Marrakech and the Dada-ist Valley

Marrakech: Vacation Within a Vacation

After the theft in Meknes of my camera, mobile phone, and some cash, I was ready to move on, and after a scorching train ride, I arrived in the capital of Southern Morocco, Marrakech.  Marrakech is heavily touristed, even by Moroccans, and holds its fair share of magic.  Snake charmers play double-reed clarinets with de-fanged and close mouthed cobras and pythons at their feet.  It's all fun and games until you're wearing flip flops around cobras.  West African merchants sell bright shirts to Arab men in cafes in their distinct accent of French.  Gnaoui troupes dance to rapid drum beats and hand cymbal claps.  Banjo players serenade the crowd, one with a rooster perched atop his head, pleading ever so humbly for a donation from the odd white guy in attendance.  Marrakech is a specter.  "From here to Timbuktu" isn't a figure of speech here; it's a unit of distance.  The sun kills in the afternoon, but at night, the city comes alive, amid the glow of kerosene lamps lighting the powders, potions, and what I can only assume are dinosaur eggs being sold by professional apothecaries and magicians.  Vendors hawk orange juice, snails, sheep's brain, and all manner of food to the gathered throng.  A smoky cloud sits over Jamaa' al-Fna through the night.

It is into this madness and beauty that I brought two American friends for the fourth of July.  After seeing the palaces and ruins of the city and eating more shellfish than Jews usually prefer, we departed for Essaouria on the Atlantic.  It was there where we awoke on July 4, and without intending to, we ended up at the sea wall.  O'er the ramparts we watched...

Making our way back to Marrakech on their last night in Morocco, we had another serendipitous bout of patriotism.  The kefta we ordered looked suspiciously like tiny hamburgers.  The gazpacho-esque soup served as our ketchup.  And we ordered some good ol' fashioned Coca-Colas to wash down the American goodness.  It took every ounce of will-power I had not to break out in a Lee Greenwood song.  

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Dades Valley: Berbers are the Bedouins of the Maghreb

I arrived in Bou Melna du Dades after the vacation within a vacation ended.  After promptly passing out from lack of sleep, I awoke and rode the station wagon (stuffed with 14 people) to the end of the line at the Dades Gorge. After continuing on for a few kilometers, I realized that the riverside trails were in the opposite direction and began trekking back.

Grafiti in Berber/Amazigh covered street signs and buildings.  Having spent almost five years studying Arabic, I go to an Arab country and promptly move to the place where Arabic is a foreign language, an unwelcome mark of governmental dominance in local affairs.  Some young girls washing clothes at the river asked if I was Saudi because of my accent.  They began doing the "Are you my husband?" interrogation.  They didn't ask me if I was Muslim, only if I prayed.  Preferring not to self-identify as a kafir infidel, I said I was Christian.  Maybe the fact that it was in Arabic and not Berber confused them, but they seemed to not know that religions other than Islam exist.  This is the middle of nowhere.

After ten kilometers of trekking in the morning sun, I arrived at Ait (pronounced like the contraction of Alright) Ali, a Berber village in the valley.  Muha invited me into his shop/home, where we drank tea and fanta and he applied kohl to my eyes to protect me from the dust.  Only the fact that Berber men do this frequently saved me from facing the fact that I was wearing eye-liner. 

Had I been to the Sidi Boubkere gorge?, he asked.  Since I had not, he invited me to come back the next day, hike the valleys, and stay with his family.  When I arrived today, we set out, hiking through fields of corn, groves of almond and olive trees, and women washing clothes in the river.  

"Do you have anything that will break if it gets wet?" he asked me.
"Ummm.  Passport.  iPod.  A camera that was lent to me."
"Oh.  That means you will be careful.  Take my keys and lighter."

I was now wading in chest-level water carrying my satchel over my head like a soldier in Vietnam.

After an hour of wading and rapids, we emerged at a small pool at a narrow point in the gorge.

"La piscine natural!" Muha exclaimed.

After swimming and male-bonding over sardine sandwiches and dirty jokes, we began the long hitch-hike home.

And this is how I got adopted by a Berber man whose life consists of swimming in gorges, tomato sandwiches and pots of mint tea.

Not sure if I'll make it to Casablanca.  Ait Ali is paradise.