A Walking Dollar Sign, Shitting Liquid Pain
October 27 - November 6, 2015
Because Mazz is a scientist, she is able to apply for conferences around the world in her field, and her work will pay for her plane tickets and hotel room. Kirb gets to tag along sometimes, and is openly encouraged to do so by Mazz's boss. In November of 2015 there was a renewable energy conference in Morocco, a place that seemed like you simply couldn't say no to visiting if you had the chance. The conference was being held in Marrakech, so we added a week of travel time before the conference began to check out the Moroccan countryside.
Marrakech is a labyrinthine city, with miles of winding alleyways filled with merchants and shops. We stayed at the Marrakech Hostel Rouge in the medina, blocks away from the bustling square at its heart called the Fna'a. We were welcomed warmly by the hosts at the hostel, and were served mint tea and cookies as we sat with them and chatted. The hostel had a traditional Moroccan "riad" layout, with an open interior courtyard for socializing and vibrantly colored tile work and fabrics in every room.
Our first night in the medina we walked through the food market looking for someplace to eat. We were swarmed by guys with menus, sometimes 5 at a time, trying to drag us to their stalls, promising that their food would not give us diarrhea (this was a big selling point for them). We finally chose a place that seemed to have a large crowd of both tourists and locals. The waiter was very persuasive about upselling us, and finally we agreed to a mixed seafood dish, some couscous, and an eggplant salad for the two of us to share. The waiter soon brought out enough plates to completely cover the table in front of us, with several salads, fries, and other items we didn't order, as well as two of everything we thought we ordered one of. It was far more food than we could possibly eat, and we ended up giving a German guy sitting next to us all his fill as well since we couldn't finish half of what we got. Though we had attempted to order 100 Dirham worth of food (about $10), when the bill came we were charged 250. It was a valuable lesson learned right off the bat, and one that would be repeated almost daily: everyone in Marrakech is trying to take advantage of you, and they will if you give them the chance.
Though it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site full of amazing sights, we found walking through the medina enjoyable for only a very short amount of time. We were unendingly harassed by every person from every store we walked by, with people literally following us for a block yelling "Hey Mustache!" or "Hey Super Mario Brother!" at Kirb. Mazz got one "Hey Lady Gaga!" which was kind of weird. When we did see something we were interested in buying and interacted with merchants, we were forced to haggle, which both of us really dislike. The merchant would start with a price for a t-shirt at around $30-$40, though he would probably be willing to sell it for around $5. Getting down to a reasonable price was excruciating, and we would always either leave empty-handed or give up and pay "too much" just to get it done with. It became abundantly clear that we were walking dollar signs, and we were going to get this treatment anywhere we went in the medina.
We booked an excursion through our hostel that left the next morning and would span three days and two nights getting out to the Sahara desert and back. Our bus had two Swiss gentlemen, a Spanish girl and her Moroccan friend, a Scottish woman, and an Australian girl named Megan who had stayed at our hostel. Our driver said little and was missing a front tooth. We weren't entirely sure what the itinerary was for the trip out to the desert, as we were mainly interested in the endgame of riding camels out to a Berber tent in the Sahara, but there were two full days to fill before we would get to the desert. The drive out of Marrakech was slow and arduous, with only one-lane roads and an endless trickle of slow trucks that had to be passed. After a few hours the barren landscape began to change, with lush groves of trees replacing the sprawling plains and run-down suburbs. As we climbed into the Atlas Mountains, our driver would stop intermittently at scenic outlooks, where merchants selling minerals, stones, and fossils from the mountain had set up tables.
In the afternoon we visited Aït Benhaddou, a historic Berber town that has been used in movies and television shows for decades, and recently as Yunkai in Game of Thrones. A guide invited us into a Berber house and showed us how the inhabitants of the mud fortress cook, clean, and share the cramped living space with their animals. We drank traditional Moroccan mint tea (something we would do many, many times in Morocco) and climbed to the top of the city for an impressively sprawling view of the surroundings.
