Way to HK - Morocco Part 2

24 Mar 2017 . category: Travel . Comments
#WayToHK

Days 2 + 3: Into the Desert

Day 2: The Tour Begins

We were met at the delightfully early time of 7:30AM for our tour, and piled into a minibus of sorts joined by five Spanish-speaking girls who seemed way too amped up for 7 in the morning. They proceeded to almost immediately give our driver some white pill…so perhaps that had something to do with it. After a couple minutes, we pulled over at the side of the road and were told to move to a more legit-looking tour bus which sat around 15 people. Evidently our first vehicle was only for transporting us from the hostel to here. We and the Spanish girls were also sadly heading to separate tours, though I can’t say I was too torn-up about that. And the people on our actual tour were really wonderful, more about them later. This general confusion about what was happening stuck around for the next couple days, as most of us on the tour only had a tenuous memory of the itinerary.

To be honest, the various stops we made along the way to the desert were not super remarkable, and given my general state of exhaustion over the next couple of days, my memory of them is a bit hazy. I’ll try to describe the highlights here though. We first drove out of Marrakech into the High Atlas mountains, and then to Ait Benhaddou, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a still-standing straw-clay old city from the days of the Saharan caravan route to Marrakech. It’s also weirdly where a bunch of movies like Gladiator as well as scenes from Game of Thrones were shot. Here’s a fake gate that was built for one of the movies there (I sadly don’t remember which):

And an actual shot of the town:

In the afternon, we stopped for lunch at place that was obviously kept in business by tour companies, which we suspect were given kickbacks for stopping there. The meals were about $10, which though not a lot by US standards, was still two or three times the price of simple places right on the main square in Marrakech. Certainly the money wasn’t being spent on the food, as this was by far the worst meal I had in my entire time in Morocco. Purportedly a “vegetable tangine,” it was basically steamed vegetables over a watery soup with hints of flavor.

We ended the day in the Dades Valley, I think in the city of Skoura. I was a bit apprehensive about the hotel, as we saw some scary reviews on Tripadvisor about bugs, lack of heat or hot water, etc. But it was actually really nice with clean beds, heat, and hot water! Apparently the King of Morocco had actually stayed at the resort some years ago. There was even a disco club or something that some folks checked out after dinner. Apparently it wasn’t that great: few people, some creepy drunk locals, and unnecessarily loud music.

Meeting Great People

Dinner was at the hotel, where we had a wide-ranging conversation about everything from past trips to drug legalization to gun control with some of the other members of our tour. One advantage I didn’t mention in my post about travel philosophy is how interesting many of the people who are visiting these places are. Just on in our group there was:

• A Japanese man who, despite speaking only Japanese and extremely broken English, was on a three month around-the-world journey: Japan -> NYC -> several South American countries -> Europe -> Morocco -> Cairo -> Namibia -> Japan (I’m sure I’ve forgotten some).
• A Spanish woman and Irish man who had met, lived in France for awhile, traveled for a year around the world, and were now continuing their travels while based in Ireland.
• A young man from Germany who had worked odd jobs in Australia for a year while making his way around the island.
• A younger couple who, after leaving Morocco, were going to walk the Camino de Santiago for several weeks. Not for any religious reason, but for the adventure. An older German lady on the tour had also done it before.

We spent quite awhile discussing recent political trends in the US and Europe, i.e. Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, etc. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we were generally in agreement regarding the wisdom, or rather lack thereof, of these choices. And sure, the group was overall on the younger side and college-educated. But as we talked over the next couple days, I came to believe that there is some sort of relationship here. It’s not clear to me which direction is stronger: do folks who are less fearful of foreigners travel to places like this? Or does repeated contact with the foreign and unknown cause one to reject the blend of populism and nativism that is currently sweeping across the Western world? I imagine the answer is probably both, and the latter is just one more great reason to travel!

On the subject of travel, someone on the tour had a great thought which I’ll reproduce here. Living in Mexico close to Cancun, he saw waves and waves of American tourists who showed up for the drunken revelry of spring break. You know, those silly people who want to go to the beach instead of driving around Iceland or doing a pub crawl in Pyongyang. In his mind, that sort of vacation doesn’t really count as traveling. For him, traveling is not about merrily drinking and eating, but rather pushing yourself toward people and situations with which you are uncomfortable.

As an aside, this same young man contrasted just how well American tourists are treated in Mexico with the current attitudes in the US. It was really saddening to hear that he felt actively loathed and unwelcome in my country. Of course, I know that America is not universally loved, especially these days. But, aside from propaganda in North Korea, I think this is really the first time I’ve had such sentiments directly expressed toward me. And in this case, I think the sentiment is unfortunately warranted.

Day 3: Gorges and Carpets

Sadly, the time difference had finally gotten to me, and I just couldn’t sleep the evening in the hotel, probably due to too much napping on the bus. I instead started reading Ready Player One and ended up just finishing the book. This was perhaps unwise, but it was really good! And once I got about halfway through, I decided to just give up on sleep and finish. Would enthusiastically recommend. Anyway, I was not in the best shape in the morning, but thankfully there was plenty of time to sleep on the bus before our arrival at the Dades Gorges which, while beautiful, were basically a less-compelling version of the Zion Narrows.

Again, my memory isn’t perfect for this day, but I believe we then ended up at a “carpet cooperative” where we were pitched carpets made by the group’s women. The whole presentation was a bit odd, with a woman behind a loom in one corner of the room. She would do various things as the (male) presenter mentioned them, but otherwise just sort of sat there. It somehow felt like she was a zoo animal or something, definitely rather awkward. The presenter himself was quite the personality. He kept saying funny things like “happy wife happy life,” to emphasize his friendliness I guess? And also he claimed that he, unlike those untrustworthy salesmen in Marrakech, was selling us good quality carpets for a good price in a non-pushy manner. Unfortunately, his repeated insistence sort of undercut that message… Here’s him on the left:

As part of the presentation, we also learned that the Moroccan government apparently had provided these previously nomadic peoples with some sort of help such that they could now live in the village where they had access to public services like schools and hospitals. But, some of the families still chose to live in the traditional manner for something like half the year.

From here, it was a straight shot to Merzouga, the jumping off point for the camel trekking experience, which will be the subject of the next post.

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