Morocco
Published October 1, 2024
This was the furthest I had ever got against The Morocco Curse. I was off the plane and standing in front of a happy and nice looking Moroccan lady. A few questions and a stamp, that's all I need.
I threw my phone at her instead.
HA!
I put my phone through the small gap in the glass to show her the name of my hotel.
The phone went flying, bounced from counter to keyboard to counter and then straight at her.
Her shocked face stayed shocked for a real long five seconds.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
She passed me back my phone and confirmed my name and asked what my job was, always a difficult question to answer.
“Writer, blogger.” I said.
True, and …
Founder and God of The Church of BRAD
The BRAD NICHOLLS of BRAD NICHOLLS Podcast
A dude currently visiting every country in the world (is that a job?)
BradEarth
The Creator and The Ultimate of The Sui Generis
I could go on and on couldn't I.
Out in the arrivals hall everything was quiet and relaxed.
I had read all the bad stuff about Morocco and Marrakech. Now here I was and it all started to smell like bullshit.
Stepping out of Marrakech airport, into a calm warm early night. It was weird. The feeling only continued on the bus, and walking through Jemaa el-Fnaa square to my riad.
The bus driver had made a cutesy foreign exchange scam attempt with me, it was so cute. An old Moroccan lady thanked me so sincerely when I let her sit next to me. Young Moroccan women were smiling my way, warm warm smiles.
The fuck!
What the fuck were all these people talking about.
I had been promised horror, I was getting sweetness and peace.
At the riad, I stripped to my underwear in the hot room.
No air-con, thirty whatever degrees.
I ate my sweets and drank my water.
It was my birthday. I was now thirty three.
I went through my planned trip and didn't feel very excited.
Marrakech-Casablanca-Rabat
Hmm…
I already knew what I was gonna do. The dunes.
Merzouga. Erg Chebbi. The Sahara. I was going to the fucking desert.
I had to give the desert a try. For my first scrapped trip to Morocco in 2020, I had my heart set on it. I decided it would be the best thing, the boldest thing.
The online booking sites were giving contradictory information, the Supratours website itself said the morning bus didn't even exist. And I wanted to go by bus, by myself. Not part of some organized tour.
The next day I walked across the city from the Medina to the bus station to see for myself.
Another nice looking Moroccan lady behind glass. And she had tickets and 180 MAD less than the listed prices online.
Everything was going smooth.
I was liking Morocco.
Another night in Marrakech and then in the morning I was on my way.
Twelve and a half hours on a bus was easy. Especially with the views out the window.
Up into the Atlas mountains and up and down the Tizi n'Tichka pass. My ears popped and my head felt light, 7000 feet. Woo.
After the mountains it was the desert lands and mud-brick town after mud-brick town.
After dark the bus reached its last stop in Merzouga.
As I walked through the dark of Merzouga I met a British guy, ten years younger. Fresh and getting ready for employment with the British civil service.
At the hostel, in the open courtyard, we talked for hours into the night, over many shot glasses of hot Berber tea.
The cats ran and jumped. The moon lit everything a brilliant sharp white.
I went to bed with the constant annoyance of a hundred desert flies.
First impressions are important. My first impressions of the dunes were strange.
It all felt blurry, opaque.
I usually land on a feeling instantly. This though.
It took a few minutes for the feelings to settle and finally form into a conclusion. It did look cool. It did look different. But it just wasn't spectacular.
They had everything promised. Deep orange sand. And a million other shades of orange sand too. Dune after Dune after Dune. A true desert sea.
Yeah.
But,... Ah … ‘Meh…’
The plastic and trash, and pickup trucks whizzing around didn't help either. A once great natural feature of the world turned into a theme park.
Those were my first impressions.
Soon after I got back to the hostel, the rains came.
Rain. Super rain. In the fucking Sahara.
The rest of the day, through the night and into the next morning Merzouga and the dunes were drowned wet.
Weird desert.
The weather did present an opportunity for everyone at the hostel to get to know each other. We spent that rained out day in the desert inside playing cards, drinking tea and shooting the shit.
I rediscovered my love of people. And I really don't mean this in a cynical, negative way, but I'm not sure it can be written without sounding cynical without sounding negative… people as pieces, social interaction as grand game.
That's how I love them.
I've always dominated that social hostel environment. And that social hostel environment is one of the best places to improve and better yourself as a practitioner of power, of people.
I'm not always an ‘I’
I can be and can love being an ‘E’
I/ENTJ
That night we went to one of the town's few restaurants and ate tacos.
We really do live in a future.
I was on the edge of the Sahara, hours and hours from any real civilization and passing around my phone with the instant article answers of ChatGPT to any obscure question that came up.
Instant conversational knowledge box in every pocket.
This was a future and now here we are.
The next day, the rain cleared and the water dried.
Me, the British guy and two German girls headed into the dunes to climb the highest peaks.
The reality of Erg Chebbi being just a giant patch of sand really does hit you from the top of the tallest dunes. You can clearly see not only its edges but the black and yellow hard rock desert beyond. It doesn't go on and on for as far as the eye can see like the social media posts make it appear. It kind of feels like one big lie.
I still have mixed feelings about Merzouga and Erg Chebbi. I do think the argument of whether it is or isn't the Sahara is quite irrelevant. It clearly is. Contiguous with it and one of the areas most interesting single features.
Still. There is a feeling of slight disappointment. Maybe more than slight.
Not full-blown ‘this is shit’.
But hey, it is what it is.
The bus back was a lot less fun than the one going. Everything in reverse. All done. Bored.
I was already looking around for a flight back from Marrakech instead of the one I had booked two days later from Rabat.
I woke early in the morning to a churning sea of acid, shooting up my throat to burn before flowing back into the rage. I got to the toilet, sitting there shitting pain, I knew it was only a matter of minutes before my body did what my body had to do.
I dry heaved and then vomited all over the tiles.
Food poisoning was here. Thanks desert.
I decided to find a flight and leave that night.
Trip done. Time to go.
Morocco wasn't the best country I've been. But it had something, it was unique and very much its own kinda place. I will return someday.
!!!
The Morocco Curse is Fucking Dead.