A few programming notes - I title each blog based on where we ended up at the end of that day; that’s a habit I got into when I was long distance cycling, as the destination always felt like the most important part.
I love blogging because I feel like it helps me “burn in” my memories; I find that by retelling these stories I personally remember them more. Somebody in the group yesterday asked me who even reads this stuff, and the true answer is that I don’t know, but even if very few of you ever do, I find it immensely helpful just to organize my own thoughts and photos and to be able to refer to it later.
Today we woke up early, had our standard breakfast of bread, hardboiled eggs, yogurt and jams and almond butter, then walked back down out of Amoud to our bus. It’s amazing how different it felt to walk down; first of all because we were going down but also because the weather had gone from Pacific Northwest to Colorado mountain; all dry and bright and beautiful. Everything looked so different and it didn’t feel nearly as far. I started to understand that what I was in was basically the Moroccan equivalent of a skiing and climbing town like Telluride. I finally got some floss and pain pills in town, then we hopped on our tiny bus, where we would spend most of the day, as we had a lot of ground to cover. But we made a lot of fun stops. I found myself thinking of what I would show people if I arranged a tour of Oakland like this, if people came from around the world to see where I live. What would I show them? Of course in SF you’d see the standard sights; the DeYoung museum, perhaps, the Golden Gate bridge of course, Chinatown, the Mission. In Oakland maybe the Rose Garden, Jack London square. If it was a hike and bike you’d hike Tilden and ride the path up along the coast to Point Richmond. That sort of thing.
Being in Morocco, and not home, our first main stop (after coffee and a bathroom break) was a weekday market. I hate to sound cliche, but this was everything I would have thought it might be - boisterous, busy, loud, with everything for sale from food to daily supplies and hardware. It was a magical moment because it felt very, very real, not sanitized at all for tourist consumption. Of course they knew we were tourists and there were other tourists there but also it was a very real and very much working market and everyone around us was buying carrots and onions and whole butchered goats and also scythes and batteries and laundry detergent. One of the members of our group (an older mostly bald gentleman that our guide keeps calling Ali Baba) got a haircut. It reminded me of the markets held on the weekend at Laney college, where some of the booths look like somebody robbed a Walgreens or a Harbor Freight, or just bought the contents of a random Chinese container ship. One of the weirdest things about Morocco is the way you can find a small cell phone stand right next to a business that sells a whole goat. Abdul told us that the day before was the live animal market where they sold actual goats and sheep and even camels. Apparently a camel is like 7-8000 dirham, which is about 800 USD.
Oh, also: so many scooters! Or mopeds, or whatever you want to call them. Which warms my heart because I’ve always had a soft spot for scooters and Moroccans seem to love them. I took this crazy picture of all of them parked outside the market but they are everywhere, a constant supply of them on every road.
The infraststructure here in Morocco is surprisingly good although I don’t know if that’s because we’re being shielded from it as tourists. The roads have a lot of construction, and it’s controlled chaos in most of the smaller towns and villages, but also there is plenty of internet and cell service and power outlets and we’ve been pretty well pampered. The food is still very basic but good; just meats and vegetables and lots and lots of bread. It’s interesting to spend a whole week without any Diet Coke or any alcohol or even really very much junk food; junk food is available here if you want it but we’ve been getting fed much more traditional meals of just whole cooked foods with some spices, and I think it’s been good for my digestive system.
We had a pleasant and inoffensive lunch stop where I had a very nice omelet with tomato paste and onion (which was a good change of pace) and some good conversation; the lady sitting next to me was retired but used to work in Microsoft’s XBox division in Australia. There’s a very nice woman here named Cynthia who is here with her friend (Sheri Lynn?) from Alberta, Canada and she’s been a really nice person to start having conversations with. Then we stopped a few more times just for views as we drove the Tizi Ti’schka (spelling?) pass, which felt to me a great deal like driving through parts of Nevada or even Colorado. The terrain here has started to feel much more like Nevada and Red Rocks, but with a bit more water and greenery from time to time. Ait Ben Haddou is one of those “oases”, and I see now why they are called that; it rises up away from a small river in the desert and the banks of the river have some irrigated areas of greenery. The Casbah (or multiple casbahs really) rise up the hillside, all pink and flat with cool windows and cool doors. It looks just like a movie, and for good reason, it’s been the set of many movies. There are narrow archways and places to hide from the sun but also vast expanses of desert. There was a broken down casbah at the very top of the hill that Abdul said they used to use as a bank of sorts to store communcal valuables.
In addition to some great views and the opportunity to buy a magnet or two, we stopped at two different women’s collectives, which are a kind of uniquely Moroccan way of trying to start to break down the gender roles by having small business where women can work at a trade and earn a little bit of money. The first one was just a lunch stop. The woman, Nadia, through Abdul’s translation, told us about how it had started, with 140 women from this little village getting together who all had issues; divorce, widows, unmarried women and also those who just wanted to do more with life. But they often had to get some man’s permission, and so onnly 40 were allowed to do it in the end, and they started with just tea and bread for tourists, but they have moved on to full lunch and everything. They had to break down rocks to make a little space for them to put their kitchen and seating areas, which were quite nice and shady. It was very nice, once again, to be able to speak French because this woman didn’t speak any English but she spoke pretty fluent French so I was able to ask here questions directly. It’s amazing to think about women just being totally unable to do even the simplest of business or life moves - either being outright forbidden or being required to get permission from the men in their life. I realize that’s the way everything used to be but it’s so crazy to me to think about that.
I supposed I should back up; Ait Ben Haddou was an actual place for people to live, before it became for tourism only- which was recently, maybe only 5 or 6 years ago. Now all the living quarters have moved across the river to (slightly) more modern facilities. Also, the weather was ideal; I get the feeling it gets very hot here but for us we had a very nice cooling breeze and we were there for the sunset. We watched two camels amble along the banks with a human leading them, watched a bunch of tourists, crossed a ramshackle foot bridge, and ended up at the second collective which made and sold carpets. A younger woman there spoke perfect English and told us all about how the women make the carpets, while a woman showed us the painstaking way she put each individual thread - which they spin by hand from wool - onto the loom and weave it. It can take them months or years of part-time work to make a single large carpet. They were beautiful but mostly too expensive and hard to ship for me to consider, but I did buy a smaller “poof” that you fill with padding. I don’t know how I’m going to get it home but I’ll manage!
I’ve noticed a pattern with these trips which is that I have a really hard time getting started. Because of my dental emergencies (by the way, I fractured a molar while out here, more on that later when I feel like telling that story) and also the jet lag and anxiety, it’s really only now that I feel like I’m starting to be able to relax. I’ve been snapping awake at 3:30 am; last night we stayed in a proper feeling hotel and it was the first night I got an honest night’s sleep, from about 10pm to 6am, and I’m starting to feel human. It’s hard because I want to make a good impression, I want to relax, and also I want to build memories, and all of those are hard when you’re just exhausted.
I don’t quite know just what to think of Morocco yet. In many ways it’s exactly what I might have imagined it would be; in others it’s not at all. I haven’t formed a good narrative about it yet but I’m still exploring.
