Travels Through Africa With Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on Long Way Down BBC Series
Two men, two bikes and a support crew traveling 15,000 miles through 18 countries in 85 days….
Starring Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman
Produced by David Alexanian and Russ Malkin
*Available For Rent Through Netflix and Blockbuster or For Purchase Online

Once in a while there comes along a television series which creates an immediate addiction (think True Blood, Flight of the Conchords, Top Chef). Take away vampires, Kiwis, and reality drama…and you’re not left with much quality programming that’s worth tuning into. Every now and then though, a gem comes along. This one I have to give credit to my Mom. Years ago she put me onto Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s Long Way Round BBC Series and now my boyfriend and I are completely addicted to their Long Way Down Series …cleverly named as they decide to motorcycle from the furthest point North in the U.K. to the tip of South Africa….get it? Long Way Down? ;) This is the second series which they have helped to create, the first Long Way Round was a documentary of their first journey from the U.K. around the world through Europe, Asia (primarily Mongolia and Kazakhstan), and North America back home. I blogged about the series a few years ago and highly recommend seeing both.


Not only are the two best friends a delight to travel with, but they bring a sense of joy to everything they do…as if biking through 100 degree plus heat in North Africa or getting caught for a full day in mud, having part of their crew denied an entrance visa to Libya, or being attacked by killer ants…all look like one big fun adventure~ They find everything a source of unending fun and rarely get short with each other. Along the way, their crew manages to bring awareness to UNICEF (at three different sites) and social causes…land mine victims, child soldiers, and children orphaned by AIDS. They also visit a
a school which witnessed a massacre of its youngest, several wildlife parks, and a genocide museum in Rwanda.

Ewan and Charley are almost always upbeat and they’re funny without being disrespectful. They have a genuine appreciation of and respect for the landscapes and cultures they’re passing through and I honestly couldn’t imagine better companions to have with along the way. And instead focusing on the clique images of war and AIDS., the series portrays Africa as a highly diverse continent which is home to deserts, rainforests, mountains and thousands of cultures and stories and to people whom are genuinely kind.


Another interesting thing to note is that in the world of reality tv which makes a mockery of interpersonal drama like lying, adultery, drunkenness, and nepotism (I admit it, I watch the Kardashians and get quite a bit of guilty pleasure from it…it’s like a train wreck you can’t quite take your eyes off of)…is that Long Way Down is good wholesome tv that doesn’t sensationalize or dramatize human relationships. The one fight that Ewan and Charlie get into is left untaped. Out of a rare sense of reality tv classiness and respect, the producers chose to let their fight be hashed out in private instead of served on a plate with a side of ranch to viewers. It’s just good honest traveling with a pair of pretty fun, cool guys. And I have to say, that if you weren’t a fan of Ewans before, you will be after seeing this. And what cool cats both he and Charley are!

You can rent Long Way Down through Netflix or Blockbuster or you can buy it online. Check out their website for more juicy tidbits surrounding the BBC Series: www.longwaydown.com

Oktober Film Fest: 7th Annual Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival
Flagstaff, AZ

Picture left: Karen Custer Thurston, Rachel S. Thurston, Heather Roberto, and Steve Abbey. Picture right; Volunteer Ayala, two of the Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival Directors Chris Becker and Ron Tuckman, and Filmmaker David Thanh

God I love Flagstaff!
Mama Chihuahua (MC), the Beloved Badger, and I (the Fire Kitten) all share a love for adventure travel and documentary films. Thanks to MC, we've now made it an annual tradition to attend all four days of the Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival set in historic downtown Flagstaff where she lives. For the past week, we've watched 18 hours worth of movies from around the world.... saturating ourselves, immersing, processing, drinking hot cups of chai, munching on popcorn, then going back for more….


The film festival punctuates our year now with its inspirational, moving, and occasionally hilarious short and feature-length documentaries. This year the Festival offered 49 films highlighting all seven continents. I can't recommend this festival highly enough. I've been going to the Banff Film Festival series of winning films that comes through Santa Barbara for the past seven years and the Telluride Film Festival series for the past two years. I've also worked for a couple of different filmmakers as well as dabbled in documentary filmmaking. The Flagstaff Festival features many documentaries in the same vein: action-adventure films intermixed with socially and environmentally-oriented flics. For only $54 we each bought VIP passes which allowed us to see as many films as we wanted as well as the opportunity to have dinner at a gallery and meet other filmmakers visiting for the festival.

For the past several years, I've been wanting to blog more about this festival and give it its proper due! The five directors—Ron Tuckman, Chris Becker, Cameron Clarke, John Tveten, and Kristen Faxlanger have done another fantastic job at putting together a powerful line-up.

I've highlighted some of the more noteworthy films that were among many of my favorites. Several will be available to rent, one has been picked up by HBO, and a few others may be more difficult to get a hold of. For a teaser, I've included a few of their trailers. If any of these catch your fancy, check out their websites for info around venues where you can see them. And by all means, go check this festival out in Flagstaff for yourself!

There were many headlining films which I wasn’t able to make this year but of the ones I saw…these are a few noteworthy ones:


63 Marathons in 63 Days
USA, 2009. 102 min.
Director: Deborah Carr
Producer: Bradley Carr
Incredibly inspiring movie about a young endurance runner, Tim Borland, who decides to raise awareness for a rare, terminal, childhood disease that is affecting 500 kids in the U.S. by running not one, two, three, four, or five marathons in a row but SIXTY-THREE marathons around the country in sixty-three consecutive days with the support of his wife, kids, and best friend/coach as they travel by rv. The movie seamlessly weaves stories of families and children affected by A-T (which degenerates children’s bodies/muscles with each year) wih Borland’s intrepid mission to selflessly spread the word about A-T through the country. Truly inspiring and very well done.

Blast!
USA, 2008. 74 min.
Director: Paul Devlin
Producer: Claire Missanelli
Such a fun, light-hearted, and suspenseful movie about a team of astrophysicists attempting to build and launch a telescope carried by balloon above the atmosphere to record the beginnings of our universe and distant galaxies. Featuring gorgeous photography,Blast showcases a fun team of scientists that seem to keep their spirits up even when they lose their hard drive (painted white) in the snow along a 120-mile stretch of Antarctic ice. I also loved Blast’s brilliant soundtrack that truly captures the spirit and suspense of their expedition.


The Farm: 10 Down
USA, 2009. 93 min.
Director: Jonathon Stack; Producer; James McKay
The Farm: 10 Down is the perfect example of how you should never judge a documentary by its description. By the fourth day of the festival—and unlike Steve--I had little desire to watch a movie following the lives of several prisoners at Angola, the oldest and largest prison in the U.S. set in the Deep South. It didn’t sound like a fun way of spending my last afternoon at the festival…but I got chills in the first few minutes of being introduced to the characters when the narrator’s deep James Earle Jones’-like bass voice came across like a wise grandfather who’s going to tell you a story and lead you somewhere truly grand. And boy did it deliver.

Although this is a follow-up piece to the original film The Farm shot in 1997, it stands strong even on its own.
The Farm: Ten Down is a brilliant piece and one of my top favorites from the festival. Gorgeous raw, blues soundtrack and surprisingly, a really inspiring look at prison reform from within the walls of Angola where the warden is running a highly-esteemed model of a prison where crime and suicide rates are low and morale is relatively high and where prisoners are given the opportunities to “live” and to treat each other with civility and work their way through the ranks of the prison gaining degrees, playing sports, running a television channel, radio station, and a newspaper. The warden is also encouraging victim reconciliation with prisoners and believes with all his heart that some prisoners are capable of rehabilitation and wants to give them the opportunity to have a second chance and prove themselves as leaders.

These are hardened criminals with major sentences…no one with any less than forty years is sent to Angola. Many are murderers, multiple offenders with life sentences and either one chance or no chance at parole. Truly great testament to prison reform.

This is movie-making at its best: When you’re changed afterwards. When you care about the characters. And When you leave the theatre with a lot more questions than you have answers. And when you can’t stop thinking about the film in the days that follow.


Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai
USA, 2008. 80 min.
Directors/Producers: Lisa Merton, Alan Dater
This wonderful doc illuminates the lifelong heroism of Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Prize Winner from Kenya who developed the Green Belt Program which has planted forty-five million trees throughout a largely deforested Kenya. If you thought Wangari was just a glorified Janie Appleseed, the movie clearly shows how her tree revolution has played a part in her lifelong struggle to fight for human rights, environmental rights, civic rights, women’s rights, and democracy during years of rule under Kenya’s dictators. From encouraging women to grow their own food and replant their forests to leading a sit-in of women protesting (and consequently beaten) the imprisonment of their sons being held as political prisoners….Wangari has become the Nelson Mandela of her generation. Not surprisingly, she’s the first woman in East Africa to have received a Phd and one of many brave Kenyan souls who has risked her life to fight for her ideals. Two of my favorite quotes from this fiery woman: “Culture is our coded wisdom…” and, while addressing sexist remarks from belligerent adversaries in the political sphere, “We should be focusing on the only anatomy that is appropriate right now, the one above the neck…” Go girl! This woman is a force to be reckoned with.

Oil + Water
USA, 2007. 94 min.
Director/Producer: Seth Warren
Oil + Water is a fun, playful documentary about two unlikely bio-crusaders traveling from the north point of Alaska to the tip of South America in a renovated fire truck that’s been supped up to run purely on recycled vegetable and animal oils that they glean along the way. The two young kayakers remind me a lot of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure through North and South as they blunder their way through borders, police stops, clogged engines, and bad roads……laughing their way through the whole thing. Amazingly, enough press builds around their pilgrimage that, by the time, they make it to Chile, they’re meeting with the U.S. Ambassador and have appeared in multiple news conferences serving as educators and ambassadors of alternative fuels. It’s amazing listening to these guys that they manage to fix engines and navigate their way out of some bad places…and similarly, their lacksidaisical attitudes cleverly disguise their kayaking abilities and resourcefulness as travelers. I would have liked to have seen a longer movie with more details around how they converted their engine and planned for this trip. Although I loved the lightheartedness of the movie, I feel like it almost glossed over every challenge they had too much….leading the viewer to believe it was just one dang fun trip. Which it probably was but misery loves company and an audience, too. ;)


Sand and Sorrow
USA, 2007. 94 min.
Director/Producer: Paul Freedman
Winner of Best Human Interest Film
Although this was not one of my favorite movies at the festival, I feel I have to mention it as well. It’s been picked up by HBO and will no doubt garner even more press in the coming year. Narrated by George Clooney, Sand and Sorrow, is an utterly depressing look at the history of the Darfur Crisis with excellent interviews with leading scholars (including Pulitzer Prizer Winner Nicholas D. Kristof who will be lecturing at UCSB next week) ….who were so articulate that I found myself rapt by their eloquence and how well they nail the politics behind world governments failing to address contemporary genocides.

Although it was clear that Sand and Sorrow was made by people passionate about the cause and included thoughtful footage and history, I feel like it missed the mark on several levels. I’ve seen multiple war movies and have taken a keen personal interest in the holocaust histories of Eastern Europe, Cambodia, and Africa but the movie in its attempt to shock with photos and stories of atrocities went overboard to the point that all the stories just became one big blur and that, by the end of the movie, I felt completely numb. I would have preferred that they had humanized the victims/survivors by following just a few individuals in their daily lives in the refugee camps so we can actually develop a personal connection to them. It felt like the movie was very much intellectualized where the closest we get to any of the main characters are in interviews with scholars and two Africans who work in the refugee camps.

The second way it falled short was in its failure to humanize any of the soldiers in the Janjaweed. If we are to learn from these genocides we must examine how it is that people are so capable of committing such brutal atrocities against their own people. The Janjaweed were never discussed…their ages, their backgrounds, their motivations, nor the culture of violence that has led to this brutal war.

Its final shortcoming was in its length. It was too frickin’ long. I felt like it became the never-ending movie. There must have been over four false endings where it would go dark and then it would flash back to another story line. The editors needed to be more ruthless and cut this movie down by at least twenty minutes. Minimum. I felt so beaten down by the movie at the end that I was annoyed and drained. Sure the interviews were great but there was a lot of redundancy. Sometimes passion in the editorial room breeds blindness and, when filmmakers are so attached to their project’s message, it’s difficult to “kill the darlings” and cut a film down to make it more powerful.

Lastly, any war movie has to leave the viewer with some hope. War Dance one of my favorite documentaries from 2007 and is a perfect example of how a movie so deftly balanced the themes of light and dark when addressing genocide survivors (in this case child war refugees striving to play in a national music competition). As viewers, we must feel that ultimately, although evil things may be happening, that there is hope somewhere and that there are people making a difference.

It’s a shame really. Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh but Sand and Sorrow just left me feeling that, in the Sudan, that’s mostly what remains…a lot of sand and a lot of sorrow.

Afghan Girls Can Kick
Afghanistan, 2007. 50 min.
Director/Producer: Bahareh Hosseini
An excellent look at two parallel stories…a grass roots school in Kabul designed to get kids off the street and into school and Afghanistan’s first all women’s national soccer team. The Kabul-based school empowers young Afghan Girls through education and encouraging them to play sports, something that is still disapproved of by many Afghans and a pursuit which was banned and consequently banished by the Taliban only years ago. One character who stands out is a teacher from the school who goes around Kabul herding kids she finds working out on the street into the protection/guidance of the school. Second memorable character is Roya, a highly disciplined, talented girl on the National Afghan Football (Soccer) Team.


Fridays at the Farm
USA, 2006. 19 min.
Director/Producer: Richard Power Hoffman
Winner of Best Short Film
Beautifully shot film which was really a complilation of 20,000 images that the filmmaker shot during several season working on an organic farm. I saw this one before at the Telluride Festival and really liked the serene beauty of it and the filmmaker’s poetic narrative on developing a closer connection to the food that his family grows and eats. Not an adrenaline or drama-packed movie but sublime and beautifully-done.

Tibet: Murder In The Snow
Australia, 2008. 52 min.
Director: Mark Gould
Producer: Sally Ingleton
Winner of the People’s Choice Award
Wish I could have seen this one! It looks riveting and was supposedly a very powerful movie. We had plans on the last night of the festival with some Flagstaff friends and couldn’t see this one. From what I’ve heard, it’s highly recommended. Check out the trailer here. http://www.tibetmurderinthesnow.com/story.html

Move of the Wall
Slovenia, 2008. 42 min.
Director/Producer: Igor Urtacwik
I’ve seen so many climbing movies over the years that I’ve found many of them--although filmed beautifully and with clever editing and musical touches--often assume that the viewer cares as much about climbing as the stars of it do.
This one seemed to explain why we should care. Perhaps b/c it was shot by Slovenians, but there seemed to be a different feeling to this one. Some excellent camera angles and beautiful tracking, unique use of Jimi Hendrix, and some great, cinematic moments such as two of the climbers sharing their philosophy of climbing as they play chess at a café in Lubjliana. I really liked this one and was charmed by it.


One Crazy Ride
India, 2009. 87 min.
Director/Producer: Guarav Jani
One of the festival favorites
Directed, filmed, and edited by Indian Filmmaker Guarav Jani who also came to the festival this year with another one of its stars, One Crazy Ride is a fun, romp through one of the most remote regions of northern India, Arunachal Pradesh, He and four of his fellow riders from the motor club 60kph, attempt to cross the remote region by motorbike with dodgy maps, roadmarkers, and questionable roads. The movie gains momentum the further into the jungle that the five friends go as they cross rockslides, rivers, and bamboo bridges and pass through tribal villages which have mysteriously gained unreasonable reputations for being fierce and brutal to foreigners.By the end of the movie, you find yourself cheering for the riders and amazed at the obsessiveness that Guarav Has in doing all the filming himself even when he’s riding alone.

Thank you again to the festival directors (Ron, Chris, John, Kristen, and Cameron), to the sponsors, and all the filmmakers!
We can't wait for next year!

