lunes, junio 09, 2008

Lost Under the Sun

A few weeks ago I went for a small trip to Morocco, and I was happily surprised to see that country. It is just less than two hours flight from Madrid and it is yet so different from what we can see in Spain that you can hardly imagine we are so close in distance.

Being influenced by the morish culture in the past, the south of Spain, Andalucia, is a middle walk in between the modernity of Spain and the ancient feeling of the morish culture. Flying to Morocco you will feel like a step back in the history, to see also a culture that has nowadays not been totally changed even being incluenced by french, and that it still keeps its unique atmosphere and way of life and traditions.

Marrakech holds a very large variety of small shops where you can daily go around to buy species, leather, bags, pottery, clothes... all of the market is going through the city itself and its small streets. It is therefore a place with a lot of activity and where you can easily get lost looking around. In fact every street in Marrakech has the same feeling. The streets are rarely named, in the old district the streets are narrow and confusing, and even a map does not really help much on the right orientation.

Seems like the modernity given by maps has no effect in the old cities and there is only one way for a tourist to be orientated... just ask and pray for that you will not be cheated :). The confusing streets, the similarity of its walls and its people, anything looks different no matter how many times you pass through around the same streets. Upside down, going and coming back, everything, every single street has a different feel even you unconsciously know that for sure you have passed there earlier in a previous walk. Just we can't recall where we have been!

Its colorful shops, its people moving around fastly, along with the bright of the sun will definetely make you feel like in an ancient town where in fact, time passes so quickly.

It is good to be on a place where everything runs differently from what we are used to see. Shopping in Morocco goes all through a process of bargaining, where the sellers will try to convince you that their product is the best and you will not find anything similar anywhere. They are quite friendly and much better than what I remember in Egypt, where the staff in the shop will hardly let you get out of there unless you buy something.

Morocco in this sense is very open and nobody will push you to buy, moreover they are very friendly all the time. I liked that relaxing atmosphere and I could enjoy a lot the walks around the old cities discovering myself in a new environment.

Not only walking around was interesting for the sightseeing, but also people there was quite friendly. Children in rural areas may be at the same time curious and a bit despective towards foreigners, while in the big towns they become very friendly and helpful, especially when you want to be guided around the town with no need to pay anyone for that :).

Seems like there is still a big gap between rural areas and more modernized towns where everything runs smoothly and fast. The ancient cities seem to breathe still the atmosphere of traditions on foods, family roles and clothing while the serviced and business oriented cities run daily in a crowd and speedy life, for sure more opened to changes and new lifestyles.

It is still interesting to see how business and cities around the world develop depending on its location and culture. The way they deal with customers, the variety of services offered will differ depending on which country you are and its needs. In these days of globalization, to keep each country's individual fingerprints is really a good way and need to keep a distinction of identities and cultures. So does Morocco in a whole.

At a certain point of the trip I went to the desert for a night stay. It took around eight hours drive to reach there in a van with a small group of tourists. The marks of the road nearby the desert seem to disappear like traces of the unchanged history that vanish uncertainly under the hot sun.

Suddenly you get off the van and the first feeling that comes into your mind is that you are lost. Lost under the sun. When you look around all you can see is the long time effect the wind has stubbed for ages in the sand. The particles have become so small due to the erosive action of the wind that you can hardly feel them, even knowing they are everywhere around.

The sand is pure, beautifully placed in an endless scenario of dunes that seem to be taken from another world. When you look at the horizon, seeing such a wonderful place, you start changing your mind and feeling that the desert is not truly as lacking of life and beauty as you have always been thinking.

Indeed, the desert in Morocco is one of the greatest experiences I have ever had. Firstly because I always thought of a desert as a very hot and dry place, filled with endless similar dunes and views, with nothing else to see than sand and sun. When I think if it, I realize it is true in a certain way. However to experience myself, for the first time, how the desert is in proper conditions made my original thought vanish quickly and it even moved my mind to like it.

