Cynthia Erivo Loved Jogging on Morocco’s Crunchy Gravel—”Like Eating a Fresh Salad”

“About 10 years ago I went to Morocco with my sister for a girls trip. We stayed at Fellah, a hotel just outside Marrakech. The hotel I stay at always has to have a gym, and this one was great—it was in the open air and had a boxing instructor who I trained with a lot. One day he realized that nobody else was turning up except me and my sister. So when I mentioned offhand that I like to run, he said, ‘Well, we could run together if you want. I could be company, and I could show you around Morocco.’ I didn’t think twice about it. He was so kind and I felt safe with him. This was the start of us going on six-mile runs together. It was hot as heck, all the time. Even at eight or nine o’clock in the morning, the heat would already be on us. And the ground wasn’t totally flat. It was a lot of sand and gravel, which I didn’t mind. I think the sound of gravel is delightful—I know this sounds strange, but it makes me think of food. That crunchiness sounds like eating a fresh salad, and it was easier on my joints because I wasn’t hitting the ground so hard. Anyway, it took some effort to get off-property because we were in the hills outside town, so going on runs, to me, meant freedom: I wasn’t tied to a vehicle, and I could indulge my curiosity in the moment. One minute the instructor and I would be in the middle of the road and, the next, off to the side and cutting through a garden. The locals gave me these strange looks as I’d run by, like, ‘What on earth is she doing running in this heat? She must not be from here!’ It felt like running through a landscape painting, all that color: There was so much foliage—leaves, plants, and flowers. The buildings we passed were pink and white, the earth scrubby greens and sandy yellows. There was so much blue because the skies above were clear, clear, clear. With the instructor as my tour guide, I was able to really be there on the ground, present in my body, seeing this place.”

Cynthia Erivo stars as Elphaba in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked,” in theaters on November 22. This article appeared in the December 2024 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.