I often use the hashtag #TravelerNotTourist and someone asked why I detested being called a tourist. Travelling is a hobby and a lifestyle I acquired very late in my life (after my kids were born) and I associate a certain sanctity and purpose over just clicking pictures at popular attractions. Yes, I do that too but the major purpose of traveling for me is to discover myself through the lens of milieus, canvases, cultures I put myself into time and again; and to ensure my kids learn nuances of life, facing situations, appreciating the diversity and harmony of various lives across the planet. Travelling for me is enriching our souls, broadening our mindframes and adding a layer to our character and attitude with a tinge of self-discovery.
Our current travel escapade was to discover Morocco, the best kept secret of North Africa. Since my little girl fantasizes over Paris, we made it a 2 day pit stop enroute Morocco. We had been to Paris some 11 years ago as a part of a 20 day trip to Western Europe and at that time were left a bit disappointed thanks to the hoopla and hullabaloo over the supposedly city of love.
A lot of water has flown under the bridge in the last 11 years and we visited many more places to actually feel quite underwhelmed with Paris this time. In my humble opinion Paris (and London too) rank the least among the type of cities they're actually known for. Architecture, heritage, lifestyle, cuisine or even for photogenic spots or monuments, almost every other historic city of Europe fare better. Edinburgh, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Amsterdam, Rome - all are picturesque and soul fulfilling over Paris. However this post is not to diss French folks...after all they were credited to add passion to love (and lust) - French kissing, anyone ? So, let's cut them some slack.
Morocco had been in our bucket list since long. We missed it in our itinerary of Spain and Portugal considering the geographic proximity but we were destined to make it our standalone destination and are we satisfied ? No, we were surprised, enchanted and mesmerized. At some point, I wondered if this could rank the best among all the places we visited, but it still falls in the top 5.
While European expeditions have more been around Gothic, Victorian, Viking style palaces, squares and legacy, Scandinavia (and Switzerland) is more about scenic beauty, Caribbean about leisure vacations, South America about discovering the uncharted and alien world, but the part of world which charmed me in a whole different way is Arab and Muslim world (and no, I'm not talking about Dubai or Doha...puh-lease !)
2 years back when we visited Iraq, Palestine and Jordan - (none of those were typical tourist destinations), I was catapulted into a realm that's unknown to the consumers of CNN, BBC, CBC kind of propaganda. Even today, Canada government advisories strictly recommend against visiting any Arab or Middle Eastern country but I am the last to follow such 'advices'. Similarly Morocco with it's intermittent jihadist moments (and movements) and it's history with 'Arab Spring', has not been the safest of places but meh as I have my own local reliable sources for research about safety and security.
The first hour of our landing in Morocco welcomed us with the protests in solidarity with Palestine issue. My major high point in any travel is about discussing (and discoursing) with local populace to know how different they think from the mainstream media fodder. So naturally I spoke to a handful of local Arabs about their stance on the Palestine resistance and as expected everyone wanted Palestine to be a free country but all of them in the same breath mentioned they don't care about inflictions of Palestinians much as they also want to be in good terms with Israel as well. They unequivocally denied if they support giving refuge to Palestinians into their country. The pattern was same in Jordan, UAE, Egypt too. All of them believe in Muslim brotherhood but the protests are majorly symbolic.
Moving over politics, there was a diagonal split in urban youth and older rural demographics of Morocco in terms of lifestyle. All older women and rural women invariably sported burqa or hijab whereas modern girls made a clear statement with their shorts, tanks, one piece frocks in a 99% Muslim majority monarchy, and the moral police didn't have any bearing on their lifestyle and that's something Indian societies can take a leaf out of.
Tattoos are forbidden in Islam but there are established tattoo studios with multiple reviews. Mrs decided to make herself a memory out of a tattoo in such place. Music, alcohol, dating scene were ubiquitous in a country where premarital sex among locals is illegal (whatever that means).
One novel experience for me in Morocco is it's an erstwhile French colony and while Arabic is a defacto first language for everyone, French is omnipresent in signboards, official parlance, government gazettes etc. It's like English in India but has far etched presence even in rural or tribal pockets. Since most countries we visited were non-anglophone, we thought Morocco also would be a piece of cake for us but all locals were surprised we knew neither French nor Arabic. Some even pitied upon our travesty.
Morocco also presented another distinct trait that it's a blend of Arab culture (owing to it being a Muslim theocracy), French and European tint (thanks to colonialization by French and shared history with Spain) and African way of life (due to it's Saharan climate and immigration enmasse from southern African nations). I believe Morocco is the only country in the world that mixed Arab-European-African way of life seamlessly.
