A Lone Traveler in Morocco

I think I look pretty bad ass in the picture.

Approximately three weeks ago, I embarked on a lone adventure to Morocco. Why Morocco? Why alone? Well, when I first started my study abroad trip in Italy, I felt so homesick. I was frustrated with the fact that I had been yelled at by an Italian salesclerk earlier that morning. I was frustrated by the fact that the people I thought I had befriended were starting to distance themselves from me and form cliques. I felt alone. I wanted to rebel.

What did I do in response? I stayed up til 3am and booked a flight to the most exotic place RyanAir could take me: Morocco. I decided to do it alone and to do it for the whole ten days of my Spring Break trip. It made me feel adventurous, gutsy, and like a cool lone wolf. Whenever I told people about my ten day trip to Morocco alone, they were amazed and I fed off of their reactions. Meanwhile, a friend of mine who travels for a living told me that it does get lonely after a while and to be careful. I brushed off his warnings and proceeded with my plans.

Mint tea, my only consistent companion.

I started off with four days in Marrakesh followed by a three-day, two-night trip to the Sahara Desert. Afterwards, I took a night train to Tangier, stayed there for a few hours, then proceeded to take a bus to the mountains in Chef Chaouen. I stayed in Chef Chaouen for one night then took a bus the next morning to Fez. I stayed in Fez for two nights then took a train back to Marrakesh early in the morning to catch my flight back to Rome.

My trip to the desert was one of those moments that will always seem surreal to me: when I was experiencing it and when looking back. Riding into the desert during sunset with nothing but the sound of one of my companions' iPods blasting Mumford & Sons into the desert background; it was beautiful. It was a night of a full moon and we enjoyed the company of Berbers. Late at night, with only the full moon as our source of light, the desert seemed so serene, quiet, and content. What I enjoyed most was using a snowboard on the desert dunes.

Marrakesh during high noon.

Overall, I think Marrakesh was the city I fell in love with the most. There was so much sensory stimulation, yet it was not an overload like Fez. The people were much friendlier and courteous in Marrakesh as well. In Fez, people, called faux guides, were constantly approaching me and aggressively offering me their services for an unofficial tour guide. They didn't take no for an answer. I had to literally ignore them and walked for a whole block until they finally gave up. It was frustrating because it really did feel like the whole city was working together to screw over any visitors. The faux guides would sometimes follow me into stores and tell the shopkeepers in Arabic to raise the prices for me, which they took commission off of. I think I paid more than twice the amount I had to for anything during my stay in Fez, the people were there to make money any way they can. I tried to rationalize the whole situation in my mind: telling myself that these people have to live in such circumstances and probably won't leave them, whilst I was merely there for vacation and will be making more money on an hourly wage than they would in a week or so. Even with such reasoning, it was the principle of being taken advantage of that was discouraging. At one point, on my last night in Fez, one faux guides got so mad at me for ignoring him that he proceeded to call me gay. He menacingly said that I shouldn't worry, they didn't kill women, but that I was lower than the status of women. I didn't explicitly do/say anything to show my sexuality and I even tried my best to hide it. His harassment alarmed me so much that I just stayed in my hostel the rest of my last night in the city and waited for my taxi to the train station.

On my final afternoon in Marrakesh before my flight back to Rome, I tried to relive the first four days I had spent there. That afternoon, the orange blossoms were starting to bloom, so their scent seemed to welcome me back. I reminisced about the fellow travelers I had met and come to befriend. The locals who would almost impulsively offer me their seat. I could see how Yves Saint Laurent could fall in love with such a city. It was a place with beauty, character, and a sense of honest charm. Of all the cities I had visited: Marrakesh, Tangier, Fez, Ouarzazate, Chef Chaouen, Merzouga... Marrakesh was the best out of them. The whole place seemed to become your friend and embrace you instead of coldly disregarding you like Tangier or attempt to take advantage of you like Fez.

I will look back at Morocco and think of how much I had grown, how much I've come to realize a greater appreciation for my friends, family, and where I have come from. Perhaps I will return someday, we shall see.