April 10, 2009
Photo Shoot with Lisa Beck and Budhi Harlow, West African Dancers and Drummers

At the beginning of 2009, I wanted to manifest “working with radiant people and producing beautiful work that is appreciated and that I am proud of.” Since January, I have been so blessed already to have done photo shoots with two women whom I look up to and admire so much—my mother, Karen Custer Thurston (check out my last blog), and my mentor and good friend, Lisa Beck. Both are dancers, artists, and goddesses in every sense of the word.



In the past nine years that I’ve known her, Lisa has grown into this incredibly gifted singer, graceful dancer, powerful percussionist and instructor of West African Dance and Drumming. It has been a joy to not only be a friend and sister of hers but to have the honor of studying dance and drumming with her. She and her partner, Budhi Harlow, are the founders of the groups Panzumo and Konkoba and together they are a mighty musical force! Over the years they have produced several music Cds, taughts hundreds of students, and performed throughout Santa Barbara and Ventura County.







I first shot them about six years ago and recently did another shoot with them on the beach showcasing Lisa’s dancing and drumming for their website, blog, performances, and classes.

What amazes me about Lisa is not only her inner radiance but how much she shines in front of the camera. Her skin is a creamy white and she has an elegance and grace you don’t often see in West African Dance. Budhi is equally powerful in a very rugged, visceral way. Watching him drum and howl and create rhythm is an amazing experience, bringing out his inner warrior.

It was an absolute treat to spend a couple of hours with them on the beach at sunset….we got a little playful at the end of the shoot, moving beyond West African into more of a Men’s Journal/Vogue style swimsuit shoot…laughing in the saltspray as the tangerine sun disappeared over the Pacific.



Another one of Lisa and Budhi’s gifts is their ability to bring people together. Over the years and with the help of other local musical dynamos (Vanessa Isaac, Kim at Pulse Drumming, Steve Campbell, Lindsay Rust, Hunter, Sharin) they have created a very magical community of musicians and dancers among their students. Many of us their students look to each other as family. I often joke that we come to Lisa and Budhi’s classes for the music and we stay for the friendship!

Here's the slideshow that I created for them that is also available on Youtube for viewing:



Lisa's West African Dance Class

High on the euphoria from our shoot and amping up for a West African Dance and Drumming Camp several of us will be attending this summer, I decided to try to capture some of the electric energy that Lisa (with the help of Budhi and his students’ live drumming) imparts to her class. I put together a slideshow of her West African Dance Class. As a photographer, I was able to experience the joy of the class outside the eyes of being a dancer or a drummer. Alas, the only drawback is that I couldn’t be in the photos with my friends during class!

I hope you enjoy these photos as much as we did taking them. Work really shouldn’t be this fun! You can keep tabs on their projects by checking out their website and Lisa’s blog:

www.panzumo.com
www.lisabeckdrumdance.blogspot.com

"Infidel: Looking for Asylum In A Country Near You"
A review of controversial Dutch-African activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali's memoir

"If you are a Somali woman alone," Hirsi Ali remembers her devout grandmother's words, "you are like a piece of sheep fat in the sun. Ants and insects crawl all over you, and you cannot move or hide; you will be eaten and melted until nothing is left but a thin smear of grease." In Somalia, a woman is nothing without a brother, father, or uncle to protect her. She is vulnerable and powerless…nothing without her family or clan's honor.

After a recent and conflicted trip to my first Muslim country—see my blogs on Morocco--both my mother and I have been truly curious about the life of a woman behind the veil. As a writer and photographer, I want to say that we were respected as women and that the Western stereotypes of oppression that we have of Islam are overinflated. I'd like to say that my first experience in a Muslim country was a pleasant one. But I can’t. Ever since our trip, I’ve been struggling to walk the line between hasty judgment and overly-exagerated moral relativity.

That said, Hirsi Ali’s memoir was like a sharp shot in the arm that shook me out of my politically-correct stupor. She’s a vibrant and courageous woman in an era when religion is more politically-charged than ever before. The first Muslim woman to be elected to Dutch parliament, Hirsi Ali quickly became known for her vocal criticism of Islam through various public interviews, editorials, and an inflammatory documentary--Submission--she made with filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (think of an irreverant, Dutch version of Michael Moore) depicting the Quran's treatment of woman. Shortly afterward, Van Gogh was brutally stabbed to death in broad daylight by a Muslim man. Speared on his chest was a religious letter condemning Hirsi Ali’s life as well. She has been in hiding ever since and opinions of her are mixed ranging from the belief that she’s a hero—Time Magazine has named her one of the "100 Most Influential People of 2005"-–to claims that she is a thoughtless neoconservative intent on gaining fame and stirring the political pot for her own selfish aims.

Whatever your political beliefs, it’s difficult not to be pulled into the story of her life’s struggles or to not feel the slightest nudge of compassion for a woman growing up in a culture of violence and oppression.

Infidel follows Hirsi Ali’s vivid childhood spent between Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya. She grows up beneath the heavy hands of her traditional grandmother and a mother who was often abusive. She experiences excision--or female circumcision--as a teenager when her mother was away on a trip--, a forced marriage she wasn't even present for, and escapes from Mogadishu before rebel forces take over the city and destroy most of her clan's members (her native country has since spiralled downhill).

Without giving away the course of events, she makes her way to the Netherlands, a country quite unlike her native Somalia. In her eyes, the Dutch extol the virtues of reason, practicality, and open-mindedness. She immerses herself in these new concepts and faces her questions of Islam. How can a religion evolve if its followers are not allowed to question? Why are woman expected to submit completely to a man and to Allah? She finds that as Holland is welcoming Muslim refugees, its Dutch citizens' are weary to criticize the values the religion conveys.
To her, the real root of social problems among immigrants in the Netherlands "is abuse, and how it is anchored in a religion that denies women their rights as humans."

Hirsi Ali has been called many names. I've spoken with many Dutch friends who dislike her immensely because they believe she's brought many problems upon herself. But Infidel is truly compelling. It is a vivid account of a woman struggling to recreate herself after having been conditioned in a religion and culture which makes her needs and rights the lowest possible priority. She doesn't mince words and, by the end, it is apparent that although she embraced fundamentalist Islam during periods of her early youth, she is no longer a fan of Islam.

Infidel is truly a fantastic and alarming look at one woman's life in Africa. This is a time to be compassionate and tolerant but also not to be blind. As Hirsi Ali says, "What matters is that governments and societies must stop hiding behind a hollow pretense of tolerance so that they can recognize and deal with the problem [of conflicting faith-based values and governments]."

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about women in Islam, the Middle East, modern politics, terrorism, and freedom of speech. It's truly compelling.

After reading Infidel, I watched several speeches and interviews that Hirsi Ali gave. Here is an excellent short speech she gave that I found on youtube and especially liked.

*If the video does not appear below, you may need to try viewing this in Firefox or Internet Explorer. Blogger is having problems with Safari and embedded videos. You can also view the interview on Youtube.

Morocco Tales 7: "Pain and Couscous at 7,000 feet"

February 3rd
Recovering from long trek in the Atlas Mountains in Marrakesh...

After countless days weaving in and out of the markets, stuffing ourselves with soup and salad, and choking on the exhaust fumes of Marrakesh, Mom and I decided to escape from the city for a couple of days and go trekking in the High Atlas before Steve arrives in Morocco.

Our original plan was to go half way up Jebel Toubkal, Morocco's highest mountain, spend the night in a refuge there and return the following day. It's still the middle of the winter here, however, and much of Toubkal is covered in ice and snow, requiring crampons and mountaineering experience. Our guide Mohammed instead recommended that we take an alternate route to a nearby 'valley' and stay in one of the Berber villages there.

"We'd love to do a nice hike through a 'Valley!'" we said rather naively.

