Happy New Year from Bruno, Brittany and Totoyaya!

Happy New Year, friends!   I do love the start of a new year.  It’s an excuse to reflect on a parcel of time, to reminisce about the things that have passed, and to plan for the year at hand.  (Confession: I do make resolutions, even though I know they never work!)

Accordingly, it’s the time to write a 2016 Year in Review post, something that has become somewhat of a happy tradition here at Wandering Footsteps (for me if not for anyone else).  And so, in lieu of my Monthly Wrap-Up, let it be today a Yearly Wrap-Up.

Bruno and I rang in 2015 in the desert of Sudan, bush camping by sand dunes and snorkelling on the best coral reef I’ve ever experienced while awaiting passage on a ferry that would take us out of Africa and into the Middle East.  2015 then became a year of incredible travel statistics – 13 new countries, 4 continents, and 2 massive road trips.

This time last year we rang in the New Year with extended family at a luxurious villa in Morocco.  And somehow, 2016 has ended up being about those things – being in homes and being with loved-ones.

The start of 2016 – in a rented luxury villa in Morocco with extended family – set the tone for a 2016 that was very home-based and family-oriented.

While living in our house in France for three months, we had the pleasure of spending Easter with Bruno’s family, of photographing that moment, and of offering it to Bruno’s mom for her 80th birthday.

If you’ve followed Wandering Footsteps this year, you know that we haven’t been as mobile (read “exciting” – this is a travel blog, after all) as previous years.  2016 has involved a lot of living in homes-without-wheels (much to Bruno’s dismay!).  We spent almost three months living in our home in southern France, the entire summer at my parents’ home in New Brunswick, several weeks living at the home of our family friends in Toronto, returned to our home in France for three weeks, and just spent Christmas in an Air BnB cottage in Los Angeles (more on that in a future post).

While I have enjoyed getting a chance to build a routine, cook a lot, and appreciate the bit of extra comfort that living in a home allows, I admit that we may have overdone it this year with our home living!

An amazing moment in Morocco while camper vanning with my parents.

A family reunion this summer in New Brunswick, and the first time Bruno met a lot of very important people!

Along with our newfound domesticity this year, we did a lot of socializing (much to Bruno’s dismay, again – I have a feral man for a husband!).  We started the year off with family in Morocco, and then showed an old friend of mine what living in Totoyaya was like, also in Morocco.  This spring, we spent a lot of time with Bruno’s French family, and I also received a visit from an old English friend of mine.  This summer, I visited a couple friends in New York and Washington, DC, and then spent the summer and fall introducing Bruno to our long-time friends and family from New Brunswick to Toronto and down to New York City as well.  Last but not least, we returned to France to host Bruno’s extended family at our home for another mini family-reunion.

We’ve never had this social of a year, ever!  I am eternally grateful to all the people who hosted us and visited us this year.  It filled my heart with warmth and love, though, yet again, we may have overdone it slightly (can you tell we’re all or nothing people?).  I do expect that now that we’re in North America, the trend of seeing family and friends will continue in 2017.  Mark your calendars!

My friend Sahnah came to visit Bruno and I in Morocco. It had been a few years since someone pitched a tent beside Totoyaya. It was so good to get to introduce her to our lifestyle!

Bruno and I didn’t do nearly as much overland traveling this year as we normally do. This was our first night back on the road after a long hiatus, and we lucked out to find a quiet bush camp in a northern New Brunswick forest.

Though our 2016 New Year’s party couldn’t have foretold this, 2016 has, importantly, been the year of searching for a new home-on-wheels.  Things started when we put our Totoyaya up for sale in the spring, and then Bruno spent a challenging month in France studying to pass his truck driver’s license so that we could buy something larger than our current Toyota Land Cruiser.  Our search for the new vehicle began in earnest this fall in Canada and has continued, without success, here in the Southwest USA.  I hope that 2017 will bring us great luck in quickly finding our new vehicle so that we can convert it into a home-on-wheels and hit the road!  2016 has been fun, but both Bruno and I are eager to re-embark on our normal life.

Even though our year hasn’t involved as much travel as usual, it has still been a year rich of experiences.  I’d like to leave you with some of Wandering Footsteps’ 2016 highlights, challenges, and biggest lessons learned.

The first time the entire family comes together. Very exciting.

Getting a thorough education in Moroccan cuisine from my newfound Moroccan friends. The food is amazing, the friendship even better.

Highlights of the Year

Bruno got his U.S. visa!

This was the view from our Manhattan apartment when we visited my aunt Louise in New York City. Good thing we’re not afraid of heights!

If the past two New Year’s moments set the tone for the year, then I wonder what tone we have just set for 2017?  Whatever it is, I’ve learned this past year (well, ok, I’m still learning) to accept it with gratitude.

May 2017 bring you all many things for which you can be grateful – moments of pleasure and of stillness, opportunities for learning, and connection with others. What do you hope 2017 will bring your way?

Road-tripping down Route 66 was a fun way to make our way south for the winter.

Hiking through saguaro cacti at a National Park in the southwest of the US.

After almost two months of continuous guests – Christmas with my parents, a 14-person family reunion, a camper van adventure in the desert with mom and dad, and my friend Sahnah coming for a visit – doing nothing felt absolutely and totally amazing.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved all the visits we received here in Morocco; but now, I was exhausted!

And so, parked at a campsite along the edge of a palmeraie in the dusty Moroccan town of Tata for six glorious days and nights, Bruno and I rested.

The southeast of Morocco is the perfect place to get back into the flow of slow travel – the entire vibe of the region is slow.  Towns are few; scattered between are wide expanses of hammada, stark rocky mountains, and oueds (dry river beds).  In the towns themselves, the few people are friendly, unhurried, and approachable, and there are no must-see sights and activities.

A barely-visible town in a palmeraie after kilometers of empty hammada.

Hammada like this.

Rugged rocky mountains.

Quiet towns.

In other words, there was nothing to get in the way of our plans to do nothing.

There’s so much more to Bruno and my life on the road than our tourism.  As I mentioned in one of my This Overlanding Life series posts, the reason we don’t get travel-burnout is because we make enough time for down time.  I’m not talking about the time we make for work stuff – like cleaning the house, doing laundry, blogging, vehicle maintenance, cooking, or researching future destinations.  I’m talking about the quiet moments, when Bruno and I are sat at a campsite, looking out at the view before us with a good book in our hands; when we’re having a lunchtime picnic parked along the coast before continuing on to our destination; when I’m listening to a podcast while leisurely cooking dinner; or when Bruno’s sat outside doing nothing more than listening to the birds and watching the wind rustle the leaves of palm trees.

Watching a lovely moon.

Cooking up a storm.

Even laundry is fun in a relaxing environment like this.

In Tata, we did a lot of all of that, and it felt good.  As our energy levels rose, we ventured into town with our bicycles to pick up fresh produce in the local market.  We ate lunch at a roadside restaurant, and I sat for an hour photographing locals walking up and down the middle of the town’s main boulevard.

In some regions of the world – places where there are long lists of must-see sites and charming towns and trendy cafés – I struggle to allow myself the downtime I need to feel balanced.  It’s so much easier to keep a relaxed travel pace in the desert of Morocco.

Hanging out with our friendly restaurant manager.

People walking past our restaurant on the empty main street of Tata.

They even walk by ON the main street.

Cycling back from Tata to our quiet campsite after lunch.

***

When Bruno and I arrived in Morocco and our vehicle was given a six-month stay on our customs document, we had begun discussing prolonging our three-month tourist visa.  It made sense – we wanted to visit the Saint-Exupery Museum in Tarfaya, at the southern tip of Morocco proper, and we didn’t want to return to Europe’s winter too early.

Once we actually started to look into the process, however, we decided against extending our stay.  Tourists are given a three-month entry at the border, and must get a visa extension at the local police department.  You must provide several passport photos, proof of funds, and a letter of attestation from a Moroccan.

This letter was the sticking point for us.  Many campsites are willing to provide this letter, but you must remain at their campsite for 15 days while the documents are at the local police department.  We didn’t want to be stuck in one place, and the timing of this forced confinement wasn’t right, anyway.  We briefly contemplated other prolongation options, like popping over to one of the Spanish enclaves on Moroccan soil, but both Ceuta and Melila are at the northern tip of the country, whereas we wanted to go south.  Bruno likes uncomplicated things, and in this case the most uncomplicated thing was to leave when our three-month visa expired.

Initially, I was very disappointed by this.  Here we were in Tata with over 1,000km to the ferry back to Europe, and only ten days left in our stay.  I wouldn’t have time to do an off-road desert crossing, to trek in the mountains, or to visit the imperial cities of the north, all things I’d envisioned doing with my fourth month in Morocco.  Worse yet, I’d have to stop doing nothing much sooner than I wanted to!

But the tides were changing in this country I’d come to love.  The wind was picking up something fierce – it had been so bad along the coast that we’d come inland; and now it was so bad here that we spent two full days literally cooped up inside Totoyaya with our windows closed!  The last time I’d experienced wind so strong it dictated plans had been in Luderitz, the windy city of Namibia.

Furthermore, the country was being invaded by retired camper vanners from Europe, come down to escape the winter.  We’d noticed a drastic difference after our family reunion in Taroudant, and especially as of February.  Suddenly, it was hard to find an empty space in a campsite built for 300 vehicles!

One of the reasons we stayed so long in Tata is that we’d managed to find a campsite that was relatively empty (meaning that our neighbor’s living room wasn’t immediately under our bedroom window).  Later, on our penultimate stop in the country, we camped at a municipal campsite where we’d refused to stay on our way down in December because it had been full of camper vans.  Now, though, we stayed four nights.  It was just as full as a few months before; it was our standards that had changed.

It’s so windy you can see the dust blowing from the Sahara onto the road!

Our “empty” campsite in Tata. All things are relative.

***

From Tata, we hightailed in north to the border, stopping for a few days when a campsite was empty-ish, and continuing on when it wasn’t to our taste.  On one day’s drive, we managed to catch the 4L Trophy, a car rally for young Europeans.  Rallies aren’t my thing, but the daughter of one of Bruno’s childhood friends was participating in the 4L Trophy and Bruno had been following their journey for days.  When the first cars passed us, we parked on the side of the road, set up chairs on the roof, and waited for Matilde’s green number 691 to pass.  Boy, was she surprised to see us!

Bruno on the roof photographing the 4L Trophy rally.

The 4Ls coming down the road!

Finally we catch sight of #691, Mathilde!

Super surprised to see us, she and her co-pilot and friend stop for a quick chat on the road before racing on. They would finish the race in the top 100!

It had snowed in the High Atlas Mountains – a snow the locals had been waiting for since December.  It was amazing to see white snow before us when a day or two earlier it had been sand dunes.  Though it was pretty to look at, we didn’t linger too much – just long enough to catch a very brief glimpse of the Barbary macaques, an endemic and endangered monkey that lives in the mountains of the Magreb.

Our first glimpse of snow in the High Atlas Mountains.

I tried playing in the snow, but it was more like ice!

A Barbary macaque, an endemic and endangered monkey.

Before we knew it, we were in Assilah, the first Moroccan town in which we’d stopped three months before.  I found it fitting that we’d finish our trip to Morocco in the same place that we’d begun it, just as my parents had done in Marrakech. I walked into the bathroom facilities and remarked that they looked a lot cleaner and more modern than I’d remembered – and that was the moment that I realized exactly how much I’d experienced and learned about Morocco since last I’d been here.

This made me feel nostalgic, even though I hadn’t yet left Morocco.  There was so much I was going to miss – the incredibly hospitality of the Moroccan people; the affordability, comfort, and accessibility of accommodation (I hadn’t expected campsites here to have electricity or water, but they always did!); the delicious and complex foods; the beauty and sheer variety of landscapes; the local markets filled with amazing (and cheap!) produce; and the fascinating and exotic coastal medinas.

Bruno and I spent one final day of tourism in Assilah’s medina.  We entered through an old arch gate into the medina’s square and caught a throng of children heading off to school.  We picked an alley at random and allowed ourselves to get lost in the tangle of streets.  The perfectly whitewashed walls were accented with sea blue and other pastels; the rounded doorways were detailed in traditional Moroccan style; and there were brightly-painted murals at regular intervals.  Women, dressed in bright fabrics from head to toe, smiled shyly at us; seagulls squawked overhead; and the sweet fragrant aromas of tagine beckoned us to enjoy one final Moroccan meal along the outer wall of this ancient city.

Assilah’s medina was the perfect end to an amazing three months in Morocco.

The fortified ancient walls of Assilah’s medina.

I love the doorways in medinas. This one isn’t typical of Moroccan architecture, but it’s somehow lovely anyway.

I love these narrow, colorful alleyways!

Murals everywhere!

And tiny secret passages into courtyards!

***

We’re headed back to Spain next.  We’ll spend time along its Mediterranean Coast, soaking up the sun and popping in and out of cities like Barcelona and Granada.  I’ll get to witness flamenco dancing, eat a bunch of tapas, and practice my Spanish again.  I’ll be able to dress the way I want and sit at cafés without being the only woman.  I’ll be able to blend in again.

But right now, I just want to bargain in Moroccan Arabic in a local market for the veggies I’m going to use for that evening’s homemade tagine.

In other words, she was the ideal travel partner.  And I took advantage.  Though our lives have taken place in different corners of the globe – she in North and South America, me in Asia and Africa – we’ve connected every few years for a trip.  Mauritania, Cambodia, Thailand, India.

