The Counterbalance

The Marrakech Light Totem

In Morocco, the majestic Atlas Mountains run pretty much from South to North splitting the country in two beautiful landscapes.

To the west of the Atlas, we find the coast of the Atlantic and the big cities, while on the Eastern side the mysterious Sahara begins.

And it is precisely in the High Atlas Mountains where the Draa river, Morocco’s longest one, begins its quiet descent into the Eastern flank.

The Draa -and its spectacular vegetation- slowly meanders towards the East, quietly making its way into the Sahara. The river goes through the famous town of Ouarzazate and continues its path until the little village of Tamegroute. Right after Tamegroute, the Draa suddenly turns southwest, almost backwards, for what becomes a truly long trip until the coast of Agadir, where it finally reaches the Atlantic. Perhaps even the mighty Draa understands that attempting to challenge the Sahara is not a feat to be taken lightly.

It is in Tamegroute where -a couple of years ago- I joined a convoy of Tuaregs into the Sahara for a few days. Before reaching Tamegroute though, we had the mandatory stop in Ouarzazate for a field day. Games of Thrones, Indiana Jones, many of these cool productions were filmed here.

Hidden among some of the most spectacular buildings, I stumbled upon a magical store, more like a museum, called “The Labyrinthe du Sud” or the South’s Labyrinth in English.

This store was one of those unexpected places proudly honoring its name. It takes you room by room, corridor by corridor, through thousands of textures and colors. Inside the store, one is exposed to an inordinate number of artifacts, tools, weapons and cutlery, which you will understand, are radically different from the counterparts an urban westerner is used to.

The sensorial stimuli of such a dense and unexpected exposure to a practically new world cannot be put into words.

At the Labyrinthe du Sud, one can easily and very quickly go through a full day just learning about the ins and the outs of the lifestyle of the Berbers and many other North-African nomad tribes.

Playing with an Astrolab used to navigate through the dunes! testing a thousand-year old sand-pillow invented by the Almohads or even trying out different camel seats designed for different journeys, it doesn’t get better than that. All of this while having a delicious mint tea in the most extravagant tea set you can imagine. The hospitality of Moroccan people is hard to match or forget.

Yet this place was a business, and me, another easy target who eventually woke up from a mint-tea induced haze when the salesman asked me to leave them a good trip advisor review.

What?

As it happens, I had just purchased -out of sheer unhinged emotion- a beautiful carpet at retail price.

In retrospective, it would have made more sense to buy it on my way back from the excursion, you know, not to pointlessly carry it around the desert, on top of a moody camel. Or perhaps, I should have shopped around a bit more than 10 seconds, you see, retail price in 95% of the world is just an open invitation to tango.

This great salesman used, with tremendous success on me, just two simple words. Straight to the heart though. He uttered: “Picasso carpet” while pointing my feeble attention into one of the rugs.

Upon further discussion, mostly with myself, it became evident that the Tuareg woman behind the exquisite craftmanship and Picasso’s work had minimal correlation. Yet the transaction had already happened and as the man of word that I am, I stood by my decision and walked away with my new rug over the shoulder, trying to save face. I brought it quietly into the bus and we left towards Tamegroute to meet the Tuareg. At that point, I was determined not to ever have mint tea again.

The Tuareg people, these mythical nomads veiled in blue, venturing for centuries into the Sahara, have a completely different perspective on life. I doubt they ever went through any formal type of schooling but their speech, poise, humor, and specially their outlook on life are just genuinely inspiring. Traders and pastoralists, their dependence on each other is for them, the difference between life and death. This reality I believe shapes their behavior to the tee.

One afternoon, after setting up the camp and the pot roast begun slow-cooking we went to meet another tribe not that far away. Once there, it was more like an open market, and among many awesome goods for trade I saw a woman weaving a similar rug to the one I had just bought. Similar, identical, tomato, tomahto.

I obviously inquired to Bahdir, our guide, about that rug… now finally certain that Picasso was laughing at me from the sky.

Bahdir told me then that the Tuaregs… whenever they travel across the Desert, they have their own special way of traveling. He started waving his arm like a snake while smiling.

A zigzag! Yes, that, he nodded and said… Alberto, what other way are we able to find out what’s around our path? sometimes there’s water, sometimes danger, but all in all -still smiling but now with both arms wide open- … it’s good information!

So he continued explaining… So while the men trade or take care of the cattle, the women would stay at the camp and weave these spectacular carpets and linens. One of the most prevailing motifs was the Zigzag. Like the one I just bought.

If in need to be explained, the purpose of my trip to the Sahara could be reduced -not that is recommended- to the perennial quest for balance afflicting most of us, the same one I presume boils through everyone’s throat, as we happily dig our heels into the comforts of our life-achievement driven society.

If anything, sometimes I think that under the guise of our “quest of balance”, ultimately what we are honestly after is simply put, “the everything”. Could it be? Is that so terrible?

LOL

Anyhow, this quintessential quest for balance is impossible since life itself has a linear path, rightfully set though, by the governance of time and limited resources. It clearly states that in this reality, if we cannot be at two places simultaneously, we cannot either do things at the same time. The only logical option for balance then would be to remain still, like a boring grey rock, but that is just way too boring.

Yet what we really can do, and we often do, sometimes unconsciously, is engage in a game of counterbalance.

So dear reader, a trip to the Sahara, a trip to the Katla in Iceland or a drive by to the gym is now for you and me, a quest for counterbalance.

Much like a pendulum, the more we swing into the right, the more we will have to swing into the left, that is, if there is a grounding force within us, call it purpose, call it gravity.

One cannot help but understand then that if we stretch the pendulum back and forth across the line of time, and we take a few steps back… we are just performing a zig zag through life.

Much like our dear Tuareg men do while crossing the dessert, venturing into uncertainty, in the hopes of discovering what lies around.

Much like Bahdir, smiling and waving his hand, right in front of me, in the Sahara, one silly night under the milky way.