It sounded quite reasonable and refreshing to me and Mom....evoking serene images of walking along a cascading river, stopping for hot tea and biscuits, listening to the birds, and photographing the changing countryside. Although we absolutely love trekking around the world I now admit that there's some sort of amnesia that occurs shortly after all of our trips...where we forget how the word "hill," when used by either a highland local or any author of a Lonely Planet trekking guide (those bastard sandbaggers!) actually translates into enormous mountains we'd never attempt climbing at home, where "three-hour walks" translate into five hour-long grueling climbs uphill, where we forget how cold it really is to sleep in January at high altitude in buidings without heat on old mattresses beneath used blankets wearing fleece hats and long underwear as a bitter wind blows through the cracks of a window, of how dirty your hands and nails become no matter how many handiwipes you use and blacken, and how tired your entire being is at the end of the day when you want to collapse in a heap of fleece clutching a cup of tea in one hand and a bottle of ibuprofen in the other.

But somehow, miraculously, we do forget, and we convince ourselves that a trek might be easy and relaxing.

Starting in the small village of Imlil (where all of the Jebel Toubkal summit attempts start from in the spring/summer), we made our way up through serene fields of barley and orchards of apple, walnut, and cherry trees. We stopped and ate freshly peeled mandarin oranges which Mohammed had bought in Imlil, munched quite blissfully on handfuls of fresh roasted peanuts and waved to a Berber woman who sat with her two children as their cows grazed in one of the fields. (Ahh, the happinesss of a fresh hiker's ignorance!) Below us, the mountains stretched out towards a low blanket of cumulus clouds, their west-facing flanks dusted with snow. The landscape opened up like an outdoor theatre and from our rocky perches, we could hear the cry of baby goats looking for their mothers to milk, laughter from kids playing, and the occasional truck transporting goods along the road to guesthouses stocking up for the spring trekking season. A few villagers worked fields of barley or cleared brush from new fields.

Still blissfully unaware of the trek ahead (Mohammed had told us that we only had a two-hour hike to the pass), we snapped photos of herds of goats scampering up the hillside above the river and soon the path became steeper and steeper. The setting was gorgeous....a warm winter sun in a nearly cloudless sky over a slope of pine trees giving off a sweet scent...evocative of the pine forests in Northern Arizona and the East Sierras of California.

We trudged onward, becoming quieter and more focused with every labored step, our legs and backs weary from our full backpacks. I hadn't hiked in over a six weeks and it usually takes a couple of days to break my muscles in to the endless hours of mountain trekking. Although I had brought a five pound first aid kit with me, I had somehow left the bottle of ibuprofen behind in Marrakesh. Mohammed kept telling us "another hour" for what seemed like an eternity but the views were so spectacular, beyond our expectations, that it was hard to complain. We were finally in the High Atlas!

Nearly three hours later, we reached the pass at over 7,000 feet. Like the passes in the Himalayas, a lone stone hut manned by a local Berber was situated on a ridge overlooking a staggering view of snow-covered mountains and Berber villages nestled on their slopes above a faraway river. It was so incredibly immense that its grandeur rivalled views we've had in Tiger Leaping Gorge (China) and on various treks in the Nepali Himalayas. It's difficult to compare the magnitude of this immense valley and mountain range with anything I've seen in the U.S. Although we were only at 7,000 feet, we were above the tree line and half of the mountain slopes were covered in sheets of densely compacted snow and ice.

For lunch, he served us rounds of Moroccan bread and a plate of fish, olives, and slices of a canned meat much like Spam only bright pink. I was so hungry and tired after lunch that I kept imagining that the muddy road we walked along was made of hot chocolate and that the half-frozen earth was fresh baked brownies, crumbling beneath my feet.

Mohammed kept pointing towards the end of the valley to one of the villages that looked as if it could be a part of another mountain range. We passed a man dressed in a jellaba and worn shoes walking a small herd of goats among the pastures...over small streams past a couple of men waiting with another herd of sheep, sipping their mint tea to ward off the cold. Now over five hours into Mohammed's "easy three hour hike," and with our village still across the immense valley, we begged Mohammed to take a short cut so we could arrive before we either passed out or got caught in the chill of darkness. We took a short cut and slid down icy slopes of hardened, refrozen snow, across a low river where rugs were hung to dry and back up into a village. Groups of kids ran in front of us eager to tell the family whose "gite" we were staying in that we were on our way.

We had the best couscous of our trip that night. One of the men who also guides out of this village, presented us with a plate of couscous big enough to feed eight to ten people. The couscous was moist and fluffy, the carrots, potatoes, and parsnips were all infused with the juices from the beef brochettes and various Moroccan spices like cumin, turmeric, salt, and fresh black pepper. After dinner, we drank freshly brewed chamomile tea, fragrant like a light perfume and utterly superior to any other chamomile tea I've ever tasted. Mom and I passed out under a pile of blankets wearing most of our clothes, fleece hats, and socks. I had completely forgotten how tiring hiking is in the mountains and knew I'd be in pain when at the end of the trek.

I was so tired and cold that night, I could easily have passed out with a cup of tea in my hands, perched against the wall wearing all of my long underwear, fleece, hat, and gloves. We ate by candlelight (literally one taper candle stuck in a used Fanta bottle) as the town doesn't have electricity and the generator was out.


The next day, we hiked again for nearly six hours and limped into town (I stubbornly refused to let Mohammed carry anything from our backpacks, including my camera gear). Mohammed had wanted to take us over another pass for our return trip the next day but he discovered that a local couple had recently attempted crossing it as well. Sadly, the man had fallen to his death along the icy slopes and his wife was in the hospital with a broken leg.

Just for masochistic kicks, we looked at our Lonely Planet guide to check out the miles we had hiked and if we had done at least three days' worth of hiking in two. I stopped reading when it said, "The hike from Imlil to Ouneskra is a gentle first day of hiking..." and slammed the book shut. The damn sandbaggers! I could just kill those sadist rats! (They must be the same writers who wrote all the guidebooks on trekking in China, Tibet, and Nepal.)

So why do we keep doing it? Amnesia, I suppose. That and the fact that it is always these "treks" (in every sense of the word) which yield the most vivid memories...Every view and experience is earned and every footstep magically rewarded with breathtaking views, sweet air, and blissful moments which catch us at unexpected moments (peeling oranges and sharing them with children, trying to catch baby goats, sipping spring water from tin cups). Every taste of tea and bite of bread is ten times more flavorful than any feast bought with money and cars in the city.

But I still would like to have a word or two with those trekking writers... :-)

Namaste and much love,
Rach and Karen

Tales of Morocco 666: "Traveling As A Woman in Morocco...The Good, The Bad, and the Rude"

January 29th, 2008
The craziness of Marrakesh, Djemaa El Fna

So it's about time I say a few words about women in Moroccan society. The short and the skinny of it is this: I have read that the past forty years have brought about incredible changes and opportunities for Moroccan women: voting rights, custody rights, inheritance, educational opportunities and so on. Many women now enjoy the opportunity to go to college and study abroad and don Western apparel.

That said, Morocco is still a man's world. Everywhere we've traveled, the male species dominates the landscape. It is men who are the taxi drivers, the business owners, men who pray in the mosques, men who are the cooks in the food stalls, the merchants in the carpet stores, the emloyees at hotels and internet cafes. It is men who are smoking cigarettes and drinking "Berber Whiskey" (otherwise known as some seriously caffeinated mint tea) in the streetside cafes. It is men hanging out in the restaurants and boys who play soccer in the alleyways.We have had very little opportunity to meet women here. I can count on my hands the few women we have seen who were involved in the economic sectors of working class society: a women making bread for us this morning on our street, a women at our hotel in Marrakesh, two women working at two internet places I've seen now, one female waitress. All of the cleaning staff at our hotels have been composed of women and we were told on no uncertain terms by one manager when we requested that our shower drain be fixed, that it was for the maid to solve, as it was "woman's work."

We did meet two young, Westernized Moroccan women on our train to Marrakesh who wore quite stylish clothes and were savvy travelers. They'd both spent many years living in Europe and had returned for work in Morocco. I asked them if they noticed any differences between being women here and in Europe. They said, they didn't notice any differences at all.

