Passion and Pretty Windows

You can imagine the disorientation we felt after taking a cab to a plane to a subway to a bus to arrive in Seville, Spain at 6:00am bleary-eyed and hung over from travel.  We’d slipped back into our comfort with travel in developing countries while in Morocco, so with the clean early morning streets and set prices (and churros for breakfast!), there was the additional shock of readjusting to the western world. 

Seville, Spain is a town of passion.  From gorgeously-dressed Spanish couples cuddling on the streets to the sensual smell of jasmine and orange trees – one is surrounded by sense-tweaking images, feelings, and tastes that it’s hard not to be swept up by it all.  For instance:

1.  The preserved architecture: Seville has preserved and commemorated its rocky history (ahem…the Inquisition, Muslim and Christian battles over the ruling of the city, etc.) in ways that many cities are not able to.  Seville has maintained its beautiful white-washed rambling streets, 11^th century palaces, and gardens to the point that one is amazed by the age of some of the buildings - often 1000 years old and not the assumed 100.  The Jewish Quarter (or juderia) and Alcazar grounds are just some of the older areas we wandered through with our mouths open wondering how it was possible to soak it all up in only a few days.  Sadly, only recently have monuments and plagues started to go up in honour of the cultures that have disappeared, but at least they are going up – and being honoured with Unesco World Heritage labels to boot.

2.  The smells: As Steve said, “This is the best smelling city I’ve ever visited.”  Seville is known for its 1500 orange trees, and in early April, we were fortunate to experience orange blossom time.  I’d be lying if we didn’t have a conversation or two about capturing the smell a la Willy Wonka’s factory somehow, but we had no luck.  The least we can do is show some photos and if you’re inclined to scratch your monitor and take a whiff, I won’t be the one to stop you.

3.  The tastes: I admit, I was tiring of one too many veggie couscous dishes in Morocco and was ready for something new.  We couldn’t have picked a better spot than the land of tapas.  Mmmmm, tapas.  Why decide on one dish when you can have 5 little ones?  And even better – they’re sharable, which are the best kind of meals!  Every day (when not eating our home-made organic meals – another bonus of entering back into the western world - boutique organic food stores), we’d have our meal of tapas, whether it be lunch (at 3pm) or dinner (at 10pm).  The Sevillians (and we’re finding, the Spanish in general) have a shifted day that seems to welcome the most sunlight and puzzle the early-to-rise-early-to-bedders such as ourselves.  But, we did it.  We shifted, and we even woke up past 8am one morning. :)

4.  The religious passions: We are fast approaching Easter week here in the Catholic country of Spain, but my guess is that the city is passionate in this way regardless of the holiday.  The largest cathedral in the world lives in Seville and it’s known as “The Home of God: Built by the Hands of Lunatics” because in 1401, when an (already huge) mosque was going to be converted into a church, the authorities said something along the lines of, “Let us create such a building that future generations will take us for lunatics.”  So, yes.  They’re crazy about their religious passion, and they’ve got a Museo de Belles Artes that is 80% gorgeous religious art to prove it.

5.  The windows: These deserve a section of their own.  The way with which Sevillians decorate and let flowers, vines, and other amazing foliage spill over their sills and into their foyers is infectious.  Now if only we didn’t have a cat who thought plants = snacks, I’d want to do the same thing.

6.  The flamenco: The pain, the suffering, the wailing – the passion all started in Seville.  We attended a flamenco show in which we were shushed by a woman closely resembling the Venus of Willendorf who proceeded to dance the flamenco taps, jumps, hops, claps, and hard glares for 45 minutes straight.  Upon her final pose there was a moment of utter silence amongst the crowd before a roar went up to an eardrum-bursting decibel.  Her wailing singer and guitar player only added to the mood.  Well worth the $1.20 glass of delicious Spanish wine.  Have a (slightly obstructed) look...

Ah, yes.  Aye, dios mio, si.  As I mentioned, we wandered the streets for 4 days with our mouths agape and inhaling the smells of the blossoms.  It was mágica.  It was delicious and passion-filled.  It was pure Seville.

Djemaa el-Fna: Freshly Squeezed

A little factoid I read somewhere epitomized the experience of Marrakesh for me, "For a while, Marrakesh acted as the capital city in the area, but during the shakeup at the beginning of the century the capital seat moved to Rabat and Marrakesh went back to its original persona - a carnivalesque madhouse." In some ways, Marrakesh is the New Orleans of Morocco, except that the city has been putting on the same outdoor, chaotic, brilliant streetshow in Dejemaa el-Fna square every night for over 1000 years. (1000 years!) We got drawn into the wild ride while we were there and I thought it would be fun to relate the experience to you. So, I'll give it a shot, even though you can bet it was crazier than I'll be able to capture in words and images.

