Spring Break in
Morocco
By
Randall D. Ball
We called our driver “Mr. Personality.” He may or may not have given us his name when
he picked us up at the airport near Casablanca after our long but direct
nine-hour red-eye flight from Abu Dhabi.
We were pretty tired, after all.
He would be our driver for most of the week, and there comes a time when
it’s too late to ask someone’s name: “Oh,
by the way, it’s been several days now, but what’s your name?” So we called him Mr. Personality: by far the least sociable, least
knowledgeable, and frankly most dull driver we’ve ever had on an escorted tour.
We arrived early on a Saturday morning, yet the hotel in
Casablanca was good enough to check us in before 10:00 am. Christine and Talula were tired and slept for
three hours, but Anastasia and I went out to explore our surroundings. The hotel was just outside Casablanca’s
medina, near the Place des Nations Unies, where Anastasia ran around, garnered
lots of friendly attention from the locals, and marveled at all the trams
whizzing by. She also danced while a
musician played his saxophone just inside the medina. Then we picked up some bread, cheese, and ham
at a little market and returned to the hotel for a late lunch on our spacious
balcony.
I was awakened the next morning, Easter Sunday, with Talula
sitting up in bed, staring at a lamp shade in the darkness: “It’s a spicy ghost!” she called out. Some kids see the Easter Bunny; ours sees spicy ghosts. I have no idea what makes a phantasm pungent,
but we had our catch phrase for the trip.
Mr. Personality gave us a quick tour of Casablanca, beginning
with a stop at Place Mohammed V (or Mohammed V Square, named after the late
leader who oversaw Morocco’s independence from France in 1956), where the girls
had a blast chasing pigeons. Unlike
their experience at Place de l’Etoile in Beirut, though, these pigeons didn’t
fly away. They were much tamer—and well-fed
in the square. We also visited the
largest mosque in the country (number seven in the world, but with the world’s
tallest minaret), Hassan II Mosque, situated right on the coast overlooking the
Atlantic Ocean. Mr. Personality drove by
a few other places of interest, including the Corniche (waterfront) and the
President’s Palace (his primary residence, however, is in the capital
Rabat. It became a source of humor—the one
time our driver actually intended something amusing—that in each city we
visited, our driver would point out the President’s Palace).
Then we drove to Rabat, stopping for another late lunch
(dinner was usually late, too—around 7:30, typically—a schedule that
interrupted the girls’ eating routine.
They’d get hungry and have a snack in the middle of the afternoon, not
be hungry for dinner, wake up too early in the morning wanting food, then not
being hungry for breakfast, and the vicious cycle is born). It was our first taste of tajine—potatoes and
vegetables with meat or chicken roasted in a clay pot with a conical lid. It was good, but it was served to us way too
often in Morocco.
In Rabat, Mr. Personality took us to the Mausoleum of
Mohammed V (we would see many tombs in Morocco), the resting place of both
Mohammed V and his late son, Hassan II (the grandson is now king). Historic Hassan Tower rises above the
mausoleum; the “tower” is a minaret,
intended to be the tallest in the world when construction began in 1195. The project was abandoned before completion,
but the tower is still impressive with the intricate designs so common in this
part of the Muslim world. Then our
driver dropped us off at Rabat’s medina, although he didn’t tell us anything
about it. We had to figure it out for
ourselves. The Kasbah des Oudajas (the
medina) is home to some attractive Andalusian Gardens, as we learned from a
local.
That night, the girls worked on their “insults” (I’m
assuming Anastasia is picking this up at school). Anastasia would say something such as, “You
have a butt on your face,” or on your elbow, your ear, wherever. Talula chimed in with her own attempt: “You have a butt like a face.” Maybe that’s what makes a ghost spicy.
