Not even one week ago I was watching a family of wild brown bears on the Transfagarasan Highway in Romania. It was a real treat that we came upon on the last day of the latest tour I led over there.
And right now I’m back in Casablanca, Morocco, super excited to lead my next Wandering Earl Tour in this great country, a tour that happens to start today. In between Romania and Morocco, I managed to take a sweet 2.5 day break in Istanbul...mainly to stuff my face with my favorite baklava.
Somehow, over the past 2 months of bouncing around, I’ve also watched my suitcase fill up with all kinds of random things:
- 4 traditional Romanian painted eggs
- 1 bottle of wild thyme syrup
- 1 bottle of dandelion tincture
- a green mug made by a local Romanian potter
- a Turkish towel from my favorite hammam
- small bottle of argan oil
- 4 bars of handmade soap
- a laundry bag made at a women’s collective in Marrakech
- 1 wooden mug made by a woodworker in Essaouira
And I soon might be stuck with a Moroccan carpet…
Four years ago, while leading a tour in Morocco, we ended up at a carpet collective near the desert. Everyone looked around but I certainly wasn’t interested in buying a carpet. However, one of the staff did ask me what dimensions, patterns and colors would make for my ideal carpet. So I blurted out some random thoughts and left soon after.
Last month, while back in Morocco, we ended up at the same carpet collective for the first time since that original visit. I walked in and the same guy recognized me. He immediately took me to a back room. And there was a carpet with the exact dimensions, patterns and colors I had told him about four years ago. He apparently had the carpet made in a village based on my exact specifications (not sure how true it is) in case I came back.
I was in shock. But I didn’t buy it because I had more traveling to do, and I don’t really need it. However, he knows I’m back in Morocco once again, so it’s going to be difficult to leave the country without a carpet this time around!