So, to begin: during the day Djemaa el-Fna (or just el-Fna to locals) is an oddly shaped square in the middle of a big city. There are the occasional motorbikes racing through, crowds milling around shopping and eating at the vendors in the stores around the perimenter, etc. Vendors are selling fresh squeezed OJ that they squeeze when you order it. The normal stuff for a big city square. The only real hint that things are about to get nutty is a little plaque on the edge of the square that says that UNESCO has declared the streetshow and life of the square to be part of the "Oral and Cultural Heritage of the World."

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As the sun lowers in the sky, it becomes nearly impossible to work your way through the crowds on the side streets leading up to the square. Tourists and locals vie for deals at the shops, for good tables at rooftop restaraunts from which to watch the action, and the noise and energy of the crowd ramps up noticably.

All of the sudden it begins, street performers are everywhere, gathering circles of onlookers three or four people deep. There are snake charmers wailing on flutes to coax hooded cobras out of baskets (and mothers snatching their children's fingers away). There are cross-dressing belly dancers who will run right through the crowd to demand money from you if they catch sight of a camera (see video for proof of that one). There are henna artists, fortune tellers, carnival games, and people, people, people.

 

The ones who generally steal the show though are the Gnaoua musicians with fez tassels swinging around their heads and castenettes clanging in their fingers. If you are lucky (and willing to slip them a few durham) you might get to take part in their act.

This is one of my favorite pictures from our times in Djemaa el-Fna. We approached a big circle to see what was going on. There was a clown comedian in the middle, who saw our white foreheads over the crowd and called out to us in French. "Where are you from? England" No. "France? Australia? USA? Germany? Canada?" Yes. Canada. "CANADA" he replied. "ME TOO!" Big applause and laugher from the audience. From then on we became part of his act, the straight guys to his belligerance, the willingly participating butt of the jokes. (All fairly clean and remarkably respectful thankfully). At one point he pulled Sarah out into the middle of the huge circle of locals for pictures and jokes. Check out the sea of faces watching Sarah and the guy in this picture.(Sarah was extremely brave and accomodating as I admittedly quivered behind the camera)

Ah, and did I forget to mention the food? As the street show begins about a hundred food vendors roll out tables, grills, food, etc and set up temporary restaraunts in the middle of the square where they'll cook your food right in front of you as you sit squished next to a mishmash of tourists and locals as they eat their evening meal. Snails, cow brain, rabbit, eel, it's all available. Our waiter came around and asked if we wanted some traditional Moroccain salads? Yes please. Flatbread? Indeed. Mixed kebabs. You betcha. Mixed fish fry. Please, like that wasn't a given. In the end we worked our way through a mountain of freshly cooked food, rubbing elbows with a couple from DC on one side and an extended Moroccain family on the other, the children of whom had to sit on the parent's laps to make them all fit.  (Thanks to Paul for the recommendation on Stall #22.)

So that's the briefest of recap on our nights out in Djemaa el-Fna square in Marrakesh. As I said before, Marrakesh is a bit carnivalesque - the square, the souqs (markets), the winding mysterious streets - and in some ways this is all a big show, but it is certainly a brillant one and it's also a big part of the life of those that live here, and has been for a 1000 years, so there's a wonderful authenticity about it as well.

Seville Spain next on the agenda!

Guess what we are about to take a ride on...

Because Jimi Said So

The wind of Essaouira generally blows in off the water, resting on the small island of the mainland devoted to the preservation of the area’s falcon population, but on the first windy day, we recalled the guidebook’s suggestion that “it is the type of wind that reputedly drives people crazy.”  In the morning, it breezed through the marketplace as we strolled, around the feral cats selling rugs, endless cups of thé du menthe, seagulls the size of castles, and fish vendors whose price rose or lowered depending on the buyer’s skin colour.  

Not to be defeated by the weather, we went to the beach, attempting to film the effects of the wind’s strength through physical representations and photographs of the sand.  This was not a day at the beach meant for collecting shells and freckles, but rather for playing with the weather.  But with no place to be and no specific time to be there, why not play on the beach?  We were in Essaouira, after all, the town known for its laid back attitude.

Essaouira is sleepy beach town we stumbled on while making our way through the “Atlantic Coast” chapter of our Lonely Planet Morocco guide.  Known for its prominence in the 18^th century as a trading post on the Asia/Africa/Europe routes, Essaouira remains a great stop off to this day (as we read, however, Jimi Hendrix and his hippie cohorts saw it in a different light than the place to buy gold, salt, or ostrich feathers.)  The guide book told us it was the “kind of place where people come and hang out rather than go sightseeing.”  We did just that.  Within hours of arriving at our riad (multi-storey townhouse set around a central garden) after a long bus ride from El Jadida, we extended our stay with the gut feeling that we’d like it there.  The day we arrived was the 3 month mark that we’d been on the road, and the thought of being somewhere known for its laissez-faire state of being sounded perfect.  

As I detailed in our blog post about our daily goings-on, we’ve worked hard to maintain our usual interests and ways in which we pass the time, but in different locations.  Essaouira was the perfect place to relax and just be.  The joy of being on the road for so long is having the time to do some things that the usual grind often prohibits and/or we pass off as being something to do later.  People watching, chasing the wind, reading an entire book in two days, wandering down the same street several times in one day, eating a long lunch on a park bench, playing with the camera settings, pausing to look at every street cat, gallery browsing, writing, observing children playing, and imitating the local wildlife are just some ways we’ve been spending our days in towns known for “hanging out.”  

