S/V Tavarua

Travel days always have the most hassles, but some spook you a bit more than others. We headed out to catch a 7:30 AM train to Tangier and after a relaxing couple of shots of espresso, buying a newspaper dated May 9th (oh, this wiley-wacky Morocco), we were greeted by a ‘Monsieur!’ We looked up and one of the hotel staff was holding out our passports to us.
We had spaced that unlike everywhere else in Morocco, the hotel had held our passports during our stay. Moments like these just send shudders through you. Sort of like a travel ghost walking over your lucky travel charms (for me, that’s a pair of fingernail clippers and a small LED keychain light).
We caught a ferry back to Spain and then a (wow, I can’t believe they make buses so comfortable and clean!) standard run of the mill Spanish bus to Tarifa.
Tarifa is a great little town, full of windsurfers, surf wear shops, Indian hippy stores, tapas bars, techno music and backpackers. It could be a sister city to Santa Cruz, but more dedicated to seriousiness of sport. The town counts the number of Force 5 winds it gets each year.
It really is an interesting contrast to Morocco. The Arab-Moorish architecture and the layout of a medina is completely revamped into whitewashed, clean, pleasant alleyways full of the luxurious smells of pizza and tapas wafting around. A much better set of smells than donkey doo, fish stalls and tannery toxins.
We hung out, slept a great deal, and sat on the benches overlooking the beaches that stretched out to eternity. We watched a parade complete with little girls in white dresses, a huge alter being toted around and incense being burned. Had good espresso in the morning, fish for lunch, and tapas for dinner(chorizo to absolutely die for). We thought about dieting, but, of course, rejected the notion.. dang! windsurfers at this level are really, really in shape! And we rejoiced that we were in the coolest section of the country; it sounded like Spain was in a 100 degree heat wave everywhere else. Keep those Force 5 winds blowing!
Tarifa sort of slows you down, and we spent a lazy three nights here basking in the Westerness of the town, the tie-dye and music.

Okay, we admit it. We were worn out by Morocco and given the luxury of the Ibis hotel and a pool after the scorching heat.. we did what any self-respecting hedonist would do.. lounged and read for a full two days by the poolside.
We also went over and had a lunch at the air-conditioned McDonald’s and ordered a McSahara with a side of orange juice. We hang our heads in shame and yet our digestive systems rejoiced at being fed food with a health standard attached to its preparation. We may recover from Morocco.. and then again, Morocco may be with us for quite some time.

