Snow Way, Dude!

Marrakesh, Morocco. Travel writers tend to exaggerate a bit. Flowery language is used to create a picture perfect world; one of far off realms, exotic locales, and endless beauty. They do this because they have to sell their literature in order to make a living, and strangely, romantic notions tend to sell better than ferocious diatribes. Nobody buys the travel book titled The Drunken Hellholes of Mexico. Sadly, hyperbole can become a necessary evil for these dreamy travelers. If they can't manage to sell their poetic pontifications they would just become a bunch of hopelessly unemployable hippies with no travelling money. Unfortunately, this desire to succeed makes for an extraordinary conflict of interest. Case in point, though little is written about it, prior to his career in politics Dick Cheney honed his particular brand of malevolent duplicity whilst writing cheery passages about the Middle East for Fodors. It's a shame really. A typical blurb about Morocco, from Lonely Planet, might read as follows:


If Fes is Morocco's spiritual capital, then Marrakesh is it's beating heart. Follow its twisting arteries to its pulsing energy source - the Place Djemaa el-Fna - a huge square in the medina where jugglers and storytellers jostle for position with snake charmers, magicians, and acrobats. Only in Marrakesh does this medieval pageantry survive.

Now I'm in no position to argue with Lonely Planet, they probably have lawyers. Let's just say that I strongly disagree with their word choice. For example, where they say storytellers, I might choose to precede that word with Arabic; and where they use the term medieval pageantry, I might use the phrase filthy pack of travel writing lies. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy Marrakesh, I most assuredly did. It's just that it really wasn't what I was expecting.

Arriving late, with our stomachs empty, Xander and I were hungry for food and excitement. Putting our trust in the infinite knowledge of our guidebook, we headed to the Place Djemaa el-Fna, in the center of the medina. The immense square was packed tight, everyone having obviously followed their own guidebooks. I'll be the first to admit that there was definitely energy in the air. As we entered the fray a traditionally dressed musician danced around us, his castanet-style palm cymbals clashing rhythmically. As he spun, a frilly tassel at the peak of his skull cap twirled skillfully around his head. It was exciting...and it lasted for about three seconds. He stopped, held out his hat, and aggressively pleaded for a tip before hastily moving on to the next set of tourists. We moved on to the celebrated snake charmers, a sight I was definitely excited to see. Now I don't know much about zoology, so perhaps it was merely the chill night air that had created the stupor in these venomous reptiles - or maybe they were dead. Three of these harmless critters lay on a carpet, limp and lifeless, the purported snake charmer playing neither fiddle nor flute. I think he was busy clipping his toenails. Upon our advance, one was quickly scooped up and placed over Xander's neck. They it lay, developing rigor mortis. "Take picture...take picture", crowed the handler, then proffered his hand for the fee of this charming service.



We hoped the food stalls would take our mind off this shameless hucksterism. Exotic smells filled the air, my nose blindly leading my body, as Jewish noses tend to do. There were over a hundred food stalls and visions of succulent meats braised, baked, or fried made my mouth water. The first stall was encouraging: piles of kabobs, fish and squid, salads and olives. We fended off the hoard of hawks who tried to get us to sit and moved on to the next stand. Hmmm....piles of kabobs, fish and squid, salads and olives. I looked further down the row but it was like looking in a fun house mirror, the same scene repeating into the distance. Everyone was selling the exact same thing, we had unwittingly entered some sort of culinary Twilight Zone. Even the prices were the same - too little for too much. In the end we found about a half-dozen unique stalls amongst this throng. Some were decidedly interesting, like the place where you could eat a lamb's face. I respect anyone who can look their food directly in the eye before peeling off the skin, removing the jaw, then happily munching on the cheeks. Personally I'm not much of a face eater, so I set my sights on the other end of the beast. As I gaze absently at a woman who is sucking on the marrow of a skull, I can't help but wonder if she feels the same touch of revulsion when she sees an American chomp down on a rump roast.



As for the title of this Tale, I once again have skirted the entire point. Having tired of this medieval farce, we decided to take a day trip to the Ourika Valley. Deep in the mountains of Morocco, about a two hour ride from Marrakesh, is a town called Oukaimeden; home to the most unlikely sight in all of Africa - a ski resort. After a confusing day of travel, involving, amongst other things, a clown-car taxi ride of eight people, and a late arrival, we found our hidden gem closed. The snow cover was light, as would be expected in Africa, if at all, so, downtrodden, we hiked as high as we could before giving up. As we hiked back down, the ski lift started to move. We could ride it up to the top, they said, sans skis, to see the view. So up we went. The snow cover was thicker at the top of the mountain and there stood a man renting skis. We strapped them on, of loose fit, and ancient age, and took one steep run about 200 yards down an untouched bowl, carving fresh tracks in immaculate powder. I can now say that I have skied in Africa. We were the Lord's of Creation -- that is, until we realized we had to hike back up to give back our skis.