Kingdom of the West - seven days in Morocco. Days 1 and 2

28th of March   

GLW TO MARRAKESH FLIGHT T2 GATE13 *ARR 5:30*

A journey of fear and anticipation, flying through thick clouds for hours and hours and hours, a smell of onions and perfumes diffusing in my nostrils, surrounded by families and couples weaved together into excitement and a crave for sun and warmth and a new country. This journey brought me to Morocco. I arrived together with a Moroccan sunset of oranges and reds leaking out of the sky and melting over Marrakesh. There, night does not bring sleep but wakefulness and songs. Tired from the long journey, I walked the narrow streets brimming with dancers, snakes and bruised hands struggling to sell pieces of their lives: a cup of orange juice or leather shoes made in the scorching heat by starving children. Breathing in the cold Scottish air for years, I forgot how the warm air feels when it reaches you - air full of heat and of life. I sought to lose myself between the twisted alleys of the markets, to smell the colourful spices and smoke from grilled meat - sizzling hot. 

I fell in love with Morocco from this first night. It ended beautifully, drinking hot tea made with fresh mint leaves and too much sugar, watching from our terrace the chaotic streets that were only calmed by the arrival of morning. You are never alone when you travel. In a world unknown to you, every eyes that meet yours offer safety. And so, I listened to stories from other travellers while others listened to my story until my eyes were full of sleep and my ears could listen no more to the scuffle of the streets and to the stories from Norway and Chile and Spain and France. Heavy and exhausted, I slept until the morning sun broke through the small windows in the hostel, bringing with it a hot Sunday - the beginning of my Moroccan journey. 

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29th of March

The morning was sweetened by orange juice and home-made pancakes with apricot jam, eaten quickly in the hostel before getting lost on the tangled streets of Marrakesh. It was only ten in the morning, and the sun was already at its peak, melting the top of my head and heating up my cold back - how I longed for this feeling. What I saw is not of great importance. That day I learnt that Marrakesh is not about what you see with your eyes, but what you feel. As I walked and wondered at the myriad of people running in all directions, some begging to hear my story, others begging me for money, I sensed the extraordinary beauty in disorder. I always admired countries of perfection with clean streets and orderly houses - all identical with a smell of lemon and fresh sheets. I thought beauty can only be found there, where all is arranged and symmetrical and clear. But I was wrong and the chaos of Marrakesh, the smell of hard work, skin burnt in the sun, the smell of struggle and yet the smell of carefreeness and joviality that dissipated through the crowded streets bewildered me. I found beauty - raw beauty - in that chaos.

After hours of breathing in Marrakesh, I set off in the evening towards Ouarzazate. But getting there wasn’t easy as I thought. A long, long journey crossing the Atlas mountains awaited me. At only one hour from the stifling air of Marrakesh, there was a heaven of high peaks clothed in snow, decorated with palm trees and orange rock. I felt how the whole world was contained in those mountains: the sea, and the desert and cold forests of snow and rocks. You found everything: unbearable heat and freezing coldness all in the same place, painted with vivid colours of greens, oranges, reds and purples. I had neither words nor thoughts. The life I had before, with all the insignificant worries and pains, the bruises that were still on my body and on my mind all seemed trivial up there. The abundance of orange around me dissolved inside myself: I became one with that place as I left small parts of my heart on those narrow roads that carved the mountain like curling snakes. There were no signs of people. Here and there, a small square house, half broken into pieces, was forgotten on the top of a hill. I always wondered: who lived there? As I write these words, sitting on my couch with a cup of warm tea, surrounded by life everywhere around in shops and on streets and next door, I find it hard to believe that someone is still there on the mountain, in that broken orange house, breathing just like I am. I find it hard to believe that the world I passed on the mountain, so different from mine, is turning and twisting, parallel with this world in which I live. 

Night was brought by a purple colour dissolving on the horizon, turning into red, and the red turning into orange and the orange turning into a dark blue pierced with clear stars. By the time I arrived to Ouarzazate, I was exhausted - all my energy was offered to the mountain. A hot plate of tagine followed by a cold shower and a bed seemed to me the most marvellous things I could be offered that night. And so I went to sleep with an astonishing feeling of happiness. This time, I was not exhausted from sadness but from too much beauty. 

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