We got up to catch the 5:30 minivan back to Rissani. Our glue guy was up and ready for us, with a fresh bottle of cold water and many smiles (and kisses! yikes!) to settle our bill and usher us on our way. We certainly were pampered!
We loaded into a mini-van (after stepping over the hotel staff sleeping outside the kasbah entryway) with some mellow Arabic music to greet us, bench seats that were not bolted down to the floor of the van, a sliding door that didn’t close, and two teenage boys that were traveling to school at this ungodly hour. We weren’t sure if we were part of the school bus or not, but we determined as we stopped every 5 minutes for locals and kids in and about different streets off of bumpy, dusty dirt roads that this was the only scheduled minivan run into town. It was an interesting sight seeing Berber women in the villages, clearing paths through chickens and not wearing the full fabric that going out in public entails. The outfits are just as colorful. I decided interesting as the sight was, it certainly looks to be a tough life, living without running water, electricity, meaning… brace yourself… no washing machines or dishwashers or electric can openers!
We picked up a few more teenagers, a few packages with instructions, stopped to drop money off for someone (must of been a delivery from the previous day). Everyone seemed to know everyone else. A middle aged Berber couple were scooped up. The lady was wearing a lime green patterned wrap that sort of had an extra level of glow to it given the Mars colored landscape surrounding us. She was a sweet lady, as she went to climb out at a later loop, she stopped climbed back in just to smile and nod goodbye to us.
After a bumpy hour, we finally started seeing palm trees and buildings with a spattering of mosaic tiles indicating we were getting near Rissani. The adobe look started to meld back in with the Moorish architecture.
We were dropped off at the Grand Taxi stand and landed a taxi with two other men headed Er-Rachidia (a good hour ride plus). The beaten up Mercedes taxis usually holds three people in the front seat (yes, the car has a stick shift, so the front passengers better be skinny) and four people in the back seats (again, one of you is stuck sitting forward). We opted to pay for two extra spaces so we could use the vehicle as it was designed, two in the front, three in the back. The other two passengers were quite pleased when the realized that we didn’t expect them to share the front passenger seat and made an ordeal of discussing who should have the prized front seat. Our taxi driver was an odd one, he had the radio on for a bit, then pressed in a cassette tape that was a woman speaking in theatrical Arabic. This was played for the entire trip, the guy next to me finally leaned over and asked if we understood the tape. I said no, not in the slightest. So, he went on to explain it was a story about a man and a woman and their lives. He sort of rolled his eyes. We heard a chapter and a half of the story over the course of the trip, so I imagine our fellow passengers were more annoyed with the driver than we were at the racket, since they came into the story in the middle and were left dangling after an hour of listening. To top off the oddness, the speaker behind Derrell was cutting in and out the entire time and the tape deck would stop about every 5 minutes until the driver whacked it and it started playing again. Derrell and I concluded that we must still be in Morocco.
The taxi driver dropped us off at the bus station after driving by the taxi queue and getting onto the clipboard of the guy handling the taxi queue. There was a ‘Cafe de The’ that must have been doing quite a business on the drivers and the passengers waiting for a taxi to fill up so it could leave. An unusual transportation system, or so it seemed to us, but good for the tea business.
We braced ourselves as we entered the ‘evil’ Er-Rachidia bus station, but there wasn’t a tout in sight. We sauntered over to the counter and caught a bus to Meknes with no hassle.
The most memorable aspect of the return bus ride was a live Infomercial that appeared in the aisle of the bus and lasted a full hour. The guy was peddling, in a loud booming voice, Wild Tiger balm (complete with asian fold out instructions.. good for r-r-r-r-rheumetism) and Magic Oil (good for toothaches). He had the entire speil going, “You might think this costs 20 dirhams, or maybe 10 dirhams, but no this is only 2 dirhams!” This being bellowed with all the intonations of a professional infomercial actor complete with demonstrations of use and dispensing drops of the green Magic Oil on all the passengers hands. Derrell was laughing so hard he almost had tears in his eyes. The guy would not abide not smearing some of the green oil on Derrell’s hand for him to try, doubled over in laughter made it a bit tough, but the guy was quite pleased with additional material to work with from his audience. A number of passengers went for the magic oil. And right they should, in a land of 1 dentist for every 80,000 citizens, and not many sparkling looking smiles, or for that matter complete mouthfuls of teeth, the ambesol property of the oil is true magic.
Well that was about it, the ride was rather calm after that. We had a long discussion with the passenger next to us. He was traveling to Meknes to take a teaching exam. There are no universities in the south of Morocco. He is teaching math in one of the Berber towns that had Peace Corps volunteers for a few years. He was well spoken and many opinions on the United States and Iraq, most of which we heartily agreed, some of which left Derrell trying in vain to bite his tongue. We ended up talking to him, since I rolled my eyes at the music that was playing. He said it was a popular Berber group, and you can’t get Berber music in the north end of the country. The tape had been on repeat (a 35 minute tape) for the entire 5 hour bus ride. He was curious if we had the words down yet. He figured he’d be singing them in his sleep.
To keep the contrast tilted on full, we checked into an Ibis hotel (chain hotel similar to Best Western in quality) and felt like we had walked out of Morocco completely. Europop in the courtyard by the pool surrounded by Hibiscus bushes in bloom, a flurry of swallows zooming in for a drive-by drink from the pool and a large expanse of grass. Grass looks really out of place in Morocco.. and Europop sounds bizare after a week or so listening to acoustic Arabic music.
So, in summary, we survived the bus ride without an earth shattering shower of glass, and therefore, considered it a very successful day.

