MARRAKECH, Morocco -- Morocco sits at the northwest tip of the African continent, stretching within just 9 miles of Europe. But, as our train between the cities of Rabat and Marrakech passes a dusty, ancient-looking village that seems as if it could crumble in an instant, I think that culturally, this country and Spain, its nearest neighbor on the Continent, might as well be 9,000 miles apart.
Or not.
Step off the ferry in Tangier, Morocco, and you might at first think you're still in Algeciras, Spain, where the ferry left an hour and a half ago. Though you'll see a few residents in the port wearing the traditional garb of long, flowing djellaba and perhaps a tight-fitting cap for men and a head covering for women, most are running around in jeans, sweaters or shirts, cell phones pasted to their ears.
But sample the medinas (the old quarters of a city) and souks (open-air markets) of Tangier, Fez, Rabat or Marrakech, or travel through the countryside, and you'll be stepping back 200, 300 or even 700 years into time.
Meanwhile, back in westernized Spain, there are hints, too, of a much earlier time - when the Moors of Morocco ruled for more than 700 years and left their mark before being driven out in 1492, the year Columbus discovered our homeland and almost 300 years before it would officially become our homeland.
The Moorish imprint can be found in the Mediterranean port city of Malaga, whose Alcazaba fortress dates back 1,000 years. And in the pueblos blancos, the so-called white villages west of Malaga named for their neat-looking whitewashed buildings that hint of their Moorish roots.
My wife, Bonnie, and I explored the ancient and contemporary sides of both countries in November 2005 - on foot and by train and minibus - on a budget tour called "Moorish Spain to Marrakech," offered in the United States by the Adventure Center, but operated by Explore!, a company based in the United Kingdom.
For less than $1,000 each (meals and airfare not included), we and our group of 12 others - mostly middle-aged, mostly British, mostly Explore! veterans - spent more than a week traveling by train in Spain and Morocco. Then we explored as a group and on our own. We wandered the souks of Tangier, Fez and Marrakech, where we found narrow, bustling, mazelike alleyways crammed with people, donkeys and motorbikes; and merchants offering heaps of pungent spices and hundreds of brightly colored scarves, live chickens and hanging slabs of meat, fragrant loaves of bread and exotic music instruments.
We saw snake charmers nonchalantly charming sinister-looking cobras. We tried to avoid breathing through our noses as we watched workmen, knee-deep in stone vats of brilliant dyes of all hues, wrestling around hides in the rank-smelling tanneries of Fez.
We sat at outdoor tables, scarfing down tapas and beer, while enjoying the parade of families out for a Sunday walk and talk in the whitewashed Spanish village of Grazalema.
We enjoyed talk and tagines (a dish similar to stew) in a multitude of Moroccan restaurants.
And, in my case, made the acquaintance of a Moroccan doctor who spoke only Arabic and French, but who, thanks to a lot of hand gestures and a couple of prescriptions, helped me get over a troublesome bout of turista.
Turista and all, it was a trip for the memory books.
Pueblos blancos
I looked out the window of our minibus the second day of our trip as we headed to three of Spain's smaller white villages - Setinel, Grazalema and Zahara de la Sierra. In the distance, an island of white floated on a sea of green. It was little Olvera, another of the white villages, clinging to a foliage-covered hill. Very cool. These white villages, mostly leftovers from the days of the Moors, are one of Spain's tourist treasures, and a pleasant place to spend a Sunday morning, wandering the narrow cobblestone streets, admiring the conglomeration of sparkling white buildings and exchanging holas with the occasional resident.
Over tapas and beers at a sidewalk cafe in the last village, Grazalema, we watched the strolling village residents and other tourists and talked about the pueblos blancos with Hazel and Steve from London. The villages are terrific, but there's still a bit of a theme-park feel to them. "A little too neat and tidy," Hazel said.
