We don’t prefer the “been there, done that” type of
whirlwind travelling. To us, a trip is only worth as much as what we can learn
something from it, about the people, the culture, the history, the geology, the
technology, whatever. And for the maximum amount of learning, one needs to
prepare before the trip, and follow up afterwards. It’s a lot of work, but
makes the travel more interesting.
Morocco
will be our first experience with Africa. We
chose it because of its relative safety, and because of its close vicinity to Spain. In our
previous trips to Spain, we heard of people’s fears of Moroccans—it’s very much
like Americans’ fears of Mexicans; and we’ve seen in Cordoba (southern Spain)
the Great
Mosque built by the Moorish people. Not far south from Cordoba,
one meets the Gibraltar Strait, where Morocco is visible with naked eye.
Once we mention Morocco, many people asked: “Are
you going to Casa Blanca?” This is a testament of the power and success of the
movie. But for those who’ve been to Morocco, Casa Blanca is a
“must-not-go-city”. Not that it is dangerous or bad in some other way, but it’s
modern, well-developed, and would not show off the most unique cultural
heritage of Morocco.
Instead, the tourist attractions are mostly in the Imperial Cities,
Fez (or Fès), Meknes,
Marrakesh and Rabat. Of these four, the present-day capital
and the current King’s seat is Rabat,
which makes it less attractive than the others. This is not a commentary on the
taste of the King and Queen, but the mere fact that their adapting Rabat to modern living necessarily makes Rabat less ancient than the rest. Besides,
all that extra people and traffic that commensurate with a modern capital—just imagine
Washington DC—would be a hassle for navigating the
streets. So we’ll take the other three Imperial Cities.
In addition, we’d like to visit the Sahara,
one of the biggest natural wonders in that part of the world. Well, the real Sahara is hard to get to, and for a short visit,
especially in the hot summer sun, we’d settle for a view of a corner of a dune
not far from it. Traditionally there are two places to do this, and following
the advice of many people on the web, we chose the town of Merzouga. There, we’d be able to pick a hotel
room, and see the dune from our window. Going into the desert will still be a
challenge, as in the summer heat not even camels would want to go in. That is,
during the day. There might still be a chance to go into the desert after
sundown, and get back out before daybreak. We’ll see.
By now the trip has come into shape. We’d start off in Marrakesh, go to Merzouga to see the desert, and then to Meknes/Fez
(these two cities are very close). Then we go up to Tanger (or Tangier), where
we can take a ferry to Spain. and
To round off the trip, we’ll stop by Ait Ben Haddou (or Aït
Benhaddou), where supposedly the movie Lawrence of Arabia is shot.
And right next to Meknes,
we will visit Volubilis, a Roman city in ruins. Whether we can finish all of
these, or some of it, it would be a fabulous trip.