After the long morning on camels, we had an extremely welcoming kasbah. So welcoming, in fact, that Derrell nick-named one of the owner’s Glue Guy, since he was never more than 3 feet away.
The Kasbah Mohajut was pretty. It is reminded us of the Santa Fe adobes. The outside walls the desert red sand color were topped with some open designs just at the edge of the flat roof that doubles as a terrace and sleeping area, if you decide your room is too hot. (As we left the next morning, we discovered all of the hotel staff sleeps on the ground outside the kasbah on foam mats with a blanket at the entrace-exit of the building, a.ka., shady side.) The kasbah opened onto small gardens that supplied the hotel with bay leaf trees, tomatoes, onions, corn, squashes and random other plants. The gardens came complete with a kitten that stalked the guests as they wandered to and from the rooms. I felt a bit bad that the kitten had ear mites and there wasn’t much we could do for it, but otherwise it looked fairly spunky and well-fed (an somewhat amazing thing for a cat in Morocco).
The Berber rugs that hung on the walls looked as if they could have come from the American Southwest. Whoever had decorated the place had a good eye for matching tiles, furniture, lighting and linens. Add that to the walled gardens that kept out the dust storms, you finally felt like you were in an oasis from the desert.
Upon arrival and after a long shower with cold water, we sat down for a cold Coca-Cola and huge litre of water and immediately had three of the hotel staff join us for what we now deem the famous Moroccan pastime of the ‘Word Game’. Being exhausted from the morning ride, we didn’t really hold our own on learning any new Berber or Arabic words, but I think they picked up a couple from us.
I made the fatal mistake of stretching and mentioning my back being quite sore from the camel ride. Our glue guy offered a massage so adamantly that I couldn’t really turn him down without it being a gigantic rebuff. Derrell was off to one side and had that raised eyebrow look that says, you opened your mouth on this one, let’s see you get out of it. Well, getting out of it consisted of getting a good 10 minute back massage which I sort of recommend after a camel ride. I returned the favor, and this may have been the binding moment for me and glue guy. He was never more than three feet away from us for the rest of our stay. We headed back to our room, and he came by to offer a fan (and a very good fan it was in that baking heat). We sat outside in the shade of the garden and he directed us to a better seating area. He brought us mint tea, pillows, a small table. Are you sort of getting the idea on this? We had a special plate of cucumbers brought out pre-dinner. Finally, he popped the question… we could see this one coming… were we married? I had to break his heart and let him know that his masseuse wasn’t available.
It was at this point that we considered the number of local women that we had seen in the kasbahs… a fine goose egg of zero. I asked a few of the men about their families and the families all lived in either Rissani, Erfoud or Er-Rachidia. It didn’t sound like anyone was married. Given the long weeks running the kasbahs at the edge of the desert, I can imagine finding a partner must be a rather daunting task.
Well, we survived the heat in gorgeous surroundings and Derrell stood on the terrace looking out at the huge sand dunes while the sun was setting, and had a full geek experience of calling his dad on his cellphone using a bit of a delayed satellite connection. Not too bad of a connection for a call from camel utopia to Hawaii. To add a tinge of perspective, the area still has a sign saying 50 nights to Timbuktu (that’s in camel trekking days to Mali).

