TRAVEL: Morocco, 2013

All pictures by Zachary V. Sunderman.
Please do not use without credit.

Canada notwithstanding, Morocco was my first international trip. I rounded up my friend Dan and we flew to Marrakech, where we quickly learned how easy it is to become victims of scams and other hustles in places you don't know. Sociologically, I can understand why such things happen, but that doesn't make them any more pleasant to undergo.

It was a rough landing for me. After being fleeced out of hundreds of dirham by a taxi driver, I quickly learned automatically to say "la shukran" to the parade of touts and amateur guides that descended upon me - and to have coins at the ready to pay every random local who I asked for directions. One guide, however - an impossibly tall man decked out in traditional nomad garb, named Yusef - would not leave us alone. But this turned out to be a good thing. Learning that we were musicians, Yusef took us into the bustling maze of the souks to "Bob's Music" (named for Marley, who is highly regarded in Marrakech), where we met the store owner's son, Salah Rachid. Salah handed me an ancient Berber lute called a lotar and was startled when I began playing Arabic scales on it. Hearing that, he wanted to jam. He picked up an oud, handed me some hand-drums, and we went to town. It was incredible, and it didn't stop there: after we wrapped up, Salah switched to gimbri (sentir) and, with Yusef on qraqab, treated us to a brief live gnawa session.

Even better than all this, however, was my trip down into the Sahara with Dan and a motley crew of internationals I assembled to save costs. We hired a guide, Khalid, who drove us through the Atlas Mountains and down to the frontier town of Merzouga, where the rocky desert of North Africa gives way to the majestic sand dunes of an American kid's dreams. We climbed the nearest major dune, Erg Chebbi, and watched the sun set from its summit; then, back at camp, our hosts literally shoved the legs of a table down into the sand, poured us some delicious mint tea, and proceeded to play music for us until late into the night. As they got progressively more intoxicated, the session got wilder and more hilarious, and hearing that I had a lotar in my possession, they even had me come up and sit in.

Amazingly, they still woke up before us and made us breakfast.