Before coming on this trip, we were very excited about Moroccan food. Our preconceived notion was that Moroccan food is full of flavor and exotic spices. Every meal we ate on this tour proved to be quite the opposite. In standard Moroccan restaurants you can choose from only a couple items: some sort of tomato-based salad, a couscous dish with vegetables or meat, and a tagine, which is basically a stew with carrots, potatoes, and sometimes other vegetables draped with some meat like a tee pee and then cooked in a clay pot.
Our first tagine - and all of them that followed - was remarkably bland, under-seasoned and under-salted with no option to add more of either at the table. And at around $10 per tagine, we were paying a hefty premium as far as Moroccan prices go for bad food. Not sure what to think, we asked the Moroccan guy in our group what he thought about his food. He said it was the worst tagine he had ever eaten in his life. We quickly realized that we were going to be taken to tourist traps for every meal, where we would overpay for the same bad food over and over again. Our driver, however, would always disappear into the back of the restaurant with the owners (he seemed to know all of them well), and was likely eating something that actually tasted good.
The next stop was the Musee du Cinema in Ouarzazate, where we spent an hour or two milling around old film sets and sitting in fancy chairs. There were neat displays of old film equipment from the last hundred years, and posters of all the movies that had been filmed in the desert nearby. Most of the movies had something or other to do with Jesus.
As night was falling we entered the Dades Gorge and pulled up to a beautiful hotel in Tamlalt. As with lunch, the dinner served to the giant room of tourists was seriously underwhelming, consisting of a soup that tasted like mashed up notebook paper, completely unseasoned chicken, and dry couscous. The Swiss guys thought it was so gross they barely ate a thing. After dinner we explored the intricate tilework and architecture throughout the massive hotel before calling it an early evening.
The traditional Moroccan breakfast we were served was pretty much the same from day to day with little variation. There was always a pan fried, square flatbread called msemen, which was served with butter, marmalade, and honey. There would also be upwards of four other kinds of breads or pastries, and some coffee and tea. So, basically, Moroccans start every day by carboloading. This is followed by drinking mint tea with heaps of sugar in it multiple times throughout the day. We were not particularly surprised to learn from a guide later in the trip that a huge percentage of Moroccans have diabetes.
The drive to start the second day was gorgeous, taking us through red cliffs that looked out over giant fields of fig trees. After a few hours we made our way to the city of Tinghir, which was shockingly lush and fertile for how close it is to the Sahara. Our guide for the afternoon was a funny dude, cracking one joke after another as he took us on a tour through the farmlands that are shared by the entire village. He explained that the marijuana is hidden inside the corn plants so the helicopters can't see it, and that women with big asses are prized in this part of Morocco and are worth more camels in their dowry when they marry. He then showed us how to weave a camel out of a reed, and gave it to the woman in our group with the biggest ass (surprisingly not Mazz, although he did say that she was probably worth at least 110 camels).
These tours were partly educational, but they were also very clearly designed to try and get us to buy things from local merchants. We were funneled into a shop to look at traditional handmade jewelry, which might have been irritating if the stuff they were selling wasn't so awesome and affordable. We found all sorts of excellent rings and necklaces and bracelets and loaded up on presents for family members. Next we were brought to a hut occupied by nomadic carpet makers who spend half their year in the desert and half in the town selling their wares. They displayed and explained about all of the different kinds of rugs they made, which were beautifully hand-woven with camel hair, goat hair, and cactus silk. We wanted to buy all of them, but settled on a small one for our bedroom and another as a gift for family.
Next we made our way to a pleasant river valley in Afanour, where a rockslide had completely demolished a four star hotel. Some roadside vendors had tried to sell us some headscarves up the road, and even demonstrated putting one on Mazz much to her chagrin. We learned as we ate lunch that wearing headscarves to cover our faces from sand while we rode camels through the desert was a "light obligation." Our guide offered to gather some for us from the cliffside peddlers we had encountered earlier at a slightly inflated price.
