Morocco — Maggie Goulder

After a week of hostel-hopping through Andalucía, I was ready to settle down again. Lucky for me, I couldn’t have asked for a better place to call home for the next three weeks than SunDesk, a co-living house in the small fishing village of Taghazout, Morocco. I arrived there after one of the more harrowing taxi rides of my life, in which I learned that: A) lanes are more of a suggestion than a requirement and B) that I was more likely to get in a car accident with a camel than another driver. But when I arrived at SunDesk, it was all worth it. Just take a look at these pics!

One of the outdoor work spaces.  Spoiled!! — One of the outdoor work spaces. Spoiled!!

My room!  No creepy artwork this time ;) — My room! No creepy artwork this time ;)

View of Taghazout at sunset from SunDesk terrace

Moroccan Spaghetti

One of the must-do experiences while in Morocco is to go to a Hammam, an Arab bathhouse. I checked this item off my Moroccan bucket list one afternoon with Nicole, a friend I made at SunDesk who is traveling the world by herself on a motorcycle... Badass! After another slightly harrowing taxi ride, we arrived at a what appeared to be just a regular house. Inside was a dimly hit labyrinth of humid hallways and bathing rooms smelling strongly of sage. After undressing almost completely, we were led into a rectangular steam room with floor-to-ceiling tiling and a 3-foot high rectangular block in the center of the room.

I’m glad I didn’t do too much research on Hammams before I went, because the events that followed were a true surprise. After a few minutes, a woman walked in, asking us to sit side-by-side on the tile bench that lined the perimeter of the room. She then proceeded to bathe us by pouring buckets of warm water over our faces and bodies, like babies in a bathtub. Filling our hands with thick globs of soap, she helped us scrub our bodies from head to toe. Next, she asked me (lucky me got to go first!) to lie face-down on the tile block in the center of the room and proceeded to scrub my entire body with some sort of exfoliating glove, hard! The best part was when she suddenly stopped, took ahold of my hand, and insisted that I feel the rolls of blackened dead skin being shaved off my body. “Like spaghetti!” she grinned. This joke was so hilarious that she repeated it when it was Nicole’s turn.

Although it was just Nicole and me in the room, I couldn’t help but think about how this ritual typically takes place — often with 10 or more women or men (they do separate the genders), sitting naked around the one lucky person on center stage having the spaghetti scrubbed off of her, while everyone else observes from the perimeter. Might as well get out the popcorn!

Although the small amount of tan I had accumulated while in Morocco had almost certainly been scrubbed off, I emerged feeling cleaner than just about ever. Moroccans often joke that Europeans/Americans are so dirty - and I’d have to agree that if the standard is a a weekly Hammam treatment, then indeed we are!

Call to Prayer

One of the most memorable parts of my time in Taghazout was a nightly ritual occurring every night just as the sun ducked below the horizon: the evening call to prayer.

During Ramadan, Moroccan “breakfast” (think of the literal meaning of breakfast: “break” + “fast”) occurs at sundown. It consists of a big feast designed to slowly re-introduce food to the stomach by starting with lighter foods (soup) and then moving on to the heavier stuff.

Stomachs finally full, all the men and boys in the town scurry to the mosque for the evening service. This happens at dusk, often around the same time that I would return from my run. There was something so special about the sight of everyone (except the women of course, but I won’t get into that!) stopping what they were doing to assemble at the mosque and pray. At this time, the usually bustling town fell into a hush, a silence only broken by the melodic chants of the muezzin echoing throughout the town. The many stray dogs in the streets also seemed compelled by the ritual, as a collective howling would often erupt just as the muezzin started his prayers. It was truly a shared experience for the entire village.

The co-livers enjoying a Moroccan breakfast.

For comedic relief, the muezzin seemed to have cold, because he often stopped to cough, resulting in a every few lines of prayer interrupted by the sound of thick coughing directly into the microphone and echoing throughout the entire town. Poor guy!

You can hear the dogs howling along!

View from the terrace at SunDesk during the call to prayer one evening.

Fresh fish from the market! Which we had with Guacamole, of course.

Pedro Pasta

Like many developing countries, food safety is a concern in Morocco. Fruits and vegetables with an outer layer that can be peeled off are usually safer to eat. The result? We had guacamole with EVERYTHING. Pizza? Top it off with some guacamole! Soup? Guac on the side. One evening, my Mexican friend texted our group of friends asking “Pedro pasta tonight?”. Naturally, we all assumed this was a funny way of describing pasta with guacamole. Turns out it was just a typo (he meant to say pesto pasta), but the name stuck.

The Sahara

Toward the end of my time in Morocco, I went on 3-day guided tour to the Sahara desert. My tour group consisted of 7 couples… and me. So far I have found it quite easy to meet and connect with other solo travelers on my adventures, but I have to admit that this trip was an exception. It honestly was quite funny - it seemed that everything was designed for pairs, and then there was just me. From the seven double rooms and one single, to the one single seat next to the bus driver with my name on it, to my favorite: the awkward moment when, after taking a profile-pic worthy photo of a couple overlooking some incredible desert landscape the couple turns to me and asks, “ummm… well… do you want us to take a picture of… you?” Honestly, at the beginning I felt pretty self-conscious about being the only single person. But it was a great opportunity to practice not caring so much about what people think (always an issue!) and re-framing my expectations for the trip so that I still had a rich experience.

The Sahara itself was absolutely incredible. I felt like I was inside a Windows desktop background. Sand dunes for miles, camels (by the way, riding a camel is NOT like riding a horse!!), and the most incredible stars I’ve ever seen. I think the pictures and videos will speak for themselves.

A silver lining of being the one single person on the trip is that I got to assist with a marriage proposal! One of the couples on my trip got engaged that night camping in the Sahara, and I was recruited to help make it happen. Given my very important role in the proposal (I held on to the ring for all of 30 seconds…), I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a wedding invite :)

Another memorable aspect of the desert trip was the opportunity to meet and connect with some of the Berber men who were running the desert campsites (Berbers are native North African/Moroccan). Talking with them, it was striking how incredibly different our life experiences had been, although we were close to the same age. One of them had never heard of California, and I in turn had never heard of his culture or traditions. However, at the end of the night, we all sat around a campfire and played music and sang. Pretty amazing how music is able to transcend those kinds of differences.

Hellos and Goodbyes... but more Hellos

A bittersweet aspect of this “digital nomad” life has been having to say goodbye to new friends I’ve made. A friend of mine recently summarized it well:

Part of the digital nomad deal is meeting incredible people that 100% understand you and spending an intense, but very short time together before everyone jets off to their next adventure. It's always sad to part, but if I had stayed home and chosen a different lifestyle I never would have met them in the first place.

I really loved the friends I made at SunDesk, and I hope our paths cross again somewhere else in the world!