We love to buy art and trinkets for our house while we travel.  It’s so much more interesting to look at memories of our adventures then something we picked up during college to fill an empty wall.   We knew this long trip would mean shipping some things home along the way to continue this tradition and still contain our travel to the few backpacks we had.  What I didn’t anticipate was that once we added a shipping line item to our Excel budget page, my husband would grab hold of the need to buy a carpet and refuse to hear reason otherwise. [ed. note: Yes. A carpet. I wanted one. Hmph.]

I have nothing against a beautiful, hand woven rug.   And if you’re going to buy one, why not get it from the village it was woven in, right? My pause on this plan is the rug itself.   We don’t own any.  Not even a door mat.   Our condo is 1,200-ish square feet of wide planked hard wood that is cold as hell on those icy January mornings that even the South is subject to on occasion.  But my husband despises rugs.  Any I owned prior to our marriage are tucked away in a storage unit awaiting I’m not quite sure what at this point… But He was convinced that a rug was a must buy in North Africa and once He’s on a mission, there’s no stopping it!

We arrived at the Berber village with the carpet co-op at lunch time, so all the women had gone home.  The president of the co-op kindly opened the doors to us and showed us how they treated and spun the wool, then wove it into the designs.  Each carpet took between 3 months and a year to complete and had a story told within the bold patterns and intricate designs.

As we walked into the showroom, the owner was pulling rug after rug off the stacks and fanning each out for us to touch and see. The carpets which were a patchwork of sheep and camel hair were my favorite, although reflecting back on this I think the camel hair would be rough to walk across and have me resorting back to wearing my ugly slippers as I always do, protecting me from the cold floor!

The language barrier was quite intense here and it took a lot of time and back and forth before we were able to have him tell us some numbers….and then the dream came crashing down.   The carpet was 10 times what we expected to pay–before international shipping!! We huddled together and weighed the options…really there was only one.  We left empty handed…and as the car wound on the road out of town, we watched the 3 tour buses roll in and park.   I think we were almost swindled at a tourist trap!  

While the disappointment settled in and we started plotting trying our luck bargaining in the Marrakesh market that night, I think our guide caught on to our plans and he offered to take us to one more spot in town.   Fixed prices were the magic word here as neither of us had the time or patience for haggling an hour or more after the 9 hour desert drive.   We roamed the 3 floor local shop in peace and when we were ready to see the rugs, they were patient and listened to our feedback—only showing the styles and colors we preferred and keeping every offering below the price point we had in mind.   

When we finally get home in December, we’ll have Aladdin’s magic carpet awaiting us to be one of our Christmas presents!