And now, Morocco!

An oasis near the desert in southern Morocco.

La Plage Blanche.

Taking in the view long the southern Atlantic Coast of Morocco.

Part I: Backpacking in Marrakech

We met up in Marrakech, a city I’d visited five weeks earlier with my parents.  Unlike most travelers, I love returning to a place– I always have a different experience and gain a new perspective.

Marrakech didn’t disappoint.  With my parents, I’d visited sites like the Bahia Palace, the Saadian Tombs, and the Ben Youssef Medersa; we’d eaten at nice Moroccan restaurants; we’d watched the action on the Djemaa el Fna.

With Sahnah, well, we “did” almost nothing.  We wandered around a few alleys in the north section of the medina, where Sahnah oohed, aahhed, and snapped loads of photos.  We visited a souq or two, bought a thing or two.  And we sat at cafés for hours, sampling Moroccan dishes and keeping ourselves warm with glasses of mint tea.

An alley arch between our riad at the souqs and square of Marrakech.

Wandering around the alleys, snapping photos of beautiful things.

Spices for sale in the souq!

Sat at a café off the Djemaa el Fna watching the sunset.

Our second full day in Marrakech illustrates our rhythm perfectly: we took a slow breakfast in the courtyard of our dar (a small riad) then emerged into our alley and headed toward the souqs and square.  We passed one shop that had chameleons; Sahnah got excited and snapped photos.  That led to a one-hour chat with Aziz, the shop keeper, who was the most philosophical, insightful, and silly Moroccan I’ve met yet.

By this point it was 1:30pm, and we had a lunch date with two shop-keepers Sahnah had purchased spices and perfume from the day before.  We raced to the market to buy strawberries for dessert so as not to show up empty-handed.

For the next four hours, we chatted with Mohammed and Younes about everything – marriage, shop life, food and tea, medicinal herbs they sold, the different regions of Morocco and their languages, the process of purification before prayer, the king and his family, and views on women.  By the time we emerged from our new friends’ shop at dusk, we’d traveled less than a single kilometer from our dar all day.

Breakfast at our dar.

The chameleon that prompted a one-hour chat with Aziz the shopkeeper.

Mohammed and Younes, the shopkeepers we ate lunch.

Getting really excited over our tagine lunch!

Sahnah and I are both obsessed with food – especially of the cheap street variety – but we’d been so busy wandering down alleys, talking for hours, and hanging out with shop-keepers, that we hadn’t actually tried that much food yet.  That became the sole goal of our last evening.  I tried a sort of pita stuffed with a potato and cheese patty, harissa spice, vache qui rit cheese spread, mashed potato, and cumin.  Later, we wandered through the infamous food stalls of the Djemaa el Fna and sat ourselves down at a stall displaying an incredible variety of grilled vegetables and salads.  For fifty cents a plate, we feasted on grilled aubergine, grilled pepper, tomato salad, spinach salad, beetroot salad, and grilled chicken with harissa.  Not only was it delicious, but sitting on a bench in the middle of the smoke and crowds was an atmosphere just like we like it.

My potato pita snack!

The food stalls in the Djemaa el Fna are bustling every night of the year!

The stall we chose.

Fifty cents a plate!

Part II: A Homestay in Taroudant

After three nights in Marrakech, we took a 6-place grand taxi to Taroudant, my “hometown” in Morocco.  We were welcomed with open arms into the home of my Moroccan friend, Hafida (the one who taught me a lot of what I now know about Moroccan food).

Loads of visitors came to meet Hafida’s curious guests, and we became favorites among the neighborhood kids.  Sometimes, we did like the women, who would lie around on the sofas and watch TV after our big, long meals.  The TV, tablets, and phones were out a lot, and I was a bit shocked by this, but Sahnah confirmed that Hafida’s family’s usage was still far less than that of a typical American family.

Other times, we headed onto the street to play games with the kids, who were on school holiday.  I was subjected to loads of Moroccan games and songs, and, even though I couldn’t understand the language, I was able to grasp the concepts because the games were not that dissimilar to those I grew up playing.  Neighbors looked on from windows, intrigued, perhaps, that two adults would play with children.

Sahnah with Atika (left), Hafida (right) and Hafida’s mom.

Playing with the kids outside. The ones on the left and right are Hafida’s.

Cuddling with Titima, Hafida’s cute niece.

On my first evening, I asked to take a shower, and was directed to the forth storey of the home.  We’d hung out on the first and slept on the second, where I’d noticed a shower.  It turned out to not yet be connected.  The third storey, where the boys slept (as well as Hafida’s hundred year-old father-in-law, who had his meals brought to him in bed), was totally unfinished.  On the fourth floor, which was also unfinished, was the rooftop veranda and a hammam.

I was told that the house was being finished floor by floor, as money came in.  This may be common, since my other friend, Atika, had told me workers were currently finishing her family’s second floor with paint and mosaic tiles.

Anyway, in a bucket, I mixed hot water from one tap with cold water from another, then scooped the water over me and washed and scrubbed myself.  It was very enjoyable, and I was looking forward to doing it again the following evening.

But when Atika, came over, I learned that they have neither a hammam nor a shower in their family home, and must go to the public hammam once a week.  Nadia, Hafida’s sister, told me that she goes to her mom or sister’s home for her own once-a-week-wash.  I’d thought those public hammams were for the rare villagers or poor people that didn’t have running water at home; it seemed, in fact, that the lower middle class used them, too.  When Hafida talked about having done her hammam upstairs the previous Sunday with the family, I realized that bathing in Morocco is both a luxury and a rarity.  I certainly didn’t want to be that white girl who needed the hammam every day, so I refrained from hammaming it again.

Produce shopping in Taroundant’s medina with Atika and Hafida’s mom.

Playing chess on the tablet with Hafida’s eldest, Hicham.

Learning how to wrap our heads.

After two days and nights of eating and playing games and lying on sofas, it was time to go – we didn’t want to overstay our welcome.  However, everyone in the family seemed so genuinely sad to see us go – showing us with gifts and heartfelt hugs – that I wished we could have stayed longer.  But we had other plans.

Part III: Tenting it in Southern Morocco

In Sahnah’s backpack, she managed to fit a tent and sleeping bag so that she could camp along with Bruno, me and Totoyaya for eight nights.  Bruno and I wanted to head south, so the plan was that she’d follow us as far as she could and then travel back to Marrakech by bus on her final day.

Sahnah is my first friend to come and camp with Bruno and I – and only the second person since I’ve been with Bruno.  Though Bruno’s niece had the fortune to be visiting us in hot, animal-filled Kenya, Sahnah, ever easy-going, seemed quite happy just to meet Bruno and experience our lifestyle.

Sahnah getting settled in her tent for the first time.

Our campsite at Sidi Ifni.

Our bush campsite in the dunes behind La Plage Blanche.

Cooking dinner outside at our campsite.

Of course, Morocco isn’t the best sample of our regular lifestyle because, at this time of year, campsites are chock-a-block with retirees from Europe and their massive, generic camper vans (like the one my own parents rented for three weeks for their adventure around Morocco).  Bruno and I find it entirely unappealing to camp this way, but Sahnah took the retirement communities in stride.

We drove from Agadir down to Tiznit, where we shopped for fresh produce in the open-air market and ate ‘addis and khoobz at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.  The medina was filled with dust and cars, so after taking a hundred photos of a hundred different doors, we headed for the coast.  Wedged between two motorhomes at the campsite, the three of us escaped to the beach, where we pointed out colorful rocks to one another and observed the Moroccan families out for their Sunday afternoon at the beach.

We’re going on a road trip!!

Checking out the coastal views on our road trip south.

Buying produce in the market.

At Aglou beach, checking out rocks.

Further down the coastline, we admired rocky cliffs encircling the occasional cove or white sand beach.  We picnicked on one of those cliffs – Sahnah making some amazing salad dressings – and walked some more beaches.

In Sidi Ifni, we found a campsite we liked, along the corniche of the town’s beach, so we stayed a couple nights.  Above us, on the top of the cliff, perched the old Spanish city; Sahnah and I went to explore.  We wandered past a ghost-town of ocean-blue paint on whitewashed colonial buildings then stumbled upon the region’s bustling weekly souq.  We did yoga in the campsite, cycled to the town’s distant port, walked along the beach, and ate fish tagine.  With no sights per se, it was nice to slow down and show Sahnah the flow of our daily life.

One of many Cliffside picnics!

View of the beach where we camped from old Sidi Ifni town above.

Sidi Ifni’s weekly souq.

Going for a bike ride along the coast.

Next we headed to Fort Bou Jerif, the ruins of an old French protectorate fort in the middle of the hammada (rock desert).  I’d read that the campsite here would give people a taste of the desert – and it did, just not the type of desert Sahnah had in mind.  Still, we visited the fort, stumbled upon a nearby mini-oasis, and soaked up the solitude and silence.

Walking to Fort Bou Jerif.

Fort Bou Jerif, a French protectorate in the middle of the hammada.

Yoga poses at the mini-oasis.

The following morning, we headed off-road to La Plage Blanche, a 40km-long beach that was used in the time of the French Aeropostale as both a reference point and possible landing strip on the flight from Toulouse to Dakar.  The three of us squeezed up front and bumped along for an entire day on the 50km piste to the beach.  We could have taken the tarmac from Guelmine, I suppose, but we wanted to offer Sahnah an off-road experience.

We bush-camped high over the beach, behind giant sand dunes that gave Sahnah the taste of the desert she’d not gotten the day before.  It was gorgeous, but – as is the case in the desert – totally inhospitable.  It had been windy the last few days, but here it was awful.  We tried parking our vehicle so as to give us a breaker, but the sand started flying under the vehicle.  Bruno blocked the hole with plexi glass, cardboard boxes, and an umbrella.  Sahnah and I were only able to explore the dunes and beach with clothing layered from head-to-toe, headscarves, and sunglasses.  It was totally crazy, but the dunes were mesmerizing, even in a storm.

Fording a river during our 50km off-road drive to La Plage Blanche.

Amazing view, right? Too bad it’s cold enough to make me dress up like an Inuit!!

Our campsite, and our makeshift wind-blocker.  Sahnah’s tent is behind the car, for obvious wind-blocking reasons.

We dropped Sahnah off in Guelmine, the supposed gateway to the Western Sahara, a contested region that most maps invalidate with a dotted line between its northern border and southern Morocco.  In Guelmine, 50% of people are Saharawis, and you could see their long, loose pale blue robes with gold-embroidered borders everywhere.

These same Saharawis inhabit most of Mauritania, where Sahnah and I first traveled over a decade ago.  It was a fitting place, then, for us to bid her farewell.

It was awesome to reconnect with Sahnah after having not seen each other in almost 3 years (and not traveling together in four – wow, does time ever pass quickly!).  I loved getting to re-explore Marrakech, and to introduce her to my Moroccan friends and their family life.

I especially loved getting to share my daily life with Sahnah – a life that is difficult for most people that are dear to me to grasp.  After eight nights tenting it with us in southern Morocco, I think she gets it.

So… who’s next?

I’d wanted to try my first Moroccan meal.  But now that I was walking past cafés filled with men drinking mint tea, food stalls exhibiting animal carcasses, and hole-in-the wall restaurants with giant vats bubbling over charcoal stoves out front, I was having second thoughts.

Finally, my stomach won out over my fear.  I approached a few restaurants, looked inside their vats and platters, found one that looked like American baked beans, and sat down at an empty table.

My anxiety was a thing of the past; my curiosity at the food customs of a new country took over.  I watched others around me dig into their dishes with pieces of bread torn off of saucer-like loaves, then round off their meals with pots of sweet mint tea.  I did the same.  It was delicious.  And fun.  And it cost me $2.

Azemmour, the site of our first Moroccan meal.

Bruno standing in front of the first Moroccan restaurant we chose, where we were able to see inside the vats and tagines and choose our food by sight.

Oh yeah, I love eating food with my hands!

I couldn’t wait to visit another dive restaurant the following day in El Jadida.  This one, tucked in a narrow alley behind the souq, was even more grubby and local than the first; we were the only foreigners, and I the only woman.  On offer were five metal vats containing various stews.  Luckily, three of them were vegetarian – loobia (baked beans), ‘addis (green lentils), and hodra (vegetable stew).

More confident than the day before, I pointed at two stews, washed my hands, and dug into my meal with my khoobz (bread), tearing off one solid, crusty chunk at a time and dipping it, with my right hand, into my stew.  I automatically love any food that requires a utensil other than a fork or spoon.

The local restaurant in El Jadida, with the vats to the left and me washing my hands in the back. I’m the only woman.

‘Addis (lentil stew), hodra (vegetable stew) and khoobz (bread).

Khoobz, these saucer-shaped loaves of bread, are ubiquitous in Morocco, and cheap. They’re the staple food and often used as a utensil.

***

It was only weeks later, during our family reunion in Taroudant, that I got the second instalment of my Moroccan food education.  By this point, I’d tasted a variety of foods – briouat (Moroccan samosas), harira (a fragrant tomato soup containing chickpeas, lentils, rice, and vermicelli noodles), pastilla (mille-feuille pie), bessara (fava bean purée, called foul in many Arab countries); msammen (Moroccan crêpe), and beghrir (Moroccan pancake).

Mmmmm, msammen.

