I grew up in farmland outside Portland, and it was just rural enough that most of our neighbors had barns (as did we) and lots of land that was worked, and as many rural areas are The Church was a bit of a community center. In our case there was a Baptist church not far away and I suppose out of convenience to get Paul and I into the community and out of the house for a few hours of the weekend we went to the church on Sunday mornings. I eventually became disillusioned by it and spiraled into a life of…..fun without religion, and though I’ve been critical of most religions (lots of people have been mistreated and killed over time in the name of various gods) I recognize that religion has been also been a good thing for a lot of folks.
Like much of this general region, Morocco is a Muslim country, and we are reminded of that six times per day when the muezzin “call to prayer” blares out over the ubiquitous speakers raised high above towns to remind people to (apparently) drop what they are doing and pay their respects to Allah. I have only actually seen someone doing that once, but the faithful probably aren’t doing that in front of tourist dorks like me and instead are likely doing it in a secluded, if not sacred spot.
Though our lives in Utah can seem surrounded by religion by Mormon stakehouses on more corners than Starbucks, I never really give it much thought. However, a few years ago as Covid was finally waning Ashley and I did an annual road trip to the Pacific Northwest and as we are wont to do we stopped a couple of times en route to do some mountain biking. One ride our friend (and great purveyor of trails) Alex told us about was the Elk Ridge traverse trail above Baker City, Oregon. After a nice climb the trail does indeed roll a fabulous ridge in the mountains high above the Eastern Oregon plains with super fun old school singletrack.
Alex had mysteriously told us to take take advantage of some infrastructure up on the ridge, but with a mischievous grin wouldn’t tell us what it was, but that we’d be sure to see it. Sure enough, in the middle of the ridge was a pole, and on that pole was a telephone. And don’tcha know, the phone was…a direct line to God!
Super handy for folks like me who never really took to the whole kneeling, closing my eyes stuff (I was too squirmy as a kid) and my clasped hands didn’t really feel much like an antenna, nor honestly have I really thought much about God. But I picked up the phone, and sure enough, I was talking to God. I thanked him for kinda delivering us from Covid, though to be honest I kinda complained about subjecting us to Covid in the first place. But so it goes. It was mostly a one-way conversation, but I was satisfied, and we rolled on.
Fast forward a few years and we have found ourselves in Muslim Morocco, and though I don’t know much about Islam, I’ve always wondered why so many Christians seem to kinda fear Islam, because it seems to me that it’s very similar in many ways and disciples worship in their own quiet, respectful ways with generally positive social norms. To be sure, we aren’t here to study world religions; we are here for a bike-based adventure, and we’ve been getting it with lots of amazing andriding, a radically different culture, some incredible (and austere!) landscapes, great exposure to people, good new food, etc.
Early on we were dealing with heat; it was kind of an early fall heat wave, we were close to the ocean so higher humidity, and we were at low elevations, so after wallowing in heat and sweat all day camping sounded grim. Therefore, we were on the lookout near the end of each day for a guesthouse with a cool shaded patio, a shower, and hopefully an air-conditioned room. Using the Google and booking.com we were having good luck finding nice places to stay at very reasonable prices (and continue to do so; in fact, we are at one right now in what seems like the middle of nowhere!). One day we saw a place on a map in a very rural area but as we went by it there was no sign for the place, and no sign is generally not a good sign that a place is viable. So we carried on uphill for about 5km to a village with another place that seemed to be at the tippy top of a series of very steep tiny streets, and our map showed it yet-above the top street? A bunch of women tried to help and seemed to be arguing good-naturedly among themselves as to how to get us and our bikes up there, because apparently it was indeed yet above us on a steep singletrack trail! We finally hauled our bikes up to the trail to the gate and…..it was closed and locked. Harrumph. There was a phone number painted on the gate so we called it; no answer. Okay, cut our losses here, let’s go to plan C.
The village was off the main road on a series of dirt roads, and at that intersection there was a sign for a guest house pointing “1km” up the paved road , so we went back to that intersection and started grinding up the hill. But after about 10 minutes it was clear there were no more houses – much less guest houses – above us, and after we’d climbed probably 2km we realized that a tiny double track dropping below that road was actually the way to drive into our original closed, locked place. Okay, another pivot. It was blistering hot, we were cooked, and were in need.
Fortunately we had cell coverage and dug around again for the original place that we’d ridden past and were psyched to find the phone number and called it. Northern Moroccans mostly use Spanish as their language alternative to Arabic, so when a guy answered the phone I used my best (which is bad) Spanish to ask him if he had a room for us. He replied “Sure! Do you want to speak English?” You bet I do. Moments later we were sailing back down the now-7km-long hill and at the unsigned turn we rolled up a dirt drive for a couple of hundred yards and got a wave from the proprietor of the Djebel Guest House, who is a dead ringer for Johnny Depp. He was a nice guy, showed us to our little cabin/yurt thing that he had built, said he was gonna get going on dinner while we showered, and all was good!
He served us what we have since learned is called “Moroccan soup” because it’s what Moroccans always start with when the Ramadan (holy month) daylong fast ends, and then a more-hearty course, and we got to chat with him. We’d peeked inside his main building and were suprised to see electric guitars, a full drumset, keyboard, amps, the whole deal, and it turns out that he’s a music producer who lived in Paris for five years before coming back to Morocco to make a super cool place in a nice orchard for “cool people” to stay at and enjoy.
We asked why he didn’t have a sign out on the road, and he said that he kinda wanted to rely on word of mouth and internet exposure versus people just stopping in.
We realized that after all this time we hadn’t introduced ourselves, so we finally did, and asked what was his name; of course, it was “Allah”. So although we had had no actual sign from God, once again – as with the call from Elk Ridge in Oregon – my phone call to God worked out just fine! And Allah made a big point in telling us to save his number and if we had any problems while we are in Morocco to give him a call to translate “or whatever”. You can believe that we thanked Allah for this offer that we may yet need to take him up on, as well as his genteel hospitality. Hopefully we will not need his help, Inshallah!
So if you find yourself between Tetuan and Fez, look up the Djebli Club auberge and pay a visit to Allah it’ll be worth your while. And don’t hesitate to call first!