Round the world Trip: Morocco Part I

Imagine the narrowest street you've ever been on. Now imagine a parade coming down that street. Now imagine yourself driving through that parade and you have a flavor of what it's like to drive through some of Morocco's medieval cities.

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Morocco was our "exotic destination" when we decided it would be a bad idea to go to India in May. It hits 100 degrees in the shade and when a private driver I had emailed essentially told me not to come I figured I should heed his word. After all, if a man is turning down business then it must be a truly dumb idea. So Morocco, which Sharon and I have been wanting to go to for a while, stepped back into the picture.

We arrived in Casablanca late in the evening after 16 hours of travel from Bangkok and took a grand taxi to our hotel in the city. There are two kinds of taxis in Morocco, we learned. Grand Taxis, despite the name, are ancient Mercedes that run on diesel and will probably still be running long after the end of the world. They are also, as we later learned, more expensive: the idea is to share them with others but we grabbed one for ourselves. We learned we should have gotten a Petite Taxi, which is generally not quite as old and, as the name suggests, approaches the dimensions of the original Mini Cooper. So when it was that the Grand Taxi driver demanded the equivalent of $30, which seemed like a fortune in Morocco, I asked the hotel doorman if I was being ripped off. When he said I wasn't it was the first indication Morocco wouldn't be nearly as cheap as the Philippines or Thailand.

We read Casablanca didn't have much going for it so we planned to spend the night and then leave town the following day. It was disappointing because the name conjures up such romantic images. But the travel rags are right: despite being the economic capital of the country, it's still just a collection of tired, Soviet-looking office buildings and beige apartments littered with satellite dishes. The one famous landmark, the Hussein II mosque, which is one of the few mosques that lets in non-Muslims, happened to be closed when we walked over to it.

Hussein II Mosque

Casablanca did start a trend that continued throughout the country, however: the Moroccan people we interacted with were extremely friendly and gracious. On our breakfast table was a card indicating a few breakfast specials that had been designed by some famous European chef. Our waiter joked that if the food was good, he would take the credit, and if it wasn't, he'd let the European chef take the credit.

After wandering around a bit we took a taxi to the train station and hopped on a train to Rabat, the political capital of Morocco. A petite taxi took us to our accommodation for the night, a riad inside the medieval city walls, also called the medina. A riad is simply a traditional Moroccan home with a courtyard in the middle divided into four areas. Many have been turned into beautiful guest houses. Ours was on top of a hill and the rooftop terrace had views looking over the medina. Because it was once a French colony there are lots of French people in Morocco. Our riad was run by a French woman who spoke not a word of English. She brought out some traditional mint tea and biscuits for us while she checked us in.

Sharon and I only had one night in Rabat before continuing on our journey so we headed out to explore. We walked through a crowded, overgrown cemetery on a big hill overlooking the sea, and then entered the medina's kasbah, or fort. The kasbah was a warren of narrow stone streets. The homes were all painted blue and white and most had fantastic wood doors.  A corner of the kasbah provided another view over the sea. The beach was crowded with sunbathers and surfers and a crowd of teenagers dribbled a soccer ball through the streets below us.

Beach at Rabat

We then left the kasbah and walked into the souks. Rabat, we discovered, is a good entry point to Morocco's souks. For starters, they're a manageable size so you're not as likely to get lost. And the souk owners aren't in your face like in the other cities. That means you can actually stroll up and down the souks and look at the wares without worrying you'll get the hard sell the second you slow your pace for a closer inspection. The souks have everything: spices, fresh breads, shoes, purses, jewelry, blankets, rugs, pots and pans, perfume, wallets. It's like a medieval bazaar mixed with an outdoor mall.

Then we walked over to the Hassan Tower, the massive minaret of an incomplete mosque started in 1195 A.D. It was never finished after the sponsoring sultan died. The mausoleum of Morocco's last king, Mohammed V, sits next door and is watched over by an honor guard on horses. As the sun set and the temperature dropped, we decided to hike back to our riad to relax for a bit before dinner.