A very funky presentation of pastilla.

With the help of Hafida and Atika, our two Moroccan cooks, I began to deepen my understanding of their complex cuisine.  I was in charge of coordinating our daily menu with them, and each day Hafida would suggest Moroccan dishes.  Each suggestion was a tagine, one of Morocco’s two world-famous dishes (the other being couscous).  I remember thinking to myself that everyone was going to get really sick of such a repetitive menu.

What I slowly realized was that tagine wasn’t just a dish – it was a cooking method.  A tagine is an earthenware pot in which food is cooked.  It consists of two parts: a flat, circular base, and a cone-shaped cover.  Food is layered into the base – spices and onions at the bottom, followed by meat (if there is any), carrots and potatoes (which take longer to cook), and finally, fast-cooking vegetables like zucchini, tomatoes and peas.  The tagine is placed over medium-high heat (traditionally over charcoal, but now also on gas or electric stovetops), covered, and left to its own devices, except to add small quantities of water at frequent intervals.  This is the key of the tagine cooking method: food is cooked both from the heat below and the steam created by the water and kept in by the cone-shaped lid.

There are a plethora of different tagine dishes – chicken with olives and preserved lemon; lamb with prunes, almonds, and sesame seeds; kefta (beef meatballs) with a spicy red sauce; chicken with hard-boiled eggs; vegetables topped with chickpeas and caramelized onions; fish and carrots – so many, in fact, that we weren’t able to try all of Hafida’s meal selections in our two-week stay in Taroudant.

Tagines for sale on the side of the road.

Chicken tagine with boiled eggs, olives, and preserved lemon.

Bruno enjoying a vegetarian tagine.

A tagine of meat and peas.

Not only that, but since each chef uses a different spice mix to flavor the tagine – Hafida’s often used ginger, cumin, salt, and pepper, but some people use saffron, paprika, or coriander – you can try tagine kefta in twenty different places and never eat the same dish.

I really want a tagine in my camper van now.  Too bad they’re breakable.

***

I became friends with Hafida and Atika.  It was inevitable, really, what with my passion for world cuisine.  I watched them layer thin buttery pastry sheets over a spicy vegetable curry to make a vegetarian pastilla.  I asked about the spices that went into their harira.  I even helped stuff and fold briouat.

Learning how to make briouat with Hafida and Atika.

Vegetarian pastilla, yum!

When the family reunion was over, and I’d taken my parents on a tour of eastern Morocco in a rented camper van, I returned to Taroudant and called them.

“Please come to my house for dinner,” said Hafida without a second thought.  “And please come to my parents’ home for dinner, too,” said Atika.

What was meant – in my mind, at least – to be an evening with my two new Moroccan friends turned into thirty hours, a sleepover, and four meals.  What’s more, I was invited back the following week, with my friend, Sahnah, who would be in town from New York.  I knew Sahnah would love the opportunity to meet my friends, taste their food, and experience their family life, because that’s exactly what we’d done a decade before, on our first trip together, to Mauritania.

Hafida lives with her husband and three children in a 4-storey townhouse near Taroundant’s medina.  I’d met the family at our New Year’s Eve dance party; her youngest, Ihsan, was already quite attached to me.  Over the four nights I spent sleeping on cushioned benches placed along the perimeter of her second-floor salon, I got to meet Hafida’s mother, sister, and niece, as well as Atika’s sister, brother, parents, sister-in-law, and nieces.

Me with Hadifa, her mom, and two of her three children.

Spending some time with Atika and her lovely family.

Bite-size pastilla and beautiful briouat prepared by Atika and her sister when we went to their house for dinner.

It was wonderful to foster a friendship with Hafida and Atika that had begun as an uncomfortable employer-employee relationship.  Despite our inability to communicate complex ideas, I learned a lot about Hafida’s family and home life.  It was fascinating to experience firsthand their customs and routines.  A lot of them centered on food.

Breakfast is taken in two stages – a small bowl of plain porridge with ahwa (coffee) upon waking (this was perhaps just for the sake of Saaid, the husband, who left early for his bicycle repair shop), and later, an incredible feast that reminded me of Turkish breakfast.  A variety of spreads – butter, olive oil, jam, honey, and amlou, a divine southern Moroccan spread of almond butter, honey, and argan oil – are laid in miniature dishes in the center of the table.  Around then is fresh khoobz, of course, but also msammen (which I loved immediately), and beghrir (which, because of its spongy, bubbled texture, I didn’t love until I had it served with warmed butter and honey).  Olives and yogurt are available, as is lots of Moroccan tea, but fresh fruit, my own breakfast favorite, is served only for dessert after lunch and dinner.

Beghrir for breakfast! Under the white tagine-shaped bowls are the spreads.

And here are the spreads! The brown one in the back is amlou.

Because of the late breakfast, the timing of the other meals is very different from what I’m used to.  Lunch, the largest meal of the day, is served around 2pm; a light dinner is served anytime after nine.

To make it that long between meals, Moroccans eat an early-evening snack.  I had asked Hafida’s kids which meal they liked best, and it’s no surprise that snack-time was the unanimous favorite, for snacks consist almost entirely of sweet things.  There’s msammen or beghrir doused with honey; French croissants and pain au chocolat; gooey, dripping dates; and a variety of Moroccan pastries, or helwa. 

Bruno and I had definitely caught onto the helwa.  In even the smallest of Moroccan towns are patisseries, bakeries with massive windows displaying a variety of delicate pastries – displays that just beg you to create your own variety pack to-go.  We’d tried almond cookies, anise biscuits, frangipani briouat, honey and almond cigars, chebakia (deep-fried dough with sprinkled sesame seeds), and the lovely and much-loved crescent-moon-shaped cornes de gazelle.

Sugar definitely seems to be a Moroccan staple, as sweet things even find their way into savory meals.  Harira is always served with either dates or chebakia; dried fruits find their way into couscous, caramelized onions into tagine.  There’s even a dinner dish called sfaa that consists of either couscous or vermicelli noodles topped with raisins, crushed peanuts, powdered sugar, and cinnamon.

Tea and sweets for late-evening snack.

Bruno buying a mixed box of helwa.

Sfaa, vermicelli noodles with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

Dried fruit finding its way into a tagine.

And, the sweetest – and most-beloved – thing of all is Moroccan tea.

***

Moroccan tea is such a fascinating topic that I could probably write an entire blog post about it; a little interlude here will have to suffice.  Tea, in Morocco, is drunk as a relaxing, afternoon pastime amongst family and friends; as a way for unemployed men to while away seemingly-infinite hours watching the world go by at roadside cafés; and as a preamble to any important business transactions.

I’ve spent many hours watching people – mostly men, as women only drink tea at home – drink tea.  It is served in metal pots on metal trays with shot-sized glasses; the pots are generally stuffed full of fresh mint.  The man offering the tea will pour a drop into a glass and taste it before adding his desired amount of sugar to the pot.  He will fill a glass and dump it back into the pot, repeating this process a couple more times to melt and mix the sugar before filling all the glasses for his friends.

The key to this ritual is that the man will pour the tea, each time, from astounding heights.  The spouts of the teapots are long and thin so that the tea can be poured into such narrow glasses from distances of at least – and often more than – sixty centimeters.

Depending on who you talk to, this pouring technique serves to aerate the tea, to cool down the liquid, to look cool, or to create foam at the top of the beverage.  Whatever it is, it’s a lot harder than it looks.  I’ve been practicing the technique for three months, and from only thirty centimeters away I still create loads of spray with my wavering hand.

The ritual of pouring mint tea from great heights.

Bruno pouring mint tea. He can’t do it from a very big height.

I’m much better at it, right?

If you’re invited for tea by a Moroccan, it’s always a lengthy affair.  In Marrakech, I learned why.  Sahnah and I had befriended two shop workers after buying some spices and perfumes from them, and they invited us to lunch the following day.  Mohammed noticed my interest in all-things-cuisine and invited me to learn how to prepare tea.

“Sure,” I replied, omitting my inward retort that, at 31 years old, I already know how to prepare tea.  I was wrong.

Moroccans use gunpowder green loose-leaf tea from China.  They place a handful at the bottom of the metal pot, cover them with water, and set that to boil.  Then they dump that liquid in one of the tea glasses, add cold water to the pot, swish that around (to clean the leaves) and throw away the dirty water.  Next, they pour back the dense tea liquid from the tea glass into the pot, add a large handful of fresh mint – stalks and all – then fill the pot to the top with water and set on low heat.  The liquid is now simmered for at least ten minutes, and often seeped for several more.  Sugar is added before serving – and trust me, it’s needed to offset the bitterness.

During my tea observations over the past several months, I had been amazed by the amount of sugar Moroccans will add to their tea.  In Morocco, sugar cubes are giant rectangular prisms, and each prism must equal ten Western sugar cubes.  Most Moroccans add two sugar prisms to pots of tea that can serve three people.  That’s about seven cubes of sugar per tiny cup!

No wonder Moroccans have dubbed their tea “Moroccan whiskey.”

***

I’d read that couscous is the Moroccan equivalent of a Sunday roast – it’s the special weekly meal shared by the family.  I’d never been able to find couscous at a local restaurant because it was only prepared once a week (usually on Friday), and then, it was prepared in one giant batch that always included chicken.

I was perplexed that such a simple thing as couscous would be the special meal in a country that has beautifully-plated, more elaborate, seemingly finer foods.

Hafida and Atika helped me understand.  Preparing the couscous grains requires impeccable timing and strong hands.  First, the uncooked grains are placed in a large basket and massaged with oil.  They are then transferred in the top pot of a couscoussier, a Moroccan double-boiler.  In the bottom pot, the couscous vegetables are boiling away in a spiced tomato broth.  The couscous is steamed for a while, then dumped back into the basket, where it is lubricated with a bit of cool water and massaged by hand to remove any clumps.  (I tried this part and burned the crap out of my hands.  No joke, they were lobster-red.)  The process of steaming and massaging is done three times, requiring over an hour before the texture is perfect.

Couscous being steamed on a double-boiler.

Hafida showing me how to make couscous.

A cook at a random restaurant showing me how to fluff the couscous. One of the rare men I’ve seen prepare it.

Finally, the couscous is plated.  A huge pile of perfectly-cooked grains are dumped in the center of a large platter, and on top are piled the meat and a huge variety of vegetables, such as eggplant, pumpkin, carrot, turnip, zucchini, and cabbage.  There may also be dried fruit, caramelized onions, chickpeas or lima beans.  Broth is served in a bowl on the side and spooned to taste onto one’s portion of couscous.  During our family reunion, we served the couscous family-style onto our own plates and ate it with utensils; Moroccans, however, share it with their hands out of the common platter.

Hafida prepared us couscous in her home.  While she was cooking it, I learned that her 16-year old son, Hicham, knows how to prepare several tagine dishes.  I was impressed – I’d thought the kitchen in Morocco was reserved for women.  Later, when Sahnah and I shared a meal in Marrakech with our new shop worker friends, I found out that Mohammed had gone to the market to pick out all the seasonal produce needed for the tagines he would serve us at lunch.  Since he had to be at work all day, he had brought the ingredients, and his own spice mix, to a shop that would transform them into our meal.  It’s a cheap service that many vendors who can’t go home for lunch use.

Hafida and Atika plating couscous for a special meal during our family reunion.

Couscous during our big family reunion.

Ok, I get it. Couscous is pretty.

It appeared men in Morocco were adept in tagine preparation.  But rarely does a man attempt a couscous.  “No way,” said Hicham, his eyes big, when I asked him if he could make the Moroccan Sunday roast.  “That’s way too hard!”

It appeared couscous, at least, has remained a woman’s duty in Morocco.

***

Not everything about Moroccan food speaks to me.  The cuisine is too bread-, meat-, and sugar-heavy for me, and their street food isn’t as exciting, spicy, or healthy as what you can find in powerhouses like Thailand and India.

But I love the markets piled high with gorgeous, cheap, and supposedly-organic fresh produce.  I love the bean stews, the fresh herbs used on everything, the gooey, almost-burnt onions at the bottom of a tagine.  Despite the sugar, I love washing my meals down with a glass of mint tea.

Most of all, I love what food in Morocco stands for – hospitality, community, and celebration.  As I sat at Hafida’s low roundtable, gathered with her extended family around a platter of lovingly-plated couscous, I felt so welcome, so accepted.  Saaid said Bismillah (“in the name of Allah”), and we all dug our right hands into the platter.  Hafida’s mother nudged some pumpkin into my section of the food.  I scooped it up with my fingers, mashed it with some couscous into a ball in my palm, and popped it into my mouth, smiling inwardly.  That pumpkin – indeed that couscous – was a celebration of a new member in the Nasser family – me.

Enjoying couscous from a common bowl with Hafida’s family.

I know my parents’ time in Morocco has been all over my blog lately, but I can’t help but write just one more post about them.  Perhaps, as their plane soars over the Atlantic, I’m already feeling nostalgic about our trip.  Travel does that to you – it gets under your skin and totally invades your headspace.

I think Morocco had that effect on my dad.

My dad in Morocco with his rented camper van.

When I was growing up, my dad considered Florida an exotic destination.  Only seven years ago, he refused to join my mom in Thailand because it was too far from his comfort zone.  I’d never traveled to such a foreign country with my father – in fact, besides Ecuador, he’d never traveled to such a foreign country.  Most of his travel consisted of business trips and typical North American sea-sand-sun destinations.

