I promised myself I wouldn’t let a full year go by before finally sorting through (and sharing) my photos from a 2018 trip to Morocco.   

If you’re reading this, you probably know that I love to travel to new, unusual places.  And you probably know that I enjoy almost all those trips and generally come home telling mostly-positive stories even about places that have plenty of oddities and problems.  (See, for example, my reports from Cuba and Iran and Myanmar and Colombia and Guatemala . . . .).  I’m pretty open-minded (or at least non-judmental) about cultures very different from my own.  But there was something ‘off’ about Morocco.  Although the small group of folks I traveled with were unbeatable, and though the trip was expertly planned and the accommodations as swank as I could ever have hoped, I wouldn’t count Morocco among my favorite destinations.

I expected (naively, I suppose) Morocco might be similar to Iran — where I’d had a truly great trip in 2017.  It wasn’t.  I think the counterintuitive problem is that, unlike Iran, Morocco has long been an established and popular tourist destination for Americans and Europeans.  (Bob Hope and Bing Crosby sang “Off on the road to Morocco” and Humphrey Bogart did his play-it-again-Sam in Casablanca in 1942, though both were actually filmed in the American Southwest.).  In Iran, people were just excited to see and meet American visitors intrepid enough to trapse their cities and deserts.  In Morocco, they learned long ago that “visitors” are “tourists,” and tourists are revenue sources.

My pictures from photography trips usually include lots of images of local people.  But you won’t see many people here.  Almost everyone I photographed (or tried to photograph) asked for money in one way or another.  That’s something I try to avoid:  to me, it can ruin the authenticity of both the experience and the photograph.  Others just shooed me away entirely — which I actually prefer.  Some would actively invite you to take their picture — only to expect payment when you did.  It was hard to know what you were getting into. 

It’s fine when people don’t want to be photographed — I completely respect that.   And there’s nothing inherently wrong with them doing it only if they get paid.  I’m just not usually interested.

I was fascinated at how quickly so many locals morphed from entrepreneur to beggar to extortionist.  Their initial approach was to try sell you something you clearly did not want (kids trying to hand you an obviously worthless trinket or adults giving unrequested, intrusive ‘guide’ services).  When that failed to generate a cash response, they’d often keep their hand out and just ask for money.  When that failed, they often did not give up:  uncomfortable persistent harassment was not uncommon. 

My whole complaint about visiting Morocco is the lack of a feeling of authenticity.  The country’s biggest mosque — The Al Hassan II in Casablanca — was built in 1993.  Up close, it looked more like a Las Vegas mock-up than a real or historic or sacred site.  Morocco sits at the edge of the Sahara Desert, so twice we paid local guides to get us deep into the desert, but both times wound up on well-trodden sand within sight of highways and hotels.  And those pictures below of the camels in the desert?  Of course they’re a set-up.  A guide dons the traditional robe as part of the gig, and knows just where to lead the herd at sunset for the best photo opportunities.  Fun to do and see, but not as real, authentic cultural experience.  It’s just hard to be anything but a touristy tourist in Morocco.

The “snake charmers” I saw all over Marrakech’s market square on my first evening in the country proved to be something of an omen for the rest of the trip.  The snakes are de-fanged, so it’s all rather faked anyway.  They’re not “charming” for the sake charming; they’re there as a tourist draw.  If anyone comes even close to raising a camera in their direction, a couple of those “charmers” would aggressively rush over with their hands out, preventing any photos until and unless you ‘tip’ them.  And the nasal-sounding ‘flute’ playing is terrible.  I just skipped it and went looking for a diet coke.

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Another odd feature:  Flags.  As we drove through the countryside, there were Moroccan flags everywhere.  Tiny villages would  have 100s of flags installed along the roadside.  Flags were sometimes every 100 yards or so on completely unpopulated stretches of highway.  Imagine the most flag-obsessed town in America on the Fourth of July:  this was pretty much every town, every day.  But these were government-installed displays and they felt very different.  Maybe it was the ugly all-red flags (with a green ‘pentagram’ star), or maybe it was knowing that Morocco is governed by a sometimes heavy-handed king, but this had no feel of authentic patriotism.  It felt more like a monarchical government reminding you that it was everywhere.

(Forgive me:  I can’t resist the appeal of the bizarre/bazaar pun.)

