, each women wearing a different variety of the clothing I just described.

  JS: Well, we are just about of time. You aren’t interesting enough to extend the interview to the web, but if you have published a book, I’ll promote it for you. Have you published a book?

Me: Umm… not yet.

JS: Well, thanks for coming on the show. Julie, come back when you’ve finished your trip and we’ll talk more.

[to the audience] That’s it for our show. Now, your moment of zen: