Ok. Where to be begin. To finish the Moroccan jaunt I’ll just say that it was in Fez that we learned the best way to get people to do what you want them to. Play dumb. I mean literally we would stop moving and stop speaking and just stare at each other until they got bored and walked away. I found this to be the least offensive way to get them to stop without letting it get too far.
Most people we talked to about Morocco said Fez was their favourite city. So, we were excited to see it for ourselves but other than a few exciting walks exploring the area outside the medina and discovering a graveyard where locals picnic, it was not a place I would recommend. The medina is really crowded and confusing and I found the treatment of tourists the worst of any place we visited. The last city on our Moroccan adventure was Tangier. It rained non stop in Tangier and so we have very little to report about it. The shops didn’t even bother to open in the rain because people just didn’t wander the medina as much. So, all in all, boring 2 days.
I, Kalene enjoyed Morocco the country. The camels, the amazing kasbahs, the mint tea, the food, getting lost in the goods offered in the souks. I cannot even describe the sight of the stars in the middle of the Sahara Desert. And watching the sunrise over the sand dunes and the sunset in the Atlas mountains was absolutely breathtaking.
I agree with Ken that the people got very overwhelming. I just felt torn about how to feel about them. I have never known true poverty, so it’s hard for me to grasp the whole picture really. I got very sad realizing the ignorance of the local mentality that all visitors must be rich. You want to help the local community and the craftsmen and use your good fortune to help the impoverished. It’s all a sham though, the people we dealt with most were not those living in poverty, so you’re not really helping the situation anyway…. Here I am getting things for great prices, which I love, but not as good prices as I know I should get, which I hate. Then feeling guilty thinking that just because I can get better deals, should I?
The other thing that smacked me across the face was the treatment of women. I am very, very humbled as a woman. I constantly felt at a loss for how to ‘act.’ Ken got addressed anytime we dealt with money, and I got berated anytime I spoke back. And I mean spoke. Just opened my mouth to offer a suggestion or ask a question. The thing is, in the western world, we can actually make a difference in the way women are treated but here, I hated accepting that I was a second class citizen because then I’m perpetuating this belief. But, if I spoke back to them, I’m perpetuated the belief that women in the western world are running amok and thus perpetuating the belief that here in Morocco, the reins must be kept in tight to prevent their women from such ‘outbursts’. It goes a lot deeper than this of course and I have many more conflicted emotions about the injustice. I mean, I chose to go to their country after all. It’s not even my place to try to change things.
In terms of the bartering system. It has a lot of charm and it can actually be a lot of fun to barter. We definitely have some funny stories of epic fails, and some triumphs on our part, but having to barter for EVERYTHING is just exhausting. I mean arriving in a town and having to walk down the street with your mental list of questions for each hostel and then trying to get the best price from them… gah. It’s a lot to take in. Good thing there was no alcohol- a much quieter nightlife, I was pooped by 8pm.
On the positive- I have to mention the famous ‘Berber hospitality’ you get offered mint tea everywhere you go. And, if you are interested in their herbal remedies (nothing illegal dad don’t worry… at least I don’t think so?) you’re in luck because they would love to share their spices and herbs and teas and stones with you.
One famous story… So I get a cold (probably from sleeping in the dessert in 0°C weather) so we decide instead of trying to read the Arabic labels in the pharmacy, let’s go get me some herbal remedies. So we go to this store and describe this stone we were shown back in Marrakech. The man claims not to have any of that stone in Essaouira but he can help me. He gets some seed looking things, little black ones and puts them in a pouch which he rubs against his palm to warm it up. He grabs my face, plugs one nostral, shoves the pouch up the other one and says ‘breathe deep.’ Um, ok. Not normal in my world but hey- my sinuses are open! We pay and go get some tea because apparently the vapours will help me too. So we’re in the tea shop and I’m putting some of the seeds in my little pot and what do I find crawling around in my ‘medicine’ MAGGOTS! Yup. Seriously. I show the tea shop owner and ask him… is this normal? He waves his arms furiously showing me that NO! It’s not normal, and starts picking through the pouch for me to throw the maggots away. I went back to the shop owner who Ken had to deal with while I translated in French because dealing with me directly- nope! He sheepishly apologized and gave us a whole bunch of free tea. And yes, just to make you all laugh, I did keep using the ‘maggot’ seeds and got over my cold in a jiff. Hey, sometimes you gotta just go with it.
Well we left Morocco in a violent rain storm and rocked and swayed our way across the Strait of Gibralter to Algeciras, Spain, then bused immediately over to Malaga. Ahhh, the beach. I needed a few quieter days to contemplate my experience in Morocco.
So, we find ourselves in Malaga Spain on the beach and breathing sigh after sigh of deep relaxed air. Quite the contrast to the busy, often uptight attitudes in Morocco. It took some time to really understand the schedule of the siesta. Wait, you mean I can’t look at your shop because it’s 2pm and you want a nap!?! Whoa whoa, don’t you care that I can bring you money… nope ok then. Let’s grab a beer instead? Perfect.
I have so much to say about Morocco but I think the biggest thing to note is that I just didn’t ‘get’ it. I’d really like to go back because I think a second turn would be much more informative and allow me to relax more into the beauty of the culture and fuss less with the rules it follows. But as a girl who wanted adventure and exploration, I sure got it and I finally feel like I can go new places and try to jump in head first. I may land in the shallow end, but as least I jumped.
One magical moment
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Money Makes The World Go Round.
February first, two thousand eleven. Phase one of our adventure is over and phase two is just beginning. We flew directly from Edinburgh, Scotland, to Marrakech, Morocco using Ryanair. The flight was reasonably short and quite inexpensive. I forget the exact details.
From this point on everything stated here should not be necessarily understood as “we” but instead as My (Ken’s) experience in Morocco. I was super excited to go, I did not know what to expect, I did some research, and I did have an overall good time, but on a few occasions the experience was not exactly positive, thus, the need to separate my opinions from Kalene’s. If you wanna know what she thought of Morocco…ask her.
Morocco is in Africa. It is second world, muslim, and quite poor. I knew all that. I had been advised that it is necessary to haggle on prices for your goods. It is a community based on us versus them. Tourist versus local. There are local prices and tourist prices. And there is never a price advertised….never. We began our African jaunt in Marrakech.
Marrakech seems overwhelming. And it is. All Moroccan cities are built on what is called a Medina. A walled fortress surrounding the whole city. Inside are all the good, shops, cheap accommodations, tourist traps, beggars, motorbikes…a lot of motorbikes, mosques, lower income locals, and tourists. Since I am white and they are not- I stick out. And I am viewed as a tourist. A tourist who has money. Morocco uses the currency of dirham (1$ CDN = 8Dh, 10 Dh = 1 Euro). It is quite cheap.
We arrived at the airport and were greeted by our very late shuttle driver who worked for our hostel to take us from the airport to the hostel. He made it 95% of the way then told us “a man will walk you the rest of the way, my van can’t fit”. Red flags instantly went up. We paid him and then we met this man. And by ‘man’ I mean seven year old boy. He greeted us and offered us a “big welcome” as is customary by them. Arabic is their national language along with French. English is developing. He lead us through the tiny, winding streets, giving us tips, and directions, nice kid. I felt good except for the kids posse of slightly older, yet still adolescent friends following us. We arrived and thanked him. Moroccan currency used to be closed to the rest of the world, only recently could you find it anywhere outside of Morocco. We found some. 1000 Dh’s which is the legal limit in denominations of 200 and 100 notes. We knew this would be a problem.
The kid expected a tip and we were happy to offer him one…just not 100Dh’s, the smallest notes we had at the time. We said let us check in, we will get change and get you in a minute. Kalene repeated in French. The posse didn’t like that. Long story short, they demanded 50Dh’s, we politely told them to fuck off, they followed us into the hostel and kept at it for several minutes before finally we refused to tip them anything at all and they left. It was not a positive way to begin in a new city. Now, I am about 190Ibs of solid steel sex appeal but I am not one for confrontation. I’ll admit that situation rattled me. I had no intention of tipping this young man anymore after his behavior and I also have no intention of getting physical with locals. All in all the situation ceased and nothing came of it but a little rough start. We talked to other tourists in our hostel who all had similar experiences. This began the overall theme of my visit to Morocco. It’s called money. Everytime we went anywhere, did anything, asked anything, or trusted anyone, it was about money. The most common spoken word in the English language is “the”. The most common spoken sentences by myself in Morocco were different versions of “no thank you, I do not want to buy that”.
