REVIEW - MOROCCO ADVENTURE RAID 2005

We visited imperial cities, we crossed the red sands, we admired the minarets, we entered the Kasbahs built of chalk and clay mud, we loved the medina’s and their nerved domes, we dreamed in front of the high dunes, the desert fading away in oblivion.

We walked through oasis that emerged from nowhere, we discovered the mountains of many Atlases, put down like fortresses in the mists of time, we pondered over the limitless sea. This was Morocco 2005.

The white city of Tangier was our first steps into Morocco. Tangier where others before us and especially at a slower pace – people like Delacroix or Matisse – once admired the intense blue facades, contrasting heavily with too crude whites. Moving quickly through Morocco we headed out to Fez, our destination for the eve of the first day. The Athens of Africa, oldest of all imperial cities, the city of hundred fountains. We had a promenade through the old town, punctuated by the step of a guide, a true living chronicle of town’s history as time and dynasties went by. An apprehension of Islam and a discovery of its most strange aspects.

The beautiful Zagora was our third stop. The last city before nowhere. The last shower preceding the Sahara desert. One should have known that the prayer from Zagora’s minarets can be heard deep in the Draa valley. Acknowledged by us, the fact remains engraved forever in our memory.

Marrakech the Almohad, the small wooden bar-boxes inlaid with sandal-wood and ebony, the Majorelle garden and Yves St. Laurents’ shadow, and above all the incomparable Jemma-El-Fna square where storytellers propose unbelievable tales of love and jealousy dotted with treasures hidden deep inside abandoned riads.  Marrakech, the kingdom of merchants, snake charmers and entertainers.

Tafraoute opened to us the gates of it’s ochre walls.  She unveiled to us the silence of the night and the sweetness of the south.  More than any other, this small forgotten city made us understand how far we are away from real civilisation, the one that lives with the sun and feeds in accordance with the seasons.

Back to the sea, at Ifni, it seemed to us our trip was coming to an end.  Some miles earlier, crossing the suburbs of Guelmin, we had heard the call of the South that will make you leave civilisation to enter the Great Unknown, just in order to check how to get to Dakar when following the coastline.

Essaouira the city of artists opened up it’s soul. Some people took advantage of it to take up with the past, others to prepare the future. Essaouira is a piece of magic, occidental enough to make tourists feel at ease, oriental enough to reassure it’s inhabitants. This place preserves what is most important in Morocco:  a real authenticity.

Finally we had to head home. El Jadida was a journey without incidents, just a stop on the road to home, luxurious enough to make us forget the end of the story was nearby. When we saw again the facades of Tangier, each one of us felt some annoyance that our adventure was over.

Thank you to all the participants for their good mood, their spontaneity, their help and their true desire to please themselves.

Hervé Descamps