We had met up with Hazel and Steve and the rest of our small group the day before in the arrivals hall of the Malaga airport. That's where we hooked up, too, with Melanie Norman, the young, petite, blond bundle of energy who would mother-hen us for the next eight days.
And it's where we were introduced to what would become a familiar routine: schlepping our own bags to the distant train platform (this isn't a trip for travelers with mobility problems), getting train tickets from Mel and hopping on clean, comfortable, mostly on-time, mostly first-class trains where we exchanged travel stories on the way to our next destination.
First up was Ronda, another of the white villages and the most-visited. (Early "visitors" included Christian armies that drove the Moors from the city and the continent in the late 15th century, marking it as one of the last Moorish holdouts.)
From a defensive standpoint, it's easy to see why the Moors liked Ronda's location, straddling a hundreds-of-feet-deep gorge northwest of Malaga. That gorge separates the medieval portion of the town from the new (relatively speaking) part of town, and is one of the things that keeps tourists' cameras clicking. That and the cobblestone streets lined with interesting restaurants and shops filled with cured hams and local crafts.
Explore! trips are set up to encourage lots of mingling with residents, and independent exploration. When we arrived in a new town, there would be an orientation tour, then we were free to explore the rest of the time in town (sometimes one day, sometimes two) by ourselves, with other group members, or as part of extra-cost organized tours.
Meals (all on our own dime) were similarly freestyle.
On that minibus trip to the white villages, the switchback road from Grazalema to Zahara de la Sierra left me thinking Rocky Mountains, though not as lofty, and a hike from the town square up a steep, rugged path to the old Moorish castle overlooking Zahara just whetted the appetite for what we all were anxious to get to - Morocco.
To market
Medina. Souk. The words have an exotic sound to them.
And the scene is indeed exotic as the crowd pulses and flows outside the arched entry to Tangier's medina. Our local guide, Ben, points out a group of men sitting on the ground near the arch, a variety of tools lying next to them. "They're plumbers," he says, "waiting for someone who needs their services."
Inside the medina one of the first things I notice is the variety of intriguing doors of all shapes, sizes, colors and textures, some leading to shops but many the entries to the houses of the medina's residents. These doors are something we'll see again and again as we wander the medinas of other cities.
Viewed from the air, the buildings, many whitewashed and many hundreds of years old, must look like a honeycomb as they link together, with narrow alleyways branching off in no particular pattern.
On the wider main street, we stop briefly at a small storefront that holds a sewing school. Its students are women who don't have a husband or family to support them in this male-dominated Islamic society.
We've been cautioned that it's OK to take street shots with our cameras, but we always should ask before taking pictures of individuals. But the owner sees my camera and gestures for me to come in the school and take photos. One of the students, though, obviously has other opinions and turns her head away.
Down the street I stop to take a photo of an interesting door. A man talking with friends nearby says jokingly, "That's my door. That will be a thousand dollars."
A visit to a herbalist's expansive and modern shop inside a large building is interesting, though I can't help but think I'm watching the TV Spice Shopping Network. The proprietor holds up a container of a spice or oil, tells us the fantastic special price, then, trying to entice us into a buying frenzy counts, "One, two, three ... it's gone. Next up is. ... "
More interesting, though, are the pushcarts, stalls and little shops that make up the souk, where residents stand elbow to elbow with tourists to shop for and buy everything from jeans laid out on a blanket in the street to batteries to tortoises in cages.
On to Fez
The sun had just peeked over the horizon the next morning shortly before 7 as our train - headed for Fez - pulled into the village of Tleta Rissana. On the outskirts we saw people in traditional garb gathered in small groups talking. A few campfires burned. Horses and donkeys with panniers grazed. It looked like a market in the making.
About an hour later, at the village of Souk el Arba, we sleepily looked out the window of our first-class compartment to see children walking to school.
And still later, heading out of Sidi Kasem, the terrain suddenly turned hilly and we saw a settlement of houses that looked to be made of rocks and mud, built into the side of a hill.