We got up to a slightly cooler room temperature in Erfoud (maybe it was down to 87 degrees?). We both took showers and without a hair dryer our hair was dry in a record 45 minutes.
We didn’t really know how to go about getting to Merzouga easily, but the guy that infringed on our dinner last night said the grand taxis from here to Rissani and a second taxi from Rissani to the kasbah of choice was the way to go. He was right, not that it worked out for us that way, of course.
We went over to the taxi stand coordinator and got assaulted by the minivan drivers (a different method of transportation than taxis). The minivan driver lied to us and said that he would leave at 11am instead of 1pm for 20 dirhams each. We settled into the cafe (all men in the cafe, of course, except for me.. the Odd Western Woman that kept getting sidelong glances from men walking by). We had fresh orange juice, another litre of water (still haven’t gotten hydrated, still not convinced it will ever happen), and sat and waited in the shade and evaporated. After realizing that the van (if it existed) wasn’t really going to leave until 1 pm (if we were really talking to the true drivers), I wandered off by myself over to the ‘grocery store’. This is a series of open air stalls in a building that have piles of olives (with flies), meat shank kiosks (with more flies), nuts (few flies) and fruit (average number of flies) all for display. I looked for some fruit that I could peel and finally spied some peaches and made a purchase. They ended up being peelable (you never know with peaches) and the best we’ve had in years. America should really send some tree ripened fruit to its grocery stores, so you remember what a real sun ripened juicy peach tastes like.
Upon return from my shopping expedition, I found Derrell chatting with two New Zealanders. They were the other half of the mini-van party that we had been waiting for. It is now 12:30 and my scam alert is starting to chirp inside my head, but only as a minor scam. The only real question is how to actually get where we want to go without it costing us triple price. They too agree that this travel day isn’t quite going to plan. The two minivan drivers return and say we should take a taxi and have the four of us split it. Okay, fine, that is 25 dirhams instead of the 20 a piece. We agree readily, since that was our original plan, but there were no other tourists to share the taxi with this morning.
The four of us pile in the taxi (at exactly 1 pm - sigh) and I go to sit in the front seat, but the two minivan drivers nudge me to the back door and instead climb in the front seat. I look at the taxi driver and he raises his eyebrows, but the New Zealanders say that they agreed that these two goofballs come along.
Derrell and I roll our eyes. Okay, I’m hoping the goofballs end up at their kasbah and not ours. The New Zealanders seem well traveled so maybe Derrell and I might learn something? Nah.
We arrive at the kasbah that Derrell and I had picked out; total taxi cost turns out to be 30 dirhams… The New Zealanders inform us that the goofballs stated that the camel trek is run by their Uncle who is the owner of the kasbah we had picked out. Yeah, right and they have a bridge to sell us that spans the Saharan desert? Anyhow, the hotel staff basically ignores us, so I correctly guessed that these goofballs are just touts for one of the kasbahs down the road. Somehow we get through the negotiation for the camel trek and ended up with the four of us going out for a three day trek. We get a reasonable price (thank Allah for Lonely Planet guides to get you into the correct bargaining ballpark for prices).
We are informed we need to head over to the staging area, since we will head out at 5 pm. Ah, the fabled ‘other’ kasbah appears. We made a good decision to stay at the first kasbah, not that we will get a chance until we return from the trek. The second kasbah had squat toilets and rooms that were even hotter than the hotel rooms in Erfoud, much to our suprise.
We lounged around and met two other travelers doing the same in the common room (which was the finest part of the kasbah). We lost our New Zealanders at this point, due to the man having a meal that must have been worse dietically than Derrell’s dusty smoky birthday dinner. So it turns out it will just be Derrell and I going out on the trek and we may be able to catch up with them tomorrow night.
The big moment arrives at 5 pm and we carry our small day pack and climb up on the camels. I can’t get over the cheesy-ness of the moment. Our guide, yet another of the Mohamed clan (we actually met a person named, Omar), walks ahead of the camels and we ride along with our nights blankets, food supplies and water. Okay, they are actually dromedaries (one hump, not two… two are from Saudi Arabia area). What an uncomfortable way to travel. Camels are not horses. Camels sway. Camels are noisy from constantly burping and outgassing. Camels actually are fairly calm creatures. Camels can be lead to the water well, but won’t drink (either day of the trek). Camels sound a lot like sea lions when they have something to say. Camels like scratching their heads against the sleep/saddle blanket that your partner is sitting upon (making you spontaneously wonder whether camels bite or not).
Clouds are rolling in and some large drops of water threaten us, but stay away. The wind picks up and we discover why everyone stays so wrapped up in cloth out here. After two plus hours we arrive at the oasis (oasis being defined as any area in the red Saharan sand dunes that have a water well and at least two palm trees). The sand dunes are huge and change color as the sun recedes for the evening. The wind makes interesting patterns over the ridges and keeps the sand close to the ground until an obstacle creates a drift.
The tents at the ‘oasis’ are traditional Berber tents and one of the nomadic Berber families has become non-Nomadic and sort of monitors the 10 or so tents in the location (and stores the requisite mint tea teapot and propane tank for our guide).
