I have just returned from a trip to Morocco. With some friends I went there straight after christmas to spent the new years eve and some more days there. This trip was just amazing. So many people met. So many impressions. I am still overwhelmed. I can’t describe all of what I have experienced here, but I will try to write down some of my memories.
We spent one night in Marakkesh. Man, this city is insane. You remember all those insane traffic scenes from movies? People honking at each other all the time, little mopeds driving everywhere, donkey carts besides normal cars? I found every cliché to be true. The next day we straightly took a 4hr-busride to a much smaller city, not so touristicly, deeper in the country at the sea. The city is called Essaouira. We all liked the city so much, that we spent the rest of our time there.
Although we only spent some days in Essaouira we got to know many many people. I had the feeling that if we spent two more weeks there we would know a large part of the foreigners. We were often invited for (a super amazing arabaic) tea and talked to a lot of foreigners.
One man we got to to know introduced himself as a former philosopher. He told us we had to seize the sunset — which we actually did as you can see on the photos. We went through the silent city, to the harbor and walked on the beach. When it was still dark, a straying little dog joined us and stayed with us for the whole time. He walked for hours with us and stayed until we finally got into a place to eat something. On the photo above you can see one of my friends running into a swarm of sea gulls. Once the little dog saw him running, he joined him in scaring the sea gulls.
When we met the philosopher by random again, he invited us for a tea. He and his nephew-teenager are selling paintings to make a living. The philosophers nephew was proud to show us a large catalogue where someone has photographed various artwork from North Africa. On one of the photos one of the nephews paintings was shown. It showed the african continent as an abstract face with eyes, nose and a mouth. Tears were rolling from the eyes. When I asked him why the continent was crying he answered “chômage” — unemployment. People are very poor in this country. Much poorer than the photos below might indicate. It makes me sad that we people here live in overwhelming luxury, pure decadence, compared to the living in some of the third world countries. This is one of the things I often think about: How can we as engineers help solving modern world problems like poverty? How can I use my talents, my knowledge, for something else than maximizing the revenue of some random company.
We spent new years eve on top of our hostel with some other backpackers. Our arabic hosts cooked a huge dinner for us and played traditional music with an electrical amplifier. One of the other people I got to know that evening was Tibari. He makes his living as an artist, specialized in arabic calligraphy and art. I talked a lot to him and we often invited him to join us in the evening. On the last day he cooked a large meal for us and some other backpackers we met at the hostel. We also went to visit his gallery, one of the photos below was taken at his workspace there.
So many interesting cultures. So many interesting people. Damn, I really want to travel more.