As the sun was starting to set we finally made it to the Sahara. We were only allowed to take small overnight bags, and would have to trust that our luggage would be safe locked up in the van. We were brought to meet our camels, which were tied together by ropes into two groups. Kirb's camel made a terrible squeal when he got on top of it and made him feel self-conscious. Several teenagers walked barefoot in the sand alongside us as our guides through the desert.
Soon the town was out of view behind us, and all we could see was sand in every direction. The sun was setting, creating a beautiful, all-encompassing orange hue. We learned quickly that camels are both smelly and uncomfortable to ride. Mazz's camel also had big bags attached to its sides, which forced her forward on the saddle and almost made her topple over its head when it went down a slope. Mild discomfort aside, the experience was magical. At the end of the two hour trip though we were happy to get off the camels.
When the sun had completely set we arrived at our traditional Berber tent, surrounded in all directions by sand and vast nothingness. We graciously suffered through more notebook pulp soup and viciously under-salted vegetable tagine before sitting down with our young hosts for some evening entertainment. They brought out drums and sang us traditional Moroccan songs, then asked us to sing for them. No one in the group was willing to sing them a song from their culture, so Kirb mitigated the awkwardness by having them play a simple beat and singing his favorite karaoke tune, Roy Orbison's "Crying." After song time we shared riddles and jokes, though our group generally had no idea what our hosts were getting at with either. Though their English was strained, our hosts wanted to hear every joke we had. Some fell flat, but Kirb had them rolling with a distasteful 9/11 joke he had picked up a couple weeks before from some callous Europeans.
After communal time had run its course, we climbed out on a sand dune and enjoyed the stars with no light pollution. Unfortunately, we had missed the part of the evening before the moon had risen while we were in the tent. We caught only a moment of it before dinner, and it was the most vibrant night sky either of us had ever seen.
We woke before sunrise, packed our things, and began our camel journey out of the Sahara as it slowly filled with light. It would be an exceptionally long car ride back to Marrakech that day with little stopping. We made it back to our hostel in the Medina when the sun had already set, now friends with our Australian travel partner Megan who was also staying in our hostel. After days of tasteless tagines, we decided that all we wanted was to eat pizza and drink wine. We wandered around the Medina getting harassed by restaurant hype men at every turn. Finding a place nearby that sold wine was difficult, as there were several mosques in the area and there are strict laws about serving alcohol within a specific vicinity to them. Some guy whose job it is to swindle tourists told us he could take us to get exactly what we wanted, so we cautiously followed him through some alleys until we ended up at a nice-looking restaurant outside the main square. We sat down, looked at the menu, and realized they sold neither pizza nor wine, just tagines and couscous. We apologized to the waitress and left immediately, being sure to tell the "guide" on the way out what a lame move he had just pulled. Eventually hunger prevailed and we settled for pizza with no wine.
The next morning we bid adieu to Megan and caught a bus to the port town of Essaouira. Situated on the Atlantic, the old town in Essaouira is surrounded by 18th century ramparts, and all the buildings are painted white and blue. The vibe here was instantly and refreshingly different than Marrakech – no one hassled or yelled at us while we wandered the stalls of the street merchants. They were selling amazing pottery and camel leather bags and clothes, and all of the merchants were laid back and fun to talk to and bartered reasonably. There were great views of the old town as we wandered through the Portuguese ramparts along the water, with huge flocks of sea birds swooping in every direction. It was windy and gorgeous and immediately clear how much more we liked this city than any place we had been in Morocco so far.
That night we decided to splurge on dinner and got the last available table at Elizir, a highly-recommended restaurant run by a Moroccan chef who had studied in Italy. Though it was more fusion than traditional Moroccan fare, the food at Elizir was exquisite, and we were glad to finally get a taste of high-quality cuisine from the region. Highlights included a tagine made with fresh figs and gorgonzola, rich black cuttle fish risotto, and an array of delicious eggplant, tomato, tapenade, and goat cheese spreads with fresh flatbread. It was by far the best food we ate in Morocco.