The Moroccan desert is full of beauty in every step the camel did to reach from a lost stone castle where the van dropped us to the tents during more than one hour. Every single step forward the camel did, pushed me more into the nice sceneries, the perfection of the waves marked since ages ago and yet redrawn currently every day by the wind on these dunes.

To see one dune after another, to look at the horizon without knowing how far it can be from any sort of human life, made this walk on camels unique. Not only for the good weather and temperature, but also for the unique views it has to show. It is certainly amazing, at least for me, that at the end of the walk you will be resting in a tent, in the middle of nowhere, staring at the blue sky and full moon, with a small fire, some wind and the only company of mostly unknown people that the only common thing they have with you is the time and the place, all this surrounded by big mountains of sand, dunes that have been there probably for ages without life along it. And it is yet surprising that camels have been living around in such extreme conditions at the service of men.

Lost under the sun with no definite place to go, being driven by a camel, was once more when I realized that not all in our lifes is always planned and drawn out, but it depends on us how we want to drive it and what we want to achieve. I never thought of myself being in the middle of the desert even for a minute, and, in spite of this, I would now still have a whole life to change and live forever in the desert if I ever determined to do my life there, as I could never imagine before this experience.

Of course I will not :), but what I mean is that there are still so many things to try in this world and so many experiences to live that it would be easy to, at least, be aware of what sort of lifes and alternatives we can have during our living.

We do not have always to be stucked in a place, predetermined to do a certain life.

Maybe yes several years ago, when traveling was hard and took long hours, but we are all in all lucky to live in developed countries that allow us to travel, to experience, and even to choose what life we want to lead as we are the ones who run our wishes and determine how far and where we want to be. This is a very precious value that not everyone has and it is precisely the reason why we should take good care of it.

The world is big enough to experience a lot, and we do not always need to change our lifes, but at least we can enrich our thoughts and appreciate what we have, at the same time we become wiser to choose and to be more happy with the choices we make as in every choice there will be always a whole learning on who we are.


It was lost under the sun without a certain path to follow when I became aware that being lost can be also a very enriching experience in our personal lifes.

Therefore to doubt, to hesitate, not to know what the future will bring can turn out in multiple ways and choices for our lifes. Being optimistic about it, this experience can lead us to our own self development and enrich who we are and our views of this world.

Even lost under the sun, you will be always the only master of your dreams, wherever they go, and it is in this effort, even the sun may hit your head and the sand may come into your eyes, you will realize that everything is part of a whole, that can be as beautiful as the perfect shaped dunes that do, at the end, give a lot of self happiness that may be otherwise never had been experienced.

Therefore, never be afraid of trying uncertain paths, as they may follow you to discover new dreams and achievements that will ever remain as part of your life, which will always make you unique and define who you are, who you were, and who you want to be.

There are certain choices in our lifes that we can do surrounded by those who will advice us for good, at the same time we have to deal with choices by our own that only ourselves can understand.

Surprisingly enough, I recall now how peaceful I felt when I was diving in Malaysia, under the beautiful sea in Tioman. I could feel that I was alive and that everything I knew, everything that surrounded me in my life had been gone as I was diving by myself, without any traffic jams, people, buildings around.

You can feel that at a certain point, the desert walk gives you a similar impression as in the beautiful Malaysian sea, as you get rid of worries, crowds and it is only you who interacts with the quiet nature in its original concept. It is then when you can feel that nothing is ever lasting and everything materialistic you have is not relevant anymore, but who you are and how happy or satisfied you can feel as a person and with the life you lead, surrounded by people around you.

This abstraction is necessary sometimes not to forget what our ideals are and that no matter how busy life awaits for us after these experiences, we will be always on time to discover and redirect our lifes in the way we want them to be.

Therefore it is not always late to be lost, wherever we are, as long as we have a wish to try to lead a better life or experience a temporary change. With no regrets on fails or with a hot sun striking your head, there will be always a much compensating reward at the end, shaped like beautiful dunes, personal motivations, achievements tried, and satisfactions for attempts themselves.