Travel
Morocco be praised
by Dave Dobbyn
A lifetime in 21 days.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but soon, and for the rest of your life.”
Thank you Humphrey Bogart for your wonderful lines in the movie Casablanca. They mean more to me now that I’ve flown, trained, bussed, taxied, camel- and mule-trekked and walked through beautiful Morocco.
From the labyrinthine medinas of Casablanca, Rabat, Fez and Marrakech to the gorgeous High Atlas mountains and the magical Sahara, you certainly cover a lot of ground when collecting 46 minutes of footage – for my episode of Intrepid Journeys (Monday September 26, TV1, 8.35pm). From day one of 21, I soon forgot about being filmed and just took it all in.
It was with some relief that I’d agreed to come to Morocco laden not with guitar or instrument but ergonomically kitted out with a journal, two small cameras, a mobile, a Bible and an iPod in a small backpack, water supply included. “A change of clothes and the barest of toiletries and I am complete,” I noted in my journal. No porters and Louis Vuitton trunk for me. I want to get my hands dirty and sleep under the northern stars. (NB: It’s truly worth travelling light – the liberty of having two free hands is exhilarating and, dare I say it, intrepidly sensible.)
The dry heat has you drinking water constantly, but there’s none of the discomfort of humidity. On a roadless desert in 42-degree heat, being whacked in the head by the roof of a Land-Rover at speed is a sobering thing. Especially after having just swallowed a fly. It was all I could do to laugh at my circumstances, knowing that a few clicks away was the Algerian border and no chance of taking a loaf of Vogel’s to Ahmed Zaoui’s whanau. Even this far off there are military posts and soldiers who look just hot enough to pop you one. I remind myself that it’s always hot here and nobody’s going to pop me one and, besides, look at that Sahara desert!
It is pink and orange and fawny and luminous and sensuous and along its edge are auberges (hostels) signposted with exotic names – mine was Auberge Salaam. Hardly time to quench the thirst with the national drink, sweet peppermint tea, which is ubiquitous but always welcome. In a strangely quiet sandstorm I’m atop a camel heading for a Berber camp some miles away. Camels are graceful on sand-dunes, although there’s nothing graceful about going downhill or the grinding effect on a novice’s bum. Feeling such relief at dismounting I just had to celebrate with my Berber hosts and jam on some tom-toms while singing something about Allah and, eventually, for no apparent reason, the Chesdale cheese jingle.
Under a dazzlingly clear northern night sky scrawny kittens played with scarab beetles as the dunes adopted us for the night, the camels serenely content and farting. There is another vocabulary somewhere for describing the supreme peacefulness of the Sahara – her curves and colours are seductive, her silence is enigmatic and just plain breathtaking. Stranger still was my ability to text home from the back of a mule in the foothills of Imlil under Mt Toubkal, the high, stony track unfenced and daringly precipitous above a clear mountain stream replete with blue plastic bags – they blow around wild here, just beyond the villages and cities.
And everywhere the slow rhythm of the call to prayer five times daily beckons the faithful to their mats in mosques or quiet shady courtyards. And it has me vowing to return to get lost in the medina markets and dance again with a dwarf in the square in Marrakech with snakes around my neck and a bellyful of olives and tagine with chilli sauce – my broken French more than enough to get by among the enthralling and warm-hearted people. Morocco I will never quite leave you – you have broadened my dreams and my worldview. Shokram and God bless you.
