Author: Troy Knight

Our journey is coming to an end. We drove through the mountainous north of Spain and into Mount Suerrate to stay in a small village at the foot of the range. Bars and cafes close early here and we shopped for vegetables at a local stand and prepared our own meal. Eggplant, onion, with tomatoes and olives. cheese and avocado with sweetpotato for dessert. Unusual menu but filling and fun. Thomas again amazed us with his driving skills and route selection. Beautiful leaves and foliage along the way. We stopped in Pamplona for lunch at the Bar Gaucho and imagined Hemingway and Fitzgerald drinking wine and beer there while waiting for the bulls to fill the plaza and run to the ring. Today we will get out Covid tests and Tom will return to US Sunday and we will Monday. Outside the sound to school children reminds me of how I spent to many years. I still miss it.

Thomas our precious grandson joined us in Madrid and is serving as our companion and driver. As much as we loved the city of Madrid this drive and stay in the Basque country is even more wonderful. We left the city in the dark heading toward Bilboa with several stops along the way. Breakfast at a working man’s cafe was hot milky coffee and a potato tortilla. The second stop was a little village called Lerma. There was a large square with a hotel on one end, a church and former convent on the other and shops on either side. We bought fresh bread, pate, marmelade, and olives and a knife to slice the bread. Lunch was ready for us when we were. Our next top was Burgos, a small city with am impressive cathedra. The tomb of El Cid the Spanish hero is here and the cathedral is the third largest in Spain. The front of the plaza was filled with cutouts decorated to represent Basque and Spanish pride. A bubbling fountain and the ever present cafe was waiting for us. The weather was cold and we did not stay as long as perhaps we would have if the weather had permitted. The scenery was spectacular. Mountains covered with leaves changing colors. Vineyards and farm lands. All soothing and inviting.

We left Burgos and drove to Salvatierra eating our lunch along the way to stay in a beautiful hotel that Tom selected and had a cod dinner in a restaurant he chose. Our room looks over the river and this evening kayakers and small boats go up and down. There is a walk leading to a light house that once guided fishermen home. Thomas was fascinated with a combination bridge and ferry that carries cars and people across the river. It hangs about 10 feet above the water on a series of cables and glides across delivering people home and to work. Franco destroyed it is the Civil War and it was rebuilt in 1943. WE have decided to stay here a day longer and explore the small villages in the area. Now the lights are coming on across the river and we settle in for the night.

Our last days in Morocco were spent in Casablanca a city that speaks of romance and intrigue. It is a low, white city that spreads out for miles from the Atlantic Ocean making it highly desirable for everyone from the Phonecians to the French. FDR made a treacherous trip to meet with Churchill in WWII and many a spy movie has been set here if not actually filmed here. An enormous mosque dominates the landscape and it is the only one open to non-Muslims in the entire country. It is very new and paid for by all Morocs. A small charge to enter probably means that there is still a debt against this edifice. Luckily we had a late flight to Spain and could get a little rest which was much needed. Getting out of the country was not easy. A lot of mysterious checking of papers and staring at faces and passports and whispered conversations. Finally we were handed a boarding pass and were off.

Madrid is much color than the desert country that we left behind. Grand squares, Baroque buildings and a candy shop and bar on every corner. Everyone is laid back enjoying their coffee or beer, one more cigarette and one more photo before moving along. Families and enjoying Sunday together, lovers are getting one more kiss, and the past mingles with the present in a beautiful way.

This wonderful drive from Marrakesch to Eassouise was full of wonderful sights. School children waiting for the bus, coffee shops in the trunks of cars, camels in the fields and goats in a tree to name a few. The first three easy to understand the goats in a tree not so much. Platforms are placed strategically in the tree branches and the goats climb up and spend their day on look out. They nibble on the leaves and make goat noises and pose for pictures for Americans that are dazzled by a goat. The highway has room for buses, cars, cycles of all kinds and donkey, mule, and horse drawn wagons. Farmers ride on the backs of these animals and have handmade wagons for them to pull. They move at a rapid clip totally unperturbed by the vehicles driving by. They are loaded with whatever they are taking to market and leave the animals near the market with feed bags tied to their noses. Occasionally we saw a tractor but they are rare. Most of the farming in this area is subsistence farming and the farmers pay no taxes on their income. They raise melons, strawberries, tomatoes, herbs and other vegetables. Some will have enough olive trees to supply their family. An olives grove of about 800 trees requires workers because they become labor intense then. These farmers are taxed. Argan trees help the women. They make cosmetics from the nuts, fuels from the shells and cooking oil as well. They women in these coops are single women in need to financial help.

The city of Essaouise was founded by the Portuguese and their influence in evident in the architecture and in the fishing industry. Hundreds of boats all painted blue ply the waters for sardines, shrimp and eel and what ever else they can catch. Two percent of their daily catch goes to feed the poor and women with small buckets are waiting for the fleet to come in and get their fish for the day. The city has also a host of cats. Vaccinated and neutered and spayed. They are fat and famously spoiled. Each one poses and waits to be petted.