Monday morning, we left Rabat, heading for Fes. We made a few stops along the way, including
Meknes, where we saw Bab el-Mansour, an impressive gateway into the city, and
more tombs—the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail (a sultan from the 1600s). We had a nice lunch at a rooftop restaurant
overlooking the city; the girls ate some
couscous while I enjoyed a tasty pigeon pie (shredded pigeon cooked in a
curry-like sauce, served in a light, flaky pastry topped with honey. It really was delicious, and it wasn’t
tajine). Then we drove through the holy
city of Moulay Idriss (named after the first sultan of Morocco, a
great-grandson of the Prophet Mohammed) and stopped at the Roman ruins of
Volubilis, a well-preserved UNESCO World Heritage Site. It had been raining, however, so we were
fairly muddy after about an hour of exploring the archaeological site.
Mr. Personality then took us to Fes. Our hotel—or riad—was inside the ancient
medina, the world’s largest car-free urban development. Mr. Personality had no idea where our riad
was, though, and so we picked up his “friend” Khaled, who would be our tour
guide the next day (supplied by the tour company). Khaled had to phone the hotel, and someone
from the hotel came out to guide us from the parking lot, through the walls of
the medina, and to the riad. We liked
Fes right away, with its labyrinth of narrow, pedestrian-only (well, donkeys
and small motorcycles too) streets. The riad
where we stayed inside the medina was beautifully decorated and very, very
friendly. The proprietor, Mohammed,
served us a wonderful dinner (the tajine
was good here, with dates and apricots cooked in with the potatoes and meat,
and the mezze was especially delectable as well) and played with the girls, who
of course ate up the attention just as Christine and I ate up his food.
Khaled provided our tour of Fes the following day. We started outside the medina, with a visit
to a pottery where we saw how the clay (“yucky mud,” as the girls called it) is
transformed into beautiful but often gaudy pottery and ceramics. Then Khaled took us inside the winding
pathways of the medieval medina, where we would follow him closely the rest of
the day. It would be bad to get lost
here, especially when you’re unsure of the name of your hotel. We made the obligatory stop at a carpet shop,
enjoying some refreshments with the shopkeeper before breaking his heart by not
buying anything, as well as a leather-goods store overlooking the tanneries (a
great view of the vast tanning pits).
Aside from all the souqs, however, we also saw (but were not allowed
inside) Africa’s largest mosque, Kairaouine Mosque (the name was familiar to
us, and sure enough, it was named by refugees from Tunisia who built it in
859), as well as two madrasas, or religious schools: Madrasa Bou Inania and Madrasa
el-Attarine. Both featured elaborate
woodcarvings, tiles, and stucco work—excellent examples of Marinid
architecture.
Khaled then led us back to our riad and we said our
goodbyes. Before he left, Khaled told me
about tomorrow’s drive. “It’s a long
day, a nine-hour drive. I used to do
tours all around Morocco, and that Fes-to-Marrakech route is hard. I dreaded it.
Very long drive. Good luck to
you, my friend.”
Wednesday morning, we left at 9:00 am, and although an
earlier start for such a long day might have been a good idea, our riad didn’t
even start serving breakfast until 8:30.
So we rushed through breakfast, and soon we were on our way. Our trek took us up into the Middle Atlas
Mountains, but the roads were not switchbacks and our driver was so slow that
there really wasn’t much chance of the girls getting car sick. Nevertheless, we drugged up Talula (who is most
inclined to get sick, as we learned the hard way in Sri Lanka), which knocked
her out for the first ninety minutes or so.
We drove through the beautiful ski resort of Ifrane and the less
charming, more industrial-feeling city of Beni Mellal. We arrived in Marrakech, Mr. Personality’s
home town, around 7:30 that night. Our
riad was once again inside the walls of the city’s medina, and it was also
elaborately decorated, friendly, and comfortable. While our hostess prepared a late dinner for
us, I worked at keeping Anastasia and Talula awake long enough to eat. My efforts paid off; everyone slept through the night.