And here he was in Morocco, dancing in the center of drum circles on Marrakech’s Djemaa, riding a camel with Berber nomads, and eating tagine with truck drivers at a rest stop.  Here he was joking around with shop-keepers like they were old pals, learning how to wrap a turban around his head, and driving a massive camper van around as though he were on Canadian roads.

The first morning my dad awoke in Morocco, he admitted that he’d experienced intense culture shock the night before while driving into Marrakech’s medina for the first time.  I hadn’t noticed, as he’d been busy joking around with our taxi driver.  If my dad experienced culture shock again throughout his six-week stay in Morocco, he never showed it – what he did do, instead, was note aloud the differences he observed between Morocco and his home country of Canada as a way of making sense of his sense-impressions.

Dad getting his turban tied.

Driving the camper van like a champion (most of the time!).

Dad takes it all in, observes everything, and notes it in his mind – a great way of learning about the world!

Eventually, dad developed a sort of list – a list of differences between Morocco and Canada.  He wrote this list without judgment or disdain, but instead, with enthusiasm and awe for this interesting and exotic culture he was experiencing.  I thought it might be fun to share it here:

My Dad’s List of Interesting Differences Between Morocco and Canada (excluding the obvious ones like language, clothing, religion, etc.)

1. Sharing (very sweet mint) tea before important business is done
2. Chaotic traffic and little regard for traffic lanes or rules
3. Sale of alcohol is limited and when available is often out-of-sight in back rooms
4. Men are huddled together in cafes or other public places – cafés are men-only zones
5. Unrestrained animals (cats and dogs, but also goats and donkeys) in city and countryside
6. Goat, sheep, and camels are watched by a shepherd
7. Medinas, or old towns, with narrow alleys and high walls around the perimeter
8. Souks where begging and high-pressure selling is common
9. Negotiating price of merchandise is an acceptable, and indeed encouraged, transaction method – very few stores have fixed prices
10. Manual labour and antiquated tools and trades are common (leather, pottery, rug-making, agriculture)
11. Animals are used for transportation (mules, donkeys and camels)
12. Women carry heavy loads on heads or backs
13. Babies are held in blankets on women’s backs
14. Education costs money even for elementary schools
15. Turkish toilets (squat toilets) are most common (except in touristy hotels and restaurants)
16. Men walk arm-in-arm and hand-in-hand
17. Public display of affection between sexes are very rare
18. People squat when waiting or passing time or relaxing
19. Greetings are done with complex hand gestures or kissing on cheeks (as well as words)
20. Extended greetings are necessary before asking for a service
21. Dating culture is taboo and parents involved in arranging marriage (though this is changing in some cities)
22. Hammams, or public baths, are still used for many families who don’t have running hot water in their homes
23. Poor dental hygiene, especially among the working class, is common – many children, even of educated families, have rotten baby teeth
24. Police wait at exits and entrances of towns checking traffic
25. Plastic is everywhere and there is little regard where garbage is left
26. Dust and dirt are everywhere
27. Merchants spread watering front of building to keep dust from blowing everywhere
28. Musical instruments are often hand-made and rudimentary
29. Flexible schedules for many things (buses and planes – flight left 20 minutes early in Marrakech and original flight to Morocco from France cancelled) – “Moroccan time” is totally different than real-time
30. Very little wildlife exists in the countryside (other than dirks and birds)
31. Dim lighting inside riads and homes – very few windows, natural light (if any) comes from inner courtyard
32. Ceramic tiles are a prized decorative element in homes
33. Much-loved and well-respected king of the country who enacts many policies and laws

Mom and dad get dressed up like Moroccans in a Marrakech shop.

A sunset on desert dunes at Erg Chebbi.

When I met up with my parents in Marrakech for their final night in Morocco, my dad walked up to us with an air of pure confidence and comfort.  If we hadn’t been surrounded by mosques and Senegalese watch vendors and women wearing the hijab, I’d have placed him in his hometown.

“Back in Marrakech at last,” he announced.  “I feel as though I’ve come home.”  His words echoed his body language.

I could relate to my dad’s feeling of homecoming.  Driving into Marrakech’s medina the first time had felt uncomfortable and disorienting; now, after experiencing and learning all that he had, he was returning to Marrakech as a “seasoned pro” of sorts.

It was amazing for me to watch this evolution in my father.  It was less notable in mom because she and I have traveled a lot together (Thailand and London), so I already know she travels well.  Heck, she also comes from a family of very seasoned travelers (a sister who worked for Frommers and a brother who overlanded his way around North America – no wonder I caught the disease!).  All I could think in Marrakech that night – as dad uttered over and over again how much he loved Morocco and didn’t want to leave – was what his siblings would think if they could see him now!

It was incredibly special to have my parents travel with me in Morocco.  Travel is such a huge part of my life, and to finally share a trip with my dad made me feel like I was giving him a glimpse of what makes me tick.  It strengthened our bond and created lifelong memories that I will cherish forever.  One of the best ones was the surprise of discovering how much travel behoves my dad.  Who knew?

Dad and I sharing a sunset drink on a rooftop terrace in Marrakech’s Djemaa el Fna.

Discussing something or other about Morocco on the top of Ait Ben Haddou.

Our camel ride, like traveling to Morocco, was a wee bit uncomfortable, a lot of fun, and a forever-cherished memory.

Totoyaya and my parents’ rental camper van.

At the end of our ten nights traveling through Morocco by camper van, I sat down to chat about the experience with my parents.  I was interested in knowing about the challenges they faced, how traveling this way might be different than, or advantageous to, traveling in other ways, what they learned from their camper van trial, and whether they’d be willing to travel by camper van again.  What follows is our conversation, as close to verbatim as I could make it without an audio recorder!

Brittany: So, let’s dig right into your experience visiting Morocco in a camper van.  What are some first thoughts that come to mind?

Dad: It’s definitely been an adjustment, a big leap from going from a big house to a small camper van.  The adjustment is compounded by the fact that we didn’t know this particular vehicle, and it hasn’t been equipped in the way it would be if we owned it.  It’s also compounded by the fact that we’re in an unfamiliar country with very different driving conditions.

Mom: Yeah, the small space has been a challenge.  Moving around such a confined space I feel like we’re always getting in each other’s way.  From the outside, the vehicle seems too big, but once inside, it feels way too small!  There are other challenges, like the small water tank that limits our water use, the fact that you can’t plug into plumbing in campsites in Morocco – all that requires more planning.

Dad: It’s true that the daily chores are different in a camper van than in a home.  Your routine involves emptying the grey water and the cassette, filling the water, etc.  But I’m happy to take on those responsibilities.

Mom: And some of the inconveniences we just mentioned are particular to renting a camper van.  If we owned one, we’d organize ourselves differently to make these routines easier.

Britt: Have there been any positive sides to traveling in a camper van?

Dad: Definitely.  When the day is done, I have such a feeling of accomplishment because I’ve managed to live that day without so many luxuries.  The simple life feels good.

Mom: I find the camper van quite comfortable, at least relative to your vehicle [Totoyaya]!  I like the fact that we can cook and eat inside, for instance.

Dad filling the water tank at a gas station.

Mom and I looking at the next day’s plans while we wait for dinner inside their rented camper van.

Dad cooking dinner inside their camper.

Dad: Yeah, it’s nice to have a shower and toilet, too, though I guess we didn’t really use them much.  [Water use limited their shower abilities, and manually emptying the toilet cassette limited their desire to use their toilet.]  It was certainly different to have bathrooms so far away, and less clean than what we’re used to at home.  But adapting to these different routines wasn’t as much effort as I thought.

Mom: It’ll be even easier once we learn to flow through the routine more seamlessly, like you guys.

Britt: Yes, things definitely get easier and faster over time and you learn how to manoeuver around the other person and to time things so that you both don’t need a certain space at the same time.

Dad: Yeah, it’s all about relearning daily activities.

Mom: In the short-term it’s difficult, but I’m sure in the long-term it’s not.

Britt: Now you guys are sounding more positive about the experience!

Mom: Speaking of long-term, though, I wonder what it would feel like to travel like this long-term.  Once the holiday feel of things is done, I wonder if we’d feel lonely.

Dad: We could meet people in the campsites, if you want.

Mom: I guess you meet people from all over, but all travel provides those opportunities.

Britt: I find that the beauty of traveling in a camper van is you are exactly as social as you want to be.  When I traveled by backpack, I often found myself being more social than I necessarily wanted, just by sleeping in dorms or sitting alone at a restaurant… Anyway, let’s talk about some other advantages of traveling in a camper van as opposed to other methods of travel.

Mom: You can put your clothes away, prepare your own meals.

Dad: It’s a mobile “home” so it comes with all the luxuries and advantages of home but you get to move it around!  You can stop and eat on the side of the road, drive down any road, sleep wherever you want.

Prepping the picnic.

Picnic with a view.

A well-chosen picnic spot for four.

Mom: However, I find myself less apt to move around once I’m at a campsite, maybe because the camper van is so big and difficult to manoeuver.  It’d be much easier to travel in a car, I think.

Britt: But then you wouldn’t be able to have the advantages of home that dad just mentioned.  When Bruno and I park at a campsite, we generally move around the area thereafter on foot, by bicycle, or by public transportation.

Dad: Yeah, I think the bikes are key.  We would need bikes.

Mom: Good tip.  We’ve gotten so many of them from you over the past 10 days.

Dad: We’ve been suffused with Britt and Bruno’s wisdom, haha!

Britt: Ha!  What exactly have you learned from us?

Dad: We’ve learned how to make do with what we have, how to prepare yummy food quickly and with less tools and space, how to do view camper van responsibilities with a positive attitude rather than as chores, and the mental space required to live life on the road.

Mom: We’ve learned people skills, like how to deal with locals, vendors, beggars.  And we’ve gotten to see what types of 2^nd nature skills you two have that we would like to learn and develop.

Britt: Like what?

Mom: Like being able to do repairs.  I worry so much that if something goes wrong when we’re on our own, we won’t know what to do.  [They certainly knew what to do without us after their minor car accident, but I didn’t mention that in the discussion.]

Bruno fixing a minor problem in my parents’ camper van because he had the tools and they didn’t.

I’d like to think that mom and dad learned from us to travel slowly and stop frequently to admire the sites.

Britt: Without Bruno and I, would you prefer to travel another way?

Mom: Maybe in a car.

Dad: Yeah, a car is easier, for sure.

Mom: But that’s just because it’s what we know.  We couldn’t sit out at a desert campsite, like what we’re doing right now, in a car.  National parks in the US couldn’t be done as easily in a car, either…

Dad: Plus, it’s far cheaper to travel in a camper van.  If you own it, anyway.

Mom: I don’t necessarily agree.  It depends on the camper van’s size, its fuel economy, whether you can find cheap hotel deals like you can often get in the US.

Britt: I agree with dad, actually.  Can you imagine always having to search for cheap hotel deals?  What if you don’t find them?  Plus, you can lessen your camper van costs by traveling fewer kilometers and doing free camping (wild camping, parking lots) to even out your costs.  By car, you have to eat at restaurants all the time, which is far more expensive than cooking yourself.

Mom: Yeah, I just don’t know yet about living long-term in a camper van.

Britt: Fair enough.  What about you, dad?

Dad: I’m totally looking forward to having a camper van and traveling through North America.  I’m going to do it.  It’s fun, you have freedom, no schedule.  The real beauty is that each day can be different, you’re constantly experiencing something new, how life is elsewhere.  I love it.

Britt: What has been your favorite part of the whole experience?

Dad: Being 2 feet apart from you guys.  Waking up in the camper and getting our little healthy breakfast ready.

Mom: Sharing this experience with my daughter and her hubby.

Dad: I love the feeling of crawling into bed at the end of the evening, tired and satisfied.  I’m definitely more active in a camper van than at home!

Dad really got into his healthy breakfasts in the camper!

Going for a ride in the camper van was a fun way for us all to share in this experience!

Dad taking a nap after our lunchtime picnic and morning of sight-seeing. Camper van life is definitely active!

Britt: So, any final thoughts on traveling by camper van?

Mom: Before, I was curious about traveling in a camper van, but I wasn’t obsessed with the idea like your father.  My curiosity was mixed with concern.  Now, after 10 days it hasn’t been long enough to make an assessment, but the experience definitely hasn’t turned me off.  I’ve enjoyed it, especially because my daughter and her hubby have been here to guide us.  If I did it again, though, I wouldn’t travel with one in another third world country.  There’s enough culture shock as it is without adding the challenges of adjusting to camper van travel.

Britt: So would you travel anywhere else by camper van again, mom?

Mom: Yes, I would.  And I’d recommend the experience to others, and encourage anyone curious about traveling in a camper van to rent one first, because it’s a great way to get a taste of the experience.  But, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing so in Africa if it’s your first time on the continent and you’ll be traveling alone.

Dad: Agreed.  Totally.  Next time, we’re doing to the camper van in North America, unless of course, Britt and Bruno are with us!

Going up the hairpin bends in Dades Gorge.

After this interview, mom and dad headed north for another 9 nights of camper van traveling without their guides.  Their time went by without a hitch, and I’m really proud of them!  I took the opportunity to ask them a few more questions:

Britt: What was it like to travel just the two of you as compared to with Bruno and I?

