We'll always have Marrakech

Whatever expectations had been set for Morocco, it is safe to say that none of them were met but all surely exceeded. My own list certainly didn't include a trip to Mos Eisley.

 

Marrakech is a city so far removed from American sensibilities that the lack of Hollywood banthas, cruisers, showdowns in cantinas and at least one token Han Solo was certainly missed. Our visit coincided with the month of Ramadan and public modesty at its height. The first excursion was out into the souks - marketplaces in the medina - to haggle loudly with he stall owners, walk away threateningly, return to slash the price by half, walk away again and return half an hour later to retrieve our wooden boxes, fancy pants, silver teapots, paintings, and embroidered shirts. It was also spent making a mad dash from the Biblical downpour that washed through the streets, taking all the garbage that had been piled on the banks and sweeping it down the center of the paths to various non-existent drainage systems. Understand - Morocco sees maybe 25 days of rain per year, and we just so happened to walk right into one.

 

After ringing ourselves out we prepared for dinner at a restaurant called Chez Ali - Horse Fantasia. You can't make this stuff up. Or rather I should say, you could only make it up. Most of the entertainment set up for us along this whole venture was thoroughly Disney-esque, obviously meant to play on our tourist-minded stereotypes. I just so happen to enjoy Disney, so taking these things for what they were wasn't terribly difficult, even if slightly disappointing. That, and the food was absolutely mind-blowing. We had various tagines (meat and/or vegetables simmered in a giant clay pot), multiple couscous dishes, soups, and fresh-baked flatbread with every meal, after which we were poured cups of traditional Moroccan mint tea and had to unfasten our buttons. The Horse Fantasia followed our meal that particular night, complete with gun firing, belly dancing, music (including, but not limited to, the infamous Darth Vader Imperial Death March) and fireworks. Goofy? No doubt. Thoroughly enjoyable? Absolutely. 

 

Fearing for your life in a New York taxi is one thing, but doing the same on a bus hurtling through the Atlas Mountains for eight hours (each way, mind you) is something else entirely. Being shaken out of a system overload-induced nap due to your half of the bus being pitched perilously over the mountainside - the bottom of which may or may not be visible - made travel far more interesting than most of us experience on a regular basis. In all fairness, though, of all places to drive for so long, this particular mountain range could not have been more fascinating. The round (two lanes, remember) hairpinnned through ancient formations and zigzagged by palm groves and rocky desolation alike. Every now and then we found mud-brick villages populated mainly by goats and bored children, their mothers almost always inside.

 

We finally arrived at our destination intact in the late afternoon, a small dessert town called Zagoura, where we would go on our "camel trek" with the "nomads" to their "tents." My camel's name was BuBu, another's Barack, and his brother Obama, along with various other names made up on the spot by the tour guides to amuse and distract from the very real possibility of being sneezed on.

 

"What's my camel's name?"

"Said."

"What's your name?"

"Said."

 

My high school French teacher would be proud to know that I dueted "Aux Champs Elysees" by French folk singer Joe Dassin (as stereotypical as American John Denver) with my own Moroccan camel leader, also named Said. Sometimes the world becomes hysterically small.