We sit outside in the blowing sand, considering just how windy and uncomfortable it is to sit in blowing sand. Looking up at the gigantic red sand dunes sort of makes up for it though. Our guide (he is 21, soft spoken, kind to the camels, careful of the camp and nice to us) brings out mint tea while he starts cooking a chicken tagine. We contemplate the hygiene of the cooking world while we camp, uh-oh. We finally give up on sitting out in the wind and crawl in the large tent woven from rough wool. It is hot out, so the edge of the tent is lifted. It is windy, so the edge keeps collapsing down. This gives us something to do while we wait for dinner to finish cooking. Fold the cloth on top of the tent, sit down, refold, sit, refold, sit, refold, sit. The (sandy/crunchy) tagine is eaten by the light of a single candle that keeps tipping over due to the wax being soft from the heat of the day. We eat in the traditional manner of using bread to scoop up the vegetables and chicken (with our right hand.. suddenly, using your right hand becomes important as we contemplate the no toilet paper part of this society). The tagine is good. The leftovers are fed to the camels, not that there was much left over.
We are invited to come have some music with the six others in the next tent (one crazy German who brought a bottle of Cuban rum, one crazy Moroccan from the coast that sponsored some kif getting everyone stoned, two english guys who were ignoring the evening and waxing philosophical about digital cameras, our guide, the infamous ‘Crazy Berber’, and the two of us). The ‘Crazy Berber’ was an excellent drummer and singer, about 18, very stoned and working on getting drunk, and almost had the lyrics to Bob Marley correct. Our guide was a good drummer, as well, and although not into the full debauchery of the evening was outlasting everyone else into the wee hours of the morning. Derrell got the name ‘Ali Baba’ due to his goatee, and I got nicknamed ‘Fatima Cous-cous’ for no apparent reason other than it seemed correct in the haze of the evening.
Moroccans always seem to spiral into the ‘word game’. This involves teaching you a word usually Berber or Arabic, sometimes French, and you teaching them an English word. Many smiles, nods and laughter are exchanged as both sides mis-pronounce words (I can’t roll an Rrrr for anything and neither Arabic glottal stop is a possibility with my vocal cords — one is the sound of someone being strangled), and many repetitions are made of the words. They knew Japanese, Dutch, German, English, New York.. the list is seemingly infinite. There isn’t much else to do with your evenings while camping but learn languages and drum. Those that are guides become extremely proficient in both skills.
The moon was waning from a full moon a few nights earlier and had a great effect on the dunes. We slept outside and were actually glad for the wool blankets by the time the sun came up in the morning. It was cool, and quite comfortable after the heat of the day and evening. The digital camera guys and the crazy German had climbed to the top of the largest dune to watch the sun come up. It took them about an hour to descend back to the camp. By that time we had finished our breakfast of mint tea and bread with orange marmalade. They departed to return to civilization and we headed out for our second day on the sand. [Note to Honey, Tava, and Ten: The Sahara is the ultimate cat box. The cat box that all cats dream about, sort of like a luxury bathroom for a Sultan´s cat...]
We are sore from the camel ride the day before and bemoan to ourselves that the New Zealanders got us into a two day trek, but the hours in the heat of the day were going to be long without them there to chat with (at this point Derrell and I don’t have much of anything new to discuss beyond Derrell´s insistence on reitterating the complete lack of hygene associated with this trek´s food sources). We headed out for the morning and two hours later, find the shade of a small patch of palm trees. We look at each other and shrugged, guess we will be sitting and napping in 100 degree weather for the duration of the day. Hmm. This is sort of picturesque, the camels are interesting to watch (they have quite the sensitve, malleable lips.. and no issues with sitting in the sun instead of wandering over to the shade of a bush, or eating the bush for that matter), Mohamed is interesting to talk with although the language barrier makes it a bit of a slow conversation, the white bird that owns the palm tree patch is also interesting to watch. The only real downside beyond the heat are the flies. These are the most persistent buzzing things on the planet. Derrell added them to the list of annoying insects, just below the mosquito entry.
I made a small mistake and stepped on some sand that was in the sun and came very close to burning the bottom of my feet. Yikes, is it hot in the Saharan desert in summer (like duh, eh?) I kept getting images in my mind of a guy wrapped in a scarf crawling on hands and knees across the sands towards a water well at one of the oasises. We both came to really respect the caravans that crossed the deserts to keep trade going. Not a job that I’d want.
We survived the sit and headed out again for another two hour camel ride. This time the skies were clear and there was no wind, so we could fully enjoy the landscape. Derrell became convinced that the better position in the trek was walking the camels rather than riding them. I think he may be right, it took us three days before the soreness in our legs and back dissapaited. We opted for returning to our first camp rather than heading out to stay with one of the nomadic families. This reduced the camel ride to only two hours the next morning, instead of five. Our guide looked somewhat relieved. It is just as hard on him in the summer, as it is us. Worse, actually, since he also loads and unloads the camels and cooks (cleaning apparently involves ritually dropping the cooking implements into the sand, much to Derrell´s dismay), on top of the trekking.
When we got back to camp, we found our New Zealanders. He had recovered enough, and we had a good time chatting with them throughout dinner. Just as we went to lie down for the evening, the clear quiet skies with thousands of stars turned extremely windy. We decided to sleep outside regardless and woke up in the morning with a 6 inch drift of sand at our feet and sand in every crevice of our clothes, nose and ears.
The desert is very quiet, there is no airplane traffic, no motorized vehicles (but we did hear of 4-wheel drive and dune buggy outings), and very few people (tourists included).
We loaded ourselves back on our camels, inwardly groaning. The night winds had rearranged many of the dunes to the point we didn’t quite recognize the path back out. Derrell’s digestive system wasn’t going well and he had given up on eating the day before, I think it was too much sand. We made it back in one piece with a thousand sore muscles and I dumped Derrell at the first kasbah, Kasbah Mohayut, to check-in. Mohammed’s brother helped me carry his backpack between the kasbahs and I got a new appreciation for the amount of effort it takes to lead camels when walking over sand in the late morning heat.

