How It All Began
The first time I visited Morocco I was sent straight back to Spain.
I was escorted to the ferry, returned to Algeciras and bought a big hat, Rasta-style. My offending black locks were stuffed inside, and I made a second crossing to Tanger to be granted access to a new world...I reeled in shock, my senses immediately pulped by The Mystic Orient even before I arrived at Petit Socco, two hundred meters from the port: I had crossed a few miles in an hour or two at sea and arrived at the Other Side.
The welcome was in mere glimpses of shrouded, hooded mystery; the sweeping strains of Oum Kalthoum's voice and extremely patient orchestra, broadcast for eternity it seemed, on Radio Egypt; partially-cooked lamb's brain for sale from street trolleys; the sweet, sulky smell of kif, lit and relit in every café; offers of various social delights from all sides; whirling, ragged and elegant clothing I had never seen before; mint tea.
Hooked within moments, I stayed for a month and made the first tentative visits to Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech, Essaouira, and north to Meknes and Fes. And this is where I now live, in the heart of the médina, in Fes-el-Bali: Fes The Beautiful. This city is 1200 years old and now houses over 300,000 inhabitants, including myself, my wife and our 9 year-old daughter, my youngest.
During the four intervening decades Morocco has become a different country: it remains as vibrant, noisy and colourful as ever, but the small distance between North Africa and Europe has shrunk to almost zero. The ebullient monarchy, a new Constitution (forged as a positive reaction to the requirements of the Arab Spring) and a new middle class, has pushed the nation at a hellish pace to become more and more 'European'.
Meanwhile, some fourteen years ago, I was still entranced by Morocco and allowed myself to be persuaded to return on what has become a permanent basis. In 1997 I was hired to lead mountain treks, mostly in the Anti Atlas and High Atlas, and long desert meharis on camelback for sumptuous, endless days of meditative plodding.
During these years I have travelled countless times throughout the country, solo, and in small groups, visiting areas unknown to the casual visitor and far, far from the glittering palace hotels and five-star restaurants of Casa and Marrakech; a world away from the well-scrubbed metropolis of Rabat and the eerie madness of Fes.
There is little doubt that I hanker for the Morocco of that first visit. It can be rediscovered in the ancient creative crafts of the Berber lifestyle, still apparent in remote areas; in the calm continuum of Ait Bou Goumez or Magdaz and other High Atlas villages, often cut off from the rest of the world for five or six months each winter. It is here that Berber tribes live a difficult but largely unchanged existence and burst into genuine creativity honed by need and the environment. Sheep and their wool are treasured possessions. And it is here that my interest in their textiles began.
I still meet Bert Flint each time I revisit Marrakech. This beaming old scholar has been in Morocco for over fifty years. His two conjoined houses (called Tiskiwine) in the médina of Marrakech, near the Dar Si Said museum in Qzadria, constitute one of the most extraordinary private museum collections anywhere, based on his time scouring Morocco and travelling south to Tombuctoo, as it can be known, and across sub-Saharan 'Black Africa'. I first bought one of his books in January 1976 in Tanger. The photos are mostly black and white, but the book itself was enough to start me in a modest collection of rugs and textiles. Bert Flint's influence contributed greatly to my increasing interest in unique Moroccan artifacts and eventually to this website.
www.yallahmorocco.com is an attempt to offer an essence of the truly authentic: Moroccan carpets that tell Berber stories and slowly reveal the lost secrets of generations.
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In the coming months I will update this intro and describe ongoing travels throughout Morocco. Next project: a freezing winter solo walk across the ridges of the Rif Mountains, from Al Houcima to Chefchaouen, planned for next February...watch this space.