By 10:30 a.m. we were in Fez.
In spite of their seemingly helter-skelter appearance, souks actually are organized - fabrics here, spices there. Then, tucked in among the people and donkey-clogged alleyways, we came to an area where various merchants offered crates and crates of eggs. Not much farther on - the smell announced it first - were the purveyors of live chickens, chicken being a popular ingredient in Moroccan cuisine.
Though we saw only a fraction of them, Fez's medina, according to our local guide Azzdine, contains about 83,000 shops. And it's not just the tourists and the residents who shop in the old city, which dates to the 9th century. People from all over the city of nearly a million risk getting lost in the labyrinth because they don't have to pay the 17 percent value-added tax that's assessed outside the medina.
That night I, and another member of our group, was felled by turista. Before the trip was over, it would get two more of us. Mine wiped out the second day in Fez, the following day in Rabat and included a memorable train ride from Fez to Rabat involving a toilet that was just a seat above and the train tracks below.
Bonnie and the photos from her digital camera tell me that I missed many more cool doors and architecture - lots that were bright-blue - and a whole passel of cats, which Rabat residents consider to be good luck.
Tangier has its "Spice Shopping Network," Fez has its tanneries. For Marrakech, it's the Jemaa el Fna.
The huge square fronts the medina and, depending on the time of day, serves up a variety of attractions. Early on, it's more of a food market. As the sun moves overhead, the snake charmers and water sellers move in to enchant the tourists. As darkness comes on, it turns into something akin to a county fair: Long tables and benches are set up, grills are fired up, and soon the air is filled with tantalizing smells, exotic music and the sound of talk and laughter.
One thing I notice about Marrakech's medina is the absence of donkeys hauling merchandise. Instead, scads of motorbikes maneuver through the crowds that clog the cramped, twisting streets. The motorbikes and hordes of cars and trucks fill the main roads outside the medina, which makes crossing the street a memorable and hair-raising experience. They also create a pall of blue smoke that hangs over the street at rush hour, contributing to the haze that makes it difficult to ever get a totally clear view of the Atlas Mountains outside town.
In the souk, haggling is expected and enjoyed whether you're shopping for everyday necessities or intricately painted native ceramics.
After I went through the ritual to buy a handmade wooden box of dominos, the seller asked if I was happy, said he was happy, then we shook hands.
The tourist and the resident were both happy. What more can you ask of a vacation?
Phil Marty writes for the Chicago Tribune.
IF YOU GO
TOUR DETAILS
We booked the Moorish Spain to Marrakech trip through the Adventure Center (800-228-8747 and adventurecenter.com). The trip is offered February-April and September-mid-November, which Explore! considers the best seasons to visit Spain and Morocco. Prices are $910 or $960 per person, double occupancy, depending on the date. That includes nine nights' accommodation in budget hotels, breakfasts, train, taxi and minibus transportation and local guides. Additional costs include meals other than breakfast, tips and mandatory medical and evacuation insurance.
GETTING THERE
Though these trips are offered in what's usually considered the off-season, don't expect bargain-basement airfares, since you'll be flying to Malaga, Spain, on the way over and out of Marrakech, Morocco, on the way back. Connecting flights are available from Baltimore starting at about $800 plus taxes and fees.
PRACTICALITIES
Currency -- The euro is used in Spain (about $1.30); the dirham is used in Morocco (about $0.12) Weather -- In November, daytime temperatures in Spain were mostly in the 60s; in Morocco, they were mostly in the 70s. Language -- English is commonly spoken in tourist areas in Spain; don't count on it in Morocco, where Arabic and French are the main languages. Health -- Check with a clinic specializing in travel medicine for recommended inoculations. Information is also at the Centers for Disease Control Web site at www.cdc.gov. Religion and culture -- Because Morocco is a Muslim country, stick to modest attire. Many temples don't allow admission to non-Muslims.
[PHIL MARTY]