Dad:  Following is so much easier than leading – we did not have to plan our routing or where we would stay that evening, you mostly handled the meals. We had only to ‘go with the flow’ while we travelled with you guys. One big difference was certainly quieter evenings; playing games with you guys and our spirited discussions were definitely missed. I always enjoy being by ourselves and this time was no different for me but I would prefer an arrangement where we could have re-joined you guys after 3 or 4 days. I think this would be an ideal way to travel alternating time alone with time together.

Mom: I think dad’s idea of meeting up after 3 or 4 days is appealing because I found I was lonely at that point and wanted the company.  Of course that is ‘me’ and not necessarily a need for everyone.  One plus of not following all the time was not needing to have four people in agreement about the plan.

Dad: We tried to pattern our days after your example – short travel times and arriving at our campsite early to have the opportunity to enjoy the day. Dinners were later than at home, generally followed by a game, and then early to bed for me while your mom tried to journal a bit. Evenings would also include setting rough plans for the next day’s events.

Mom: Having a mobile internet setup like the one you have [which includes a 3G modem and a signal booster] would have been helpful in the evenings.  Without it, as was much more challenging to do research, find a location such as the place to fill the propane gas tank, even tending to business items such as banking.  Also when two people in a couple have very different bed times it would come in handy to get some of the above things done during those long evenings.  I didn’t want to only read all the time.

More fun to travel together?

More fun to eat together?

Britt: So it sounds as though, overall, you enjoyed the experience more with us than on your own.  I suppose only time will tell whether that would be a temporary feeling or whether you’d get to like traveling independently.

Dad: It was great to do a small trip like this first, a dress rehearsal, so to speak.  It can provide the opportunity to equip your camper the way you want and also get you ready mentally.

Britt: Great advice for those thinking of traveling by camper van.  Any other tips?

Mom: Make sure to have a few essential tools because there will always be little repairs (bed screw loose causing bed to make noise when driving, difficulty changing propane tank, etc). Having a GPS could also help reduce stress, as we had difficulty navigating a few times without you.

Dad: Travel slowly, do your homework on where to go/what to do and get off the national highways if you are able. Talk to the locals; get their ideas on what to see and do as well as where to eat.  In developing countries, buy things you need when you see them because you never know if you’ll find them later.  Get to the campground early and before dark (this is a must). Don’t try to drive long distances if you can avoid it; allow yourself plenty of time to get to your destination to reduce stress.

Britt: Wow, that was a wealth of helpful tips!  You sure did learn a lot from your three-week camper van adventure in Morocco!

Mom and dad chilling out when we arrived at a our campsite for the day.

Another lovely campsite we could take advantage of because we arrived early!

We’re off on a camper van adventure in Morocco!  Notice the giant bird’s nest on top of the mosque – cool!

Organizing the Adventure

The idea hatched in dad’s mind several months ago.  It’s long been a dream of his to buy a camper van in Canada to travel around his own continent.  When I convinced them to come to Morocco for our family reunion, I invited them to travel a bit longer with Bruno and I – after all, it’s expensive to fly to Morocco from Canada, so once you’re there, you may as well stay awhile.  The idea of four people traveling in Totoyaya, however, didn’t sound feasible to my parents, who require a bit more comfort (and have a bit more luggage) than our tiny four-by-four allows.

Besides, getting to experience firsthand what their daughter’s unconventional nomadic life has been like for over three years is reason enough to consider a camper van adventure in Morocco!

A quick Google search pulled up Zig Zag Camper, a camper van rental company based in Marrakech (and the only such company we found in all of Morocco.)  My parents perused the four camper van models, choosing the medium-model, the MC 4-69 motorhome.  After that, it was a matter of reserving their dates via email, choosing one of two accident insurance plans, and paying a deposit (which they were able to do in person a few weeks before the rental date because they were already in Marrakech).

And just like that, Dad’s idea of trying out the camper van life in Morocco was a reality!

Bruno and I met my parents on the outskirts of Marrakech.  We’d chosen a nice loop through the mountains and into the desert, a route that would allow them to experience the best of Morocco within reach of Marrakech.  That first afternoon, we did groceries, they unpacked and organized their vehicle, and we had our first shared campsite dinner, which I was all-too-excited to get to cook in their massive (relative to mine) kitchen.

Mom unpacking and organizing their rental camper van.

Meanwhile, dad is “staying out of her hair” by helping me prep dinner outside.

Hitting the Road

The next morning marked our official departure.  I knew it would be a long, tiring day, even though the puny 170km didn’t look like much on paper.  I was right – it took us 8 hours to reach our first campsite, partly because the road was narrow, windy, and bad in places, but also because my parents were so excited that they wanted to stop constantly for photos!

It’s true that the scenery that day was beautiful.  We were driving over the Tiz ‘n Tichka mountain pass and the panoramic views were gigantic.  They reminded me of Oman’s spectacular Mussandam Peninsula.

Admiring the view over the Tiz ‘n Tichka pass.

The view.

By early afternoon, we’d reached the site of our first tourist visit – the Telouet Kasbah.  A kasbah is an old fort or citadel where the local leader lived and protected himself against enemies.  The crumbling kasbah in Telouet was built by the much-feared Glaoui Pasha, an Arab man given lordship over Marrakech who eventually amassed so much power from the salt trade that he was able to exile the Moroccan king to Madagascar.  You could see proof of the Glaoui’s wealth in the highly-decorated ceramic-tiled second floor rooms, which required the work of 300 artisans over a period of three years.

We would see a lot of kasbahs over the course of our camper van adventure, for the route we had chosen has been dubbed the “Valley of 1,000 Kasbahs”.  This region of Morocco was along the old caravan route from Timbuktu and Sudan, caravans which brought salt and slaves across the Sahara Desert (the Telouet Kasbah held 1,300 black slaves at its height).  Kasbahs were built along the traders’ routes to provide safe refuge to the caravanserai, or group of people and goods traveling along the caravan routes.

The Telouet Kasbah, with our guide, Mohammed, a descendant of one of the 1,300 black slaves held here.

The decorations inside demonstrate the wealth of the Glaoui.

The view of the surrounding hills.

Taking in the view from the kasbah’s rooftop terrace.

The final stretch of our inaugural camper van day brought us on a very rough stretch road – where there were more potholes and rocks that tarmac – before terminating on one of the prettiest routes I’ve seen in all of Morocco.  Between Anmiter and Tamdaght was a gorge with mud-brick villages that would have been invisible but for the pale pink minarets soaring above the single-storey flat-roofed skyline.  In the bottom of the gorge was a patchwork of fields cultivated by the villagers, who obviously don’t worry about floods.  My parents commented that they’d never been to such a remote-feeling place.

Check out that road! Go, dad!

Amazing village views from the top of a gorge. Best view in Morocco for me.

The end of our first day on the road!

Morocco in the Movies

After camping out next to a dried oued, or riverbed, we all ventured to Aït Ben Haddou, Morocco’s most-filmed village.  Hollywood has got it bad for the town’s ancient ksar, or fortified village, and it has shown up on movies and TV shows like Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia, The Mummy, and Game of Thrones.  My guide book had said the ksar had, as such, been over-restored, but we all found it photogenic, and not at all as touristic as we’d expected.

The four of us crossed the river and weaved up through the narrow mud-walled alleys to the top of the hill.  There stood an agadir, a fortified communal granary.  The view was totally otherworldly, and I could see why Hollywood constantly returned here – the landscape could be Jerusalem, Tibet, the Wild West, or even another planet.

Walking up the narrow mud-brick alleys of Aït Ben Haddou.

The agadir at the top of the hill.

Aït Ben Haddou, from above.

Enjoying a beverage after our walk up the hill. Behind, a very photogenic ksar!

The following day we would get a tour of a Moroccan film studio in Ouarzazate, where we would learn that the same props and scenery could be used for loads of different films without anyone noticing.  We would see famous props up-close and see how fake and amateur they looked off-screen.  And we would visit the set of a very important Game of Thrones scene, the one where Khaleesi trades a dragon for her army of Unsullied.

We wandered back down the charming alleys of Aït Ben Haddou’s ksar, but we kept losing sight of dad.  One after the other, shop owners invited him into their shops for a “free visit,” and dad relished the opportunity to engage them.  He’d done the same the previous day on the Tiz, saying he wouldn’t fall for their selling tactics, and just liked joking around.  I had to laugh when he walked out of one shop with two new, totally useless, souvenirs.  Hey dad, have you used your antique scarf pin yet?

CLA studios, in Ouarzazate.

That rock prop weighed nothing, but we’re totally good actors, right?

Routines and Road Conditions

Dad taking a “free look” which ended in the purchase of two useless items.

Chatting with a rock-sculptor a few days before, on the Tiz.

Routines and Road Conditions

Conscious of dad’s lightening wallet, we hit the road again, stopping later for a roadside picnic.  Those lunches, of salad and bread and cheese, would be taken leisurely in a quiet, flat spot accessible from the main road.  This has always been an integral part of Bruno and my routine, and I think it quickly became a much-beloved part of our group’s daily tradition – a tradition which also encompassed early-morning breakfasts and an early start to the day, and evening dinners inside their camping car followed by guide-book reading and card games.

After lunch, we pulled back onto the main road, our vehicle in front.  My parents’ camper fell behind; we assumed they’d slowed down or stopped to take a few photos.  We waited a few minutes and, when their camper came into view, we continued toward Ouarzazate.

Our first roadside picnic lunch.

And another one.

Dad cooking dinner in the camper van.

Our evening card game.

It was much later that we learned that they’d been in a minor accident.  Many secondary roads in Morocco are narrow (narrower than single-lane roads back home) and lack dividing lines.  When there’s oncoming traffic, it’s necessary for both vehicles to move their right wheels off the tar and onto the gravel.  On this particular stretch, we’d noticed that oncoming vehicles weren’t upholding their end of the bargain, and Bruno’s four tires were often forced off the tar.

It appears my dad was sick of being pushed off the road (it’s admittedly harder for his vehicle to pull back up onto the tar than for our 4WD).  He decided to play chicken with an oncoming vehicle – and he lost.  The other vehicle was already practically falling apart, and Moroccans often drive with the attitude of Incha Allah (that their fate lies in God’s hands), so the other driver thought nothing of crashing into a vehicle twice his size.  He stepped out of the vehicle, put his palm out, and asked my parents for money.  Thankfully my parents held their ground, but I cursed myself for not being there to help them out of such a sticky situation.

No policemen would be called, no official accident report made, and my parents’ car insurance would be useless, though their damage deposit would now be in question.  Thankfully the accident had happened at about 10kmph, so Bruno was able to repair the side-view mirror and dad spent the afternoon rubbing off as many paint smudges as possible.  There was still some minor damage, but things could have been much worse.  (It ended up costing them about $100).

Indeed, driving in Morocco isn’t easy, both because of other drives and the road conditions.  A few days later, while driving down a new divided single-lane road, the tarmac ended abruptly, and a very bumpy gravel piste took its place.  Had we continued on that road, all the screws fixing their bed and drawers in place would have come undone, so we tried driving on the side of the road.  But, between the sand (we were now approaching the desert) and the uncomfortable angle between the road and the roadside, the women felt nervous enough to turn our group around and find an alternate route to the desert.  Such is driving in Morocco.

Fatima and the Skoura Oasis

We spent a night at the edge of the Palmeraie de Skoura, a Unesco-protected oasis of 1,000 palms.  The men were kasbahed-out, so mom and I ventured to the Amridil Kasbah, feature on the back of the Moroccan 50 dirham note, without them.

There we met Fatima, a local woman and descendant of the Kasbah’s original family.  She spent the next three hours with us, teaching us about the kasbah, traditional life, and the palmeraie.  We learned so much from her – that all kasbahs are several stories high, with the animals and kitchen lower down and the living quarters up high; that the empty space in the center of the kasbah was a communication tower between levels; that dried courgettes used for storing rose water helped even the ugliest of women keep their husbands happy; that traditional walls were made by a layer of rock behind densely-packed mud and straw bricks; that the dry squat toilet in the kasbah allowed excrement to drop to the bottom floor, where it was stored until olive flowers bloomed and then used as fertilizer.

Visiting the Amridil Kasbah with mom and Fatima.

The spectacular view from the top of the kasbah.

Learning the uses of various traditional tools, thanks for Fatima, our amazingly knowledgeable and intelligent guide.

Fatima even took us into the palmeraie, where she told us of plants that had medicinal properties, those that replenish the soil, those you can and can’t walk on, those used for fodder, how date trees are fertilized, how olives are processed, and how burning a palm tree combats a deadly palm fungus called Bayoud disease.

Fatima was so interesting, so knowledgeable, so intelligent, and so passionate about her village.  She’s divorced her husband, raises and supports her family alone, and still finds time to work with the Women’s Association in her village, helping to uplift and empower women in her community.  I rarely opt for a guide when I visit a place, but Fatima helped me understand how profound an experience can become with a knowledgeable guide.  I would love to see more female guides in Morocco.

Following Fatima through her village’s palmeraie.

Thank you Fatima for the amazing tour!

Gorges are Gorgeous

The next two days were devoted to two infamous gorges cut into the High Atlas Mountains.  Originally, I’d only planned to bring my parents to one (since both were detours on our way to the desert), but we couldn’t chose which one to visit.  All the locals I asked urged us to see both, that they were different from one another and both worthwhile.  We’re glad we listened.

