Morocco
Jay
Jay arrived in Casablanca amid no big
fanfare; in fact he was already through
customs and immigration when we arrived. It
goes without saying that both Janet and I
were really happy to see him. After a night
in the airport hotel we headed off to
Marrakech.
 To simply say that we traveled from Casablanca
to Marrakech to Ouarzazte to Tinerim or any
other city and we saw such and so is both
boring and almost unnecessary. It is
provided just for the record. Morocco is
far more than cities and roads; it is more
than bazaars and vendors selling the mundane
and the exotic. Morocco, like Mongolia and
Turkey is what we were looking for. At
least at first.
Morocco is a thousand shades of orange
ranging from dark ochre browns to pale pinks
touched with even an even paler ginger.
Dark greens of palms bearing dates, figs and
other fruits, grains and wheat wind their
way through the fertile north but nearly
disappear in the rocky barrenness of the
land south of the Atlas Mountains except for
the oasis’s that dot the landscape.
 
Morocco is also a consummate tourist
location. The former King, Hassan II, had
set a goal of having ten million tourists
visit Morocco by 2010. Unfortunately he did
not live to see his dream realized but his
son, King Mohammed VI, has taken up the
challenge to increase tourism.
One afternoon Jay and I went to the bazaar
in Marrakech and as in any tourist market we
were surrounded by vendors plying their
goods. Little kidsselling tissues, pencils
and cigarettes, musicians who demanded
payment for music that wasn’t wanted, women
who offered henna designs drawn on hands,
feet or virtually any exposed body part.
There are snake charmers who with flute and
tired (but well fed cobras, try to amaze
spectators who crowd around feigning
disinterest to avoid paying for the show.
And there are the outright cons. I watched
a classic game of Three Card Monty being
played on the cobblestone plaza. It is a
game that is absolutely under the control of
the dealer. If you can select the right
card, you win. If not, you forfeit your
money. But you only win when the dealer
wants you to win and slowly he sucks your
money away. I also watched another con game
being played; this was a version of “On the
Barrelhead” where a loop of metal or cord is
arranged in such a way that you have to find
that part of the loop that is the center.
If the loop holds fast around your finger,
you win. If it simply slides off, you
loose. Again the game is in the total
control of the operator.
 The allure of shopping in an ancient market
where you know you will find bargains is
part of tourism. Unfortunately the vendors
often sell their wares at many times the
price that the same item can be bought for
in the local department store. Never the
less, walking through the alleyways lined
with shops is almost always fun. The not so
fun part (for others, not me) is walking
through the food section where anything and
everything can be bought including cooked
and uncooked sheep and goat heads. In one
market we found cow/bull heads—a real treat
I’m sure. Like China, most developing
countries don’t waste food, they eat it all!
In one food stall we found a freshly roasted
lamb. I pointed to the shank and it was cut
away, weighed and delivered to a table and
served with bread. It was singularly the
best meal I had in Morocco.
 Then there were the offers of
hashish, marijuana and girls. The illegal
trade is almost as open as the legal. I
talked to one concierge who told me that
families in the countryside were so poor
that they encouraged their daughters to go
to the city where they can earn enough from
the sex trade to help an impoverished family
to recover, at least a bit and for a while.
We soon tired of the hustle and hassle of
Marrakech and headed south over the Atlas
Mountains which stand majestically against a
blue sky with mottled clouds which, for me,
only magnified the effect of its snow capped
peaks. Jay had rented a car and for the
first time in seven months we had a support
vehicle. I led and Jay and Janet followed.
I guess for some the snow is a deterrent
that exacerbates thrill/danger of the narrow
road that twists, climbs, turns and descends
across the range. For a biker, these
attributes are manna.
The temperatures were above 00 C
so in many areas the snowmelt kept the road
wet. In many areas the water carried with
it a film of thick red-orange clay that was
as slick as oil but in many respects quite
beautiful. At times it looked like the
mountains were bleeding. We left behind the
rich farmland of the north and west and
descended into the relatively barren, rocky
desert area that borders the northern Sahara
enroute to the Gorges.
 Jay had hoped to rent a motorcycle for the two
weeks that he spent with us but no such
rental agency exists. So, with helmet in
hand he asked if he could ride the new
Flashy. Jay is the new owner of a Harley
Davidson Road King and possesses a new,
California Highway Patrol motorcycle riding
class license. He may be inexperienced but
the CHP class at least gives him a good
base. “Of course” I said.
I
let him ride for the morning. It was
pleasantly cold and absolutely clear. He
managed to get over the trepidation of
riding in a foreign country, on a foreign
bike with a sidecar and the result was much
as a biker would expect; he was thrilled. I
let him ride several more times and I think
he is now hooked. Morocco will not be his
last foreign bike adventure. My only regret
is that Jay is still hooked on the sound of
a Harley rather than the superior quality
and engineering excellence of the BMW. (He
had the nerve of saying Flashy sounded like
a lawnmower!)
We had been advised to travel along the
southern slopes of the High Atlas to
Merzouga to see the sand dunes of the
Sahara. We had also decided to stop at
Timerzit and see the Gorge.
While having lunch, our self appointed guide
had suggested that we stay at a hotel where
he had a connection and then join his family
for the evening. His wife would take Janet
to the hammam or public bath and together
they would cook a traditional Moroccan
dinner. “I don’t want money” our guide said
but when I offered to pay for dinner he
accepted all too quickly. That combined
with his asking for cigarettes and inviting
his son to sit and eat with us just gave me
a bad feeling. Even though we had accepted
his offer, we later decided to push on to
the Gorge and then head towards Merzouga.
