locked down in morocco!
Locked Down in Morocco book Introduction
Note: Names of people have been changed in order to protect their privacy.
“There is a new virus happening in China,” she said.
“Yeah, I saw that on Facebook today, sounds crazy,” I replied, not really giving it much of a thought.
“I guess I’ll have to think about getting a mask and protecting myself when I fly home.”
I rolled my eyes disdainfully. She wasn’t supposed to fly home until a month later. ’Seriously?’ I thought. ‘How paranoid can a person be?’
January 20th, in a small Moroccan cafe, was where this discussion was held. We had just arrived to the small northern city of Chefchaouen the day before, and we were travelling with a good friend of ours and his friend from Canada that we had only just met. I already had a thought that this was going to be a long trip.
My partner and I had flown to Morocco on recommendation from our friend Jack. As we are full time travellers, having sold our house and all of our possessions in 2017, we were on a one way ticket to Morocco and had no real plan or timeline of how long we wanted to stay. To us, it was just another new country and a new place to explore.
Jack was also on a free spirited trip. Although he still owned a house in Canada, and fully planned to return, he too could travel freely and not worry about returning at a specific time. Stacy, on the other hand, did have a real job in Canada, and was only on a one month holiday. Because of this, we planned a small tour of some hotspots in Morocco, and had rented a car to assist us in our explorations.
We spent 7 days in Chefchaouen, recovering from our jet lag, enjoying the many cafes in town, and walking endlessly through the adorable blue alleyways that zig zag across the side of the mountain. After, we decided to head down to Fez, spend 4 nights there, then head off to the desert to ride camels and live like nomads for a couple of days.
The drive out to the Sahara was nothing short of mind blowing-ly spectacular. The drastic mountain passes that we crossed provided us with incredible views and stunning landscapes. We crossed areas that felt like the moon, only to round a corner to see huge valleys full of rivers and palm trees, a true definition of a desert oasis. It was all we could do to not stop the car every 5 minutes to take pictures. The further we got away from the ocean, and the closer to the desert we were, the more eager in anticipation I became.
I instantly fell in love with the desert. There was something so grounding about it, I felt it the minute that I stepped out of our rented car. I somehow felt like I had returned home.
‘Yes, this is the Morocco that I have been wanting to see.’ I thought. In my mind, this was the REAL Morocco. I had no idea, in that moment, that the desert would later become my refuge and my solace from something that nobody could have ever predicted.
We found ourselves in the traditional town of Er Rissani, one stop away from the more popular desert town of Merzouga. There we were taken on a tour of the surrounding Kasbahs, 500 year old walled in cities that used to protect large families from not only the harsh desert weather, but thieves and bandits and any other sort of danger that existed back then.
This area of the Sahara, at one time, was the largest trading zone in the world! Vast numbers of people from Africa, Europe and Asia would pilgrim there to trade spices, gems and salt. In those days, plain old salt was the most expensive and sought after commodity!
Old Sultan palaces still grace the landscape, one of them with only one old lady, a descendant of once royalty, still living in it with her children. Her husband since passed, and her rich family long gone and living in the cities around the country.
We visited the market on Sunday, February 2nd. Sunday is the largest market day when people from the country side come in to sell or trade their animals and other goods that they may have. People in the desert travel by donkey and cart, and this was made very obvious by the large Donkey parking lot that sat out back. I would venture to guess that well over a hundred donkeys were tied up in a large field behind the indoor portion of the market. Each of them simply tied to a stake driven in the ground. Each one patiently standing and waiting for their owner to return, so they could begin the long trek back to wherever it was that they came from.
I fell in love with that market. From the blacksmith pounding away on his metal next to an open fire, or the cute Moroccan men that sat in the sawdust whittling away on making wooden spoons and bowls, to the most amazing natural pharmacy that one could ever imagine, I was absolutely in love. I knew in that moment, that I would need to come back and spend more time here. A couple days was simply not enough to satisfy my curious nature and my need to see all and do all in each place. Yes, we would find a way to come back here, one way or the other, I had decided.
Periodically, during these days of wonder and exploration, I would see the odd article on facebook pop up about what was happening with the virus. I was mindfully keeping track, but not letting it eat up much of my days thought processes. This ‘thing’ was all the way over in China, I was in Morocco. I wasn’t too worried.
Most of these articles I skimmed over, then disregarded, but I will never forget a facebook post on January 30th by an acquaintance back in Powell River, BC, Canada, the last city that my partner and I had lived in in Canada, back in 2017. He is a long time journalist, and being that it was posted by a man that works in media, I immediately felt that it was overhyped and scare mongering, the way that things generally are portrayed in the media. It didn’t help that his own title to it was “This just got real.”
It was a BBC.com article of the title “Coronavirus declared global health emergency.”
‘Oh, this is good,’ I thought. ‘Let’s see what this has to say.’ I breezed through the article and learned some information, but clearly didn’t take it seriously.
The article stated that “At least 213 people in the China have died from the virus, mostly in Hubei, with almost 10,000 cases nationally.”
The article also went on to mention that there were other cases reported around the world, but only one here, and one there, 98 cases, in 18 countries. However, the WHO was warning people about travelling to China, and there was mention that 99% of cases were in China, and they were confident that China could contain it. However, the article also warned that “if novel coronavirus gets a significant foothold in such places, then it would be incredibly difficult to contain.”
I guffawed at the article and wrote it off as overhype and fear mongering. I even went out of my way, of which I rarely do since I don’t like to get engaged in these sorts of online discussions, to make my voice heard about what I thought about it.
I wrote ‘I’m sorry. 170 people (don’t ask where I even got that number from) dying in a country of over 1 billion does not constitute a global emergency to me.’
Of course, he told me that I was wrong and that if governments had taken swifter action with SARS and Aids, then we would not have lost as many people as we did then. Still, I wasn’t moved in my steadfast thinking. Both of those had killed many people, yes, but the percentage of people that died, is still in stark contrast to the vast number of people that live on the planet. As far as I was concerned, there was a really long way to go before this became a “global emergency”! This was ‘maybe’ an emergency in China. Period.
Fast forward to today, March 20, 2020 and I can’t even believe that this was only 7 short weeks ago. My how time has flown, and wow has the world changed!
I am currently writing this book as we continue to travel around Morocco!
To read more from my book, or to join along on my writing process, being among the FIRST to read chapters as they are released, please head over to our Patreon page and subscribe for updates!