By now, you might have understood why I don't call myself a tourist as I haven't spoken about the places or attractions despite 7 long paragraphs about the milieu and culture but that doesn't take the scenic beauty away from the country. I'm always delighted and mesmerized with narrow cobbled streets which were there in abundance in old towns of Marrakech, Fes and Chefchaouen, the latter being the entangelment of narrow alleys on mountainous terrain to which blue washed house, roads and every other sight only adds a surreal aura and it not being flocked by too many tourists (like in Santorini) makes it even more special. The entire small mountainous blue town was left to us and every local person was our photographer and instagrammer. They, like any other Moroccons have taken hospitality to another notch.
Talking about Fes, which sports the oldest continuous university of the world and is replete with madarsas, hammams and is one of the largest old towns in the Muslim world was my dream. Reaching the destination in the town of over 1000 GPS defying narrow streets all leading to nowhere requires a problem-solving and analytical acumen. And most streets look dilapidated with 1200 years old buildings but surprisingly strong enough to bolster modern 5 star hotels in their womb too. We faced a very heartwarming peculiar incident there which I'll explain in post script of this article.
But another memorable (lowkey nauseating) experience was traversing through slaughterhouses to surface in a millennium old tannery where we witnessed live leather tanning from goat and lamb skin. These are the experiences my kids will remember forever that they would never ever learn among the four walls of their classrooms.
A reluctant addition in our itinerary was Rabat, the political capital which we presumed to be boring but the city flung us into surprise by its world standard roads on one hand but some mind numbing history of unfinished mosques, a walled white-washed city but something I took away from the city was the sight of a river confluencing into an ocean....
I'm particularly enchanted with rivers and it's majestic flowing waters among rocks and rapids but this is the very first time I have seen the river entering the sea. While I'm farfetched from being poetic by any standards, the climax of the river into a sea, influx of each others' energies, exchange of fluids and the imminent culmination was a beautiful metaphor for a passionate love story. You got it, if you got it.
Casablanca which once was only familiar as a classic blockbuster is actually a port city in Morocco, the movie was set in. A grand mosque completely built on Atlantic ocean was inimitable and peaceful. The neighboring beach was our second rendezvous with eastern Atlantic and the beach was vibrant with every other kid sporting Hakimi's jerseys..(yeah who Messi, Ronaldo or MBappe ?) After streets of Brazil and Argentina, we saw such football fervor in Morocco no place is devoid of a rolling soccer ball.
The most striking experience of Casablanca is visiting a ghetto called 'Cuba' named after the Caribbean country after it's abject poverty. The slums, houses were wrecked and archaic that reminded us a bit of favelas of Rio-De-Janeiro.
The grand finale of the trip had to be a spoilt exotic place and we were conscious not to go to any place similar to Wadi Rum sand desert in Jordan or dunes of Dubai, Hence it's the turn of a rocky Agafay desert which reminded us of 'Breaking Bad' and the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. Shame on us, but it's our first ever stay in a tent camp amidst vast wilderness, camels and never before sunset and sunrise experiences.
The trip to Morocco felt more consummate because we travelled across all terrains like cobbled historic old towns, mountains, beach, desert, urban areas and experienced Sunni Salafi culture smoothly blending with modern and ambitious youth and I must say the monarchy is balancing everything pretty well. Now that we are fresh from these memories, my insta feed will be filled with more stories and I hope travel freaks will rejoice the deluge while others might contemplate unfollowing or blocking me, but no stopping my juggernaut.
I would end this note with one very peculiar experience related to food. The national food (presumably) is Tajine which is a soup with either veggies, chicken, lamb or beef and this is the only dish available in every restaurant and they all present a menu card with the exact same four dishes and we took the same 2 dishes for lunch and dinner throughout the stay. Not complaining but the entire country lives only on one dish and I thought I was passionate about Biryani. I give up.
Having said that, if you are an ardent traveler, Morocco must be in your travel bucket list regardless of you being into landscapes, culture, history, architecture, beaches because the country offers you everything superlative. But it just falls short of Jordan.
PS: In Fes, when we were meandering through the maze of old streets on the eve of Eid-ul-Adha (Bakrid), a gentleman named Abdullah accosted to greet us and tell us how much he loved India, Indian movies and after some small talk also invited us to his home. Since interacting with locals is our way of traveling, we accepted the invite and visited his 1200 years old home nestled tightly among thousands of similar houses. His shy wife offered us some soft drink and the lamb (due for sacrifice next day) was watching us agape. He took us to his terrace which offered an unprecedented view of tightly knitted terraces across the town with sunset as a backdrop. He claimed to be polyglot of 5 languages and a teacher of Islamic studies to foreigners in the neighboring maars. Such interactions and experiences are why I live for. Traveling is living.
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