The next day we continued wandering the street markets, buying presents for ourselves and for friends and family. The quality of goods you can get in Morocco for a decent price is exceptional, so we happily stocked up on exotic holiday gifts. After stopping to pet a cat in front of a spice shop, the owner invited us in for "Royal Tea," a fragrant blend of lemongrass, dried rose, cinnamon, star anise, and a handful of other dried ingredients. We had a nice conversation with the shop owner and stayed for nearly an hour sipping the delicious tea and chatting, after which we happily bought tea and spices to bring home and share with our friends.
For lunch we made our way down to the fish market by the seaside, where the mongers were much more competitive in trying to get our business. We finally settled on a stand where we liked the salesman's approach, and bought whole grilled sardines and squids with onion. The idea is that you pick out the seafood yourself up front from their display, then they take it to the back and grill it for you. What we didn't learn until later was that sometimes they don't grill the fresh stuff you chose once it goes to the kitchen, opting instead to use up older product. The seafood tasted great, but Kirb had no idea at the time that he had ingested a poison sardine that would haunt him for days to come.
Seafood merchants set up by the ramparts
We took the bus a few hours back to Marrakech and were happy to check into the hotel Mazz's work was paying for after a week of sleeping in hostels. We were now staying in the more modern part of town away from the medina, with fancy new buildings and international restaurants. There didn't seem to be any nightlife to speak of in our neighborhood, so we went on a pilgrimage to find a store that sold wine, got some pizza from the restaurant next to the hotel, and consumed both happily in our comfy bed while watching American football on the computer.
Kirb woke up in the middle of the night with explosive diarrhea. He'd go back to sleep momentarily, but then it would be right back to the bathroom. The next morning Mazz went to her science conference, but Kirb was confined to the bed and the toilet. When he wasn't sleeping or shitting, Kirb scrolled through Middle Eastern TV channels on the satellite TV and was baffled by virtually everything he found. The Iranian dub of Big Fish, one of his favorite movies, hard cut away from the tender embrace between the father and his wife on his death bed/lake, and then hard cut again from the preacher's eulogy at his wake, as male/female affection and Christian religious services are apparently not suitable to be seen on television. On another Iranian channel, there was an educational program in English about evolution, which is strange enough on its own, but was made infinitely stranger at the end when they announced it was presented thanks to funding from David Koch. This is a man who, with his brother Charles, uses his billions of dollars to fund Republican Party elections across the entirety of America. So, the man funding the pro-Christian, anti-science party that widely believes evolution is a myth also funds evolution education programming in a country that the Republican Party is perennially trying to start shit with over ideological differences? It was then, and still is, nearly impossible to make sense of. Tired and confused, eventually Kirb landed on a Saudi Arabian show that consisted solely of hundreds of men in the same outfit dancing with swords to dubbed music. This would be Kirb's bizarre reality for two entire days in the hotel.
Meanwhile, Mazz was enjoying the magnificent architecture of the Mogador Palace Hotel where the conference was being held. The architecture, wood carving, and tilework there was awe-inspiring, but Mazz was technically there to work so she only got to spend passing moments admiring it.
On the third day, Kirb was finally able to leave the hotel without immediate fear of pooping his pants. He decided to take the bus back to the medina to further explore the seemingly endless winding side streets of shops and stalls. As it was on the first night in Marrakech, the hassle in the medina from shopkeepers and strangers made the experience far more irritating than enjoyable. Whether you need help finding your way through the maze of streets or not, someone will inevitably show up to "guide" you, which just means walking alongside you as you go the way you were planning on anyway and then demanding payment after a few blocks. One "guide" took Kirb to his father's shop, a new-age healer who went on at length about all of the people he had miraculously cured. When Kirb didn't want to pay $60 for a massage, the man was visibly aggravated, so Kirb slinked away awkwardly. The man's son followed him out and then demanded payment for guiding him. Kirb gave him a dollar, to which the son exclaimed, "This is NOTHING!" even though in Morocco it's totally something. Kirb responded, "Well, you didn't do anything!" to which the kid, in his best English, screamed "FUCK YOU!" and stormed away. Tired and defeated, Kirb took a bus back to the hotel to continue having diarrhea.
