Clear Eyes And The Crew - Morocco 2011

Learning about Berber carpets in Ait Benhaddou

Erin

On our trip to Morocco in June 2011, we booked a tour from Marrakesh to Merzouga, in the Sahara Desert thinking it would be a great idea to spend a night out under the stars in the Sahara. The whole idea was a trek out into the great wilds of the desert, a stop off in a canyon overnight on the way, and then trek by camel from the last known civilisation into the Sahara properly before hitting up a Berber tent in the rose-gold dunes. A great idea it ended up being, and on this tour is where we met Claire and two American guys whose names escape me but for the sake of storytelling we will call Michael and David (and those very easily could be their names as they sound familiar).

Claire was on the tour alone, having done it last minute when her travelling companion, Georgina had to rush back to the UK for a funeral. We became friendly with her on the tour and eventually found out that she was planning to head to the coastal city of Essouira after the tour, when she met back up with Georgina in Marrakesh. First though, we spent a night under the stars in the desert with Claire, Michael, David and the two Berber guides where we shared a flask of whiskey and a joint of hash under the Milky Way on top of a sand dune. Let me tell you that when you try to climb a sand dune, it's akin to climbing a huge snowy hill with the snow at least calf deep. That gives you some kind of idea of the difficulty if you have never climbed a dune before.

The next day, we trekked all the way back from this Berber camp in the dunes all the way to Marrakesh, an ordeal of about 8 hours. It was in Marrakesh that we met back up with Claire's friend Georgina, they got their backpacks from their guesthouse and off we went to try and land some transport to Essouira. Of course in this vein you get the guesthouse trying to sell you an overpriced taxi or somesuch, which we promptly declined saying that we could find it cheaper elsewhere. They assured us we couldn't. It turned out they were almost right. Almost.

Thanks to Georgina and Pete's skills as negotiators we managed to create havoc in a crowd of unruly taxi drivers.

“We want to go to Essouira.”
“Nine-hundred Dirhams!”

“Hell no, we aren't paying nine-hundred Dirhams!”

Cue an argument between about twenty cabbies outside of a halal KFC about the cost of a drive to Essouira. We began to second guess our cabbing it decision and started to walk away when we were approached by a quiet cab driver of about sixty who whispered to us “Four hundred Dirhams, and I take you to Essouira now.”

Considering four hundred Dirhams was the equivalent of about ten euros each for a drive of over an hour, it was a pretty good deal to go right that minute. Pete and I had a hotel booked for the next day for two nights, but nothing for that night while Claire and Georgina had nothing booked at all, so we thought we could just wing it when we got to town and go from there but we ended up like Mary and Joseph with no room in any inns at all, thanks to the Gnaoua World Music festival being on that particular weekend. We asked around in every guesthouse we could find only to be turned away until someone called over a slightly balding man named Raida who said to us “Follow me.”

Well, we thought he had a hotel or something, and I guess we were close. Instead he tells us to wait outside of a shop and disappears inside momentarily, returning with a tall man with crazy, long, curly hair. The new man was maybe in his thirties and asked us excitedly if we needed a place to stay. We replied we did, and he said “I have a lovely house, you are welcome to come and stay at my house.”

Well, this was both unexpected and somewhat a sketchy situation to me, a fledgling traveller, but taking our risks with this random shop keeper were infinitely better than sleeping in shifts on the beach. The only thing that made it sketchier than it already was happened to be when he told us “Two of you come with me to my house, two of you stay here.”

“Why?” we asked.

“My house is far. Maybe you won't like.” was the reply. And so we discussed it amongst ourselves and I said that as the only man in the group Pete should go with one of the other girls and leave me in the alley. I can kind of handle myself in a fight if I have to, so I was prepared to stay with one of the girls in the event something kicked off in the alley.

So in the end, Pete and Georgina went, leaving myself and Claire in the alleyway outside of the shop which was owned by the strange guy with the curly hair. We later learned that his name was Hameed, and Raida was one of his best friends. Hameed went off with Georgina and Pete and Raida seemed to disappear, adding to the sketchiness of the situation. After twenty minutes of sitting in this dark side alley, I began to feel uneasy. Pete had my passport and he very likely was now hanging, skinned in some crazy man's apartment. I started formulating some plan on how to get to Rabat to get to the embassy to get a new one.

Eventually a young boy came and asked Claire and I to go with him to Hameed's house, without Pete and Georgina. Alarm bells began to ring in my head and I was convinced Pete and Georgina had been taken prisoner and were being tortured as we were led through dark back alleys by this kid. “It's okay,” I thought. “There's one of him, and two of us. We can probably take him if we have to.”

Finally, after what seemed to be forever, being led through a maze of back streets through the city of Essouira by nearly moonlight and the occasional small flaming torch on a wall, akin to medieval times, we arrived at what we were told was Hameed's house. It was such an ordeal to find the place (and lucky for us we had this child guide), as I felt like I needed to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to be able to find my way out again. I entered the large, wooden Arabic styled door, my fists at the ready in case I had to take someone on the minute I got inside.

My hesitation and speedy judgement of this group of random individuals proceeded to be quickly shut down. We entered what can only be described as an Arabic take on the Ewok abodes on the Forest Moon of Endor. Hameed's place was essentially built around what appeared to be a tree, and sported several curiously built rooms. The SEVERAL bathrooms experienced a strange electrical issue, but aside from this, I was pleasantly surprised and relieved to see that it was what we had been promised – somewhere to stay, with a local guy who just happened to have several spare rooms.

Despite the fact that Pete and I had a hotel booked for the next three nights, we decided to stay at Hameed's (he'd extended a very open invite for us to remain if we so wished). He and Raida hosted us incredibly well, showed us around town. Took us to Hameed's rose oil and argan oil shops and they taught us how to cook tagines. Suffice it to say, it was three of the most memorable days we had in Morocco, and they were three day's I'd happily repeat. We were fed every morning and night and there was enough mint tea, hookahs and, if we so wished, alcohol and hash to go around. Hameed and Raida invited their friends around and we'd spend evenings on the upper terrace smoking shishas and drinking, before retiring to sleep.

During one such gathering, the Moroccans all struggled to remember and pronounce our Western names, and as a result gave us Arabic names. Pete had been being called Ali-Baba since we arrived in Morocco, so that stuck easily. Claire was named 'Fatima' as she had blue eyes, and Fatima means 'shining one' and they remarked on her “clear eyes”. Georgina was called Shakira which means 'grateful', but they mainly named her this as she actually looks very much like the singer Shakira. I was called 'Aisha', which happened to be Mohammed's favourite wife and means 'alive' or 'lively'.

The only downside to the whole experience was how Hameed seemed to take an overly familiar shine to Georgina. An incredibly pretty, thin, blonde-haired girl of about nineteen, it was easy to see why. This unnerved Pete and I, especially given he'd been trying to make moves on her in front of us a few times, and so the day we left, we ensured Claire and Georgina left with us, and then were set up in a different hotel away from Hameed's. Aside from that though, I can't fault the experience, and it just went to show that you can't judge people necessarily on their motives from a first interaction and as long as you keep your wits about you, you should be okay in most situations.

For more detail on some of the occurrences in Hameed's House, check out the next story “Tagines You Shouldn't Trust”.