An acquaintance once tried to convince me, after I have explained to her why I sleep on a wooden board, that constantly training myself for the worst case scenario is not the way to go about living life. It pissed me off at that time and stirred some of my beliefs. Since then, I have swung into both sides of the extremes only to settle back in the gray area in between. I understand now that the truth is transient, that she’s not absolutely right, nor is she absolutely wrong.
Still, the fact remains that I am thriving because I prepared for this worst case scenario. Several years of abstinence from wasteful spending and dedication to the improvement of my skill culminated in success when everything around me is crashing and burning. Sure, it was tough watching people splurge and get ahead while I trail behind and grind away at life, but for some reason that seems to have added to my ability to get ahead when the situation turns around. I have less of an ego to get in the way and recovers faster when things don’t go my way. I am just used to it. My way has always been that of a less traveled road, because of that, moments where I can benefit and enjoy are far less frequent, at the same time and more intense.
I had always doubted my way, never fully believing that it will work out until it actually did. This crisis taught me that there is no correct way of living life and I am glad that I did it my way.
This is the dinner conversation that I recorded as we all slouched around the tent high, tired and well fed. Listening to this ambient background noise at home has become a way of relaxing for me. For some reason, it reminds me of happier times. A memory of the more adventurous me. I suggest letting it play while you read the rest of the post.
Same road, different journey
By now, mingling with everyone at the places we stay for the night has become second nature to me. We joined Balarz for a brief time and convinced him to join us in our desert excursion. Balarz is a Hungarian who is taking classes in a university in Yemen, an arab country. He owns an AK-47 assault rifle like everybody else there and is on a Hashish trail pilgrimage in Morocco.
Since he speaks Arabic, he can more or less communicate with Moroccans on an equal footing, so he didn’t get the taunt and art peddler’s attention as much as Mark did. He did still get the “You want Hashih?” from everyone else. According to him. The Hashih in Morocco are cheaper and purer than other places. $20 (USD) for 100 g.
Confusing morning
We were supposed to embark on a minibus in the morning, but we forgot to ask where we were supposed to meet. All along, we had assumed that we were to meet at the agency where we signed up, but no. The whole mall was locked down at the time of meeting. Long story short, we ran around Mark and I towards different places. Woke the hotel owner, boarded the wrong bus and finally got picked up by somebody off the street. He said to us “Do you need help?” and we immediately armed our defenses against another false guide or someone trying to rip us off.
To the guy’s credit, he actually brought us to the right person and the agency has a bus waiting to round up all the stragglers like us who had no clue how their world functions. It seems to me that once you have a contract with a local Moroccan, everyone will honor that and help in the success of the deal. This is when I started doubting my initial assessment of Moroccan business practices.
Balarz was super cool about it. He just sat down and had a coffee, not even worrying about losing the money he already paid. Making us feel like money pinchers.
What traveling is about
Andreia is a strong willed Portuguese call center manager celebrating a bachelorette party with her girlfriends. We bonded during the bus ride between cities while Mark and I acted as the communication hub between the different races. I find it amazing how everyone speaks multiple languages, but not the same ones all the time.
Joanna is a Master’s student in fashion currently studying in Barcelona, a kind soul who’s feelings and good intentions flowed freely from her pretty face. She came along with Andreia. The two of them were initially distant from the rest of the group, but once the common language is worked out, they warmed up pretty well (At least to Mark and I). If my memory serves me correctly, we had to speak French to Andreia and English to Joanna.
Mohammad, is our bus driver. A hard working 60 something Moroccan whom we entrusted our lives with on this trip. I say “entrust” because of the expert driving techniques he demonstrated while speeding through the winding mountainous roads of High Atlas (Wiki). He is a good man, the character of which can be sensed through his humbling demeanor. I talked with him quite a bit, at least, that’s what I thought until he finally mentioned in a apologizing manner that he had a lot of trouble understanding my French. That’s when Mark took over as the main French communicator for the trip. I doubt many people have heard French with Asian accents before and just like me when I first landed in Morocco, it will take them at least a few day to get used to the new accent.
Sight seeing and the trip through the High Atlas
For others making the same trip, be advised to wear something warm. Yes, your departing city probably has palm trees and is surrounded by sand, but crossing the high atlas means temperatures will be low enough to freeze water. Don’t make the mistake of wearing a T shirt and shorts.
The drive through the mountain is breathtakingly different. Red volcanic rocks with scant vegetation gives you an uninterrupted view of the steepness of the incline. From the top of each mountain, you can always look down directly to the green valley below where the water flows and supports life. If you fall, there really isn’t anything to stop you, adding some excitement of danger.
We stopped by one of the Casbah. The castles built in the old time to defend against invader. (Gladiator shot a scene in this Casbah). I guess, the will pictures speak of its beauty better than I can.