The next day was a free day at the conference so Mazz and Kirb decided to take a Moroccan cooking class together in a gorgeous villa outside of the city. Though he was no longer tied to the toilet, Kirb had entered the "uncontrollable farting" phase of his food poisoning, allowing him to be in public for extended periods without stinking up the place only because there was literally nothing left in his digestive tract. The charming French ex-pat who ran the cooking class gave us a primer on the spices we'd be using by having us wear sunglass blindfolds and smelling all of the ingredients, then he played a large bongo drum while we prepared our dishes. We made traditional tagines and grilled bread, with Kirb making a beef and lemon tagine and Mazz making a mixed vegetable version. We learned that part of the reason the tagines we ate in the tourist traps had tasted so bad was because they were supposed to cook slowly in clay pots, but since the restaurants have to make them to order, they are instead prepared in pressure cookers before being transferred to the clay domes for serving (though this didn't explain why the food was always so awfully bland). The food we prepared for ourselves turned out much better, and everyone sat together in the courtyard and enjoyed their meals with a large spread of salads, olives, and fruits. Still nauseous from the poison sardine, Kirb was only able to eat a few bites.
That evening was the conference banquet, and guests of attendees could pay to join in if they wanted, so we shilled out $50 for Kirb to could come along even though we had no idea what the event was actually going to be. Tourist busses took a throng of people from the hotel to a huge compound called Chez Ali outside of the city, which turned out to basically be a Middle Eastern-themed "Medieval Times." Guests were greeted by singing troupes comprised of members from different tribes from across the country and then brought to large dining tents where the scientists forced awkward small talk with each other until dinner was served. Giant plates of roast lamb and couscous were brought out for each table, which Mazz didn't particularly want to eat and Kirb did but still couldn't stomach. Wine cost extra, and was shared by the whole table so there was never enough of it. After dinner, there was a show in a huge performance area in the center of the compound which essentially consisted of people riding really fast on horses for a short time and then firing rifles in the air. After they'd done this a dozen times or so, a woman sang a song, the show was over, and we all got back on the tourist busses. We both left Chez Ali wondering, "What the actual fuck did I just go to?" and wishing we had done anything else with our 4 hours and fifty bucks.
With the conference now finished, we spent our final day in Marrakech relaxingly strolling though the Majorelle Garden, a twelve acre botanical garden designed by French artist Jacques Majorelle in the 1920s and later purchased by designer Yves Saint-Laurent in 1980 and opened to the public. The very specific shade of blue used throughout the architecture in the garden is known as "Majorelle Blue." It was lush and beautiful and no one bothered us here, making it very hard to leave and go back into the city.
Mazz decided she wanted one final trip to the medina to make sure there wasn't anything she was missing, and Kirb begrudgingly agreed. The Fna'a was bustling in the early evening hours, with acrobats standing on each other's heads and snake charmers sitting around with cobras in the middle of the crowds. We stopped to take it in for a moment, and before we knew it someone had put a monkey on us. Suddenly another man with a monkey appeared, and he placed it on Kirb's head. Then they put the monkeys on Mazz and they started fighting with each other. We snapped a few pictures, because how can you not when there's a monkey on you, and then the men started demanding their payment. Neither of us had more than a dollar in small change, and obviously the men insisted on more than that for having placed their monkeys on our heads. Kirb finally got so aggravated that he literally threw one of them $5 and told them to split it. Mazz had never seen a funnier moment of Kirb being mad in her entire life. The man who grabbed the money quickly ran away, leaving the other man harshly demanding his payment as well. After some heated arguing that a dollar was all we had left and he wasn't getting anymore, the man angrily retreated so he could place his monkey unwantedly on some other sucker.
So what did we learn from our trip to Morocco? The highs were high: riding camels into the Sahara at sunset, exploring the ramparts and street stalls of Essaouira, and soaking in the amazing architecture was unlike anything we had done before. But the lows were VERY low. We definitely will never be going back to Marrakech, though we would happily spend another weekend on the Atlantic coast. Kirb probably won't eat the seafood, though.