The SAS trip description when I signed up for it had said something about a “horse fantasia”, which sounded fascinating, even though I had no idea what such a thing was. It was my understanding, by they way the description mentioned it, that this show would be located in the main market, Djemaa el Fna, which we had visited earlier, but I was totally wrong. Instead we went to this place, which was, if I can put any sort of description to it, is like the restaurant/show at Medieval Times or something in Disney World or the Pittsburgh Renaissance Festival. It was strictly for tourists and artificially built off in the middle of nowhere (kind of like the Ren Faire).
The whole thing was walled in and you enter with this group of men atop horses dressed in this Middle Eastern (think Lawrence of Arabia, I guess) garb creating a tunnel near the entrance. They kind of coax you to take your picture with them. Then, you go through the entrance, which even has a giant head of a cobra (we of course used the photo opportunity). After that you get your picture taken by a photographer (the Disney part) with these two costumed women, which you can buy later. Then, after winding up and down some stairs with displays of mannequins set with costumes and props, you come out into this giant courtyard with groups of musicians playing down the one side. After walking around we saw that you could take camel rides up and down the middle of the courtyard, like a horse show ring, covered with dirt for the horse show. As you continued to travel around the other side of the courtyard had four or five little connected building, which were made to look like lush tents on the inside. Embellished cloth was draped from the ceiling and even covered a pole in the middle. This is where we ate dinner, so the couches along the walls, tables and chairs also matched the “tent”fabric. I have a picture I wish I could show you (perhaps once I get home I will fill in all the posts with their corresponding pictures).
The food was really good and authentically Moroccan, it seemed. The first dish was some kind of soup that tasted like vegetable soup with some extra spices, then a huge plate of cous cous with squash and other vegetables, then a course with meatballs and fried eggs in some kind of tomato sauce. And for dessert fresh oranges, which were really good! During dinner they had the musicians travel from tent to tent (or building to building) and perform while dinner continued.
After dinner, while still unpeeling my final orange, the horse fantasia started. It was chilly outside, but the show wasn’t very long. There were cement steps lining the ring where the horses were performing, but they were too cold to sit on. First, all the groups of musicians carrying different “flags”(more like large scarves on flag-size poles) paraded past the crowd performing and into the ring (reminding me of the Ren. Faire once again), then the horse show began, all set to music blaring from speakers. It was also dark by this time, so they also had lights rigged up that were used for effect throughout the whole thing. It seemed like there sort of was a “good side”and a “bad side”with guys dressed in black (who entered to with the Star Wars soundtrack…hahaha) and white. But, as I said the whole thing was pretty short. The five or six guys in black took turns going around the ring doing tricks while the horse while still moving, like standing up and touching the ground with their feet, doing a somersault of sorts, etc. In between, a float, which was reminiscent of the tank float in Animal House, painted like some kind of castle moved forward in the ring and a belly dancer rose from the center and did some dancing to the music. Then, the dozen guys in white all came out together in a line and fired guns off, charging about 5 times. The finale was one last charge with the guys in white firing the guns again with the musicians in tow making a racket. Then, two palm fronds were lit on fire on either side and a message in the back of the ring was also lit on fire. It said: “Choukran Maa Salama”, which means “Thank You and Goodnight”in Arabic. As we were all leaving they had some upbeat music that sounded like Moroccan music mixed with American dance music and then you could hear “Everybody dance now”every once and while, just like the 80’s song usually played at weddings, which capped off the evening and actually did get at least one group of tourists to stay in their seats and dance.
Now, it seems that my description of the horse fantasia comes off as a bit cynical and disgusted, which I was just a tiny bit, but don’t get me wrong –I had a great time! The food was great, we had some great dinner conversation and the show was interesting, to say the least. We got back onto the tour bus, as did all the other guests at the performance, after it was over and got back to the hotel at about midnight. And, as I said, I had fun even though I knew that that was nowhere near the authentic Moroccan culture.
No comments:
Post a Comment