Morocco: A Snapshot

After a three-hour flight to Casablanca and a four-hour train ride to Marrakech, my roommate and I collapsed into bed when we arrived at our hotel at 1 am. So far, all we had seen of Morocco was the inside of airports and trains and taxis. We caught a painfully beautiful African sunset from the airplane windows mid-flight. I’d never seen a red, orange, and indigo sunset before. After we landed, the rest of our travels that night took place against backdrops of depthless blackened windows, as if someone had pulled a thick black curtain over the outside world, hiding the landscapes of this new, mysterious country.

The next morning, we awoke to an alternate universe. We stepped out of our tranquil Riad (Moroccan house built around an interior garden, which now functions as a hotel) to find that we were situated smack dab in the middle of the souks, Marrakech’s labyrinthine marketplace, where pushy salesmen beckon you into their shops to sell you anything from scarves, to pottery, to pastries. We made our way around the corner to La Place des Épices, the spice market, where the shopkeepers lure you into their stalls by calling you in to play a guessing game in which they hold out handfuls of herbs and spices and challenge you to identify each one.

It was in the Place des Épices where we first met our Moroccan buddy, Moustafa, who was the first spice seller to summon us to play the guessing game, holding out bars of musk and amber for us to smell. He was an extremely animated and talkative character who immediately invited us to sit in his shop and have tea with him. He pulled out a couple of stools, served us a pot of sweet mint tea, and talked to us about Morocco amid piles of red paprika and yellow cumin.

Nearly everything about Morocco felt, looked, and tasted drastically different. Over the next four days, my mind would reel in an attempt to take everything in. Even the Moroccan color palette is an intense shift from what I’m used to looking at. New York and Paris are mostly gray cities; Paris colors itself with pastel flowers and leafy trees, while New York colors itself with neon lights and yellow taxis. Marrakech is a city with two colors: the ever-cloudless pale blue of the sky and the orangey-red-brown tones of the buildings.

At night, Marrakech is unrecognizable. The bustling, vibrant streets are deserted and all of the shops are closed. Without street signs, storefronts, or any distinguishing characteristics, our route back to the hotel proves nearly impossible to find. Somehow, we manage to make it back to the Riad before 10:30, fall asleep and wait for the black curtain to be lifted again for the next morning.