As I walked down an insanely narrow alleyway with painted blue walls and cobblestone blocks underfoot, my shoes splashed in water that ran purple. I had just passed a man standing in a stone pool with the same purple water up to his knees, as he plunged the garment in his hands into the water over and over. We were in the garment district of the Fes Médina, the old town that held a labyrinth of streets that wound around and around in a dizzying maze, with little to no street signs in sight. If I hadn’t been following my guide, I surely would have been lost. Some streets were so narrow my shoulders brushed both sides as I squeezed through. The air smelled like a mix of the food stalls we had passed by minutes before, where roasted nuts, fresh dough, and camel meat were displayed for sale. As we passed through each district, vendors called out their wares in Arabic, French, and sometimes English; traditional artistry not only existed here but thrived – handwoven carpets, hand-sewn clothes and leather shoes – every stall we passed boasted something different. Along with the hum of voices around us, in the distance I could hear the changing of copper pots being formed by metalworkers, as my eyes flashed around taking in all the brilliant colors all around, from the women’s abayas to spices piled high.
Morocco was drastically different from any other place I’ve been, a joyous, wondrous assault on my senses from every direction as I moved through the cacophony of Rabat, Fes, Marrakech, and Casablanca. In my past travels, Iceland, Ireland, and Costa Rica were wide, open, free spaces everywhere you turned. Portugal was classically European, in a way somewhat similar to France and England, but with its own, distinct, unique feeling. Even when I had traveled to China with a friend back in 2014, I had felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of people everywhere…but Morocco was by far the most surreal, otherworldly experience. I felt as if I hadn’t just traveled across continents but across time. And among this gorgeous backdrop, of which I was dying to explore and capture every corner, I had no phone or camera, further emoting my sense of time travel.
No phone!? Yes, even now it makes me feel a bit nervous. Morocco was by far the best trip I’ve taken so far, and it was also the one where some of my worst travel worries came true. After having general success in my past year or travel, I was feeling fairly confident. Morocco, however, was waiting for me with surprises I couldn’t possibly foresee.
On my first day in Morocco, merely hours off the plane, I had been robbed, with luckily the thief only getting my iPhone and nothing else. Fast forward to the rest of my trip, sans devices, thankful that I had a kind roommate who let me borrow her phone to contact my family and tell them what happened, and many more kind travelers in my tour group, who would share countless photos of the trip with me so that I had mementos when I got home.
However, that day, as I called out for someone to stop the guy as he ran away with my phone in hand, along with the subsequent hours in the police station where no one spoke English, and the pure embarrassment of having such a mishap on my first day of vacation, the bubble of any travel confidence I had gathered in the past year quickly burst. I cried, internally tormented over every action I had taken and what I could have done differently, and wished with all my might that I could rewind time. Yet as I went to bed that night, I made a firm decision – I wouldn’t let this ruin my vacation. I had done all I could do, and at this point I had to let go. I couldn’t punish myself and my fellow travelers with a foul mood the entire trip, and wallowing in what had happened wouldn’t bring my phone or sense of security back.
And so I found myself later that week wandering through the Médina, wrapped in the sights and sounds and smells of a foreign place, and I didn’t take one photo, even as those around me did. I didn’t look around with the lens of finding the perfect Insta pic, or what would most impress friends back home. I just…experienced it. Breathed in the sweetness of mint leaves stuffed purposefully in my nose to combat the awful smell of the tannery we visited, noticed the way the light shone through the fabric hung above the market streets, got chills hearing the mosque’s call to prayer, shared a smile with a woman who sold me dates. I felt more in touch with Morocco than I ever could have through the lens of a camera or by the screen of my phone.
As we wove through seemingly endless miles of twisting alleys and backstreets, we heard again and again the cries of laborers moving big loads through the streets. “Balak! Balak!” they would call out, for us to look out and move over for them, as they pushed wheelbarrows with loads of lumber carefully stacked on top, or goods headed for a market stall piled high on a handcart or trolley. “Balak! Balak!” I would quickly move out of the way so I didn’t get run over or hold up the crowds of pedestrian traffic.
Later, on the flight home, I kept thinking back to the phrase – “Balak!” and it dawned on me that in travel to any place, not just Morocco, this phrase couldn’t be more accurate. I needed to move over my ego and get out of my own way in order to enjoy wherever it was I journeyed to, tossing aside any confidence I thought I’d earned from past experience. No matter how seasoned the traveler, something can always go wrong, but you have to be willing to roll with it and not let it ruin everything. You prepare as much as you can, and then, you have to let go a bit. The same can be said for traveling with my iPhone in hand, ready to snap the perfect picture in every moment. Having no phone or camera helped me get out of my own way and enjoy Morocco in a way I may have not experienced it otherwise, by just soaking it in with my senses. Going into my next trip, I will certainly take this lesson with me, and remember it’s ok to step aside from searching for the “perfect” photo or expecting a “perfect” vacation. Inevitably, something can and will go wrong, and in the end, how you deal with it and what you learn from it makes for a richer travel experience.
Jill Came Tumbling After 