Mohammad dropped us off at a few designated stops. Mostly his “friends” shops and restaurants. Some are purely for a fair exchange of money and merchandise, but others made me think deep about what he’s trying to show
us. Because I don’t see any profit being made on these stops and it is these ones that has no clear profit motivations that disturbed me the most.
In the Casbah, I saw kids peddling wares when they should be in school getting an education. I was born in a 3rd world country, but even at my homeland, everyone had at least an education. These people will never know the possibilities that’s out there and their worlds will probably not expand beyond this Casbah. That lack of access to hope and a future of opened doors humbled me and made me realize how priviledged I am.
Joanna cried after learning why the policeman ordered her to stop giving the children chocolate cookies. We were at an observation deck overlooking a rocky valley while a swarm of kids is walking back home from school. Mohammad explained to us quietly. “If you give them the cookies everyone will swarm you and you will be injured in the process, because it is not fair to give only to a selected few in their culture. It is unjust.” But by then, the crowd already saw the cookies and were getting out of hand. You can feel their anger and need. Some shouts angry words because we are demeaning them, some begging for food because they wanted the cookies.
Luckily for everyone, an outstanding kid who seem to command respect amongst the crowd stood forward and demanded in his language that she hands him the whole pack. You can tell the voice of authority from his tone and I believe Joanna felt it too because she ended up trusting him with all the cookies. He then proceeded to distribute the cookies to those whom him deems in need. The rest shouted in anger as we turn our backs and escapes back to the bus while they were distracted. That young leader will grow up to be somebody one day. I wish him well.
Le Dromedaire (Or Camel, Dramedary)
There was a time of doubt when we finally got to the tents. Memory of street performers demanding money from us still fresh in our mind. These nomadic Moroccans are very nice and friendly as opposed to their counterparts in the city. The unnerving feeling where one of them is going to ask us all 200 Dh each after a great musical performance slowly faded away as the night dragged on into complete darkness. All they ended up asking for in return, was a simple exchange of music from each of our countries. I feel particularly inadequate when they asked for Canada because I don’t know any and Mark weren’t much help.
Once everyone got a few puff of hashish, the defense went down. By now, we have all loosened our defenses and are finally able to enjoy a care free good time with Morocco people. Abdi, the clan leader, is a short, solid and well educated man who can tell a joke using limited French and gestures. He was a “to the point” type of guy with the same essence of humor. His son is part of the clan and studies in the city during the week, they are a fairly proud and independent clan that does this as a sidejob to add some niceties to their life. I think partly because of their openenss and partly because nobody has asked me for money for a whole day, I finally began to relax and just slipped in and out of conversation with people.
This outing into the dessert along with Andreia, Joanna, Alexandre and Balarge is probably the best so far.
Of course, I couldn’t sleep at night. The experience is too new and adrenaline is still coursing through my veins. I got out of our tent in the middle of the night to enjoy the Arabian stars. Sand dunes lit with star lights guided me. With no lights from civilization around, I dared not wander too far. I chose a spot and sat down. It was then that I noticed. When there’s no wind, the only sound I can hear was the beat of my hear. It’s the first time in my life that I have experienced such quietness.
I passed by Rui’s computer at work one day and saw this picture I took of their wedding as the background. She told me that this is her favorite picture out of all of the wedding photos. I remember this one clearly. I remember how sad I was at missing the opportunity to capture this moment correctly with a good camera. I remember trying to hold my hand very still, hoping that the image will not blur because of the slow sensor. Lighting was bad (at least for the crappy $150 camera I had), which explains the original grainy image you see above. Notice the reddish color? Well, that is due to the dying blue sensors of this camera.
I was quite disappointed when I opened up the picture in Photoshop. It looked beyond repair. There were color information in only 1/8 th of the color levels and most of them in red. The blue channel was completely messed up. So I decided to give it an old and damaged look. Sepia filter is best suited for that. So I isolated the super grainy blue channel and used it as a sepia overlay on top of the original image. The result is this with huge fiml grain effects. This was done approximately 2 years ago.
Fast forward to the present. I have since learned numerous repair techniques in photoshop and also worked extensively with image processing hardware that uses algorithms to compensate for sensor defects. Image processing seems to have become my field of specialization. I actually have to add more grain to the repaired image to keep the wild wild west look. In addition, I added some EPIC effect to all white colors in the picture (wedding dress!!!). Done through gaussian blur, difference filter and vivid light.
And finally, a touch of sepia filter. Just enough to give it that old aged look.
The list is an assortment of sins and must-dos which Mark and I came up with for this trip. One of the items that I wrote down was watching an authentic belly dancing show. This is from a pet peeve of mine. When I travel I want to learn everything I can about the local dance culture, their business model, people’s perception of it and the nuances that come with the lifestyle. So the previous night, we did just that.
