A Convergence of Stray Thoughts

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Seems I’ve taken up smoking again. Not, mind you, by lighting up a cig, but because a lot of the locals and the European travelers are puffing away in the cafes and restaurants. Add to that the hundreds of redolent scooters that belch unrestricted amounts of exhaust. In the old days you had to deal with all the kif (cannabis) smoke. At least there would be a fringe benefit. I just get the emphysema.

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Speaking of scooters- surely these are the denizens of the earth. Many of the streets in the Marrakech medina are only six to eight feet wide, but still the scooters go. Annoyances.

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Very important reminder in former French colonies: the ‘C’ on the knob = chaud = hot, not cold. Ouch.

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OK, OK there was a lunch where one more spoonful of couscous would have made me scream, so I had a fairly authentic oven-fired pizza with mushrooms. Delicious. I used some harissa to spice it up and not feel totally unmoroccan.

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They sell lots of bootleg American film DVDs on the street. I’d get some but I think they are dubbed and use the European standard. Mostly action stuff (I’m glad we export soooo much violence) but some kid’s stuff too. Even saw a copy of the Simpson’s movie. How on earth does that translate…?

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Nescafé, ceci n’est pas café! Yuk.

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Downside of being in the old City: no bars. And only some of the restaurants serve alcohol. The better hotel restaurants have good wine lists and serve harder stuff in their lounges. The local beer is called Casablanca and is a good Belgian-type lager. I also have most often seen Heineken, Carlsberg and Corona on the menus. Corona?!?

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Morocco is a participant in the “War on Terror.” Did not know that. I suggest they flood several thousand carpet sellers into Iraq if they want to disrupt the insurgency and annoy the populace into subjection.

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I detest the idea of colonialism- I believe it has fostered many of this continent’s problems. However a couple of benefits of having been under the yoke of the French Tricouleur: the laid back café society is alive and well here and the breads and pastries are on par with la Belle Cuisine.

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I’m used to haggling, but EVERYTHING is negotiable here. It can become tiring. Plus haggling in French seems counter-productive. The lilting language of the conversation sounds like seduction but the content is akin to prostitution.

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I was told firmly by a policeman not to take photos near the royal residence in Marrakech even though I just had my camera slung around my neck. Apparently Google Earth is blocked here so Moroccans can’t get images of the King Mohammed VI’s many residences.

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A rough estimate of the language the touts use to attract me to their wares: Francais, 40%; English, 30%; Espagnol 20%; Nippon, 5%; undecipherable (could be Arabic), 5%.

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I want some pork, damn it. Just a slice of maple-smoked bacon would be great. And an egg.

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The percussive trance music played by black Africans in the Jamaa el Fna is amazingly hypnotic and the pieces go on forever. I believe it is called gnaoua and I have to get some.

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Most used French: “Non, merci.” “Je ne cherche rien.” “Combien?” and “Trop cher.” Mostly dealing with the touts.

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One day I want to harass a Moroccan carpet-seller on vacation in America. I want to be sitting outside the office and pounce on him yelling in his ear for half a block. “We have best architecture in Ventura, my friend! Discount for first customer of the day! You come sit down have tea. No charge.”


No, I don't want a frigging rug.

Hide and Souq

One of my highlights of my trips to Istanbul was going to the labyrinthine madness that is the Grand Bazaar. In Marrakech they are called the souqs (markets) and they also sprawl seemingly endlessly in all directions. Maps are pointless, as is asking directions. You might think you are backtracking, but in fact you are heading in a new direction. When you do find a particular store called out in the guidebook, or a fountain you seek deep in the souqs, or one of the monuments on the north side of the Medina, you feel pretty damn triumphant, like you weathered some form of ritual hazing. The problem, of course, is getting back.

The souqs are vaguely divided into different goods. There is the Carpet souq and the Leather souq. There are souqs for fabrics, babouches (pointy leather slippers), pottery, antiques, metalworking, leather, eggs, olives, dates and on and on. Many of the streets are covered by lattices in various states of disintegration to ward off the summer heat but still allow ventilation. The effect is a dappled light effect on a riot of colors and textures that overwhelms and delights. Within the souqs there are no safe harbors from the visual riot or the constant molestation of the shopkeeps and touts. The only possible places are the many small mosques, but those are off-limits to non-Muslims.
So be forewarned: enter the souqs prepared to be dazzled; expect to get lost quickly and not be bothered by it; and let the vocal harassment slide right off so as not to ruin an amazing experience.

Marrakech Images

The Courtyard of the Medressa of Ben Youssef

Ablutions Fountain

Dates and fresh-squeezed OJ in the Jamaa el Fna

Dates seller in the Souq

Fishmonger

Garden Court in the Palais Bahia

Corridor

Children on their Way to School

In the Dyer's Workshop

All Aboard the Marrakech Express

The seven hour train journey arched from Fes in the foothills of the Middle Atlas range to touch the Atlantic at Rabat (the capital of Morocco) and Casablanca then a straight southerly run to Marrakech. As we rushed further from the ocean, the landscape quickly changed from the verdant coastal plains to scrubland to a more hardscrabble, treeless, semi-arid setting. Mud brick wall-surrounded ksours (family compounds) and kasbahs (small villages), barely distinguishable from the native earth save for their vague geometries, stake claim near the few dry riverbeds. We pass many shepherds dressed in their wool djellabas, seeking fresh grass perhaps revived by the recent rains, as Berbers have for centuries.

A 300 dirham ($35.00) ticket had secured me a place in First Class by the window on a serviceable train system, comparable to an emerging Balkan state. My fellow passengers in the train compartment changed over the course of the trip- no one else was making the full journey. A student embarked with me in Fes and I offered him a pastry from a package that the hotel had hastily prepared for me (as I had left earlier than the appointed breakfast time). He was a student returning to Casablanca after the New Year to continue his matriculation in chemistry. My terrible French really did nothing to further the conversation beyond pleasantries. ( I could throw out comments from my primary school lesson books like “The book is on the table.” Or “The hat of my aunt is blue.” How about “The weathers are bad, is it not?” But neither of those were actually true.)

The two gentlemen who made the Casablanca to Marrakech run with me kept to themselves, reading newspapers or staring drowsily out the windows. As the trip occurred during midday and afternoon prayers, one of the men from his long djellaba twice produced and clutched prayer beads and bobbed his head slightly as he whispered his praises to God. The vigilant Muslim takes the time to pray as required no matter the circumstance, even in a train compartment. He caught my eye once as I stared like a curious six-year-old, somewhat entranced with his display of piety. “Salaam,” I said instinctively, “Peace,” and smiled. He smiled back. “Allahu akbar,” I thought, “God is great, buddy.” And we continued south.

For all my life the name of this place has evoked exoticism, mysticism, intrigue. I have a romantic notion of places like Goa, Timbouctou, Petra, Samarkand that I feel drawn to. Istanbul was one such place I can strike from the list and now I am finally in Marrakech. Many of my generation relate to the place that became a scene for the Beat and Hippy crowd in the Sixties and Seventies. I see it as the confluence of Mediterranean, African and Arabic cultures only slightly removed from a brazenly raw, archaic past that is so counters my idea of culture and civilization.

After breaching a low range of hills we descended into a wide bowl of a valley with Marrakech sprawled out dead center. The snow-capped High Atlas cupped half the sky to the south in tones of blue and aquamarine. It was a justifiably wondrous entry to one of my own Fabled Cities.

Of Mint Tea and Sweet Pigeon Pie

So when’s the last time you had some high-caliber Moroccan fare? Yeah same here. Actually, truthfully, for me it was about 10 years ago at Dar Maghreb in Hollywood (owned and operated by Pierre, a cantankerous old French architecture student of mine). Well it just doesn’t come up very often: ”Hey we haven’t had a tajine in a while…” But of course here everyday is Moroccan food! And I am making a good effort at sampling the fare.

But first, there is a reason that mint tea is called “Whisky Maroccaine” here. I was served it at the hotel check-in, every time I sat in the lobby, when they tried to sell me rug, after every lunch and dinner and even from the little cart on the train. The tea is invariably accompanied by little anisette cookies. So, if you like your Doublemint gum in hot liquid form accompanied by sticks of black licorice, Morocco’s got that going on.

It turns out that my riad in Fes is a specialist in traditional Fassi (of Fez) dining, which, in turn, is supposedly the best in the country. So I took three meals there and was not disappointed. I feared a lack of variety, but was delighted by the nuance and subtle flavor profiles. Each meal was two-and-a-half hours, so I was definitely allowed to savor the tastes.

‘Moroccan Salad’ usually begins a meal. This is not a lettuce salad- it’s more of an ‘Antipasto Maroccano’- cooked and marinated veggies. Typically, the produce I saw in the market stalls that morning were plated before me that evening. Each night I was served three or four. There was cauliflower roasted with harissa and olive oil, carrots cooked in orange flower water, cinnamon and honey (it tasted like perfume), braised fennel with mint and saffron, a garlicky eggplant mayonnaise (like a Lebanese baba ganouj, but lighter) over steamed artichokes, zucchini prepared in a fiery ratatouille style, fava beans in oil with preserved lemon and mint. The salads are always served with a little flattened dense dinner roll, kind of like a communion wafer on steroids (and without the guilt).

However, the cuisine really centers around meats, particularly barbecued in a kebab style or baked in a clay pot called a tajine. Chicken, lamb and beef are used, the lamb being my favorite (sorry Kara, those cute little buggers are tasty slow roasted). What changes up the flavors of the tajines are the herbs, spices and other flavorings they use. There’s preserved lemon which imparts a heady citron fragrance, dried fruits like dates, apricots and grapes that yield sweet bursts like a chutney, a liberal use of cinnamon, ground and whole almonds, a wide variety of olives, some incredibly salty and, of course, North Africa’s favorite red pepper condiment, harissa, potent and fiery.

My favorite by far was the lamb tajine with caramelized onion, preserved lemon and roasted almonds. After sopping up the last bits of sauce with my communion host I told my waiter Omar (I developed a strong food relationship with this guy) that if Americans knew shit like that existed in Morocco we would invade them next. Actually I didn’t, but I really, really wanted to.

The real Fassi specialty, however, is b’stilla. It sounds improbable as an even remotely edible dish but here it is: ground pigeon, eggs, ground almonds, nutmeg and cinnamon wrapped in a pastry that’s halfway between a sheet of phyllo and puff pastry. Dust liberally with powdered sugar and punctuate it with a lovely zigzag pattern of more cinnamon and, voilà, you have a stuffed chunk of Charlie Brown’s torso.

Once you’re beyond the idea of eating pigeon or, what I consider, winged rodents, it is actually quite good and that pigeon is one of the few weird meats that actually doesn’t taste like chicken- more like a mild beef, actually. I asked Omar if they farm pigeons. He said that they do, but also they can be hunted. I noted that there didn’t seem to be a lot of pigeons in public squares like in Europe. He smiled and said, “Monsieur, I think in Fes we have solved that problem.”

I decided not to pursue my thought about not having seen many dogs around either.

Retreat!

The sometimes overwhelming dissonance of the of the Medina streets belies the great expanses of urban fabric, the living spaces, served by the spiderweb of paths. The contrast could not be greater. Step through any of the non-descript portals replete with intricately carved heavy wood doors and you leave madness for sanity, tension for a more lithe ease, profane for sacred. The Moroccan house is an inverse of the American: we appoint our homes to be an outward expression of our vanity, our status, our wealth; I am sure such pretense is shared by Moroccans, but their homes display this inwardly, out of the public eye, save for the fine wood doors. The typical medina home is a courtyard house, often comprising many open spaces: some covered, some garden spaces, some with water features. The roof is often a terrace space for particularly warm summer evenings.

Apparently not too many years ago, a westerner staying in Fes meant hotelling it in the nearby Ville Nouvelle, built by the French in the early twentieth century when Morocco was a Protectorate (read: subjugated colony) of France. But a few years ago, enterprising foreigners and Moroccans themselves began buying old houses in the old city and converting them to riads or small pensions. So now if you want to really experience these medinas you must stay in a riad.

I definitely did well to choose the Riad Fes as my base in the medina. The leap from the street bustle to the courtyard of the hotel could not be more welcome. I feel safely cloistered in a calm environment. Because there are no cars in the medina, there are no bus or truck vibrations or horns. The thick pisé walls muffle the outside voices, save for the calls to prayer throughout the day. You are left with the trickle of courtyard fountains, the birds in the garden, the murmur of foreign voices of my fellow travelers. The hotel is finely decorated in a grand Fassi style, with great expanses of intricate zellij (mosaic) tile, geometrically patterned plaster and carved woods. Typically low banquettes of seats with silk pillows invite lounging and I spent more than my fair share. In the evenings a grey-bearded gentleman plays the oud and occasionally sings some no-doubt romantic Fassi songs.

To top it off, there are no TVs or radios in the rooms. If I really wanted that kind of noise and stimulating entertainment, I simply need to walk back outside those doors and into the street.

My room

The Hotel Lobby

Courtyard

Fes 1, Curtis 0

I was standing there utterly confounded, again. The shopowners were staring blindly and blithely by as I 360’d with a pained and plaintive face despite my best efforts to look like I knew where the hell I was in this unbelievable warren of passageways and ‘streets’. Looking up and out was pointless: there are no striking monuments or discernable physical markers. My map was useless as there are no street names. There are no wide boulevards cutting swaths through the ancient urban fabric like Paris. There are no ordering axes that tie the nodes of the city together a la Rome. There is no comfortable grid of streets that please the rational mind like New York. There is only a pathway anarchy that defies comprehension. I admit defeat. Fes wins. In all my years of self-assured travel (I can read a map, after all) I have never been so completely lost, so many times. I was warned at the hotel, in the guide books, but nothing can prepare you for these acres upon acres of impenetrable dense confusion.

It started after I arrived at the Gare de Fes in the Ville Nouvelle de Fes. At the station I scrambled for a cab- the idea of a taxi queue is alien here- clipped some Islamic mumued babooshkas and fell into the taxi for the Medina (Old City) of Fes where my hotel, the Riad Fes, is located. Well, no cars in the Medina, not when the average street is about 6 feet wide, so I had to lug my suitcase, which I affectionately have named Little Red Sarcaphogus, into the heart of the Old City. This was difficult enough, but just yards through one of the old gates I was lost. I went a bit further in and I was even more lost. Minutes later I was so turned around I began to doubt many aspects of my reality.

I finally had to break down and ask one of the annoying touts who were constantly cajoling me to lead me to the hotel. Abdullah led the way and I was there in minutes. I begrudgingly gave him 10 dirhams (about a buck and a quarter) and NO I don’t need a guide.

So after a shower at the hotel, I rushed headlong into the Medina for my obligatory scouting of a new city. And lost again. Almost instantly.

So just stop, breathe take it in.

This place assaults the senses completely- spices- fresh and dried in conical heaps, newly cured leather, sweet and savory street cart fare, perfume vendors featuring local verbena and bergamot, rank donkeys used as goods vehicles in these narrow streets and, of course, their droppings; children reciting verses in the little Qu’ranic schools, hawkers yelling out their wares, the chatter of teens being teens, the bustle of tour guides as they herd their charges, the hum of artisans as they work their tools, the burst of incongruous arab pop as cell phones discharge and not so often the arching call to prayer of the mosques’ muezzins.

So I accept defeat graciously, but choose to look at defeat as a means to see something new and rich, so unlike anything I have experienced before. A fair exchange- a momentary loss of my sense of direction for the heightened stimulation of all my other ones.

Funky Old Medina

Images of Fes- and not one tassled red hat among them (click to enlarge)... The donkey is called the taxi of the Medina.

This is a fondook, where passing traders stored their goods and rested.

Typical scene in the Medina

Peering into the Mosque of Moulay Idriss II, the venerated 9th century founder of Fes.

The tanneries are in the heart of the old city and smell like hell.

These men are scraping the hair off the hides.

This is the door to the 'Black African' mosque, serving mainly Senegalese and Mauritainians.

The view from my hotel terrace.

Casablanca is Pretty Ghetto

Am I being too harsh? Still I'm glad I booked one night here. This is my cynical prejudiced view of Morocco without the magic and beauty. I'm on the 10:15 to Fes!

Here are some images of Casa:

First Impressions

The key I believe is not to have any after such a long journey. Twenty-three hours from my door in Ventura to my room at the Hotel Ibis Moussafir in Casablanca. That was about thirty hours of waky-waky time. I slept from about the Great Lakes to about south of Iceland, according to the little screen in the seat in front of me. I don't know why I keep that on the screen; it seems to show how painfully long the trip is and projects how much more sleep I am going to miss. Still I prefer that as entertainment to the Michael Bay crap on one of the movie channels.

Sitting in a numb stupor in the hotel restaurant, I am eating a simple tajine of lamb and egg, mopping it up with a surprisingly crisp baguette. Want to stay up at least until 11 to fight off jet-lag. Contemplating some interesting bits from the last day:

• The British Airways 747 is only about half economy class. The rest is First and Business with all these bed-like seats. Very cool and how much?
• Even with renovations, London Heathrow still sucks. Too crowded and they really push the shopping on you. It's a damn mall with an airport incidentally attached.
• The baggage claim area in Casablanca was huge and apparently appropriately so- there were pile of bags and luggage neatly stacked everywhere. As I waited for my bags, I looked closer in and realized that alot of the bags had just blankets in them. But who owned these hundreds of bags? Not in Kansas any more...
• The train from the airport to Downtown Casablanca was pretty third-worldy ( I guess I should refrain from such perjoratives) but it was kind of dirty and jittery and I was being tired and bitchy...
• Cell phones are just as ubiquitous here except that they play bad arabic pop songs instead of bad anerican ones.
• I am now able to offer up a theory about the piles of luggage at the airport. The Hajj, the great annual pilgrimage to Mecca ended about a week ago. Millions attend ( a good Muslim is required to go as it is one of the Five Pillars of Islam) and sleep in tent cities. So that is probably why all the blankets. But I still can't figure out why their owners aren't there.

Guess I'll sleep on it. Tomorrow, it's on to Fes.