Morocco – The Caves of Hercules

In addition to photos by my family and me, this post includes some pictures by Emily Nava.

Look, I’m generally not one for touristy nonsense, but on our first day (yes, we’re still on the first day) in Morocco, Hmad took us to the Caves of Hercules. Yes, that Hercules.

According to legend (there are several legends), Hercules came to these caves to rest before his eleventh (out of twelve) labor, which was stealing the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides. He possibly smashed through a mountain range that once connected Europe and Africa, creating the Straits of Gibraltar, aka the Pillars of Hercules. On his way out, he crossed the Atlas Mountains where he offered to hold up the sky for a minute so Atlas could get the apples for him.

We’re at a crossroads of history and mythology.

The place was definitely designed to play up the mythological connections, with large signs covered in questionable stock art (some with the watermarks still on it) laying out the twelve labors (can you name them all? Our group only got to seven without having to look at the dramaturgical materials).

The area at the top was uninspiring, to say the least. Tourists milled around; stray cats meandered across the walls (we had to have a hard conversation with Petra about not touching them, since lots of cats in Morocco have rabies (!)). We learned about tipping bathroom attendants (I had to ask some Spanish tourists ahead of me in line, in my high school Latin-American Spanish, how much one is supposed to tip. If you don’t have a few dirham, do you stiff the old ladies or pee your pants?)

On the way out, I heard music. To the side of the trail, in an adjacent grotto, a band was playing. I paid the cover charge, walked in, looked around, and immediately went to get the rest of the group. Not only were there people playing traditional music, there was also art and fossils, both on display and for sale.

The kids both held a monkey. It tried to groom them, probably being more thorough than either of them ever are.

A man had a falcon that he let us hold. I could have made endless eye contact with that bird all day, but I wished I could see it fly.

(is this a little problematic? Maybe. But the animals were healthy, and their handlers clearly had a lot of affection for them. Let’s go with…it’s complicated?)

I held a falcon in a mythological cave. A dream moment.