Culture and Economy
Here’s a footage of us crossing the street to get an idea of the chaotic nature of the traffic
Here’s a list of us walking in the souks alleyways.
Between child prostitution in the new city, peddling wares or photo-ops to tourists in the old city and finally, selling hashish (better quality pot more on this in a later entry) to every white skinned people looking lost, I think Marrakesh has a pretty good economy going for them. This impression I have of this place can probably be attributed to the underlying conflicts between the French and their “Colony”. So to speak.
I’ll try to demonstrate this first with examples. There’s a very big difference in interaction with the locals between Mark and I. First of all, it’s rare for them to see a white guy walking around in with an Asian. Second they never expected me to be able to speak French let along jokingly stab back at them. For the most part, people left me alone (the reason will be revealed in a later entry). So besides the normal: “You Japonais?” while showing the Buddhist prayer hand they usually just blurt out whatever English they know and be done with me. Mark however gets a completely different treatment which includes and not limited to: “Want hashih?”, “Take pictures?”, “Cent Dirham!”. I am not sure if he gets solicitation for “Jeunne fille” sex, I did not ask and do not intend to. We did have somebody asking us if we want “Good stuff with woman” around a street corner in CasaBlanca, but I didn’t think the woman was that young or good looking.
For us, Marrakesh was a new experience, but for the French who were visiting for the 10th time in their life, it was pretty much a colony where people are to be ordered around and that everything is cheap. You can basically collect France welfare and just stay in Morroco for its low living standard if you want (based on my calculations, detail feasibility study still need to be done). So the French’s attitudes towards the locals are that of annoyance and impatience (Which is the type of attitude I ended up adopting near the end of the trip as well for a different reason).
Overall, Marrakesh is worth staying 3 days for. Western tourists pays very well since our living standards are luxurious compared to the scraps that they have to fight for. 100 Dh (roughly $27) may be pocket change for you, but for the locals it can probably feed a person for a week (I once survived off 15 Dh/day on this trip).
What I believe will really help both the tourists and the locals, is for an effort to be put into making a transactions binding and to develop a pleasant attitude when an offer is rejected. The changing of an agreed upon amount made me suspicious of anything they say. The insults that they blurt out when I refused them, made me dread any contact with the local people. It’s true that by adopting the two, you might not get my business, but if your neighbor can get my business, it will benefit Marrakesh eventually. The way it’s going right now just pushes me to be my cruelest self without regret.
Sight Seeing
There are quite a few point of interest for sight seeing if you are into that type travel. Personally, traveling is more of a way to learn another lifestyle and a chance to interact with people that I would otherwise have not met. When you have traveled a lot, sight seeing in every country becomes the same. But this was a slow day as we waited for the next desert excursion to start, so we decided to do what all good tourists should do. Visit these places of interests. Palais Badii, La Koutoubia and Jardin Princesse Lalla Hasna. Add some more of the souks crawling and we managed to waste a whole day. As a consequence of this more leisurely pace, we got to witness more of the day to day life of Marrakesh. That includes a knife fight between a souk kid using WWF style huge metal belt against a street bum wielding a knife. Some blood were shed before people finally broke up the couple. All without the police being informed. I think the police are there more to protect the tourists than to enforce order between their own kind. There were also a rock throwing fight between kids. By rocks I mean rock the size of your fist. A police confiscated the camera of a tourist who took pictures of the royal palace which they were not allowed to.
Change of Plans
When we got back to the hotel, our hotel owner took us to a travel agency to register for a camel ride at 700 Dh each. Ralid was the person who serviced us. We were surprised by how fluent he is in English in a country with strong French influence. It turns out that he actuall graduated university in the US, go figure. For those of you who wish to take a desert excursion with a caravan, it’s best if you ask the hotel owners. Travel agencies tend to charge double the price and provide the same type of experience.
After much deliberation between me and Mark, we decided that signing up for this will not only provide for a good experience, but also allow us to travel towards the southern part of Morocco without having to worry about finding transportation. We made a conscious decision to break off from the original plan and make a leap of faith to go the less traveled road. Less protection for tourists and more potential dangers in less civilized area. By making this change, we no longer know if we will make it back in time for our plane nor do we have any idea how to travel from here on. I am scared of the numerous possibilities for error, but at the same time excited to see what I can do.
Night of Marrakesh
We spend the night at the night market in Jamaa-el-fna, splurging on food. For 75 Dh, we had: Tanjine, calamari, Pastille, Aubergine, soupe, coke and bread. This is definitely awesome and worth it. The place completely makes me feel at home. Reminds me of Taiwan’s night market but with different people. That about wrap up the day for the calm before the storm hit. It’ll be a while before I get to splurge on food like this again. But I didn’t know that back then…