Hassan Tower

We had one of the best dinners of the trip that night at a restaurant in the "new" part of Rabat, about a 15 minute walk outside the medina walls. Tajine is the national dish in Morocco and refers to the upside-down funnel shaped ceramic cookware the food is cooked in. There are different kinds of tajines but lamb and chicken are the most common. There are generally vegetables such as carrots and potatoes, and sometimes things like prunes and walnuts, included as well, along with a hefty helping of spices. It is delicious and Sharon and I probably ate tajine every day we were in Morocco. I'd get tired of it and say I was going to order something else but then when it came time to order Tajine it was.

TAGINE!!

Do you have any pies?

The Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday in the States, we celebrated Thanksgiving at my boss's boss's house in North Sydney. He's American , his wife is Australian, and they invited some people over for the holiday.

Sharon and I were tasked with bringing pie, something that seemed easy enough so I didn't think about it again until Friday morning.

I did a search for local bakeries and started calling them. I figured it would take a few seconds to figure out whether they had what I wanted or not.

I called the first bakery. A French-sounding woman answered.

"Hi," I said, "Do you have any pies?"
"Yes," the French accent answered, "We have chicken pies, chicken and bacon pies, beef pies, lamb and…

"No, no," I cut her off before getting the entire menu, "I'm looking for dessert pies."

"Eh, dessert pies?" She asked as if this were an alien concept. I was starting to get the sense this task might not be so easy.

"Yeah...like apple pie or pecan pie," I suggested.

"Pecan pie?" She said, as if confused. I had pronounced it peh-cahn, like it's said in the States. I had heard it's said pee-can here so thought maybe that threw her off.
"Yes...peh-cahn pie, pee-can pie." I tried it both ways, hoping that might get things back on track.
"Eh...no apple pie or pecan pie. But we have chocolate cake, cheesecake, and…lots of other cakes." She paused, before triumphantly stating that they also had apple strudel. "That's like apple pie," she said.

"Oh, apple strudel?" I was willing to settle for anything approaching pie at this point. "Okay, that might work," I told her.

"I'm sorry -- you want strudel?"

"Um, look, I'll just swing by to look at what you have."

The French accent didn't understand. "Sorry?" she said. This was going downhill quickly.

"Um…yeah, it seems like you guys have a lot of…offerings…so I'll come take a look." I was now thinking to myself…'Offerings?',  what a bad choice of words. How do I extract myself from this conversation?

The French accent started talking again, but it was garbled.

"I'll just stop by," I said, not sure how I was still on the phone.

There was another round of garbled French accent.

"Okay, um…I'll see you later," I said and hung up.

Sharon could barely contain herself and started laughing hysterically. Then she declared that no one could understand me. While it's true that I mumble a bit (okay, all the time), I told her it wasn't my fault and gave her the honor of calling the next bakery.

In a very clear, professional voice Sharon asked the first bakery she called if they had pie. It was a voice you could have confidence in and I figured she'd have this situation all wrapped up in a few seconds.

The façade quickly broke down though when after a moment of silence she raised her voice and stressed "Not meat pies, dessert pies. Like apple pie or pecan pie." I broke into a grin.

There were a few more seconds of silence before Sharon again had to describe what she was looking for. At this point I started laughing. Either we were both idiots or all the bakers were, but if the former at least I wasn't alone. She hung up the phone, defeated.

After calling about five bakeries to no avail we gave up and figured we'd try again when we got to North Sydney. We called a bakery that, surprise, surprise, did not carry dessert pies. But the very kind lady did let us know that a deli across from her was selling pies. We walked in and found out they had just made a bunch of pumpkin pies that morning. I scooped up two and we made our way to the Thanksgiving dinner. Next time I'll just show up with a meat pie: "Oh, that turkey and stuffing was fantastic. Hope everyone saved some room for lamb pie!"