Excursion, Days 7-8: Over the Mountains

It was an early morning in Fes – we were up by 7 and on the bus a half hour later. But the early start was completely worth it: our excursion completely saved the best for last as we headed northward!

The first stop of the day was a few hours away – the ruins of the Roman city of Volubilis. The site represents one of the Romans’ southern-most outposts along the Mediterranean, and it served as a pretty sizeable base for operations further south. I’m a sucker for anything Roman (and ruined) so I was in heaven among the crumbling pillars and well-preserved mosaics throughout the site. Apparently they are not 100% authentic: the whole site was demolished by an earthquake a few decades back and was rebuilt to reflect its appearance as it was known before the earthquake. The excavations are continuing today – our guide mentioned numerous times that they had uncovered only half of the city and still expected to find the remains of a coliseum, among other things. As for what’s there now, we got to walk through a bunch of destroyed homes and baths, as well as the forum, a main temple, and even a brothel!

From there, it was a five-minute drive into (or up to) Moulay Idriss, a small village which looks as though someone plopped it on the top of a hill and the houses gradually spilled downwards like melting ice cream. Which would have been so delicious in the early October sun. But instead, we had a quick walking tour of the small town and then settled for lunch at a B&B owned and operated by the sweetest old lady and her daughter. They cooked us a delicious meal of veggies and rice, chicken with quince (and even showed us exactly what a quince was: like a giant apple that’s too hard to be eaten without cooking it first), with pomegranates for dessert. If there’s 1 thing I’ll miss about Moroccan cuisine, I think it’ll be the incredible profusion of pomegranates – I think I’d only eaten 1 in my entire pre-Moroccan life.

After relaxing for a little while, we hopped back in our van and drove until we hit the old colonial border separating French Morocco from the old Spanish-controlled territory. What a relief to know that I could speak comfortably with the locals here in the language of their once and former oppressors! Well, at least my Spanish is much better than my French (and certainly my Arabic, for that matter).

It was only maybe a half hour further until we came upon the village of Chefchouen, which is, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful place that I have seen in Morocco. The entire village is nestled onto a mountainside in the Rif range, and its name comes from the two twin peaks poking out like horns over the city. What is more, nearly every building in the entire village is painted white and sky blue, so the only colors you see everywhere are the deep green of the tree-covered mountains, and the pure blue and white of the sky and the houses. We checked into our hotel to discover that every room (at least every room on our floor) was decked out in a Pretty Pink Princess theme, including pink walls and pink bedspreads on the huge canopy beds which every little girl dreams of having… or so I imagine.

The sun was just setting as we went out to explore our new location a bit, so we wandered around the tight, hilly, beautiful medina and did a little bit of window shopping at the various shops of wool and silver and fossils. Fadoua met us an hour later for dinner at Café Hassan, where we had carrot soup, beef couscous, and lemon pie (I hadn’t realized how much I missed pie – mmmm!). Before settling in for the night, we did a little bit more shopping, the girls were offered a few thousand camels a piece for their hands in marriage, and we found a bunch of Spanish environmental activists painting a few different murals on the medina walls (which turned out pretty well, we discovered when we returned to the site the following morning).

We got to sleep in all the way until 8:00! But it was all made alright by the best breakfast of my entire semester – they had cereal and milk! Add in some Boston (brand) tea, pineapple juice, and bread with various jams – plus complimentary cookies which I stole for the ride home – and I was a happy young man. And best of all (for those still following the random clogged ear side story) my right ear popped and would remain clear to this day! The left ear, however, remained moody for another week before finally returning to a normal level of hearing.

We had a few hours of the morning free to go out on the town, so we returned to the medina on the hill had a small group photo shoot among the windy blue-and-white alleys, doors, and cobblestone streets. Eventually, we wandered into the Kasbah museum and garden, complete with a tower that had some exquisite views – I took literally hundreds of pictures. A few of the best are up online! We also made a few final shopping stops – I gave in and bought an extremely soft and toasty blue and grey sweater made of a wool/cashmere mixture for 145 dirhams (just short of 20 bucks!). I only barely resisted adding in a pair of knit, woolen socks like Aunt Lil makes for me back home and which would have been perfect for wearing around the house here in Morocco (no one ever goes around barefoot in the house; the sole exception is the very formal, carpeted dining room where you must remove your shoes to enter).

Unfortunately, we had to start the return trip, so we all boarded the van and watched the Rif Mountains drift into the background and fade into our memories. A little past the border back into French Morocco, we stopped at the town of Ouazzane for lunch. Fadoua explained to us that the house at which we were stopping was actually the vacation home of the CCCL’s founders, Farah and Abdelhai, whose families were both very prominent in Northern Morocco (Farah’s family is even a part of the Sharif, meaning that they can trace their heritage back to the Prophet Muhammad). So, as you can well imagine, this house was gorgeous. Set on a hill where it overlooked the stretch into “downtown” Ouazzane, the house was a gigantic and beautiful building with pillars, a huge terrace, and a small fountain. We took a tour through their garden slash orchard, looked at their old olive press and had a basic explanation of how they still use the press and their home-grown olives to manufacture their own olive oil for family, friends, and personal use. Then we had an enchanting (I can’t think of any other word to describe how good this food was) meal of vegetable and bean salads, chicken tajine, and pomegranates, all along with olive oil and tangerines from the property. Eternally jealous of the employee parties which get held here a few times each year, we set off toward Rabat once and for all.

We had one final rest stop perhaps 20 minutes outside of Rabat, and while everyone else was using the restrooms, I wandered over to look at some construction just winding down for the day to the side of the parking lot. Before I knew it, 8 or so Moroccan construction men came over and just started talking to me, asking how I was and where I was from. Among the first questions, of course, was whether I spoke Arabic, to which I always answer, “Shwiyya,” (a little bit) in true Stuff White People Like fashion. Next they asked if I spoke French or Spanish, and after I told them that I could speak decently well in Spanish, they proceeded to speak with me in Italian. Granted, I could understand them well enough, but the situation as a whole fairly ridiculous: here I was in the middle of Morocco speaking in broken Spanish with a group of construction men who, in turn, answered me in broken Italian. But it was an immensely enjoyable 10 minutes, and made me realize that what I like best about Morocco, I think, is its people. Certainly, they can be a little annoying when they play point-and-laugh-at-the-funny-blond-foreigner out in the medina streets (and that happens even more than you’d think), but for the most part, they are among the friendliest and most outgoing people that I have ever met. As long as you’re nice in return and making some sort of effort to learn about their culture, they’re likely to tell you that your Arabic is quite good (though you haven’t said more than 3 words), continue conversing for an extended period of time, and invite you into their home for tea.

However, I left my new friends after a short while to make the final leg of the trip home to Rabat. Over the past week, our eyes had been opened to a vision of Morocco as a much more diverse and beautiful place than we had even imagined – and there was still so much left to be seen. Our excursion was complete, but our learning was far from over.