If you ask me, I think that's a load of s**t.
While upperclass Moroccan women may be enjoying the new opportunities that the 21st century are bringing them, I think that the newest liberties women have won in this country affect the working class last. Most women in the countryside and much of the cities, are limited to a narrow range of jobs and roles. I believe that, with time, all of these conditions for women will improve.

What It's Like To Be A Foreign Woman Here (under 50)

The last 24 hours have been challenging for both Mom and I. We had heard such a wide range of experiences among people who have traveled to Morocco about how women travellers are treated, everything from "Moroccan men are the most aggressive in the world" to "You won't have any problems at all; Moroccan men have changed in the past twenty years and they won't bother you at all."

As always, the truth lies a bit in between. We've met many incredibly helpful and respectful men over the past two weeks since we arrived...from random acts of kindness on the train to men at our hotels who have given us advice about where to find the best beans and chicken brochettes in all of Oarzazate.

That said, unfortunately, there are still several assholes around. It seems like last night we must have been wearing "asshole perfume" because we seem to have attracted every one of them in this square kilometer.

Granted, we're in the heart of the crazy swirl of the city: the medina where thousands of Moroccans and That said, Mom and I are dressed respectfully, head to toe, in long skirts, long-sleeved shirts and jackets, scarves, minimal make-up and jewelry. I could easily pass for a Berber if it weren't for my Western dress and water bottle. (Most women here wear headscarves, some have Western dress with jeans and stylish leather boots, and a rare few are completely covered in Burkas).

*(On an hourly basis, occasional remarks are made towards me of "you're so beautiful" or "where you from," are made to me which I've become quite good at ignoring. But every now and then, the attention becomes harassment and Mama Chihuahua and Hija de la Chihuahua are born!)

One completely tweaked guy came up to us and tried to push hash on us in a smarmy kind of way, another guy shortly thereafter started following me and saying lascivious things in Spanish (they think that they're awfully clever guessing that I must be Spanish) until I turned and told him off in Arabic. Mom backed me up when she caught up with me and still he mocked both of us. Screwing his face up and imitating us, but at least he left us alone.

A bit later in the night as we headed into a small local shopping mall, a Moroccan man got much too close to me and start whispering things in my ear. I completely snapped.

"Sir Fhalek!" I shouted angrily.

It was such an instinctual reaction to having my personal space invaded more and anger at being treated like I'm a prostitute. Mom caught up with me and stepped towards him saying tersely, "What do you think you are doing?! What do you think you are doing?!"

What was amazing (and continues to be so) is that, although it's apparent she is my mother, he didn't show her or me any respect by backing down or apologizing.

It only made him angrier and more aggressive. The three of us were standing toe to toe with each other in the middle of this mall. I was seething that he could be so thoughtless and rude and aggressive and clueless. I could also sense that one of us was about to step up the confrontation another notch and it was on the edge of becoming an actual physical brawl.

Mom took a step towards him to let him know that Mama Chihuahua isn't about to take any s**t from some asshole Moroccan dude, but instead, she misjudged the distance and stepped on his feet, inflaming him more. His energy became more hostile and he started towards her.

Mama still didn't back down and I remained there as well. I so wanted to just punch him in the guts. I was so pissed off and high with adrenaline and the empowerment of anger.

By some miracle, he backed off and slunk away into the bowls of the mall. We watched for him the rest of the night. My heart rate was racing and I was still upset when we got home, my mind racing with so many questions.

"How can a man treat a women like that?" Do they think that women like to be talked to like we're prostitutes? Would he ever treat a Moroccan women like that?

I woke up completely inflamed with the empowered adrenaline that only intolerant an extreme case of PMS can bring on. I sat in bed imagining the ways I could crack his face over my knee, jam my foot into his groin, or just humiliate him in front of a large crowd of his peers.

Mom later said that she could tell people were watching and that she noticed an older Moroccan man who looked as if he was preparing to intervene and possibly help us.

The thing is, I know that there are jerks everywhere. I know women get harrassed all around the world. We just happen to have stumbled on to a denser concentration of assholes last night on our walk through the medina.

Being here with Mom has made me reflect a lot on what it is to be a woman. The harassment I would get here would be a lot worse if I were alone. It's a little less when I am with her. When Steve arrives (which we look forward to on all levels, aside from his wonderful companionship!) we know that a lot of this harassment will lessen.

Still it makes me think of women around the world and how, if I have a son one day, I'm going to god***m teach him to respect his mother, sisters, and the women of the world.

So wherever you are, feel fortunate that you know good men who treat women well!
I know that we will continue to meet wonderful people here, both men and women. Morocco, like the world, I believe, is full of them.

I'm just grateful to be a woman who knows my own worth and I hope to, in whatever way I can, help other woman realize and fight for their own worth, too!

And for those of you who have read this far, yes, we are safe and yes, we will be fine! Please don't worry about us- Plus my knight in shining armor (or at least lots of fleece and a big backpack) will be arriving to relieve us soon.... :-)

Inshallah-
Rachel and Karen



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Tales of Morocco 5: "Riding Camels in the Sahara"

January 27th!
Ourzazate, Morocco

Trip Into the Desert and Gorges of Southeastern Morocco

After many days touring the imperial cities of Morocco, Mom and I agreed that it was time to finally see more of the Moroccan countryside and the Sahara...a long cherished dream of mine! We booked a three-day excursion (the cheapest three days of our trip so far...only $125/person including everything but lunch) with a backpacker organization to travel through the desert, gorges, and see Erg Chebbi, the only true moving sand dunes of the Sahara in Morocco.

We were fortunate to be with an incredibly jolly group of young Kiwi girls (chronically giggly, under-dressed for the weather but ever jolly), Argentians, two young Italians who were constantly either drinking coffee, chain-smoking, or drinking beer and snapping photos and making jokes, two Americans (only the second Americans we've met here in over two weeks), an Englishman, and a Japanese girl. Mom was the oldest in the group and much respected by the end of our time together. Traveling through remote areas, sharing food together, and camping are a bonding experience for sure and after several days with them, our respect and admiration for them all was only heightened! Traveling seems to create accelerated bonds in ways much more different and intimate than meeting people in our 'normal' lives.

It is true that to know a country, you must really see the landscapes which shape its people. (The landscape is so stunning and magnificent here that several films have all been shot here....Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Kundun, Mummy 1 and 2, Jewel of the Nile, The Ten Commandments, and so on. One movie studio near here has tours of the movie sets and just recently wrapped up a new BBC series based on "The Passion.")

Although we've seen the medinas, mosques, and souks of some of Morocco's famed cities, we have been even more moved by it's incredibly changing landscapes....we journeyed over a high mountain pass onto a high desert plateau framed by several different mountain chains, driving up into gorges and valleys where magic-castle looking villages sprung up from the landscape matching the rocks in gritty sandstone textures and hues. At times, the rocks were a shocking Sedona red and would shift into more subtle shades of cinnamon and toast, more reminiscent of the Big Bend landscape on the Texan/Mexican border. In some places, the sandstone had worn down into giant phallic shapes like the whimsical hoodoos in the Moab, Utah area.

Within these valleys and gorges rose small Berber villages (although Morocco is considered an Arab country, it is largely Berber influenced, over 50 percent of Moroccans proudly claim Berber heritage and many speak one of the several Berber dialects as their first language...some of the most handsome men and women we've ever seen...a mixture of Arab, Berber, and African colors and features). Between small river-irrigated fields of wheat, alfalfa, brussel sprouts, and occasional mint and garlic patches, were orchards of trees and palms. I can only imagine how the valleys burst with color in the spring when the trees are in full bloom!

During the days here, the sun can be mercilessly intense but as soon as the sun descends beyond the canyon walls, we have to wrap ourselves up in layers of long underwear, fleece, and warm hats. The nights are brutally cold. The desert is a land of such contrasts, but especially in its temperature ranges.

