Happy to be Traveling

Succumb to the maze of the Medina, get a whiff of an unusual spice, rub up against a certain lamp, and it’s possible a spell has been cast and your belief in dreams has been enhanced.  Take my Berber doppelgänger, Ali Baba bin Berzerki Berber.  Bin Berzerki has often dreamt of owning a Picasso.  So today he exits…

Yesterday our driver, Zamir, took us to Volubilis, the site of Roman ruins dating back to the third century BC.  Built on a hill looking out onto what was once probably a much more fertile valley, the settlement appears to have been as large as Pompeii.  It has the stamp of empire with the columns and the…

Monday. Oct 25. All the staff at our Riad are young and super friendly. Hanna, who seems in charge, said they are trying to make this an unforgettable experience. Great so far! I’m lounging on a sofa in this sitting area as I write. Breakfast: traditional Moroccan pancakes, sweetbread, homemade yogurt, cheese omelet. Coffee.  Dinner:…

Sunday, while we were wandering through the shoulder-wide walkways with Hakim, it became clear that calling Fes a walled Medina referred to more than the exterior fourteen-gated rampart surrounding the town.   Inside the Medina, whether we turned left or right, there was always a seamless wall two-to-three stories high on either side of us.  This wall…

Sunday. We started the morning with a Moroccan breakfast  (included with our room). Three kinds of bread. One a flat round made with semolina, one a sweet bread – like a light pound cake, and the final a thin round, looks like a bagel but flatter, almost cracker-like bread. An array of  jams, marmalade, and butter..Fresh squeezed…

As I shuffle into my dotage, I’ve become an aficionado of slippers.  I’m forever in search of the perfect pair, and I’ve always wondered how a curled pointy-toe pair of yellow Ali Baba specials would feel on my feet.  Where better to rub the magic lamp and see if my wish might be granted? Mohammed kept having…

Yesterday, when we got off a full-to-overflowing train from Casablanca (it’s the beginning of a week-long holiday for Moroccan families), we followed the crowd over the tracks into the taxi parking zone where two Moroccans were heatedly screaming at each other.  No blows were exchanged, but at one point they hung fire when one of them,…

On the train, one of the women told us “Casablanca, it is nothing”, with a flick of her wrist as one would do to shoo a fly. “Fes is the real Morocco.”  Keep that in the back of your mind and let’s see what unfolds. I mentioned there were four women in our compartment. All young…

Boy, for a travel day, the adventure expanded exponentially. Is it easy to take a train in Morocco? Sure. Quick taxi to the new Casa Voyeuger station in Casablanca, trains clearly listed on the big airport style display…well, anyway, there was no confusion. We got on the train, shared a first class compartment with 4…

I haven’t had a drink in years, and yet it was unnerving, in a city of millions where the busy streets are filled with activity, to walk block after block without seeing a single bar or liquor store.   Where were the beckoning neon signs, the glistening bottles behind glass, the beer joints catering to the Bukowskis…