The highlight of the day was when a beautiful little boy saw me and came running to my arms. HIs mother, grandmother and auntie were astonished when he fell into my arms and planted kisses on my check. Telling me in French that he loved me and wanted more kisses. It was a perfect ending to this day.

Tomorrow Casablanca but no Rick’s Bar.

We were with a local guide today in Marrakech and visited three of the most significant architectural pillars of the city. But not before seeing what makes this city so unique. The French built a church next to a mosque during colonization and then a synagogue was promptly established on the same street. Truly a city that welcomes everyone. We visited the Koutoubia Mosque built over eight hundred years ago and learned that French law forbade any but Muslims to enter and the law has never been changed. So unlike Turkey, we could no go in. We also visited the vizir’s palace know as Palais Bahia. The outside rooms were used for business and as we moved into the interior of the palace the rooms became more elaborate and more intimate. His four wives each had their own apartment with gorgeous tiles, carved columns and decorative windows facing a fountain and a garden, the concubines had smaller accommodations, but the were also beautiful and finally the vizier himself had a “man cave” with two stages, fancy tiles and enough space to entertain all of the ladies he wanted to. The palace was used as the home of the general Marshal Lyautey during the French Protectrate. Does not surprise me one bit. Spent the afternoon lounging around the pool and gave our senses and our feet a much needed rest.

It is hard to believe that in our seventy-ninth year Troy and I would be so lucky to ride a camel into the Sahara to view the sunset and the moon rise, but that is exactly what we did. After a wild ride in a 4 x 4, we had the privilege to visit a nomad camp and watch the matron of the family weaving at her loom. We were welcomed into the family communal tent and visited with an older daughter and two school boys. She was shy and covered in black from head to toe. Other family members were at the Sunday market trading their wool and goat hair for goods that the family will use in their day to day life. The tent was make of heavy wool and the sand was covered with hand made rugs which served as table, chair and beds for a family. At night a curtain would hang from the center of the tent to offer the women some privacy. The boys attended a nearby school as long as the family stayed in the area, but they would seldom be there for more than a few weeks at the time. A rugged life, but one that has been followed by many generations of nomads before them..

We left to join the camel corps. These beasts were laying in wait for us. Only one camel was so contrary that he would not let the rider mount. The rest knelt down while we climbed aboard. We moved in groups of five over the dunes and came to a stop at a sandy cliff. Rugs were laid on the sand and we waited for the sun to set. The silence was beautiful. After time spent in hectic markets and tourists sights this majesty was welcoming. The landscape shifted gently about like an ocean of sand. People and nature became one for at least that moment. A ride back to dinners gave us a chance to see the sunset on the left and the moon to rise on the right. A band of Berbers garbed in white beating drums and shaking tambourines and striking symbols danced us into dinner. This experience will be hard to top.

This day was a loooong bus ride. We left Fes and stopped first in a beautiful little town built by the French in 1929. It is near a ski area and looked more like a Swiss village that anything French or Moroccan. Just outside the city that was a band of Moroccan monkeys wandering along side the road. The bus driver stopped and the monkeys met us with their paws out just like the little boys we saw in the medina yesterday. They wanted peanuts that the vendors conveniently had available for us to buy. Both vendors and monkeys benefitted from the stop. Men with beautifully saddled and groomed horses posed for us and as they use to say a good time was had by all.

We traveled through a rough countryside much like west Texas while crossing the Middle Atlas Mountains. The entire area was dotted with sheep herds and goats. The sheep provide income and the goats provide food. Donkeys herd the sheep and provide transportation for the families living there. There was a nomad camp near a spring and they will stay there for a few weeks before moving on to another area. After driving through some scary mountain passes the terrain changed dramatically. It literally became an oasis with date palms, green pastures and running water. The geography of this country is very varied and the people have learned to adapt over the many years it has existed. What was interesting to us is that the king likes to drive himself through the country and see what needs his people have and how he can help them meet their needs.

Our hotel tonight is very exotic. It is call a Kashba and that is perfect. Tiled floors, eastern style lanterns, date palms and flowers everywhere. It is hard to believe that Bogart and Bergmann are not lurking around somewhere. Tomorrow we ride a camel at sunset. Can hardly wait.