My parents have always loved driving around pretty places; since these gorges were all about the views, it was a well-liked step in our itinerary.  The road in the Gorge du Dadès takes you up a series of crazy hairpin bends that are listed in the world’s most dangerous roads, but even though mom was incredibly nervous, she admitted later to enjoying Dadès most because of the bends.  I especially loved the rock walls – the red hues were gorgeous, especially near sunset, and the shapes in my favorite section looked like molten lava.  Our campsite offered us a perfect view of these rocks, so we took advantage of the site to climb up hills and then have a dinner at the restaurant, warmed by the chimney fire.

The hairpin bends up to the Dadès Gorge.

Stopping for a breather after those hairpin bends!

Check out that curvy road on the edge of the gorge!

Amazing rock view from our campsite, right?

Sharing Moroccan tagines for dinner, with the fireplace behind fending off the cold.

Unlike the birds’ eye view leading into the Dadès Gorge, the Todgha Gorge offers views from the bottom.  The narrow gorge section itself is longer than the Dadès, but also more touristic.  We dropped one camper off at a campsite in a palmeraie and drove the rest of the gorge in one vehicle.  I loved getting to share impressions of things we were seeing in real time with my parents.  The flora here was more tropical, there were more ksars and palmeraies, and the women wore unique white sheets draped around them like togas.

At the start of the Todgha Gorge, the only view from above.

Toga-like outfits of the women here.

Enjoying the view up front with my parents!

Into the Desert

As we drove further from civilization, I became more and more aware of the subtle differences in dress from one village to the next.  I also became hyper-aware of how little fresh produce there was.  Food was much more basic and scarce here, and I hadn’t anticipated this since I’d been able to find supermarkets and exotic fruits everywhere in Morocco so far.  I hadn’t experienced a food scarcity in over a year, and with four mouths to feed it took a certain amount of creativity to make our salad veggies stretch.

Buying fresh produce along the side of the road.

In a general food shop, stocking up on chocolate!

Morocco’s desert doesn’t look like what most people picture in their minds.  It’s actually not even the Sahara per se – at most, it can be called the gateway to the Sahara.  Instead, Morocco’s desert is a hammada, a desert of rock and stone.

It still has camels, though!  When mom and dad first spotted them along the side of the road, they got pretty excited, and we had to stop the car to do a major photo session.  Even though camels aren’t wild animals, they are pretty shy, and will walk off slowly if you approach.  Mom ogled over their long eyelashes while Bruno explained that Africa’s camels are, in fact, dromedaries because they have a single hump.  You have to go to Mongolia to see the two-humped camels we all associate more with camel-ness.

Yup, these signs are for real!

Mom loving up her first roadside camels.

Attention, risk of getting caught in sand.

We arrived in Merzouga, the final destination of our group camper van tour.  By this point, my parents had decided to extend their two-week camper rental a third week and head north to a few other sites my mom wanted to visit.  Bruno and I couldn’t accompany them because a friend of mine would soon arrive from New York for her own camper van adventure with us.

Dying Days on a Dune

But, Merzouga was the perfect place to end our grand tour, for it is on the edge of the largest erg, or sand dunes, in Morocco.  Here was where the four of us would get our taste of the Sahara.  And, here is where my parents would experience the other side of our lifestyle – the “stay-in-one-place, no-plans-today” lifestyle.  Up until now, our travel and tourism schedule had been pretty packed, the pace had been much faster than what Bruno and I keep.  In Merzouga would be a chance for my parents to experience the mundane, everyday part of camper van life.

And that’s just what we did.  Settled for four nights at the Haven La Chance campsite, we did things like cut our hair, yoga, and give ourselves pedicures, all in view of the fabulous Erg Chebbi dunes. Sometimes we walked around them; other times we climbed a mini-dune and watched the sunset.

Our campsite at the edge of Erg Chebbi.

Mundane activities, like giving free and amazing haircuts.

Yoga by the dunes.

Mom and daughter on the Erg Chebbi dunes.

And of course, father and daughter, too.

And once, we even went on a sunset camel ride in the dunes.  Two friendly, almost-toothless, turbaned Berbers showed up with four frothy-mouthed dromedaries.  We mounted the kneeling camels, then held on tight and shifted our balance back and forth as they stood awkwardly up. Mom giggled, dad sang songs with the Berbers, and we all learned a few new vocabulary words.  We zigzagged around dunes, rather than climbing up and down, and our Berber guides walked beside us, holding the camels’ ropes tightly.

The path we used was well-trodden.  Erg Chebbi is so accessible that camel rides – for sunsets or to overnight desert camps – are incredibly popular.  The camel tracks, at least, were charming additions to the erg – the same can’t be said for all the tracks of footsteps, motorbikes, quad bikes, and 4WD vehicles.  Up on a tall dune, overlooking the erg, I could see nothing but sand in every direction but the one we’d come.  The dune was, in fact, bigger than I’d imagined, but the feeling of solitude and peace that one expects when one ventures into the desert was definitely absent.  The four of us watched the sunset – our penultimate – and were back at our camper vans within thirty minutes.

Our sunset camel ride in the dunes.

Getting up is a balancing act!

Watching the sunset from the top of a dune.

Loved that camel ride!

On the morning of our separation, our two vehicles followed one another for the first 30km or so.  At a T-junction past Rissani, we stopped on the side of the road.  Our vehicle would turn left, and my parents would continue straight.  I gave them last-minute advice and reminders that made me feel like a mother sending her children off to their first day of school.  Bruno and I had taught them what we could – now it would be up to them to navigate the roads, vehicle, campsites, and towns up north.  The four of us had had a camper van adventure to remember – and now the two of them would have one of their own!

What an adventure the four of us had!

It was Bruno that chose Taroudant as the location of our family reunion.  He’d read the bustling trading town was charming and authentic, and he knew the further south one went in Morocco the better the weather would be.  Through Homelidays we found and booked Villa Mandarin, a huge 6-bedroom, 18-sleeper private villa with swimming pool and private staff, near enough to Taroudant but still in the countryside, with birds and donkeys, a view of the Atlas Mountains and the 5-times-a-day call to prayer.

It was the perfect setting for a family reunion.

A view of our private villa from my own private balcony.

The upstairs master suite, which Bruno insisted we take and which I felt a mixture of guilt and total pleasure at such luxury!

Our first sunrise from the master sweet of Villa Mandarin.

Mom and dad were already with Bruno and me when we arrived at Villa Mandarin on Boxing Day.  We’d brought loads of groceries with us from Agadir, and we spent the afternoon organizing the villa and coordinating with our three-person staff, Hafida and Atika, both cooks and cleaners, and Brahim, the gardener.  In two waves, the rest of the family arrived from Marrakech, and with each wave came nods of approval and shrieks of excitement.

Getting Into the Flow of Things

Our family routine set in quickly.  We’d wake and breakfast in trickles, and spend our days engaging in various activities.  We’d do a lot of this:

Petanque, a favorite pastime among French men.

Board games

Life-size chess!

A wee bit of this:

A 7-minute exercise app downloaded by none other than Niko, Lucile’s beau.

Yoga on the balcony.

Cycling around the village.

And oh-so-much of this:

Chillin’ by the pool in the sun.

Lulu being thrown into the pool by none other than Niko. Classic.

Relaxing. There was also a hammam and a massage table in the villa, but I have no photos to prove how we mastered THOSE relaxation techniques!

Often, small groups of people would venture inside the old rampart walls of Taroudant and into its Arab or Berber souqs.  The first afternoon, I guided a group of eight onto Taroudant’s grande place, where we watched Berber musicians play to a group of local men, tried out a bit of bargaining in the souq (Pierrot was particularly good), and sipped on a sunset mint tea.  It was a totally new experience for me to be wandering around with such a large group of people – we certainly got a lot more attention from locals, and we wandered a whole lot more slowly than I’m used to – but it was amazing to be able to show my extended family a glimpse of what Bruno and my life of global wanderings is like.

No matter what everyone was doing, all fourteen of us would congregate at the long outdoor table for lunch, and later, in the dining room for apéro (a French tradition I learned last year) and dinner.  It was at these meals that I learned the incredible value of our cooks, Hafida and Atika.  When Bruno and I had booked Villa Mandarin, we’d not been keen on the idea of having staff.  I’d deluded myself into believing we could cook ourselves for our large family.  Once, on one of our final days in the villa, us women decided to cook a meal for everyone – including Hafida, Atika, and Brahim, as a thank-you of sorts – and it had been an organizational nightmare.  We’d spent the better part of the morning deciding what to make, the afternoon shopping for ingredients, and a solid three hours to prepare our three-course meal.  In the chaos, we’d forgotten to buy bread (the staple at our mainly-French table) and over-spiced the Thai curry.  I can’t even imagine what our family reunion would have been like if we’d had to do this three times a day!

Lunch outside as a big family.

Our first apero in the villa!

Bruno with his brother and father. Only Remy, Bruno’s other brother, is missing.

Yep, we really appreciated our staff.  Every morning, I’d discuss the menu of the day with Hafida.  She’d prepare a list of required ingredients, and Brahim would cycle into town and lug back kilos of fresh produce, even though this was way beyond his job description.  The ladies would clean our rooms in the morning then spend most of the day in the kitchen, preparing amazing three-course meals for us twice a day.  Oh man, did we eat well, and oh man, did our waistlines pay the price.

The extra pounds were totally worth Hafida’s spectacular Moroccan cuisine (for which I will need to devote an entire separate post).  Getting to try such a plethora of perfectly-executed local dishes was not only a luxury, it was a window into Moroccan culture.

Trying to cook a meal for 14 in that kitchen wasn’t easy… how do Hafida and Atika manage it?!?!

One of the many spectacular tagines Hafida and Atika cooked for us.

A Family Field Trip

Amid our ultra-relaxing and ultra-pleasurable routine, the extended family managed to organize a few special activities.  The first was our family field trip to the Tiout Palmeraie.  A palmeraie translates vaguely as oasis in English, but it’s not an oasis like you might think.  Yes, a palmeraie refers to an area of abundant plants in an otherwise arid landscape, caused by a – generally underground – water source.  But, in Morocco, palmeraies are also villages with plots of land on which families grow vegetables by diverting water from rudimentary irrigation channels.  A palmeraie not only has lots of palm and date trees, it also has lots of donkeys, people, and gardens.

The fourteen of us spent a couple hours with a local guide exploring the workings of the palmeraie and learning about its plants.  What I learned, in actuality, was that it’s impossible to learn anything from a guide when you’re with such a big group of family!  Next, we took lunch at a restaurant inside the palmeraie where we all gained an even deeper appreciation for Hafida’s cooking.  Then, we climbed up to a hilltop to get a birds’ eye view of the palmeraie and the distant rocky Atlas Mountains.

Walking in the palmeraie.

Léo sitting on a donkey in the palmeraie, with our local guide watching on.

Some fruit from one of the trees in the palmeraie.

A view from above.

All fourteen of us, in Tiout.

For me, the best part of the day was visiting the Tiout Women’s Argan Cooperative.  The argan tree is a plant endemic to Morocco that grows amazingly well in its hot, arid climate.  Because it can grow in poor soil, the tree is being touted as the solution to desertification.  Its fruit also produces highly nutritious oil for both culinary and cosmetic uses.  It is for this last reason that women’s cooperatives are popping up throughout southern Morocco.  On our transit south to Taroudant, we saw no less than thirty of them on a 200-km section of route.

Producing argan oil is a fascinating, labor-intensive process.  The fruit is composed of an outer peel over a pulp which covers a nut which contains a seed.  Traditionally, goats, who learned to climb to the very top of this prickly tree, ate the fruit and pooped out the seeds, which were picked and sorted by hand before bring pressed into oil.  Nowadays, however, the fruit is most-often collected by women, who remove the peel and pulp then crack open the nuts, all by hand.

Removing the pulp from the argan nut.

Cracking open the nut to remove the seed.

I think this might be the pressing of the seed to get the oil, but I couldn’t hear our guide with our big group. In any case, traditionally this step was done manually with a cool stone press.

At the Women’s Cooperative, we saw all parts of the process of argan oil production, and a few of us even tried our hand at cracking open an argan nut.  It’s really – I mean, really – hard!  You hold the nut in two fingers on a flat slab of rock and hit the nut (watch your fingers!) with a heavy stone in your other hand.  The woman next to me could crack a nut with a single hit – so, every two seconds or so – but I cracked open a grand total of three in about ten minutes.

I’m not sure whose idea it was (though I have a sneaking suspicion it was my dad’s), but in exchange for us signing a song (very, very badly) the local women sang us a traditional Berber chant, complete with drum rhythms.  Mom started to dance with a Moroccan lady and we all clapped along to the rhythm.  That there – the cultural exchange we had with these women that required no common language – was the highlight of the outing.

We’re all trying to crack open argan nuts.

It is NOT easy!

Our New Year’s Celebration

The women’s song was only runner-up to my personal highlight of the family reunion, however.  I’d organized a few secret events to ring in the New Year, the first of which was a giant success and the second of which was a hilarious failure.

The giant success was the traditional musicians we invited to our villa for a private New Year’s Eve concert.  That day, a few of us went to the souq to buy decorations, and our staff garnished our dinner table with flower petals.  Our family decided on a themed dress-up party – each person would wear one detail that didn’t fit with the rest of the outfit.  I wore a skirt as a shirt, others wore socks with flip flops or hangers in their shirts.  Dad, of course, decided to wear nothing but details that didn’t fit – a belt as a tie, long underwear over pants, and underwear over long underwear.

