Morocco is incredible. I don't think I can come up with a better word for it. No description I can give you will be accurate enough for my liking, so I'm just going to not and pretend I did.
We flew into Casablanca and immediately boarded a bus for the four hour drive through Rabat to Fez. We didn't get to explore Rabat, but man was it beautiful. We drove along the edge of continent and watched the sun set into the Atlantic Ocean. My phone was dead at this point, so I don't have any pictures to describe how magical it is, but it's like Harry Potter World cubed. The waves were crashing over the rocky edges of the shoreline, the sun hidden behind orange and pink and red clouds. Perfect. That's it. Perfect.
Ignoring just how morbid this is, I'm really fascinated by cemeteries. I'm not going to get into just how interesting the concept of burying your loved ones in a place where their souls, bodies, or both will reside for an extended period of time is, but think about it sometime. ANYWAY. We turned the corner away from the shoreline and into the city, and I saw this massive congregation of people on a hillside. I couldn't understand what they'd be doing on a Friday at 6:00pm congregating on a hill, but that's when I realized they weren't people. They were gravestones. And it was a cemetery. I've been comparing the cemeteries here to the ones back home, and it's interesting to me just how differently they're laid out. At home, it's very structured, row by row, even unnamed burials having a very specific place. I always know where to step to avoid being on top of someone. Here, not so much. Everyone has a place, but there's very little method to it. It seems more beautiful, in a way, to have so many generations of people on top of each other. Clearly I put too much thought into this.
I think my favorite part of Morocco thus far is how the city continues to exist within history, instead of growing up around it. The medieval medina is still a thriving community, it's not just a place for tourists to come and bask in the Moroccan sunlight. Sure, tourists are here too (what really where), but it's not JUST a tourist destination. You get to see a lot more this way.
I'm still struggling with being a tourist. Anyone who has ever gone on a trip with me knows how much I hate it, but it's kind of unavoidable here. It's a group of 25 United States citizens riding around on a large blue bus and stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures. We're told not to drink the water or eat the chicken (broke that rule, and it was delicious) or eat the fruit (oops) or eat anything we can't wash/peel by ourselves (also whoops) and so on. I desperately want to talk to people and learn more about what it's like to live here, but it's kind of hard to do when you're being herded around like crazy Americans. We'll see what happens.
Next post: Chefchaouen and Darby gets angry.
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