On the first night in Dades Gorge, along a small mountain-fed river...which is the lifeblood of these agricultural communities...we feasted on moist and fluffy couscous, bowls of hot soup, and fresh orange slices sprinkled with cinnamon. We discussed the merits of Fanta and how much the Kiwi girls preferred it to any other soft drinks when they travel. They told us stories of riding with goats on a local bus in Mozambique, of getting in mud fights in the rainforests of Kenya, and getting chased by a drugged-out guy who kept squeezing his fingers together saying, "Come here my babies!"

Mom and I were much inspired by the Kiwi clan and how cheerful they always were, they never complained of the cold, being sleepless, hungry, or irritated by harassment. Ellie--who was hospitalized for something like Malaria when she first got to Kenya--has a dream of going to medical school and returning to Africa to work in under-privileged areas (pick about any place in Africa and that'll do it). Mom couldn't imagine the fortitude that their parents must have when they hear their stories from abroad. We're always inspired to see other women taking risks and seeing the world with such idealism and positivity.

Sands of the Sahara

After Dades Gorge, we made our way towards the Algerian Border near the frontier town of Merzouga. Located just outside of Merzouga are the sand dunes of Erg Chebbi, which to me, represented to the beginning of the Sahara which I've imagined for years (although not all of the Sahara is composed of sand and dunes it's what I've most associated with this vast desert).

As we made our way across the desert plateau through these small towns, we began to see small groups of camels foraging for vegetation and beyond them, the sands of the Sahara rising up out of the earth like undulating masses inflamed in the setting sun. I was so excited to finally see them that I was beside myself.

We drove off-road for quite a while to a camp where our camels awaited us to take us deeper into the desert. I absolutely loathe horse-back riding but there's something so magical about being on a camel, they're such other-worldly creatures, the way their knees bend backwards, the way they can crane their necks backwards to watch you like menacing dragons, and the way their feet settle into the sand with each step like bags of pudding spilling outward....I just love them! Many of us had been on camels before except one of the Kiwi girls who yelped as she was pitched forward and back quite severely when they camel 'uncouched' or stood up (it's quite a strange way of standing up much unlike anything you can be prepared for and requires good balance to stay on).

We sang and bantered with one another as we made our way across the sands of the Sahara. The sun was setting and the sands and sky became a brilliant deep rust and turquoise, the shadows deepening with each minute. The sands are so incredibly gorgeous, undulating like the soft curves of a woman's body, always changing in light but never in texture.

That night we arrived in a small Berber camp circled by camel-hair tents. When darkness set in, the sky was brilliant with stars and a few satellites. We all hiked up one of the dunes and several of us witnessed a huge shooting star, sparkling and dissipating like a breathtaking firework. Mom and I sat there blissfully in the dark on the warm sand which now covered our hands and settled into our clothes, below us were the content sounds of camp, a few young children playing and laughing with their parents from a nearby Berber family, birds singing after dusk, and the clanking of pots from our 'kitchen' where they were preparing dinner for us. I could have stayed there for days just watching the sands, walking with the camels, and studying the sounds and smells of the desert, its ever-changing moods.

Our Berber guide, Ali, (a remarkable and rather entertaining polyglot who kept us entertained for hours that night) called us all down onto the communal carpet in between our tents. We wrapped ourselves up in thick blankets to ward off the cold. He and another Berber, Salim, brought out trays of the most perfect mint tea I've yet had, and Ali fashioned wonderful candle lanterns out of cut-up plastic water bottles filled with sand.

As we waited for dinner, we told each other riddles (Ali had about fifteen camel jokes that he consistently cracked himself up telling) and I inevitably fell into 'guide' mode and recruited them all to play one of my favorite SBACO (Santa Barbara Adventure Company...how's that for a good plug, Mike?!) group-building initiatives, "This is a Stick, This is a Stone." Trust me, it's hilarious and great fun and very challenging with adults who all speak the same language, somehow, by some great miracle of patience and laughter, we managed to play it successfully and bust out in stitches in a group that included a Berbers, Italians (whose vocabulary was limited to Bob Marley and drug-related paraphenalia), Argentians, Japanese, and several ADD Kiwis. Great fun!

After an hour or more, Salim brought out baskets of Moroccan bread three huge 'tagines' (ceramic pyramid-shaped pots they cook meat and vegetables in) and directed us to eat in groups of five. I ate with the Italians and one of the Kiwis and without silverware, we dug our grubby hands into the steaming tagine dipping our bits of bread into a mound of saucy potatoes, carrots, and sinfully moist baked chicken with morsels that fell nearly fell off the bone. It was the most delicious tagine I've had in all of Morocco, the potatoes and carrots subtly infused with various spices which seemed to mingle together in a way you couldn't seperate them out ('Was that cumin or cinnamon?' 'Was that pepper or curry?). Whatever it was, we all agreed that it was one of the best meals any of us had enjoyed in Morocco. The three tables competed to see who could finish their tagine first but the Englishman and Kiwi girls won as they practically licked their tagine clean, vying for the last pieces of bread.

After dinner, Salim and Ali made a fire for us from firewood they'd brought on one of the camels earlier that day. Ali played Berber drums (ceramic with a sheep skin and intestines used as the sinew to tie the head to the base) and sang songs to us all as we curled up in blankets by the fire. One by one, we trailed off to bed until only Claire and Damien were left...they never slept that night, they played drums, sang with Ali, and climbed the dunes to watch the full moon passing over our camp.

We slept on the sand that night beneath heavy blankets under camel hair tents. We rose early in the morning when it was still dark and frigidly cold and rode our camels out onto the dunes to watch the sun rise. Above us, the full moon was dimming in the sky but still a presence.

A little after our time on the dunes, we learned that our entire Berber meal had been cooked over a fire fueled by camel dung collected from around our camp. So thanks to some Berber ingenuity and good, dry camel dung, we had one of the best tagines in Morocco and I will continue to dream of that night and of that meal.

When we left the dunes, we were both fatigued and overjoyed from the experience. My hair still smells, several days later, like sand and woodsmoke. I pleaded with Mom to stay a few more days out in the desert before returning to Marrakesh again. We had the group drop us off in the desert town of Oarzazate so we could enjoy the desert and tranquilness that only wide open spaces can bring (mostly enjoying hot showers, the sun, and new pastry shops).

Everyday, Morocco seems to unfold and we discover another one of its infinite layers. In a week, Steve will be joining us for time in Marrakesh and then journeying to the Coast, which has been influenced by the Portuguese.

My love to all of you and hoping that some peace finds you in whatever wonderful form it may come!

much love,
Rachel and Karen



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Tales From Morocco 4: "'Slow Travel' in Marrakesh"

January 22nd
Marrakesh, Central Morocco

We've taken an eight hour train to the center of Morocco, the famed city of Marrakesh where Morrocans, Africans, and European foreigner mingle at dusk throughout the Djemaa El Fna, or central plaza in the Old Medina....it's a whirlwind for the senses, a mixture of Africa, Arabia, and a little bit of Las Vegas.....a central plaza filled with thousands of people wandering among stalls offering lamb, beef, and chicken kebabs hot off the grill, bowls of tomato-based 'harira' soup (a specialty soup traditionally drunk to break Ramadaan), loaves of fresh bread, cured and spiced olives, dried apricots, raisins, dates, and nuts, and fresh-squeezed glasses of orange juice and grapefruit (for fifty cents).

Throughout the plaza are crowds (almost all men) gathered around acrobats, musicians playing drums and flutes, monkey trainers, storytellers (where even the men dress up in the female roles) and snake charmers. Meanwhile, young boys walk donkeys by loaded up with goods and both locals 'and visitors alike pay to be taken throughout the plaza by horse-drawn carriage.

Taking On 'Slow Travel'

We've found an incredibly reasonable restaurant that looks out over the Djemaa El Fna and you can sit for hours just watching the theatre unfold. Between Mom and I both getting each other sick on and off with a flu/cold and all the incredible action unfolding around us, we've found little need to hurry ourselves to see a bunch of tourist sights. We've been quite content going to bed around 1 or 2 am (the medina really seems to come alive late at night...probably because most of the year it's so dang hot here...January is the perfect month to come!) and getting out and about by noon or after just to wander through the streets and enjoy all the moments which magically seem to present themselves to us at any moment (sharing soup with a cool Belgian couple, drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice from a vendor), warding off beggars, watching the variety of jellabas and Western dress worn by Moroccan woman as the sun descend over the Djemaa).