As I write, I’m listening to the street sounds of Marrakech outside our window, already missing Essaouira and its calming effects.  It’s been important for us to not only hit the big cities on this trip.  When one generally thinks of Morocco, street markets, bustling cities, and Rick’s American Café come to mind, but the little places, too, make up this lovely country.  As travelers, some of our favourite times have been spent hanging out in smaller towns.  We’ve still got many cities on our agenda, but if we’ve learned anything from Essaouira, it’s to not overlook the little places – and to go with your gut feeling to extend your stay in the small towns.  It’s usually worth it.  And maybe with your free time in the small town, whiling away the hours, you could even build a castle made of sand before the wind takes it away….we know Jimi tried:

Talking Human in El Jadida Morocco

As you can imagine, over a three plus month period of time, Sarah and I have developed a number of ongoing strands of dialogue and observation that get picked up from time to time as we have little observations or reflections to add. One of the big ones is language. We’ve both been amazed at how easy it has been to navigate our way through the various countries we’ve been in using almost nothing but English. We study up in the guide book on “thank you” or “good morning” and “hello,” but generally, there have been few situations where we’ve had to resort to sign language to get our message across. This is mainly happening I think, because we are on a fairly standard backpackers/traveller circuit, where it pays to be able to communicate with the tourists. But there is a downside to this universality of English as well – it’s become a language of commerce. Some common phrases – “For you, big discount.” “Please look at my menu,” “Massage? Taxi? Maybe next time?”

It’s therefore been a real pleasure to step into Morrocco, where Sarah’s French has been put to the real test. (I’ve been blown away by how much she can speak) Communicating in someone else’s native tongue flips around the power dynamic in an interesting way. All of the sudden we are not speaking and being met with the blank pause where someone is trying to decode our words, we are the ones with the blank look as those around us wait patiently for us to catch up. I think this is partially why we’ve had a few more human, “connecting with other people” experiences here than we have in other places. Because we’ve moved beyond a language of commerce and into the language of the country.

An illustrative anecdote – Our first stop has been in El Jadida, a mid-sized coastal town on the Atlantic coast where we spent one day wandering around the old walled city that was built by the Portuguese in the early 1500s. There is one street with some vendors, one of whose shop we wandered into and Sarah began to chat with him about his life. Turns out he’s from a small village in the Sahara, where he travels back to frequently with money from selling things in the shop. The pieces are all handmade in the Saharan village with a very specific style, blocky figures, geometric designs, lots of metal and intricate handwork. We got a chance to see pictures of his village, his family, and the desert. This is not the type of experience you can have with someone whose learned mainly the words to communicate about buying and selling.

And another – The second day went took a “petite taxi” to the taxi stand to get on a “grand taxi” which took us the couple of miles down to the local beach, a long beautiful strip of white-tan sand with soccer games, wind-surfing, and endless teenagers milling around. The beach got more and more crowded as we lay there reading and watching the crowd until this pack of little boys (7 year olds maybe?) ran up to me and said something akin to “Monsieur, blah blah blah,” and pointing to the sand next to me. I tried out “Je…nous…parle….vous…Frances” in my terrible, terrible accent to which they grinned and repeated their requests. Sarah leaned over and said “They want to know if it’s ok if you’ll watch their clothes while they play.” Brilliant. Absolutely.

This is the pile of clothes they managed to get out of in three seconds flat before they sprinted towards the water.

This is mid sprint to the water as they briefly got involved with a pickup soccer game before making it to the waves.

And finally, an obligatory roll in the sand before heading back out to the waves to do it all over again.

And one final moment of neat human connection. As I’m sure “everyone” knows, April 1^st was the opening day game for the Red Sox. I found myself in the smoky bar of our hotel at 11:30pm watching the sad ending of the game when the two young guys next to me leaned over and asked it the game was live (in English). Turns out they are from Tunisia and love American basketball and soccer but sadly not baseball. But they were interested in hearing the rules, so I walked them through innings, outs, pitchers, positions, the whole works. I’m not sure if they got it all, but it was great to just hang out, chat, and talk baseball even if it was to a couple of guys who had never heard of ARod.

The next morning, I was in the lobby checking email and the two guys showed up. They wanted to check their lotto scores because they were sure they’d become millionaires overnight (though they were not shocked to find out they were not). One lingered afterwards and said something about Facebook. I thought he wanted to check his account or something so I went to the website, where my account was open. He leaned over, typed in his name, found himself and clicked Friend Request. “Aziz?” I asked, reading it off the screen. He nodded and said “Aziz.”  I touched my chest and said “Steve.” He grinned, shook my hand, and took off. First time I’ve ever made a friend digitally and in person at the same time.

Look closely, you can see me in the reflection.

And what’s a blog post without a dancing camel?