Tomorrow, Glue Guy…

No problems with catching the bus from Azrou, although the pronuciation of Azrou (Ah-za-ro-ou) certainly through us. We didn’t think you could get four syllables out of that spelling.

Our bus ride was an adventure worthy of Morocco. We wound our way along well-paved roads through the pine forests that opened up to ancient cedars. The cedars are squat, old looking trees that we would be hard-pressed to get three people to tree-hug holding hands. We made multiple stops along side the road when a solitary figure was standing there waiting for the bus with no town or houses in sight. We passed boys herding sheep, many people harvesting grain by hand, stands along the road selling rocks and and pottery and tons of olive trees.
The bus ride was serene, but rather hot… until… the bus hit a pot hole when it pulled to the side of the road to let a car safely pass. The huge bus window directly in front of us shattered and threw glass over five rows of the bus. We were covered from head to toe in glass, and thanked Allah that it was safety glass. The mom and kid sitting on the window seat took the next hour shaking out glass.
To give Moroccans credit, they weren’t daunted by this turn of events and had the glass mostly kicked out of the bus and everyone on their way down the road in less than 15 minutes. We had crunchy, cooler seats for the remainder of the trip. At the police blockades (we found out the road blocks are due to the government looking for some dissidents, a.k.a., terrorists from Casablanca), the police (nice looking young men) would come around and frown in puzzlement at the jagged edges of the window, then shake there heads and wave the bus onward. Could you imagine this happening in the states? We would still be there waiting for a replacement bus, and everyone would consider sueing the bus company.
The sights were spectacular as we headed south in the country. The olive orchards and wheat fields gave way to a sagebrush Utah landscape that gave way to an Arizona landscape that made us wonder if the Grand Canyon was lurking somewhere around the next bend. We passed a Berber market with open air fruit stands. It was a large market with donkeys and carts, and run down trucks parked about. Men and women were wrapped from head to toe in colorful cloth and a handful of people had the understated Islamic wraps that are the fashion. It was just a trading outpost, we didn’t see any cities or towns for miles.
We finally reached a small town and had a stop of about 15 minutes while people wandered off to get fresh orange juice and whatever else from the nearby stands for lunch. We didn’t understand the instructions from the bus driver and stuck with the 25% of travelers that stayed on the bus. This isn’t to say that entertainment doesn’t come to you. We had about three beggars come through asking for 1 dirham pieces (about 10 cents USD), one had tears going and the whole bit, each waited patiently for the other to make the full loop up and back down the aisle before making their own assault on the passengers. That eventually petered out and we considered they made about 5 dirhams each. Begging for alms is the social security system of the country. After that started gold necklace sales (don’t think he got a taker) and a boy selling a chewy peanut brittle that would make my dad proud. The peanut brittle was fantastic and we kicked ourselves that we didn’t buy a few more before the bus took off again. I don’t remember the rest of the sales going up and down the aisle, but we probably could have been completely outfitted in new clothes and jewelery by the time the bus departed.
The scenery became amazing as the red cliffs of Arizona were sliced through by the Ziz Valley. Palm trees grew by the thousands along the banks of a river, adding a stark contrast of green and red under the summer blue sky.