A medina is a walled city designed to protect its citizens and the Medina of Fes is both walled and covered making its narrow streets dark and crowded. The light that reaches the street comes from openings above shops and houses that creeps into the streets themselves. We arrived in time to see the donkeys and their owners going about the medina picking up last night’s refuse. So much of what we saw goes back to the middle ages. Butchers cutting meat to be consumed in today’s couscous, herb and vegetable vendors have the potatoes, carrots, and onions ready to place on the tagine and it will be served with papa comes home from the mosque. Friday is not a holiday from school, but it is a shortened work day for the bread winners. Cats snatched meat scraps and vendors hawked trinkets to visitors. We visited the site of the oldest university in the Moslem world, visited their tiny dormitory rooms and learned a lot about the symbolism tied to the tile work. We teach so much of European culture and history but fail to spends equal times on the Middle East. Of course we could not leave with out visiting the rug and leather shop. A side visit to a small apartment in the medina revealed a jewel box of a home completely different to the rough edges of the alleyways we had been walking on. The visit to the second medina also known as the Jewish quarter gave us a chance to see how Jews and Muslims lived together for years. Many European Jews fled the continent and came to Africa. The King of Morocco gave then a safe place to live and would not give them up to Nazi officials. The King has a palace in Fes and is in residence there now. Important looking guards and Moroccan flags announce his presence and we could take some hurried pictures of the palace. We leave this history and return to a modern city with shopping malls, fast food chains and a Marriot hotel where we are staying. Tomorrow we head for the desert.

We left Rabat which is the capital of Morocco and drove to Fes which is the cultural and educational center of the country. Everywhere the influence of foreign cultures abound in this little country and Fes is no different. Some of the first foreign entities to the area were the Romans. They established an outpost near the town of Meknes in 25BC and stayed there until about 275 AD. They established a city with beautiful villas, a sophisticated economy and all of the luxuries of Roman life. It quickly became obvious to me that no one on the trip had had Annette Parker’s world history class, because they could not grasp how sophisticated Roman life could be. The excavated site is much smaller than Pompeii but has similar characteristics. Beautiful mosaics, a bathhouse, public latrines and houses for the rich and the poor. There was a stork nest on one of the columns and one sweet lady thought it had been there since the Romans. There is evidence of an arena, a hippodrome and a many more houses. Time and money will be needed to finish that project.

We left there and drove on to Fes. Students were everywhere. Elementary students were being picked up by parents, high schoolers were hanging out and university students were all over the various campuses. This evening were had a couscous dinners in a sumptuous riad. The food was simple. Couscous with vegetable and meat. The setting was hard to believe. Carved and painted doors, tile work that started the eye, a roof that could be opened, hand made table linens and centerpieces fit for a wedding. We were allowed to explore two floors of the house and each floor was more elaborate. The city was even more beautiful after dark. Red and green lights decorate the tree trunks, and lighted garlands hang across broad boulevards. One would think the city was planning an early Christmas celebration except of course there is no such thing in this country. People are out walking about, visiting with friends, drinking tea or coffee and pleasantly spending the evening together. There is something enviable about their life style. Tomorrow we shall see more of the city and learn more of their history.

Trouble with site publishing photographs – will publish later.

Rabat is located on the Atlantic Ocean which has historically made it ripe to be picked to add to the wealth of many European countries. The influence of the Spanish and Portuguese is in the architecture and the influence of the French is in their language. The people of Rabat greet their visitors with a love Bon Jour and appreciate it if you respond with a French greeting. Troy and I began our morning with a typical Moroccan breakfast. A vegetable soup, soft and hard cheeses, olives, dates and figs Wonderful bread which any Frenchman would appreciate, sweet milky coffee and a variety of preserves and honey. This feast reminded us of the breakfasts we enjoyed in Turkey.

We were on our own today and went to the Tower of Hussan and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. We were not allowed to enter the complex, but the construction of these buildings which are more than six hundred years old points the sophistication of this nation. Mounted guards dressed in white billowing pants, a traditional fez sit astride their white horses and protect the history of Rabat. Following a glass of sweet mint tea, we entered the Medina and saw homes constructed in the 12th century that are still in habited. The majority of the inhabitants are Muslem, but Europeans and even two American families live in that Medina. It self contained with a mosque, a school and nearby shops. The children play in the narrow streets, because there are no vehicles. The dozens of cats are fed and cared far by the residents and live a lazy cat life. The views of the Atlantic are spectacular and it was fun to watch the fishing boats go in and out. I cannot image living in a world that protected and having a door way that is seven hundred years old. Troy loves to photograph doorways and this was his chance. By tradition the buildings are always blue and white, but the doors are customized. Most had dates on them and some had symbols that told us the occupation of the original owner.

Next to this medina is the Spanish Medina Not so old, but still very beautiful and in use today for both residences and commerce. We had lunch in what was once a Spanish home. We each had a tajine. Food that Moroccans have been eating from the beginning of their culture. The food was Arabic, but the house was a mixture of Spanish and Muslim architecture. Two beautiful young women dressed in caftans served us and made us feel at home. If every other city is as fascinating as Rabat we will bring home many treasured memories.

Images will be added later tonight. We must meet our guide for the remainder of the trip now.