boll_rig
Adventurer
Over the course of this 4-day journey I shot 3 rolls of super 8 film to document the country and our interaction with it and its people. This is the film from that time. But first, a little background to how we got there and got ourselves into this little overland adventure:
So about 2 years ago my friend Matt called me and said he got two $49 dollar round trip tickets to Lisbon from NYC and asked if I wanted to go. 1 week, 49 dollars. Obviously I said yes and a week later we landed in Lisbon.
We had both decided that since we were all the way over there we might as well get into it a little deeper than Portugal and so we bought two flights to Casablanca, returning 4 days later, for $120 a piece. Now we were getting somewhere.
We landed in Casablanca at 5:30 pm and immediately two girls asked to use my skateboard which they absolutely loved. IT was fun to see them on it. From there we hopped a train into the city to set out to find some of our own transportation for a little overlanding. With did little research ahead of time because we both enjoy figuring it out as we go, to us this is real adventure. We assumed we would be able to rent mopeds/motorcycles and travel north to Fez for a few days. Apparently, you can’t rent much of anything in that city, and motos were out of the question.
We got some local food around 10:30 after burning some energy skateboarding around the city. It was peaceful at night and most everyone was friendly to us. It’s funny how a skateboard can pull guards down both for us and the people we encountered. Eventually, we ended up running into a man who sold me a knife I wanted (figured it would come in handy for prepping food and hopefully nothing else) and said he had a friend who would rent us his truck. Seemed good enough to us.
After following this man for a few blocks we met up with another one of his friends who greeted us and said he would take us to the friend that would rent his car. We didn't have much choice at this point and plus it was only 11pm, plenty of time left (sigh haha). But, instinct said follow and so we did. Much to our surprise we came to meet Omar who had a small office in the lower part of his house that he worked out of and occasionally rented his vehicle from (apparently).
He was a nice fellow, about 50 years old, chain smoking cigarettes right inside, which Matt liked, and lit up one for himself. "I only smoke when I travel" Matt said. I found this whole situation amusing; them two smoking up a storm, chatting about the country and no talk of the vehicle whatsoever. Eventually, the jokes died down and we got to business signing a rental agreement, copying passports and going over the vehicle. Man was this thing a beauty. I believe it was a symbol, or some other sort of foreign two door hatchback. But the point was it was no truck. I had to laugh a little being very used to traveling with more room than I even need in my suburban, 4-wheel drive, and enough engine to hammer up any hill. But this'll do great we thought. Plus all we had were ourselves and our two backpacks anyway. We were however worried about getting stuck..
Our trusty transport... taken the next day.
So we said our goodbyes to Omar, agreeing to return in 4 days with a full tank of gas, and sped off around 12 am with only vague directions to Marrakech. South it was we decided, with a vision of sand dunes and the ocean in our heads.
About 20 minutes later we got pulled over for our first time, an upcoming theme of the trip. With some quick talk of being tourists and loving the country very much, they let us carry on. Only to get pulled over again 30 minutes later, this time at a checkpoint. We gave the same shpeal again and continued on. I kid you not, we got stopped one more time another 20 minutes down the road. We drove away wondering how they had not searched us or inquired more about the car we were in.
It became interesting when we finally pulled into Marrakech around 4 am and tried to get a cheap hotel for the some rest as we had been up for almost 36 at this point. This was when I realized that I did not have my passport, or even the rental agreement for the car! I froze wondering whether Omar had just kept it intentionally?? My mind was shot at this point and could no longer think. It looked like we wouldn’t be in a hotel after all without that piece of crucial documentation. The car it was for the night, hoping to straighten things the next morning…
More to come...
but for your viewing pleasure here is the film that I shot:
https://vimeo.com/144072020
So about 2 years ago my friend Matt called me and said he got two $49 dollar round trip tickets to Lisbon from NYC and asked if I wanted to go. 1 week, 49 dollars. Obviously I said yes and a week later we landed in Lisbon.
We had both decided that since we were all the way over there we might as well get into it a little deeper than Portugal and so we bought two flights to Casablanca, returning 4 days later, for $120 a piece. Now we were getting somewhere.
We landed in Casablanca at 5:30 pm and immediately two girls asked to use my skateboard which they absolutely loved. IT was fun to see them on it. From there we hopped a train into the city to set out to find some of our own transportation for a little overlanding. With did little research ahead of time because we both enjoy figuring it out as we go, to us this is real adventure. We assumed we would be able to rent mopeds/motorcycles and travel north to Fez for a few days. Apparently, you can’t rent much of anything in that city, and motos were out of the question.
We got some local food around 10:30 after burning some energy skateboarding around the city. It was peaceful at night and most everyone was friendly to us. It’s funny how a skateboard can pull guards down both for us and the people we encountered. Eventually, we ended up running into a man who sold me a knife I wanted (figured it would come in handy for prepping food and hopefully nothing else) and said he had a friend who would rent us his truck. Seemed good enough to us.
After following this man for a few blocks we met up with another one of his friends who greeted us and said he would take us to the friend that would rent his car. We didn't have much choice at this point and plus it was only 11pm, plenty of time left (sigh haha). But, instinct said follow and so we did. Much to our surprise we came to meet Omar who had a small office in the lower part of his house that he worked out of and occasionally rented his vehicle from (apparently).
He was a nice fellow, about 50 years old, chain smoking cigarettes right inside, which Matt liked, and lit up one for himself. "I only smoke when I travel" Matt said. I found this whole situation amusing; them two smoking up a storm, chatting about the country and no talk of the vehicle whatsoever. Eventually, the jokes died down and we got to business signing a rental agreement, copying passports and going over the vehicle. Man was this thing a beauty. I believe it was a symbol, or some other sort of foreign two door hatchback. But the point was it was no truck. I had to laugh a little being very used to traveling with more room than I even need in my suburban, 4-wheel drive, and enough engine to hammer up any hill. But this'll do great we thought. Plus all we had were ourselves and our two backpacks anyway. We were however worried about getting stuck..
Our trusty transport... taken the next day.
So we said our goodbyes to Omar, agreeing to return in 4 days with a full tank of gas, and sped off around 12 am with only vague directions to Marrakech. South it was we decided, with a vision of sand dunes and the ocean in our heads.
About 20 minutes later we got pulled over for our first time, an upcoming theme of the trip. With some quick talk of being tourists and loving the country very much, they let us carry on. Only to get pulled over again 30 minutes later, this time at a checkpoint. We gave the same shpeal again and continued on. I kid you not, we got stopped one more time another 20 minutes down the road. We drove away wondering how they had not searched us or inquired more about the car we were in.
It became interesting when we finally pulled into Marrakech around 4 am and tried to get a cheap hotel for the some rest as we had been up for almost 36 at this point. This was when I realized that I did not have my passport, or even the rental agreement for the car! I froze wondering whether Omar had just kept it intentionally?? My mind was shot at this point and could no longer think. It looked like we wouldn’t be in a hotel after all without that piece of crucial documentation. The car it was for the night, hoping to straighten things the next morning…
More to come...
but for your viewing pleasure here is the film that I shot:
https://vimeo.com/144072020