We had a big double bed to ourselves in a room with four other people. English students. That night we met a good man named Ian Mallory. He has a website called Mallory on travel.com. He gets a commission if you visit so go ahead….I’ll wait. We had dinner with him and he told us some useful things and we became friends. The food in Morocco is awesome. Lots of vegetables, plenty of bread, cheap, mint tea, and no alcohol. I wanted to embrace the culture of the country I was in as much as I could. And in Morocco alcohol is not part of their lives so I wanted to abstain for the most part. Obviously on a few nights we found a bottle of wine and some local plants.
Marrakech was great because it was busy, the weather was nice, and we found the most excellent side stands for good, cheap, and highly questionable food. Marrakech also runs excursions into the desert. We wanted to do one and we did. We bargained that price down as well. We went for three days, two nights through the Atlas mountains to a hotel in a gorge and met authentic Berber people (Morocco is 80% Berber, 20% Muslim/Jewish). We associate Muslim with Morocco because they live in the most touristy places. Hence, it is mostly what you see. The second day we rode camels for 90 minutes into the desert and slept in a tent. It was freezing cold. Four months on this trip through the winter in Germany but the coldest nights were in Morocco. Why? I am glad you asked. Their building interiors are designed to keep in cool in the summer, so it keeps it cool in the winter too. It is basically bathroom tiles everywhere. Camels are very uncomfortable as well. The sunset was beautiful and the stars were unreal. Not as nice as Tobermory but still glorious.
From Marrakech we headed for the coast. I wanted water. Essaouria is a coastal hippie town. Much like many southern Ontario high schools claim to have the highest teen pregnancy rate every small Moroccan town claims to be where Jimi Hendrix hung out in the 60’s. And since the information is from a Moroccan person I instantly discredit them.
Essaouria was very nice. We got in some epic jogs on the Atlantic Ocean (from the Eastern shore!). Our accommodation there was very nice full of very nice people, great internet, free breakfast, roof terrace all for 6 euros per night. We realized soon after that we should have stayed there longer and not stuck to our original plan to keep moving. Lesson learned: when you are having fun, stay put!
The overnight from Essaouria to Fez. Would not recommend this for anyone. Pretty much the sketchiest thing we did on this trip. We boarded a bus around 830pm, scheduled to arrive in Fez early the next morning. They wanted to keep our backpacks underneath the bus but we absolutely refused. No way was this thing getting out of my sight. Not a single other tourist was on this bus and it didn’t seem to have any form of organization. Our bathroom break at about 3am was an adventure. Kalene left the bus and headed for the station/rundown cement building/homeless shelter from what it looked like. I quickly realized it was not safe and ran after her. She was safely inside the bathroom and I went too. She reached the bus before me and it began to leave. I will never forget the sight of leaving this shit hole at 3am to see my bus pulling away. I ran after it and fought my way on. Kalene had reminded them that I was coming so maybe the driver let up on the gas just a little bit.
We arrived in Fez around 8am or so. We each had not gotten a lot of sleep. For the first time on the trip we showed up without a hostel booked. Figured we find one when we got here. We were greeted by a young Moroccan student who offered us his hostel, which we knew was good and thought of it. We left our things, had breakfast, and made our way to see if any others were around and were better. Oh, and internet in Fez and Tangier does not exist in hostels. The student followed offering us a tour. We didn’t want it but he wouldn’t shut up. He would show us around and for a reasonable price. No thanks. But he kept pressing. Finally, Kalene got pissed and told him no, very sternly, maybe swore a little and left. I was very proud of my KK. Moroccan men are used to being in control and most have never been spoken to by a woman like that before. He didn’t like what Kalene said to him at all. So what, Canadian woman are free, always have been, always will be, and they have the right to speak their mind when provoked. This is what I said to him when he tried to level with me man to man.