The musicians came with their traditional banjos, reed flutes, and hand drums.  Two very old and ugly women dressed in colorful outfits with dangly mirrored decorations belly-danced.  Hafida’s husband and three children came, and soon enough, we were all up and dancing Berber-style.  Pierrot, who’d rung in 2015 quietly at home with his wife, remarked how this was the way one ought to ring in every new year.

Dad and Léo comparing their underwear-outside-the-pants look.

Our NYE party!

Hafida’s kids dancing away a storm!

Pierrot, the party animal.

The following evening, to celebrate four family birthdays in January – including Micheline’s, which was that very day – I’d organized a big dinner at the best restaurant in Taroudant, Riad Maryam.  Of course, at the time I didn’t know how amazing Hafida’s cooking would be, but it was nice to bring everyone to a traditional riad and to mark Micheline’s special day.  I’d pre-organized the menu, and the owner had added an extra dish to it, to be sure there’d be enough food.  No one ever leaves hungry, he’d prided himself.  You haven’t met my father, replied Bruno.

The owner must have taken Bruno’s retort to heart because he presented enough food to feed us twice and then some.  First came fish soup, a reasonably-sized first course.  Next came eleven different salads on twenty-two plates.  Carrots, beets, fennel, eggplant, potato, zucchini, tomato, all flavoured with fresh herbs and vinaigrette.  Then came two different tagines on five giant tagine platters.

By this point, everyone around me was looking unpleasantly stuffed, but I knew there was still more on its way.  Out came chicken pastilla, a flaky millefeuille pie.  I worried the owner was going to bring out the vegetarian couscous, the dish we had discussed for the vegetarians (none of the tagines were meat-free), but I was infinitely grateful that he forgot it, and simply brought out our dessert, a sweet almond pastilla.  We had to roll almost every single person out of the restaurant, and that after sending more than half the food back uneaten.  Riad Maryam’s owner was right – no one ever leaves his restaurant hungry.

Our New Year’s/Family Birthdays dinner at Riad Maryam.

A tiny fraction of the salad course.

Final Days

Taroudant is the regional capital and has long been the meeting point for the buying and selling of goods for villagers.  On the outskirts of town is a giant weekly souq where everything from livestock to fresh produce is sold.  A bunch of us visited one Sunday morning and it was an awesome cultural experience.  People and goods were everywhere, chaos and dust reigned.  In one section you could buy goats, chickens and donkeys; in another you could eat or drink on rugs inside tents; one section sold cheap Chinese goods, another new and used clothes.

After wandering around taking in the very different atmosphere from any French or Swiss weekend market, we headed with purpose to the food section.  As a group, we bought the things Hafida needed for the day.  I had the master list and knew the prices per kilo, so I sent couples off in various directions to buy items.  They all did splendidly, and I think it was fun for them to haggle with vendors.  Meanwhile, Pierrot, who’s a fresh produce grocer back in France, walked swiftly around, surveying and commenting on the quality of each product for sale.

Taroudant’s Sunday Souq.

Dates galore.

Morning orange juice for 14 people requires a whole lot of oranges!

Mom haggling with the vendor.

That was, unfortunately, the last time we saw Pierrot well.  Since the beginning of the family reunion, illnesses had plagued our group – first my parents, then me, then Bruno and Patrice, and finally, Pierrot and Romane.  My mom and Patrice were particularly ill, but by the end of the trip, Pierrot had it worse – a pneumonia diagnosis and an overnight at the local hospital.

The illness created a cloud over our final days in the villa.  On Bruno’s birthday, so many people were sick and without appetite that the special meal I’d planned and Hafida and Atika had cooked went mostly uneaten.  Thankfully Lucile’s handmade galette des rois saved the day.  Bruno’s birthday is the same day as Epiphany, and in France they have a tradition of eating this cake, which always has a bead hidden inside.  The person who gets the bean in their piece gets to be king for the day.  Micheline had a variation on this tradition whereby two beans (or rings, in our case) would be hidden in the cake, thereby naming a king and a queen, who would then feed each other chocolate mousse blindfolded.

I was named the king and dad was named the queen.  That evening, we had a major chocolate mousse party.

Happy Birthday Bruno, here’s a galette des rois!

The king and queen feed each other chocolate mousse…

Couple by couple, our group size dwindled, and we felt the void.  On our final morning, we were a small group of nine, and the clouds and spatter of rain made me feel glum.  The family reunion had been a lot of organization and hard work for Bruno and me, but it had been amazing.  I was able to introduce my parents to members of the family they hadn’t met yet.  I was able to finally befriend little Léo, whose chants of Tata Britt (Aunt Britt) warmed my heart.  We’d created a meaningful contact with Hafida, Atika, and Brahim that would give us a firsthand experience of Moroccan hospitality.

And best of all, we were able to spend quality time as a family and create an incredible variety of amazing, unforgettable family memories.  That had been the goal when I’d first thought up the idea of having a family reunion in Morocco.  Between the delicious meals, the mix of fun and sun at the villa, and our Moroccan adventures, it’s safe to say our family reunion in Taroudant was a resounding success!

Memories

Love this boy!

Three cheers to our family reunion in Taroudant!

The three of us, having loads of fun in Marrakech!

The Djemaa el Fna, the scene of our greatest amount of Marrakech fun.

The Darker Side of Marrakech

Of course, it wasn’t all innocent fun in the Djemaa el Fna.  We experienced loads of buskers asking for coins before even having performed.  One man, sitting on the ground with a homemade violin, asked dad for a coin, to which he replied that he needed to hear a song first.  The man played – horribly – for twenty-seconds, and when dad gave him a dirham, he insulted him and demanded more.  The Djemaa was full of people trying to squeeze as many dirhams out of us tourists as possible.  We could barely approach a huddle of people before the buskers asked for money, even though no local person seemed to be paying to watch.  I got the feeling that it was the tourists, and not the locals, that sustained the musicians, even though it was the locals that got to witness the greatest amount of entertainment.  I guess that’s what the campsite owner had meant by Marrakech being a tourist factory.

Indeed, it wasn’t just on the Djemaa that I felt like an item going down an assembly line.  Wandering down alleys and through souqs, shop-owners announced to us, one after the other, that looking is free before conducting hard sales with my unknowing parents.  Men standing outside restaurants and hammams shoved fliers into our hands; henna-tattoo artists followed us around with photo albums of their art on offer; calèche drivers harassed us for rides; little boys tried to trick us into employing them as our guides.

So much to buy in so many shops means that tourists cannot walk the streets of Marrakech in peace.

One of the few streets where there were no shops, thus no people, thus no touts. Phew!

Amazingly we weren’t – and never have been – given the carpet hard-sell. That’s actually quite something!

Even though Marrakech’s onslaught was beginning to wear me down, I tried to keep a positive attitude about it.  I had expected this, and in many ways, the touts hadn’t been nearly as bad or as frequent as I’d envisioned.

A Tout in the Tanneries

It was only on day three, as we wandered around the souqs, that something happened to thoroughly sour my mood.  Random men, one at a time, came up to us to tell us there was a special event happening in the tanneries, the area of town where leather is made.  Without even being conscious of it, our random wandering became directed.  One man, who was headed to his nearby shop, offered to show us the way to the tanneries, and even though we initially declined his offer, his laissez-faire attitude convinced us he really was just a local trying to help out.

When we arrived at the tanneries, my parents were whisked away by another man to visit them while my vegetarian self stood outside sniffing fresh mint to stave off the horrible smell.  Even though a guided tour like this isn’t usually my style, I felt happy my parents were being shown an area of town by someone who could explain things to them.  Indeed, on this tour they learned about the various products used in the leather-making process (from bird dropping to donkey pee) and to distinguish between Arab babouches and Berber ones.

Leather skins drying outside the tanneries.

Leather skins drying outside the tanneries.

I don’t know how the tanners do it all day every day.

Nor do I know how mom and dad managed it… oh, that smell!

At one point, I was told that my parents were in a leather cooperative, so I had to walk past the dye vats and animal hairs strewn on the ground to get to them.  When I found them, my father was trying on a leather money pouch, and I feared I’d arrived too late to help him negotiate a fair price.  Thankfully, when the man quoted $80 for the thing, dad laughed, handed back the pouch, and we left.

Outside, however, the “tour guide” was waiting for us.  He asked for a little something for his efforts, and when dad handed him a ten dirham coin, an amount that is fair in Morocco for the twenty minutes he’d spent with them, the man demanded 100 dirham, or about $14, “for the workers.”  His tone, body language, and insulting demand made something in me snap – Marrakech had finally become too much for me to handle – and I told the guide what I thought of his demand.  Dad, feeling unsure, doubled his initial offer to the guide, which means the guide’s pressure tactics worked.

As I skulked off, I realized that this whole tannery-tour had been one big, complex tout to get us to hand over money.  We’d been funnelled, by a network of men, from the edge of the souq to the tannery, and handed off from one man to the next like a relay-race baton.  We’d been brought through the assembly line, churned up, and spat back out at the leather shop.  And I, who’s usually wise to the wily ways of tourist touts, had fallen for it.  The tannery tout should be in the guide books, it’s that good.

Years ago, a lot of Morocco had been like this tannery funnel.  All over the country, tourists were touted and harassed by locals trying to make a buck.  A few years ago, after tourism dropped off, the brigade touristique was created to crack down on this problem.  Tourism, see, is a massive piece of Morocco’s economic puzzle.  The brigade touristique, or tourist police, began to arrest locals they’d spotted merely speaking with a tourist.  The harassment problem ended quickly, tourists started coming back, and, according to Bruno, Morocco is now a much more relaxed country to visit.

I should have threatened the brigade touristique on our tannery tour guide.  His pressure tactics would have stopped immediately.

An Invitation to Couscous

Just when I was getting ready to ready to write off the people of Marrakech as only interested in our wallets, the city surprised me.  We’d just finished dining in a wonderful rooftop restaurant off the Djemaa, recommended to us by the owner of our riad.  The food had been delicious (tangia – a crock-pot stew of seasoned lamb slow-cooked in the fire of a hammam, and a Marrakech speciality – for my parents, and briouat – Moroccan samosas – for me), and we had been serenaded by two very talented classical Arab musicians (a nice contrast to most restaurants’ American radio music or live belly dancing, which isn’t even Moroccan).

Looking down at a pedestrian street off the Djemaa from our rooftop restaurant.

Us with our host, Ibrahim, and the classical Arab musicians, with the chefs in the background. Dad is, of course, being the goof.

After praising the musicians and cooks, the host led us to the door, encouraging us to come again, that we were no longer clients but family.  I joked that we would come back the following day to share couscous, then, which is the all-important, once-a-week dish shared by the extended family from a common bowl.

“Of course,” the host replied.  “You would be most welcome.  Come to my home tomorrow for couscous.”

My parents and I laughed him off, but as he walked us down the many sets of stairs, Ibrahim remained persistent.  His offer was typical of true Muslims, who are infinitely hospitable, generous beyond words, and whose very religion requires that they offer room and board for three days to any traveler.  The offer spurred an excellent conversation with Ibrahim about the true, peaceful nature of Islam, a conversation that continued between my parents and I the next day as we sat watching the sun set behind the Koutoubia Mosque over Djemaa el Fna and listening to the muezzins reverberate throughout the city.

Despite the intensity of Marrakech, our brief encounter with Ibrahim had afforded us one of those quiet, philosophical moments that are the very crux of why I travel: to understand that, despite palpable cultural differences, if you peel away our outer layers, you find that we’re not so dissimilar after all.  Ibrahim, like our riad, provided a true haven in the heart of Marrakech.

The sun sets over the Koutoubia Mosque and the Djemaa el Fna.

My parents and I engage in a wonderful discussion about Islam as we sit at a rooftop terrace over the Djemaa.

Christmas in Agadir

We departed Marrakech on a bus to the ultra-modern coastal city of Agadir to meet up with Bruno and spend Christmas together.  I hadn’t spent Christmas with my parents in five years, they’d never spent a Christmas outside of North America, and it was the first they’d spend with Bruno.

I personally find it difficult to recreate a traditional Christmas abroad, and I’ll admit that, in the last few years, I’ve stopped trying.  Christmas, to me, means snow and huge family dinners and fires in the fire place and Christmas music.  It essence, it’s about being with my family.  Since I have never have my family abroad with me (except for Bruno, but he doesn’t do Christmas), I’ve stopped caring about Christmas.

Christmas is, however, very important to my mom.  And I could see her initial disappointment in Agadir after Marrakech – our riad wasn’t nearly as nice, we were in a big modern city that didn’t have nearly as much personality as Marrakech, and we were far away from the beach.  By the time we were settled in and showered, it was late on Christmas Eve and all we could do was have dinner at a pizza restaurant nearby.  Thank goodness Bruno had downloaded a few of mom’s favorite children’s Christmas shows.

Christmas Day, however, turned out fabulously.  Over breakfast in the hotel, mom and dad had Bruno and I open a stocking full of little gifts they’d painstakingly flown-over from Canada.  Then they went to the nearby hammam for a two-hour couple’s hammam and massage that Bruno and I had organized as a gift to them.  During that time, I raced over to a nearby supermarket and purchased foodstuffs so that I could prepare a picnic for the four of us on the hotel’s rooftop terrace.