In fact we had encountered this kind of
offer at least two other times. Shepards
returning home after tending to their goats
or sheep had invited us for tea and both
times I refused much to Janet’s
consternation. It turns out that this is
just one more weapon in the armamentarium of
the people of the countryside to relieve
tourists of a few dirhams.
We rode esat and south towards Merzouga and
the dunes of the northern Sahara but we had
heard that the city was one more tourist
area. It was suggested instead that we head
to the small village of Hassi I’biad and the
Auberge L’oasis.
An auberge is not a hotel but they have
rooms and serve food, it is not a pension
because they also provide facilities for
camping. It is sort of a mix of
accommodations. And they offer single and
multiple excursions into the dunes.
Ali met us and was kind enough to spend a
couple of hours with us just chatting about
the auberge, the oasis and life in the
village. The thousand or so inhabitants
there work the oasis and grow wheat, carrots
and other vegetables; harvest fruit from the
palm trees and eek out a subsistence living.
The view from the terrace was magnificent.
While the picture of the dune seems to place
it far in the distance it is really close.
We asked for lunch and Ali immediately had
his workers start a charcoal fire and begin
to prepare the meal. While we talked, an
assistant asked Jay to follow him and off
they went. We continued to chat. Jay
returned looking more like Lawrence of
Garden Grove and sometime later my bride
returned looking more like Janet, Queen of
the Desert.
Before we left, we rode out to the dunes to
try to get an appreciation of the scope of
the desert—No Way! It is too big to see.
I
had been anticipating our visit to Fez for
quite a while. I was told in Tangier that
if I wanted to see really good handmade
bronze and copper metal work, it had to be
in Fez. While riding into the city we were
approached by a man on a scooter who offered
to help us find a hotel. In turn he
introduced us to a guide that was willing to
take us to a top notch metal worker and then
on to the famous dying vats in the leather
section of Medina or the old city.
I
can only say that the metal work I saw there
was spectacular. It is a cooperative of
more than 80 artists run by the sons of the
engraver that built the doors for the King’s
palace. The walls and ceiling were adorned
with tables, lanterns, sconces and other
work made for the tourists who visited the
shop. Upstairs were the real pieces of art,
worked for the more affluent that wanted
enduring quality and were willing to pay for
it.
I
interviewed, on tape, the brothers who ran
the cooperative as well as one brother, a
master engraver while he etched bronze disks
that would eventually become masterpieces.
In fact I have almost two hours of tape.
Then it was on to the leather area. Looking
down from the rooftop we could see the
tanning and dye vats that have been in Fez
since the fourteenth century. White vats
where in a lime solution the wool is removed
from the skin that is dried on the rooftops
and later sent to spinners who transform the
raw wool into handicrafts for the tourists.
Then there are the red, orange, yellow,
brown, green and other colored vats where
the skin is immersed in vegetable dyes to
produce the same colors, the same way that
they have been made for the last 600 years.
And of course there are leather items for
sale: hand bags, wallets, portfolios, saddle
bags and just about anything you can imagine
that can be made of leather.
Yup, we were had by our guide! I had
overpaid based on some bad information about
the local rates and the fact that I tipped
him at the end of the day really angered
me. We got hit BIG for a fancy lunch in the
Medina and we overpaid for a lamb skin we
bought for the bike and Jay got it for a
leather lampshade and maybe for the camel
saddlebags he bought for his Harley. The
only solace I have is that the video tape is
amazing.
 
But there are bargains and there are people
who are not out to strip every dirham you
have from pocket. We left Fez and headed to
Meknes, just 60 km away. By accident more
than by superb navigation we found the Hotel
Akouas and as we were checking in the
General Manager spoke to us. I told him
about the Dragin’ Run and he offered to give
us his corporate rate rather than the
standard rate.
The hotel is clean and the staff is
terrific. They also let me park the bike in
a locked area. In the afternoon, we shared
a beer or two (sometimes difficult to find
because Morocco is a Muslim country and
alcohol is verboten) and talked about the
hotel business, Morocco and Meknes. This
was a real treat. No hands out, no scams,
no tricks; just a really good hotel only
interested in serving the guest. (www.hotelakouas.com)
If you ever go there, ask for Said Zouaki.
Time to leave. Jay was off to Casablanca
for a return flight to California and we
were off to Spain, Portugal, France, etc.
I
cannot end here; Morocco is so much more
that the picture I have painted. Visually,
Morocco has to be one of the most beautiful
countries we have visited. The landscape
changes almost instantly from the fertile
fields of the north to the barren, rocky
desert of the south. From the High Atlas to
the dunes of the Sahara to the Atlantic
coast of the west. Morocco is orange and
green with occasional splashes of white
villages.
Morocco is trying to improve economically
with technology to increase farming, tourism
and business. King Mohammed VI is the new
driving force behind these needed advances
and wherever we traveled we saw his
picture. Not just the same formal, official
picture but different pictures of him in
different places DOING things. Everyone we
talked with appears to respect and love
him. What a difference from what I’m used
to.
Morocco is poor with most people at or below
subsistence level and with no compulsory
education it is no wonder that the streets
are filled with children wanting to shine
shoes, sell tissue, dance, sing or perform
for a few dirhams. It is so hard to say no
to a mother with an infant on her back and a
toddler at her feet who is selling cookies
or who sits under a tree all day hoping to
sell a warm Coke to a tourist visiting the
thermal bath.
I
can understand the frustration of kids in
the countryside who throw rocks at motor
homes and caravans which are seen as
abstentious displays of wealth that could
feed a village of have-nots for years.
So I choose to ignore these shortcomings and
look at a people who, once you get past
their failings are open and friendly and
warm. I choose to sympathize with their
problems and try to understand their coping
skills and mechanisms and hope that at some
time in the future that I will be able to
return to Morocco because it is so much more
that it appears on the surface.
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