From that moment on I was unable to trust another Moroccan person again. Everytime, and I mean everytime they tell you they don’t want money, or you can look for free, or they do this to practice English, or they will show you where something is, or that a certain item is handmade, or it is made of a unique substance, or it is a good deal, or they are the only shop that has this item, it is always a crock of shit. We let our guard down, we followed a man who would show us a great view of the city where we can get pictures. We were on the roof for twenty minutes and when we came down he was waiting for us? Why? Only one reason he wants money.
(Ken hasn't finished this post so please read mine for the rest of Morocco/ a WAY MORE positive view on it.)
From this point on everything stated here should not be necessarily understood as “we” but instead as My (Ken’s) experience in Morocco. I was super excited to go, I did not know what to expect, I did some research, and I did have an overall good time, but on a few occasions the experience was not exactly positive, thus, the need to separate my opinions from Kalene’s. If you wanna know what she thought of Morocco…ask her.
Morocco is in Africa. It is second world, muslim, and quite poor. I knew all that. I had been advised that it is necessary to haggle on prices for your goods. It is a community based on us versus them. Tourist versus local. There are local prices and tourist prices. And there is never a price advertised….never. We began our African jaunt in Marrakech.
Marrakech seems overwhelming. And it is. All Moroccan cities are built on what is called a Medina. A walled fortress surrounding the whole city. Inside are all the good, shops, cheap accommodations, tourist traps, beggars, motorbikes…a lot of motorbikes, mosques, lower income locals, and tourists. Since I am white and they are not- I stick out. And I am viewed as a tourist. A tourist who has money. Morocco uses the currency of dirham (1$ CDN = 8Dh, 10 Dh = 1 Euro). It is quite cheap.
We arrived at the airport and were greeted by our very late shuttle driver who worked for our hostel to take us from the airport to the hostel. He made it 95% of the way then told us “a man will walk you the rest of the way, my van can’t fit”. Red flags instantly went up. We paid him and then we met this man. And by ‘man’ I mean seven year old boy. He greeted us and offered us a “big welcome” as is customary by them. Arabic is their national language along with French. English is developing. He lead us through the tiny, winding streets, giving us tips, and directions, nice kid. I felt good except for the kids posse of slightly older, yet still adolescent friends following us. We arrived and thanked him. Moroccan currency used to be closed to the rest of the world, only recently could you find it anywhere outside of Morocco. We found some. 1000 Dh’s which is the legal limit in denominations of 200 and 100 notes. We knew this would be a problem.
The kid expected a tip and we were happy to offer him one…just not 100Dh’s, the smallest notes we had at the time. We said let us check in, we will get change and get you in a minute. Kalene repeated in French. The posse didn’t like that. Long story short, they demanded 50Dh’s, we politely told them to fuck off, they followed us into the hostel and kept at it for several minutes before finally we refused to tip them anything at all and they left. It was not a positive way to begin in a new city. Now, I am about 190Ibs of solid steel sex appeal but I am not one for confrontation. I’ll admit that situation rattled me. I had no intention of tipping this young man anymore after his behavior and I also have no intention of getting physical with locals. All in all the situation ceased and nothing came of it but a little rough start. We talked to other tourists in our hostel who all had similar experiences. This began the overall theme of my visit to Morocco. It’s called money. Everytime we went anywhere, did anything, asked anything, or trusted anyone, it was about money. The most common spoken word in the English language is “the”. The most common spoken sentences by myself in Morocco were different versions of “no thank you, I do not want to buy that”.
We had a big double bed to ourselves in a room with four other people. English students. That night we met a good man named Ian Mallory. He has a website called Mallory on travel.com. He gets a commission if you visit so go ahead….I’ll wait. We had dinner with him and he told us some useful things and we became friends. The food in Morocco is awesome. Lots of vegetables, plenty of bread, cheap, mint tea, and no alcohol. I wanted to embrace the culture of the country I was in as much as I could. And in Morocco alcohol is not part of their lives so I wanted to abstain for the most part. Obviously on a few nights we found a bottle of wine and some local plants.
