Volubilis
Another winter storm blew through last Friday, fuelled by yet another Texas low. The weather forecasters are now telling us that we will have more wintery weather in the coming few weeks before warmer than usual spring weather sets in. Another storm is dumping snow on us again today (Friday, March 10) with 10 to 15 cm expected to accumulate. What better reason to return to Morocco?
On the astronomical front, Venus continues its progress and now appears above Jupiter in the night sky.
Susan can’t resist keeping you apprised of the orchids we have happily blooming.
Morocco 2014
Friday, April 18, 2014: After settling in with Susan’s brother in Fez and spending a day touring the city and the Fez medina, we headed the following day to Volubilis, the site of a Roman city built between the 1st and 3rd century. The city once covered at least 28 acres and had 20,000 inhabitants. Only the centre of the city has been excavated. Much of the stone was taken for the construction of other sites after the Romans decamped.
We drove through soft mist and clearing skies to find the ruins emerging from a riot of trees, grasses and wildflowers on the slopes of a hill. A humungous Garden Snail slid across the damp ground. iNaturalist identified the bright blue flowers as Dwarf Morning Glory. It seemed particularly fitting to see Century plants at this site.
Wildflowers grew happily among the ruins. Many of them look the same or similar to North American species. Susan was able to use iNaturalist to identify a few.
There was other life among the ruins. White Storks have found their way to Volubilis. The snails in Morocco seemed to have elaborate patterns, much like the ceramics that are hand-painted here. These are either Milk or White Italian Snails. Paper Wasps were busy building a nest. These are a species of Paper Wasps.
Even the Milk Thistles looked exotic.
Travelling in Morocco is a sensory experience.
The sounds of Morocco: the call to prayer, the constant use of car horns to prompt and comment on other drivers’ behaviour, birds with beautiful finch-like songs, silence at night, the absence (for the most part) of sirens, today (a school holiday) groups of children laughing and joking and sometimes calling for our attention.
The smells of Morocco: olive oil as we pass a stretch of olive orchards and larger press operations, smoke and cooking smells from the large barbecues in small restaurants along the road, mint tea, Moroccan spices.
The sights: red soil, pale yellow soil, magenta bougainvillea, the minarets of mosques.
Our Music Picks
We decided to watch the film Rocketman, the bio pic about Elton John, again. Now we have “Yellow Brick Road”, “My Song”, “Tiny Dancer” all dancing in our heads. Let’s pass at least one of them on to you!
Joni Mitchell was recently awarded the Gershwin Prize. Here she is, accompanied by Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, two jazz legends. Wayne Shorter died recently after a long and well-recognized career as a composer and performer.
How about some Buena Vista Social Club with clips from the documentary?
And another one of their performances used to accompany a travelogue.
That led to this version of Guantanamera by Playing for Change. The musicianship!