Christmas Eve dinner, olives and pizza… Well, it’s unique, anyway!

Bruno and I opening our Christmas stocking, the first ever for Bruno!

Christmas breakfast in Agadir!

Mom and dad in front of the hammam, just prior to their Moroccan bath and massage experience!

When mom and dad returned, looking oily and infinitely relaxed, from their hammam experience, we sat in the warm Moroccan sun and ate a huge salad, cheese, bread, boiled eggs, and a rotisserie chicken, with freshly-squeezed orange juice, strawberries, and chocolate for dessert.  Christmas music rang out from my tiny Ipod speakers.

After lunch, we headed by taxi to Agadir’s beach.  We spent the next three hours walking with our toes in the ocean, sitting on the sand, and people-watching.  We saw a lot of local women with uncovered heads, legs, and shoulders, and we even saw lots of public displays of affection, which led me to understand that Agadir is a modern town in more ways than one.

Once the sun had set over the ocean, the four of us walked along the modern corniche with an ice-cream and then headed to a nice restaurant for our Christmas dinner.  We’d spent a lovely day outside and we’d gotten to Skype with both sides of our families, so I’d say our Christmas in Morocco, both the Marrakech lead-up and the actual day itself, was a wonderful Christmas, indeed!

Me prepping our rooftop terrace lunchtime picnic.

Walking along the long sandy Agadir beach on Christmas afternoon with my parents!!

Gazing out at the sun over the Atlantic Ocean. On the other side of that ocean is where mom and dad usually spend their Christmasses.

Christmas dinner in Agadir!

Bruno and I had gathered a lot of very strong opinions on Marrakech during our drive down the Moroccan Atlantic Coast, and this phrase, uttered by a local campsite owner, about sums them all up.  Not a single person we spoke with had anything positive to say about Marrakech.

So why was I on a four-hour-which-turned-into-a-seven-hour bus ride to the city which churns up tourists before spitting them back out?

I was picking up my parents for our Christmas in Morocco, that’s why!

Christmas in Morocco!

I was positively giddy to be welcoming my parents to Morocco.  It would be my parents’ first time in Africa, and my first time traveling to a developing country with my dad (if you don’t count our holiday at a Mexican resort when I was fifteen, that is).  I couldn’t wait to witness dad’s culture shock and to help both parents begin to navigate all things Moroccan, even if it was in Morocco’s very own tourist-factory town.

Our Moroccan Riad

I arrived first at the riad my mom had booked for us in the heart of Marrakech’s medina.  A riad is a traditional Moroccan house, often several stories high and with narrow rectangular rooms, and, essentially, an inner courtyard.  Riads were once popular because the inner courtyard (or garden) allowed families to have a quiet and cool private space in medinas that were typically very densely-packed, a country that was generally oppressively hot, and a culture that valued the privacy of women.

Nowadays, dilapidated riads are being renovated as guesthouses; ours, Riad Signature, was no exception.  A few years ago, a Frenchman purchased this crumbling traditional home and spent the next two years painstakingly renovating it.  I’d recently finished reading A House in Fez, a book about an Australian couple’s experience of renovating a riad in another Moroccan city, and their tales of bureaucratic challenges, the Moroccan work ethic, and pains modernizing an old home made me wonder if any riad-renovation project wasn’t foolhardy.

It’s a good thing Riad Signature is as beautiful and comfortable now as it is.

The courtyard of Riad Signature.

The Marrakech skyline from our riad’s rooftop terrace.

When I’d arrived in Marrakech and hailed down a petit taxi, the local taxies that can ferry up to three passengers short distances within a city, the taxi driver had told me he couldn’t bring me all the way to my riad.  The medina is too small for taxis, he’d told me.  I was prepared for this – it’s a common taxi ploy in Marrakech.  That’s too bad, I’d replied.  I was looking for a taxi to pick up my parents at the airport later, but I need one that can take them all the way in.  They have luggage, you see.

Well, that changed the taxi driver’s tune immediately.  He not only brought my down the narrow lane that, a moment ago, he’d refused to drive down, but he ferried me directly to my riad, which, situated at the dead end of a tiny alley and without a sign, I never would have located otherwise.

The front door to our riad, without a sign.

The dead-end alley of our riad.

So, I’d found my ride to the airport that night, where I picked up my parents and whisked them through the medina to our little riad haven.  Dad chatted and joked with the taxi driver in a mixture of French and English that he’d use throughout his time in Morocco and that would make any Acadian proud.  Inwardly, however, he was experiencing immediate culture shock at the tiny, dirty, alleys and seemingly-primitive way people lived.  Mom, sitting beside me, was simply glowing giddily.

Into the Souqs

The next morning, after a wonderful typically-Moroccan breakfast of msammen (Moroccan crepes) and baguette with honey, jam, cheese, and butter, freshly squeezed orange juice, and tea and coffee, the three of us ventured out into Marrakech’s medina.  I’d already discovered the pleasures of wandering aimlessly through Morocco’s mazes of medina alleyways, so I watched my parents ogle the sights that lay before them as we made our way past shops and souqs and narrow streets.  Men sat drinking tea and playing chess.  Spices, olives, and dried fruit, all piled high, sat out in the dusty streets; shopkeepers dribbled water onto the roads to keep down the dust.  Donkey carts filled with goods squeezed past us, as did the speedy motorbikes that kept us always on our toes.  My parents’ eyes looked filled with wonder at everyday life in Marrakech’s medina, so much so that mom almost ran into a huge carcass of meat hanging over the side of the road.

I’m demonstrating the pouring of Morccan mint tea at breakfast at the riad.

My parents, adventuring into the medina of Marrakech.

Watch out for the motorbike!

And the donkey!!

My parents soon got their first lesson in bargaining in the babouche souq, a souq filled with almost nothing but traditional leather slippers of every color and design.  As we passed the bright displays, shop owners called at us to visit their shops and shouted the standard price of fifty dirhams, or $7, for a pair of “handmade” babouches.  As we explored, I explained to my parents that bargaining is a way of life for Moroccan locals, and that it must be such for tourists, too, uncomfortable though it may feel.  I’d heard from several sources that tourists should never pay more than a third of the price initially quoted by a shop-owner, and though that had sounded like a large difference, I quickly learned that in Marrakech’s souqs, it was a conservative estimate.

In the babouche souq.

Babouches everywhere!

We approached a stall displaying wooden puzzles of desert scenes and I saw mom’s eye linger.  The shop-keeper saw her lingering eye, too.    Tell me what you want to buy, but let me do the bargaining, I’d told mom earlier, unwilling to let my parents become two more ripped-off tourists in Marrakech’s souqs.  So when the shop-keeper announced his opening price of 150 dirhams (about $20), I couldn’t help but take over:

“That’s your tourist price,” I smile.  “Give me your Moroccan price.”

“100 dirhams,” he replies without skipping a beat.

“Hmm… that’s still really expensive.  What’s your last price?  I mean, your lowest, lowest price?”

“How many do you want?  Two?  Three?”

“Just one.”

Pause.  “80 dirhams, for you,” he replies with a smile.  He’s almost cut his price in half, but I’m done yet.

“Sir, I think we’re going to keep walking around.  Maybe visit a few more puzzle shops.”

“That means you’re not coming back, doesn’t it?

“It just means we’re going to shop around, get an idea of price.”

“Ok, 60 dirhams and you take it now.”

“30.”

“50.”

“40.”

“45.”

“Deal.”  And the puzzle is ours, for less than a third of the initial price.

“How many do you want?” continues the shop-keeper.  “Two?  Three?”

“If you want to give me two for 45 dirhams, I’m fine with that,” I laugh.

He looks at my mother.  “This woman could put me out of business!”  And he hands us one puzzle.

My mom seemed a bit uncomfortable about this encounter, like we’d ripped him off or something.  The price just seemed too far from what he’d initially quoted.  If the man sold me the item, I assured her, it meant he’s ok with the price.  The entire interaction had happened with smiles on our faces.  It’s all a good-natured part of the Moroccan purchasing process.

It was a lesson my parents would have many opportunities to practice during their weeks in Morocco.

A Palace, a Tomb, and a Medersa

Over the course of Morocco’s fascinating history, Marrakech was often a strategic city along the caravan routes from Sudan.  As such, there are a few sites of historical importance that my mom and I really wanted to see.  We dragged dad to the Bahia Palace, a giant riad-style palace built in the 19^th century, and a great example of traditional Moroccan design.  Ceramic tiles (called zellij) adorn the floors and walls; the doorways and ceiling trim are elaborately carved; and ceilings are intricately painted with geometric floral designs.  In typical Moroccan fashion, the palace doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside you enter a maze of long, rectangular rooms whose windows and doors face inwards, to the inner courtyards and gardens.  Important ruling families, warlords, and even French generals lived here over the past 200 years, and it was interesting to picture their lives, tucked away from the bustle of the medina.

Mom and I at the Bahia Palace.

One of the many intricately-decorated ceiling of the Bahia Palace.

Later, we stopped by the Saadian Tombs, a 16^th century cemetery for the ruling Saadian family.  There are tons of tombs, and a few mausoleums demonstrating Moroccan ceramics and carvings, but we passed through quickly, rather unmoved.  I suppose a guided tour could have improved the experience because, as is typical with sites in Morocco, there are few signs describing what you’re viewing.

Of the three architectural sites we visited, I found the Ali Ben Youssef Medersa most interesting.  A medersa (“madrasa” in other Muslim countries) is a Koranic school, and this one, built 600 years ago, was once one of the most important in all of North Africa.  The same types of zellij, carvings, and painted doors and ceilings exist here as in the Bahia Palace, but what I found more interesting was the plain and stark dormitories for the 900+ students at a time that received religious and legal education here.

Just outside the medersa, or Koranic school.

Mom admiring the Ali Ben Youssef Medersa.

Dad, admiring the same, but from above.

My parents aren’t the only ones admiring the medersa.

The Djemaa el Fna

None of the architectural sites we visited held a candle to the Djemaa el Fna, however.  Djemaa means “Friday mosque,” the most important day of the week to pray in a mosque, but that’s just a Muslim way of expressing the real meaning of the term, namely a “congregation” or a “gathering.”  In Marrakech, the Djemaa is the ultimate gathering, for it refers to the Central Square and beating-heart of the city’s medina.

On our first evening, we ventured to the Djemaa around sunset to witness halqa, the street theater that has been performed here for the past thousand years.  During the day there are snake charmers, colorfully-dressed water-sellers clanging brass cups together, and self-claimed “dentists” displaying their curriculum vitae of pulled-teeth.  Once the sun sets, it’s the musicians, dancers, meat-grillers, astrologists, storytellers, potion-sellers, and cross-dressing belly-dancers that take over the square, strumming and pounding and shouting into the wee hours of the night.

A bird’s eye view of the Djemaa el Fna, or central square, of Marrakech.

A water-seller, taking a break.

A potion-seller in the Djemaa.

Dad took off at his typical breakneck speed, eager to see it all at once, but mom and I strolled slowly along, stopping whenever we saw a group of people huddled around a few musicians.  The musicians play for coins, of course, and we were quickly initiated into this ritual.  A group of Arab musicians played a tune that had everyone laughing hysterically then passed the hat around.  Of course, they asked us tourists for money.  I gave them a dirham, about $0.15, which my guide book had said was about right.  The man looked at my measly coin, announced to everyone that the tourist had given him an entire dirham, and then proceeded to jokingly curse me – May you never eat again, sleep again, or go to the toilet ever again!

The Arab storyteller who insulted me when I only gave him a dirham.

By the light of an oil lamp on the Djemaa el Fna, buskers have weaved their stories and songs for almost a thousand years. Well, maybe they didn’t always have oil lamps…

Later, we stopped in front of a lively group of Berber musicians, the other main ethnic group in Morocco.  We were offered benches to sit on and super-sweet mint tea passed around in the same glass (Mom refused it), and then we witnessed what my parents quite accurately described as a tintamarre, an Acadian party involving convivial marching through streets with makeshift instruments making as much noise, or clangour, as humanly possible.  Dad got up and danced in front of everyone, then one of the musicians grabbed his water bottle, pretended to drink it and to get very, very drunk on its contents.  We stayed longer here, gave a few extra dirham, and left without being cursed.

The Berber musicians on the Djemaa.

A Berber banjo.

The Djemaa became our evening entertainment, and we returned unhesitatingly the following night.  This time, we wandered through La Place, the hundred or so food stands arranged in the center of the square.  The stalls are numbered rather than named, and since they all sell almost the same thing, the way they differentiate themselves is by creating catch-phrases, which they wield in English at every passing person.  Number 87 takes you to heaven.  94 will serve you more.  Walking through the stalls felt like spinning through a factory assembly line, and, upon emerging, I took a deep breath of [semi] fresh air.  Dad, however, stayed inside a long time, coming up with his own catch-phrases and making up fake excuses about already having promised to eat at number 25’s stall.  It was almost as if dad had been Moroccan in his past life.

Dad testing out a new repertoire of jokes with the meat-grillers at La Place.

Stall #3, one of the few not offering straight-up meat. Instead, some kind of weird seashell soup.

Grill smoke everywhere. But it’s a pretty popular eating area, even amongst the locals.

Of course, as with all things, Marrakech wasn’t all innocent fun and positive experiences – there was a healthy dose of touting, begging, and general harassment, too.  But you’ll have to wait until Part II of this story to find out about the dark side of Marrakech!