Marrakech was great because it was busy, the weather was nice, and we found the most excellent side stands for good, cheap, and highly questionable food. Marrakech also runs excursions into the desert. We wanted to do one and we did. We bargained that price down as well. We went for three days, two nights through the Atlas mountains to a hotel in a gorge and met authentic Berber people (Morocco is 80% Berber, 20% Muslim/Jewish). We associate Muslim with Morocco because they live in the most touristy places. Hence, it is mostly what you see. The second day we rode camels for 90 minutes into the desert and slept in a tent. It was freezing cold. Four months on this trip through the winter in Germany but the coldest nights were in Morocco. Why? I am glad you asked. Their building interiors are designed to keep in cool in the summer, so it keeps it cool in the winter too. It is basically bathroom tiles everywhere. Camels are very uncomfortable as well. The sunset was beautiful and the stars were unreal. Not as nice as Tobermory but still glorious.
From Marrakech we headed for the coast. I wanted water. Essaouria is a coastal hippie town. Much like many southern Ontario high schools claim to have the highest teen pregnancy rate every small Moroccan town claims to be where Jimi Hendrix hung out in the 60’s. And since the information is from a Moroccan person I instantly discredit them.
Essaouria was very nice. We got in some epic jogs on the Atlantic Ocean (from the Eastern shore!). Our accommodation there was very nice full of very nice people, great internet, free breakfast, roof terrace all for 6 euros per night. We realized soon after that we should have stayed there longer and not stuck to our original plan to keep moving. Lesson learned: when you are having fun, stay put!
The overnight from Essaouria to Fez. Would not recommend this for anyone. Pretty much the sketchiest thing we did on this trip. We boarded a bus around 830pm, scheduled to arrive in Fez early the next morning. They wanted to keep our backpacks underneath the bus but we absolutely refused. No way was this thing getting out of my sight. Not a single other tourist was on this bus and it didn’t seem to have any form of organization. Our bathroom break at about 3am was an adventure. Kalene left the bus and headed for the station/rundown cement building/homeless shelter from what it looked like. I quickly realized it was not safe and ran after her. She was safely inside the bathroom and I went too. She reached the bus before me and it began to leave. I will never forget the sight of leaving this shit hole at 3am to see my bus pulling away. I ran after it and fought my way on. Kalene had reminded them that I was coming so maybe the driver let up on the gas just a little bit.
We arrived in Fez around 8am or so. We each had not gotten a lot of sleep. For the first time on the trip we showed up without a hostel booked. Figured we find one when we got here. We were greeted by a young Moroccan student who offered us his hostel, which we knew was good and thought of it. We left our things, had breakfast, and made our way to see if any others were around and were better. Oh, and internet in Fez and Tangier does not exist in hostels. The student followed offering us a tour. We didn’t want it but he wouldn’t shut up. He would show us around and for a reasonable price. No thanks. But he kept pressing. Finally, Kalene got pissed and told him no, very sternly, maybe swore a little and left. I was very proud of my KK. Moroccan men are used to being in control and most have never been spoken to by a woman like that before. He didn’t like what Kalene said to him at all. So what, Canadian woman are free, always have been, always will be, and they have the right to speak their mind when provoked. This is what I said to him when he tried to level with me man to man.
From that moment on I was unable to trust another Moroccan person again. Everytime, and I mean everytime they tell you they don’t want money, or you can look for free, or they do this to practice English, or they will show you where something is, or that a certain item is handmade, or it is made of a unique substance, or it is a good deal, or they are the only shop that has this item, it is always a crock of shit. We let our guard down, we followed a man who would show us a great view of the city where we can get pictures. We were on the roof for twenty minutes and when we came down he was waiting for us? Why? Only one reason he wants money.
(Ken hasn't finished this post so please read mine for the rest of Morocco/ a WAY MORE positive view on it.)
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