Tangier, like a rolling stone
Their Satanic Majesties they have been active for 50 years and I am a fervent follower of these rock & roll dinosaurs, instead of celebrating it with a feast of blood transfusions in Switzerland, I have preferred (because of the crisis) book a much cheaper trip to Morocco as these septuagenarian rockers did in their day in search of inspiration, liberation and exoticism...
Brian Jones (the fifth rolling) who raised daisies at the early age of 27, was responsible for this initiatory journey of the group at a time when the motto "sex, drugs and rock & roll" was taken very seriously, and it was better to get them out of London a little season The holy place of pilgrimage was Jajouka , a lost village in the Riff mountains, in Tangier, which Paul Bowles (who was a musician as well as a writer) put on the map and which he discovered through a particular Spanish chronicler, the Franciscan priest Leopoldo Ceballos, who was “determined to highlight the similarities between the Galician muiñeiras and these songs” He even said “they even touch, rather, mistreat the Cara al Sol!”, as he explains in his Diego blog. To Manrique .
Brian Jones, whom he had taught to play the George Harrison quote from The Beatles, was infected by the search for exoticism (and initiation experiences) and in 1965, on a romantic getaway to Tangier with his girl, Anita Pallenberg (they stayed in the mythical El Minzah hotel ). There Brian, between beating and beating that he gave his dear friend-girlfriend-lover-victim and in some moment of sobriety of the few he knew, must have tripped over the painter Brion Gysin whom Bowles had taken to the village. Were there really some Moroccan musicians who spent the whole night playing strange instruments while dancing in a trance until exhaustion ?
Jones would get to record with these musicians being the first of many... But he never saw his album released. What he did have to see was his girlfriend Annita Pallenberg in the arms of Keith Richards (with so much physical and spiritual travel, you know...) and the hallucination of his next death in a ceremony of the Jajouka Musicians , a death that would occur a few months later when he had already been expelled from the group: “I am that lamb that is being slaughtered” , he yelled at his companion ... in full ceremony.
Views from El Minzah, Tangier
Tips Condé Nast Traveler
How to get: If you go with your own car or a rented one, check first what documentation you must bring. From Algeciras take a ferry that will leave you in 45 minutes in Tangier. From here the toll highway will take you to Larache, bordering the coast. And then, exit this highway to the east bound for Ksar el Kebir (Alcazarquivir), the largest and closest city to Jajouka. The village is approximately 50 km along the R410 that crosses part of the Rif to Chefchaouen.
En route from Jajouka: you go back to the crossroads that goes to Chefchaouen and at the fork, take the N1 to Fez. From here to Meknes, another imperial city, by the highway . The next stop will be in Midelt at the foot of the great Atlas where you will arrive by the N13. Continue to Er Rachidia, and then to Erfoud and Rissani, just 50 km from the desert entrance. If you want to spend the night in the desert, you will have to hire in Rissani the camels and the tents to spend the night . From Merzouga you will leave towards the desert, a unique experience. Returning to the road to Erfoud, we set out again towards Ouarzazate (this is where Bertolucci's 'The Sheltering Sky' , the film version of the almost biographical work of Paul Bowles).
From here, the next stop will be Marrakesh , although you can take a detour to Tinerhir to enjoy a few kilometers of a route that passes through the Todra Gorges. Of Marrakesh to Essaouira and we are back on the coast. Here you can choose between continuing and also visiting Agadir and Sidi Ifni, a little further south on the coast, or continue from Essaouira to El Jaddida and Casablanca . Finally, we will go up the coast to Rabat, with stops, if you feel like it, in Kenitra, Larache, Asilah and Tangier.
Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg about to meet up with their boyfriends Stone in Tangier
Brian Jones, the first Stone to set foot in Morocco