THE VIEW FROM FEZ: Travel Writing About Morocco #26

This week our travel writing sleuths have come across three interesting examples. One is from a high circulation newspaper, another a mass market book and the third, a small blog. Book reviewer and literary critic, Ibn Warraq, takes up the story...

HASSAN the driver asked: "Would you like to meet a Berber troglodyte?"

This is the opening line from a better than average piece of writing on Morocco. Good, that is, in the world of newspapers. I add that because many times it is obvious that a sub-editor has taken to a piece with no sense of the overall integrity of the whole. This appears to be the case in Phil Hammond's story in the Australian Courier Mail, the countries highest circulation newspaper, as the later part of the article seems to be quite truncated. Hammond's opening line is a good one and his quirky take on things continues - not in the usual places (Marrakesh, Essaouira, Erg Cherbi) but parked on top of someone's cave.

He was easing the LandCruiser along a very rough track in an arid valley. The steep walls of this western Saharan mountain range, called Jebel Sarhro, displayed strata lines in dozens of hues of brown, red and cream. It was 46C of dry desert heat outside the vehicle.

Hours before, we had left the cool, fountain-graced courtyards of our hotel in Ouarzazate for a real Moroccan adventure. As the wheels crunched to a stop, we peered out for signs of a cave. All to be seen were the rolling, stony foothills splotched with weedy ground cover.

Then a Muslim woman appeared below and smiled a toothless welcome. Two dogs were too heat-stressed to raise a bark, and a nubian goat kept on munching. We had parked on the roof of her cave. Venturing down, we found a steep-sided bank with a row of four cave entrances. Each tunnelled five or six metres horizontally into the hillside and none was high enough to stand up straight in.

The first cave contained the kitchen, or rather a clay oven. The second was the family's lounge room, where our hostess had a sizeable loom on which was the start of a Berber carpet. From grubby plastic canisters, she poured water into a tiny teapot and fired up a small spirit stove. In the tradition of Moroccan hospitality, we were invited to sit on the cave floor and sip mint tea from small glasses.

With Hassan to translate, we learnt the third cave was the sleeping quarters and the fourth sheltered animals on cold nights. The woman said she had raised 11 children in her cave home. A distant movement showed dad and some youngsters were bringing a flock of sheep and goats from the water supply.

Phil Hammond writes well and his word pictures are wonderfully evocative.

The saving grace in this part of the world is that even in drought, water does keep trickling. Soon we were bouncing down into the Dades River Valley. Snow from the High Atlas mountains melts and permeates the rock, providing, at this time of the year, a modestly running creek. It is sufficient to sustain a vivid green ribbon below dramatic rock formations like melted toffee. These hillsides dwarfed mud-plastered villages where every home is allocated a riverside allotment.

Downstream, we had poked along through the Valley of a Million Kasbahs... (Well, we could knitpick and point out that it is usually only a "thousand kasbahs", but what the heck.) A kasbah here is an imposing, fortress-like house. Rich French people have "discovered" them for holiday homes and renovations among the groves of date palms are impressive.

You will find Phil Hammond's full story here: Mix of Culture

The iconic kasbah at Ait Ben Haddou

The Quest for a good book on Kasbahs.

Recently The View from Fez was sent a review copy of the new travel adventure book by Richard Bangs. For those who do not know Richard, he is the author of more than a dozen adventure books which cover half the planet. He is a full time explorer and adventure junky.

When Bang's latest book Quest for the Kasbah arrived on my desk, I was keen to dive into it because the subject of the Moroccan kasbahs was one we had recently been discussing. It starts with a description of a descent of the Omo River in Ethiopea and his travels with his friend Lew - "Though Jewish, Lew had spent time traveling through North Africa." Imagine that.

What soon came clear was that this book is not so much about kasbahs, as about Richard Bangs. In fairness, it should be pointed out that Quest for the Kasbah is a TV tie-in, marketed to go with a the PBS special Morocco: Quest for the Kasbah and as such will probably be enjoyed by many. Thee book's observations about Morocco are at times poetic - "With Walker just a few steps behind we passed through a gate of three symetrical horseshoe arches and kneaded (sic) down a smokey, teeming alley, thick with the tintinnabulations and perfumes of North Africa."

Bangs observations are unfortunately simplistic snapshots that fail to go beneath the surface. In describing the urban layout of Fez, Bangs falls into the trap of failing to see beyond those first impressions. Instead of describing a city that has grown organically along the river and then developed along Islamic lines (each area having its own mosque,bakery, medersa, fountain and hammam), Bangs tosses off the standard cliches.

"...so tendrilled and tortuous that even those living just outside the walls often do not enter for fear of getting lost. There are no maps, no street signs. Hell is better organised."

Now, we wouldn't quible if that was not so demonstrably wrong. There are maps. There are signs in French, Arabic and English and the Fez Medina is certainly not ... "endless and circular, a maze within a knot inside a honeycomb within a skein within a web." To compound the problem, Bangs then goes on about the great adventurers who got lost. Starting with Moses he details, Livingstone, Kit Moresby, Shackelton, Herzog, Amelia Earheart, the list goes on. Yep, know how they felt, just like being in the "cosmic soup that is the Medina of Fez".

Richard Bangs

Another unfortunate habit of Mr Bangs is to see the world through a myopic and slightly imperialist set of glasses. He is take on traditional cafe culture: " ...with its luxury of unmeasured time the Moroccan cafe is out of harmony with western concepts." Bangs' spends a lot of time through the book commenting on mobile phones and modern communications. In fact it seems he spends more time on that subject than talking about kasbahs. But even his writing on communications is hard to take seriously after his observation about mobile phones in Fez: "...In the midst of all the bustle I don't see a single person with a cell phone, PDA or any digital device..." It makes one wonder if he was actually in Fez at all. The cell phones are, as any casual observation will confirm, in plague proportions.

Quest for the Kasbah ultimately is an unfullfilled quest. But now I understand my European friends when they tell me I have been"banging on" too much.

Quest for the Kasbah is published by Open Road Publishing.

Advice to Travellers.

My last quick review this week is of a website promoting Fez that was sent to us by a concerned Moroccan guest house owner who complained that the site made it sound as though staying in the Medina of Fez was a second rate option.

"Much of the city is still holding on to its French roots. Thus around 200000 of Fez's inhabitants stay in the city of Fez el Bali. Staying a few days in Fez el Bali will make you recognize that it's hard to avoid the paradox of the place. Fez el Bali is a place with a constant source of interest.
Accommodation
You can either stay in the modern hotels of Ville Nouvelle with a reliable water supply, or in the basic hotels of Medina in Fes el Bali and Fes el Djedid. There is frequently a shortage of hotel space so be sure to book well in advance. A small number of the better hotels have swimming pools and also offer the advantages of nearby restaurants and pubs.
Restaurants
Ville Nouvelle is the center for most of the cities restaurants, bars, cafes, bookshops and other facilities. Fes el Bali and Fes el Djedid have no bars and a few Palace-Restaurants that are very basic and only open for lunch. They mainly cater for tourists"

While we agree that the information is inaccurate and does paint the wrong picture, the site itself is well meaning. Visitors probably check more than one website before booking accomodation in Fez and can be assured that they have "reliable water" supplies!