Our whirlwind tour of Morocco’s political centre complete we dragged bellies full of couscous back to the railway station where we crammed a first class carriage at a ratio of about 60% luggage to 40% humanity and sped off to Meknes. What can I say about Meknes? Many things but not now because at the moment it was just a shopping stop and an opportunity for us to test the suspension of the local taxis as we headed towards Moulay Idriss. MI is a hilltop village which can lay a decent claim to being the birthplace of modern Morocco.
Many years ago one Moulay Idris, a great grandson of the prophet Muhammad turned up here and stayed. The locals had been introduced to Islam some time previously but since the introduction had been effected by a bunch of Arabs waving swords it hadn’t really stuck. The Moroccans didn’t really have a problem with Islam but they had a distinct disinclination to accept sword waving Arabs. Said Arabs were escorted politely to the door, those that survived anyway.
Moulay Idriss arrived alone, introduced himself as a descendant of the Prophet and politely asked the locals if they would mind if he stayed. This approach at least had the advantage of subtlety and the locals not only allowed him to stay but appointed him as their leader and sealed the deal with a marriage to the daughter of the previous chief. He went on to found the Idrissid Dynasty, the first Moslem dynasty of Morocco. His mausoleum in the village of Moulay Idriss is now a site of pilgrimage for Moroccans.
And also for tourists. The location of the village dates from a time when easy access to farming land and fresh water was somewhat less important than being able to get early warning of the next batch of heavily armed psychopaths who might appear over the horizon.
The streets are too narrow for cars, some of them appear too narrow for people, and if you lie down on them you’ll roll to the bottom. Unless you hit a donkey coming the other way. Don’t hit a donkey coming the other way.
The taxis dropped us and our luggage on the outskirts of the village where donkeys (and their associated humans) were waiting to take our luggage to our place of rest. The donkeys got there before us despite the fact that they didn’t seem to be hurrying.
Luggage free we struggled up what must for want of a better word be called a street. It was essentially a gap where the houses didn’t quite join up. Moulay Idriss is a lot of up and down but mostly up. Our guest house was an amazing, beautifully decorated, multi storey building which didn’t look like much at all from the outside.
Sadly we couldn’t see the mausoleum as it is attached to a mosque but we went on a walking tour of the village which involved a lot of up and down, mostly up. From the highest point (essentially somebody’s front porch) we got an amazing view over the countryside and incidentally an explanation for why the village was built here in the first place.
A small girl demanded to know if I was Moroccan. I told her I came from Australia. With the assistance of one of my travelling companions who spoke a little French we managed to inform her that Australia was an island a long way away.
“Oh, near Turkey,” she suggested. We agreed she was probably right. She then hit us up for spare change which, with a certain degree of reluctance on her part, we persuaded her to share with her sister. After having recovered to a certain extent from the climb we returned via the local market which was still jumping despite it being about nine o’clock at night by this stage.
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