Lake Tislite
Trip Start
Aug 04, 2008
1
20
42
Trip End
Oct 15, 2008
Imlil,
Morocco
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
I wake up with the rising sun, try to snooze a little longer but lying down I put my face right on top of a wasp that was chilling in bed with me. And the whore stings me under my chin!
So, well, I kinda have to get up at this point, frantically looking for some Savlon in my first aid box, then when the pain subsides a little and am about to prepare my morning coffee, it starts raining...I really didn't expect to be rainy in Morocco.
But it turns out that the overcast weather is actually a good thing, as we have to drive a fair amount of kilometres and the day before yesterday was so hot that I thought my bum would melt and become one with the fake-leather seats of my Landy.
Back towards Beni Mellal - half the way between Meknes and Marrakesh - and then we begin climbing the rolling hills that preannounce the Atlas Mountains, our goal being a small village called Imlichil famous for its yearly Marriage Festival sometime between September and October.
A few Ks before Imlichil we stop at what it's going to be our camping site for the night, a beautiful, quiet spot by a lake called Tislite, "the Bride", not far from a slightly bigger lake called Islite, "the Groom." The story goes that an unhappy couple was unable to be together because of family status and rivalries, so from their tears the two lakes were created - a sort of Berber take on Romeo and Juliet.
As I mention in my previous entry, in the last couple of days I had the opportunity to think a great deal, and sitting in the fresh mountain air - we are around 2000m above sea level - with the clear lake in front of us and the last daylight quickly disappearing I can't help but being happy and uplifted because I know I've just found another excellent place to carry on thinking where I had left it at the Cascades.
I realise how this Moroccan trip of mine is becoming more and more exciting by the day, and there is still so much in front of me that I can't even imagine...
...and more importantly, I distinctly feel that I am in no rush, the future is there waiting for me, so I can treasure every simple experience that now form my past. However, I live in the present, the only moment that makes any sense as reality as we could (should?) perceive it.
Everything reminds of me this, and everything is perfect just the way it is. I am grateful for it.
__Take a moment to look at some pics here before reading on__
I've been reading Hermann Hesse's Siddartha in the last couple of days. I believe it is the first time I read it in English, and probably the first time I pick it up since I discovered it as a young teenager, the first book I read with true passion and, I think, firm understanding.
It really is a modern classic: small in proportion, apparently simple, written beautifully and far-reaching and -encompassing in its message. Every chapter, every phrase, every word describing Siddartha's life mesmerise me.
The other day I cam across this passage about human suffering because of our revolving in the cycle of Samsara. This is how it goes:
"He [Siddartha] was deeply entangled in Samsara; he had drawn nausea from all sides, like A SPONGE THAT ABSORBES WATER UNTIL IT IS FULL."
It immediately struck me and an episode of my past came to my mind for the first time in a long while, and never before it had been so clear and full of significance.
It was my first and only year of Italian Literature at Turin University, a few months before I left Italy for good to settle in London. One of the assignment for my Italian Linguistics module was to write a short poem, and what I came up with, I can clearly see it now, was profoundly inspired by this very passage.
And this was the revelation, almost an epiphany if you will, that gently but firmly I had: I wonder how much this sponge image has influenced, unconsciously or subconsciously, my life ever since I the first time I read about it as a young and cocky 15-year-old student. For the past decade I elected Experience as the central pillar of my personal values, the main direction in my life path.
As Siddartha himself realises a few pages after the passage I've mentioned, Experience itself -and by that I mean any kind of experiences, even, and sometimes especially, those that are normally frown upon in our society - is not a negative thing, and soaking up all that life has got for us is probably the only way to learn in a meaningful way, if we believe that the teachings imparted by teachers, fathers, mothers, wise and religious men can only be other people's experiences of the world. And we cannot, I feel, be content with second-hand knowledge, now can we?
Ok, I realise the above was a tad philosophical, but I hope you enjoy this kind of debate...I do, and traveling for me usually translates into a lot of time for thinking, which I can't keep for myself.
I leave you with a little something I wrote:
To be taught is to be shown,
To seek, err, experience
Is to really learn.
Stay Tuned on the rest of trip. Bye for now.