In the morning we had a new driver. Mr. Personality wanted to spend some time
with his family in Marrakech, but he would return the next day to drive us back
to Casablanca. Our new driver, the
Moroccan Jeff Goldblum, and another tour guide—whose name we also forgot—took us
around the city. First, we visited
(outside only) the Koutoubia Mosque, whose tall minaret can be seen all over
town, making it a good reference point. Then
it was off to see more tombs: Marrakech’s
famed Saadian tombs, which until recently were closed to the public. Our guide then walked us, ever so slowly, as
if he were trying desperately to turn a half-day tour into a full one, to Bahia
Palace, with its intricately-designed walls and numerous rooms. Our tour guide steered us away from the shops
in the souqs, telling us that the sales people were “too aggressive” and
warning us that he could not be held responsible if one lured us into a
shop. My guess, then, is that he wasn’t
getting a commission from anyone. He did
lead us to Djemaa El-Fna Square, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Aside from the usual tourist trinkets and
food, this famous square is home to performers (it’s like Key West’s Mallory
Square at sunset, but all day long):
musicians, fire eaters, jugglers, acrobats, snake charmers, men with
monkeys…It’s quite a spectacle; however,
these performers want money and are just as aggressive as any shopkeeper. Christine wanted a few photos of the girls
with the snake charmers. At the first
grouping of charmers (charming their snakes, maybe, but certainly not people),
she took a photo of Anastasia and Talula but not with the snakes. The men insisted on a tip, but Christine
counter-insisted that she didn’t take any pictures of their snakes, just her
children. Our guide ended up reporting
these snake charmers to the police. We
moved on to another set of snake charmers, who were happy with us until they
found out how little I tipped them (about $1.00, nowhere near the $10 or $20
they wanted for two minutes of photographs around a few dormant snakes).
Our guide then walked us back to our driver and his SUV, and
then he disappeared for good. He didn’t
say goodbye or hang around for a tip; he
just mysteriously disappeared. “Jeff
Goldblum” then drove us to Majorelle Gardens, an eclectic garden full of
bamboo, cactus, flowers, ponds, and Art Deco buildings, as well as a small but
informative Berber museum. It was a nice
respite from the chaos and din of the city, a good way to end our tour of
Marrakech on a more positive note.
The next morning was a lazy one. Christine and I read while the girls played
quietly (for the most part). It rained
much of the morning, so we stayed inside the riad, dividing our time between
our room and the common area that it opened up to. Our hostess made us hot mint tea (again) and
gave the girls some attention, as well as two little bracelets. Mr. Personality returned in the early
afternoon to take us back to Casablanca, an uneventful three-hour drive. We had a pretty splendid suite for our final
night in Morocco: two floors, a large
living room with a wraparound couch on one floor, the bedroom above, and a
great view of the city and the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. We enjoyed a buffet dinner that night at the
hotel and turned in after watching a Drew Barrymore movie on cable. Little did I know what the night and the next
day had in store for me.
I was up several times after midnight with stomach cramps,
doing the two main things you might expect with such a symptom. Of course I suspected food poisoning. It happens.
By 6:00 in the morning, we were awake and everyone else was
ready for breakfast. I drank a small cup
of coffee and somehow kept it down. By
9:00 am, our taxi was ready to take us to the airport. I was feeling a little queasy but figured the
worst was over. While the plane was on
the tarmac, I felt lightheaded and retched in one of those convenient barf
bags. They do hold a lot of
liquid—solid construction, that. The
next thing I knew, several flight attendants were surrounding me, waking me
up. I had passed out. So I spent take-off holding an oxygen
container and breathing—deeply—into my little yellow mask. The safety demonstration is
accurate; the bag of oxygen may not be
fully inflated, but oxygen is flowing.
About ninety minutes into the flight, after sipping half a cup of ginger
ale, I had one more violent venture into vile vomiting. Then I started feeling better. That is, until we began our descent into Abu
Dhabi. The Emirates was experiencing
huge storms of lightning, wind, rain, and sand.
We had some pretty rough turbulence (Anastasia said that the plane was “jumping
on clouds,” which makes me think there’s a soul of a poet in that girl), and
while I survived, the passenger next to me succumbed to motion sickness. Poor little Talula barfed all over herself,
splattering Christine and me in the process.
We were definitely ready to get home.
I wonder if Etihad
will remember 22F and 22G, the Dazzling, Dueling Duo of Dry Heaving and
Disgorging.