We've met some great travelers (only one American so far in over ten days!) and met an especially charming young Dutch couple from Den Hague. The past two nights we've been having great fun eating dinners of baked chicken, soup, and couscous, the strolling through the medina to our favorite gelato shop and feasting on small bowls of the most divine pistachio and chocolate flavored ice cream you could imagine....in addition to visiting the french pastry shops where we order all sorts of strange little cookies covered in sesame seeds and confectioners sugar. Travel can be rough sometimes. Then we end the night with pots of mint tea (that only seems to be caffeinated when you order it late at night!) and have great in-depth talks about Islam and the changing role of women, all the places we want to travel to, our favorite ice cream flavors, gun control in the US, and so on....

Most of the foreigners we've seen are couples and it is rare that we see two women traveling together. I was harassed twice as much in the plaza when I walked with Sophie (who is in her twenties and closer to my age) than when I walk with my mother. We've run into one sweet English girl who came here by herself for a week and has found it to be a quite draining experience. You get constant attention as a woman but if you're with someone, you seem to find a way to deal with it and ignore people at the right times. I can't imagine being here by myself, not fun at all.

We've been researching trips out into the desert on camel back and to a couple of world heritage sites but transport in those rural areas is either really tough and slow or incredibly expensive by private guide. We've found a local agency that takes small groups of backpackers to some of the places we'd like to see (riding on camels and visiting Berber villages) and will be heading out for a three-day trip tomorrow that doesn't break the pocketbook. Morocco can be incredibly expensive but we've managed to keep our costs down by haggling and taking our time to decide on transport and ward off faux guides.

And so, we head to the Sahara tomorrow! A long-awaited dream for me! I have a feeling, like Morocco, it will be very different from what I've imagined-

Thank you to all of you for your emails, I'm slowly reading them and it may take a while to respond but I am elated to know so many people are following our travels from home- Thankyou so much for your messages!

much love and Hamdolillah!,
Rachel and Karen



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Tales From Morocco 3: "Wandering the Souks of Fez"

Fez, Morocco
January 19th...I think
*didn't get a chance to send this one out several days ago

Listening to Mariah Carey and intermittent Arabic pop in the background as two young lovebirds giggle and banter back and forth by the door.

Some Thoughts on 'Hustlers' Around the World:

I received such an outpouring of responses (it's such fun hearing from you all!) from the last email (it's so nice hearing from you all!) that I thought I'd send out an email with a slightly more upbeat tone....

After shaking off "the evil one" (as Mom likes to refer to him....though I see the world in slightly more grey terms) we've had an incredible time exploring the labyrinthine souks of this giant medina...

The bottom line is that people are trying to make a living and that guides and touts are going to be wherever tourists are (unless it's a military state) in developing world countries. I believe reading somewhere that the average annual salary of a Moroccan is around $3.25 a day (don't quote me on that until I check it back at home) and tourism provides a great source of income for people here. Wherever we have traveled--through Latin America, Asia, and Africa--we are constantly reminded of how dang lucky we are to have the standard of living that we do, the access to health care (problematic though it is in the U.S.), birth control, and to be women in our culture (even though we are able to travel to these places...most of the world belongs to men it seems).

That said, traveling through developing countries always forces us to re-examine our values and confront the guilt we have around money and the responsibility we have in our actions. Most everyone is trying to make a living here but it's the way that the living is made that counts. We don't mind paying guides at times and we're very good at tipping the appropriate amount, however, it never feels good to be lied to. It's possible to work with tourists, I believe, and not misrepresent oneself.

Our experience yesterday was also a reminder to continue to be aware of people's intentions...but I don't see any of this as black and white...it's more complicated than that. Morocco is like an onion...it has layers! :-) We're constantly towing the line between trusting people and keeping our wits about us....there'd be no adventure without opening ourselves up to trusting people now and then, and to me, it's all worth the occasional 'burn' sometimes.

Wandering throught the Souks In Fez:

Overall, the Moroccans we've encountered have been exceptionally kind and helpful. Mom and I wandered blissfully through the tight passages of the medina (it's absolutely huge and is inhabited by one million people....no cars, only mules and foot traffic) past vendors selling brightly colored silks in fuschia, emerald, and saffron (the silk here is made from part of a cactus), past shelves of pottery, hammered silver teapots and serving dishes, candles and nougat candies, dried spices (mint, cumin, cinnamon, cardamon, and so on) and essential oils smelling of orange blossoms, roses, amber, and sandalwood,

We overlooked an ancient tannery (the largest in Morocco) where men toiled with sheep and goat hides soaking in vats of pigeon guano and cow urine. The skins are then washed in a water wheel and put into separate vats for the dying process: poppies for bright red, henna for orange, saffron (the most expensive natural dye) for yellow, sandalwood for brown, and the ubiquitous mint for green. All throughout the souks are stores selling various leather goods from puffy seat cushions made of camel, goat, and sheep hide, to purses, wallets, belts, and coutoure jackets. Bartering here can be a draining process and there are many strategies involved if you really have your eye on something....for all the international market bartering we've done, bartering in the medina here can be challenging and has put many of our hard-earned haggling skills to the ultimate test.

What is most surprising is the gorgeous countryside surrounding Fez (central Morocco). For a day trip, we hired a taxi to take us out to Volubilis, a World Heritage Site encompassing the best preserved Roman Ruins in all of the country. Incredible two-thousand year-old Roman columns, archways, and mosaics framed a lush fertile valley....the journey there took us across rolling hills planted with wheat and olive trees....farmers and donkeys tilled the fields and soil thick with rocks the size of oranges....fences were lined with prickly pear cactus (an introduced species here) and giant agave (which the Moroccans use to make into a silk thread sewn into higher dollar clothing). The crops and rolling hills look much like I think the countrysides of Greece and Turkey might be.
Through the archway of the Roman columns we could see the holy city of Moulay Idriss--the site for the spread of Islam throughout Morocco--with its white-washed buildings nestled among the foothills.

In the late afternoon, we made our way to a central plaza in Meknes...the sandstone colored fortress walls turned a deep apricot with the late day sun and thousands of Moroccans dressed in Jellabas and Western dress walked past vendors selling kibabs hot off the grill, fruit juices, and stood in crowds listening to street musicians and a "marabout" (a holy man thought to have special magic or 'baraka' in a Moroccan version of Islam). Groups of hooded and unhooded women in colorful jellabas sat beneath a giant wooden door studded with enormous brass pieces and the center gate was ornately decorated in thousands of miniature tiles.

We ordered a creamy banana and avocado shake from a vendor and listened to a flute player and frame drummers for a while, the high pitch reminding me of snake charmers....the plaza was an unexpected and surreal scene of excitement for us both.

I've been the most surprised by how clean the streets and cities are, occasionally run down in poorer but swept on a daily basis. The traffic is positively mellow compared to India and most of Asia and taking taxis here and buying produce in the markets is a cinch, people have been relatively honest and easy to deal with....with occasional times when you have to re-check bills (I did at lunch today and the waiter seemed to have gotten a kick out of the fact that I fought with him a bit and called him out on a needless surcharge....he almost seemed to have respected me before because I stood up for myself like a fierce, Berber woman).

On our way back to the old city last night, Mom and I strolled through the Ville Nouveau (the new city originally created by the French) and bought pastries from a pastisserie and dried apricots, golden raisins, almonds, and apple juice from street vendors. We've been eating practically everything that looks good to us and have been eating a ton of fresh salads with lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, European cheeses, and corn.

Next, we head by train to Marrakesh, the crossroads of Africa and the Arab world....

Ma Salaama

Rachel and Karen





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Tales of Morocco II: Beware the Moroccan Mafia

Fez, Moroc
In a very cold cybercafe late at night
January something....15th?