Merchandise on display at women’s clothing stores gives a hint of what’s under all those long black chadors.

They do have a few shopping malls and supermarkets in Iran, but mostly people buy their “stuff” in bazaars and small shops. Different sections tend to specialize in certain types of goods – one area will have vegetables or fish, another spices or hardware, and others focus on textiles or clothing. If you want to see and interact with real people in Iran, you’ll probably head for the local bazaar.

But the bazaars aren’t just retail shops; behind the scenes is wholesaling, warehousing, and even some of the manufacturing or cooking. The Grand Bazaar in Tehran is said to be the hub for a huge percentage of commerce in the whole country.

A young merchant in a Tehran bazaar, right, selling cooked beets to chador-clad female customers.  

Fruits and vegatables at a Tehran bazaar.

Most bazaar merchants are men, even in shops where most customers are women.

Many bazaars are historical sites. If you can see past the bright lights, the brightly colored fabrics and the vegetables, you sometimes see old facades and ceilings that are hundreds of years old. Often, just around a quieter corner you’ll see a rug warehouse or an ancient “caravanserai,” where camel caravans once paused for he night or arrived with goods to sell at the bazaar.

Mother and baby at sidewalk fabric shop in Shiraz.

One consistently striking feature of the bazaars is the women’s clothing on display. Modern tight jeans, lavish colorful and sequined gowns, stilettos, racy lingerie – all being browsed (and presumably purchased) by ladies who only go out in public wearing head-to-toe black chadors. There’s a lot going on behind closed doors (and under those robes and scarves) that doesn’t meet the outsider’s eye.

A stylish young woman in Shiraz, showing off an unusual Iranian status symbol: the nose-job bandage.

It’s the law in Iran that when women go out in public, they have to wear at least a headscarf and something that’s not form-fitting that covers them down to the thighs or so.   Since women can only show their faces and bangs, they sometimes go to way too much trouble to optimize the parts that show. Nose-jobs are very common, and women with fresh ones wear the bandages in public as a status symbol.   Many women wear LOTS of makeup, too, or coif their exposed bangs to the point of absurdity.   And those black chadors may look generic, but stroll through the bazaar and you’ll see hundreds of different styles and types of black fabrics on display with patterns and sequins.

I asked several people: If they put the head-scarf law up to a public vote, how would it come out?   Most guessed that it’d be close to 50/50 or 60/40 overall, with women somewhat more likely to vote anti-scarf than men. It was interesting that they thought it was this close. And the reality was that in most areas, the women were going well beyond what any law actually required – wearing the full head-to-toe, mostly-black chadors rather than simple scarves and thigh-length coverups. Whether that’s their real preference or the product of family or cultural pressure is hard to know.

I also asked: What happens if you violate the rule? Apparently the police take you in and give you a ticket, and require you to sign something pledging not to do it again. So I asked: What happens if you do it again? Nobody seemed to know.

If it makes you ladies feel any better, there are restrictions on men, too. We can’t wear shorts. With some exceptions for organized team sports, shorts in public are not an option for men or women, even if you’re going for a jog (which hardly anyone seemed to do, maybe for this reason). Remember, Iran is mostly a desert and summer temperatures reach well over 100 every day, so a no-shorts rule is a pretty big deal.  Whatever you think of Iran’s clothing rules, it would not be accurate to presume they’re all about oppressing women.

Decades ago, before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Shah (king) wanted Iran to be (or seem) more mainstream and Western. He actually prohibited the chador head covering. That prohibition was even more unpopular than the current chador mandate.  People wanted the scarves, and the Shah’s efforts to “modernize” are said to be some part of what fueled support for the Islamic Revolution – which ousted him and put a Muslim Ayatollah in charge of the country’s dress codes. It’s too bad nobody thought to choose a middle path where everyone could do whatever they want with their headgear!   (Admittedly, though, our own country has a tough time choosing libertarian middle paths these days, too.)

One last, goofy thought: In America, we also have rules about which body parts must remain covered and which are okay to reveal in public. There are cultures elsewhere on earth that have different and more-revealing rules (exposing women’s breasts, for example). Those people probably think our rules are horribly restrictive, oppressive and silly – just what we tend to think about Iran’s. Our defense of our own dress-code choices would probably sound a little like Iran’s defense of theirs.

This guy’s very typical bazaar store is about 8 feet wide.

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