The Intricacies of the Old World — The Towering Travelers

Predictably, everyone was exhausted when we arrived in Morocco.

Jason and I met up with Emilie and Ally in the Lisbon airport for our flight to Marrakech. When we got to Marrakech, we had several challenges and misunderstandings, which were made more difficult by our exhaustion. First, we were staying in the medina, where cars couldn’t actually drive. So, our driver hired a porter to take our luggage and bring it into the medina, while he led us through on foot. When explained, this makes perfect sense, but none of it was conveyed in English, and we spent an alarmed couple of seconds trying to figure out if we would ever see our stuff again. Then, there was a booking error with our riad, and as they spoke very little English, we had a lot of translation difficulties in resolving everything. Finally, we tried about five ATMs before we found one that worked. It was all a bit stressful.

Silhouette of a Moroccan sunset (Photo/Jason Rafal)

I go into this detail because I think it’s important to acknowledge that sometimes travel is challenging or downright unpleasant. It’s usually temporary, and doesn’t usually detract from the overall amazing experience of getting out of your comfort zone, but it can suck. Once everything was all resolved, we treated ourselves to a nice restaurant and a bottle of wine, which helped everyone feel better.

Walking through the narrow streets (Photo/Jason Rafal)

This was our first introduction to tajine, which is a traditional dish in which meat and vegetables are cooked for about three hours in a covered clay pot over a fire. It’s very good, and when it’s done well, incredibly delicious. We ordered a Moroccan wine as well — we’ve heard alcohol is pushed on tourists, but we didn’t need any encouragement. The wine was very drinkable, but not overly complex, which was our experience throughout the trip.

Moroccan riads are primarily old houses with beautiful interior courtyards that have been transformed into bed and breakfasts. They vary in size, and since Moroccans often don’t eat out for dinner, they tend to be where meals are available to tourists in the older parts of town. The restaurants are often in the courtyards or the roof terraces of the riads, so that diners can experience some respite from the hustle and engine smell of the medina.

The riads all serve breakfast, which is a feast of breads, dips, and fruits, in the beautiful inner courtyards. Depending on the riad, there was also bird chatter and/or music. At our second riad, the man serving breakfast told us that he loves listening to Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, and Louis Armstrong. Much to our amusement, this riad also had a track of American pop songs played on pan flutes, including Evanescence and Avril Lavigne.

The stairway of our first riad (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Circular staircases were very common (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A typical breakfast spread (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Monday was our first full day in Marrakech, and we set out to do some exploring.

The 19th-century Bahia Palace was our first introduction to the insane amount of detailed extravagance featured in Moroccan palaces and tombs. The name “Bahia” means “brilliance,” and it’s not an exaggeration. The palace features beautiful gardens and courtyards with colorful tile work, detailed carvings, and gleaming stained glass. Maybe it’s just because we went there first, but Bahia Palace was my favorite.

Along the medina wall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Group self portrait in a very old mirror (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Shadows against the carvings in the Bahia Palace (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Emilie in one of the extraordinary rooms (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Stained glass on a light fixture (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole, Emilie, and Ally through some of the carved doorways (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Carvings under a doorway arch (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the courtyards (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The ceiling in one of the rooms (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Irrigation in one of the courtyard gardens (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Views through the courtyard rooms (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Next, we went to Saadien’s Tombs, which are considerably older (16th century). The tombs were apparently abandoned for centuries and then rediscovered in the early 1900s. The compound, which houses around 60 members of the royal family, consists of a courtyard and three large rooms. The most famous room, which is usually simply referred to as “the room with the twelve columns,” is a beautiful combination of tile, stucco, and cedar work. You can’t actually go into this room, and the viewing area only holds about 4 people, so there’s usually a line to look in. We stood in line for 20 minutes without actually knowing what we were waiting for, but the view was worth it. That being said, as with all of the sites we visited in Morocco, morning is usually better if you don’t want to wait in line for a long time.

One of the city’s mosques (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the tomb cats (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Inside the room with twelve columns (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the tomb walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After lunch, we headed over to Le Jardin Secret, which is actually two gardens in the heart of the medina. The gardens are wonderfully lush and beautiful, and there’s a cafe that overlooks them. We stopped there for mint tea before heading back to our riad.

The roads were full of vans, cars, motorcycles, mopeds, horse-drawn carriages, and hand carts. I’ve never been somewhere that had such an equal distribution of several centuries of transportation. Unfortunately, because the city walls are so high and the inner roads are so narrow, the two-stroke engine exhaust gets trapped, making fresh air hard to come by. This makes the inner courtyards of the gardens, palaces, and riads even more welcoming.

Horses and carriages on the street (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Flowers in the garden (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view over Le Jardin Secret (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A subtle self portrait in a pot of mint tea (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the beautiful walkways in Le Jardin Secret (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The calls to prayer were something that I both expected and didn’t fully understand before we heard them. There are five each day, and you’ll hear each one at multiple times — there’s an initial call to come and pray, and then another when the prayer actually starts a few minutes later. The initial call blasts through mosque speakers, sounding almost like an upset sheep or a single human yell. Then, the other speakers crackle and catch up, producing a somewhat tinny melding of voices for the next few minutes. It’s loud, and different, and mesmerizing. For the first few days, I woke up for the pre-dawn call to prayer, which soothed my frustration at jet lag.

Another thing I didn’t fully expect about Morocco were the communal cats everywhere. I started seeing cats on the street immediately, but was surprised that most of them weren’t actually feral. We saw a lot of eye infections, but most of the cats were a healthy weight and had fur that was in great shape. As we continued our trip, we started seeing a lot of shopkeepers feeding and interacting with the cats, and one of our guides later said that they were the bosses of the medina. Some of them were kind of obnoxiously friendly, especially when you had food.

An adorable kitten lounging (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A fluffy kitten next to one of the walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Rugs hanging out to dry (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunset at the Koutoubia Mosque (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunset at a park near the Koutoubia Mosque (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Appetizers at dinner (Photo/Jason Rafal)