And now for the past 24 hours....I'll try not to sugarcoat. Last night, after receiving some disturbing news, Mama Chihuahua and I comforted ourselves by stuffing ourselves with handfuls of dried cranberries, turkey jerky, chocolate, and boiled potatos before crawling under the covers of our beds beside a cheap space heater. Most buildings here don't have central heat unless you're at a fancy hotel so we raided the reception area at around 2 in the morning and MoM wrapped herself up in a sofa tapestry. As we shivered away in our twin beds I had a gruesome vision that we'd wake up in a ball of polyester flames beside the little space heater.

I'm not sure why we travel like this. Is it worth saving money to freeze our a***s off like this? Or is there just an undaunting stubborness that we cling to in proving to ourselves that we can tough it out? Not sure.

Onward.
Lesson #1:
All is not as it appears when traveling. Especially in Morocco.

We often befriend people on our travels and have long considered ourselves good judges of character both at home and on the road.

In Morocco we have encountered wonderfully helpful people who have given us directions, sold us oranges and nougats, and give us advice. On the train from Casablanca to Fez, we enountered a nice, mellow young guy from Fez who was in our same compartment. Serendipitously, Karem was on holiday from his work with the office of tourism in the city and invited us to stay near him in the medina (the old part of the city that dates back to the 14th century). After he took us to a beautiful little hotel away from the craziness of the tourist area, he invited us back to his home for tea.

Moroccans are known world-wide for their gracious hosting and Karem's family lived up to their national reputation. We sat on blue and silver embroidered pillows, sipping on hot mint tea, and munching on homemade fry bread seasoned with onions and spices while Karem's brother watched "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" with Arabic subtitles. Another surreal experience in the world of globalism. The light rain tapped away on the glass roof overhead and all felt good in the world. We were exactly where we needed to be in the world and grateful again for the serendipity that travel affords.

That evening he took us to an opulent restaurant and arranged for us to have dinner there at one fifth the price of the menu. Mom and I dined on dishes of spicy eggplant, carrots with mint, cubed potatoes, "pastilla"--deep fried pastries filled with rice and covered in confectioners sugar and cinnamon, moist coucous simmered with vegetables and beef, and a chicken tagine in a sauce of lemons, olives, and prunes. For dessert we drank more mint tea and ate slices of oranges and apples dusted in cinnamon.

Before going to bed, Karem also helped us buy a phone card to call a potential guide in the South and he helped me find an internet cafe to try calling my baby love on.
Around ten o'clock we parted ways with him. He was reluctant to leave us and warned that the medina could be dangerous to be lost in at night. We promised him we just wanted some fresh air
and would return to our hotel after a short walk.

We bid him goodbye and made agreed to meet him in the morning for a walk around town to see the tanneries, mosque, and to do some shopping for handicrafts.

On our way back to the hotel, we came upon a little cybercafe and decided to check our email.
Thirty minutes later an old man in an over-sized jellaba showed up in a chain-smoking whirlwind and offered us fresh fish...plopping it down by our keyboards and chatting along in rather good English. He is a Moroccan with dual American citizenship. He has been living in Chicago for many years selling handicrafts and trying to combat the American stereotype that all Arabs and Moroccans must be terrorists. He seemed a bit eccentric and quite friendly and I took most of what he said with a grain of salt. Whatever the case, this guy had seen some hard times and was happy to meet some friendly Americans and he wanted us to have a good impression of his country.

At some point, he asked us how we were enjoying Fez and we cheerfully explained that we had met a wonderful man from Fez on our train and that he had introduced us to his family, shown us around town, and was taking us around the medina the next day.

Mohammed shook his head cynically, took another puff of his cigarette, and said, "Look, you don't make friends at the train station. Not in Morocco."

Oh, but our friend was different. He was on the first class train, worked at the bureau of tourism,
had introduced us to his family, was on holiday for a few days, was mellow, gotten us several good deals for dinner, and hadn't tried to sell us anything.

Mohammed hooted at this. "Look, this guy's a hustler. This is what they do. They all say that they work at the Board of Tourism and they'll take you home to his family to encourage to trust. He got you all these deals today because he's just getting you ready to be fleeced tomorrow. The hotel he took you to, he got a commission. Tomorrow he'll show you some cultural sights and then start taking you into stores...he'll get you to buy rugs and textiles and he'll have an agreement with all of the shopkeepers-"

But what about the train? How was it that we met him on first class in our compartment?

"The hustlers ride back and forth on the train....he probably didn't have a ticket...they slip away and pay off the train attendants."

Mom and I didn't want to believe it. Not "our Karem" whose mother had the sweet face of an angel and who baked for us and served us pots of mint tea. But a few things began clicking for us....how he had mentioned carpets after dinner...how funny it was that we were in the same train compartment, and how he had slipped away a couple of times.....did he really ever have a ticket or was he paying off the train attendants who came around every few hours?

I began to feel nauseous and a bit flushed...a mixture of disenchantment, shock, and embarrassment that we were being duped. We're both savvy travelers and have come across dishonest people and had also managed to avoid aggressive touts, guides, and rude hotel owners (more an exception than a normalcy) but this guy was different. He was nice, not smarmy, trustworthy, helpful without seeming desperate, and overrall easy and comfortable to be around. If he was indeed a hustler, this guy was good. He had gotten us veritable deals all day and was truly taking his time to garner our trust. Mom had said to his mother several times what a good boy he is and she had beamed with the universal look of genuine maternal pride.

And then Mohammed said one thing that shifted our thinking for good.

"This 'friend' of yours....is he about your height with curly hair, a kind face, and good English?"

Yeah, but so are about a million other young guys around here."

Mohammed persisted....on a personal mission to prove to us that he wasn't just full of hashish and Moroccan lies. "His family lives around the corner near your hotel? He has two brothers and his family just recently bought their house?"

Shit.

"Ahh!" he said excitedly, as if winning a furious game of bingo, "It is Karem! His name is Karem. I know this boy!"

Shit. Shit. Shit.
Mom and I sunk back against the wall inside the internet cafe. Both of us shocked and embarrassed.

"Look," said Mohammed. "At least you know now."

He asked us not to tell Karem we had met him or else there would be bad blood for him and his family in the neighborhood. We went back to our room feeling disenchanted and a bit thrown...someone we had come to trust was using us. But most of all it shook the faith that I have in the people we meet and made me feel as if we're walking dollar signs at all times. And who can we trust?

We went to bed beneath our mountain of tapestries and blankets beside the cheap space heater hoping we wouldn't catch on fire in the middle of the night.

We slept until the early afternoon the next day. Mom left a note for Karem the next day letting him know that we wanted to sleep longer and that we would contact him if we needed anything.

When we appeared out on the street around 3 pm, Karem was waiting for us with a big warm smile. I was proud of Mama Chihuahua. She was restrained and gracious with Karem, thanking him for his help the previous day and letting him know that we would prefer to be alone today. He looked bummed but let us go asking where we were headed.

In the internet cafe, our friend Mohammed warned us that Karem had spoken with a few more guys and that they would be following us through the medina. He described exactly what one of them would look like.

Sure enough, a guy that met Mohammed's exact description began following us a bit further along one of the medina pathways. It seemed we would never be quite free of "the Moroccan Mafia" and Karem's little neighborhood...a neighborhood with eyes.

We made our way through the little streets with our new shadow detail....at first politely asking him to leave us alone.

Finally, as we sat eating a late lunch of aubergine and potato pancakes and he appeared again in front of us, Mama Chihuahua had had quite enough and gave him a few sharp words. Restrained but sharp.

We haven't seen him since.

After Mom had her sharp words with him and had returned to her soup, the souk stall owner grinned broadly and gave her a thumbs up. "Very good" he told us in Arabic. "Say 'no' to hustlers!"

And so we head back to our room tonight after a hustler-free day on our own and without getting lost.
In shallah!

Rachel and MC

*Just spoke to my baby (who's at an ecolodge in Costa Rica) and am elated! I think that, next to my water bottle, canon 20d, and bank card, that Skype is one of the best inventions of the 20th century!