We arrived slightly melted in Er-Rachidia and discovered the Austrailian that we had met yesterday had booked his bus ride all the way to Rissini. He looked a bit pained when we had to part ways, since he was counting on some company for the next few days. In our melted state, we stepped of the bus into the blazing sun (we are in Sahara desert country)… and we were assaulted by three 18 year olds trying to get us to a hotel or sign us up for some tour or another. We couldn’t talk to each other to get our bearings because all three were shouting at us and wedging their bodies between us. It was the only time in Morocco that I about lost it. We couldn’t shake them and we finally had to just walk away. We lost them after we went around the corner and headed over to some shade. We didn’t stand there for more than 60 seconds without getting another crappy salesman attached to us. We shook more glass out of our clothes and headed into the bus station. At this point the only opinion we had was that we didn’t want anything to do with this town. Our personal space infringed on one more time in the bus station and I finally got the guy to give us 5 minutes to talk and then he could come back and give us his spiel. We determined Erfoud was a smaller town of 7,000 and therefore would probably be much easier to deal with than this mayhem. They guy did indeed return and informed us that there was a bus at 3pm to Erfoud, he later had his friend come over to inform us that the bus had been cancelled today. We didn’t bite and bought tickets from the ticket window anyway, sure enough, the bus arrived on time and got us away from this ‘hell hole’, as Derrell seemed to want to call it.
Erfoud was much calmer, but poor. The south of Morocco has no money and no universities. We checked into a hotel that didn’t look too bad on first glance, but then upon closer inspection was a disaster in almost every regard. A broken plastic toilet seat, no hot water (not that it really matters in this heat), no soap, no towels, no toilet paper (we already learned to travel with extra).
We got a sales pitch from just about everyone we met, and everyone told us not to trust the sales pitches from anyone else. Once we were able to drop our bags in the room, the sales onslaught didn’t seem quite as annoying, but it was still tiring. We tried to eat dinner, but had a guy riding down the street stop and smoke a chain of cigarettes at us one table over. We knew we had less than five minutes before he would start the Moroccan pastime of chatter:
“Hello!”
“(swallow) hi.”
“Where are you from?!”
“(mumble) san francisco.”
“I have a friend in .”
“(chew, chew) good.”
“Welcome!”
“(chew) uh, thanks.”
“Are you going on a camel ride? My family has a kasbah….”

We certainly were in a different world in this town. There was a dust storm while we were eating. Our silverware had come out of the kitchen with a greasy film of dust on it. The dust being okay, but the greasy film rather disturbing. Derrell’s glass had a solid crack and a stone embedded in it; mine still had the price sticker. And this was at a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet guide and the hotel. No wonder our digestive systems are upset.

We finally retired (after buying a few more liters of water for drinking and brushing our teeth.. and of course, more Papier Hygenique). The room was baking even with the fan blowing in cool air. I’ve never slept on a matress that radiated so much heat in a room that had 90-plus degree stone walls. We both considered it would be a miracle if we ever got rehydrated.

And so ended one exhausting and hot, yet dirty and unhygenic birthday for Derrell. I think we need to reschedule his birthday for a more pleasant day and I believe he thinks the same.

We had an easy travel day from Fes to Azrou today. The weather is cooler than yesterday by about 10 degrees. 97 versus 87. The bus station is an bustling place. There are men standing around trying to guide you to the various private bus companies to buy a ticket so that they get a commission. We had sorted it out yesterday, so we knew the counter and time of departure. We paid an entire 18 dirhams (about $1.80) for the two hour trip. They had one of the touts show us to the bus, so our luggage stowage charge was an extra 5 dirhams for his help. Always a charge for everything in Fes.

Along the route we passed many orchards of olive trees, a shepard boy herding a flock of sheep, many fields of wheat that were being hand harvested and tied, stands along the road selling pottery, minerals and rocks, and a number of fruit orchards. The bus didn’t stop too frequently but it did stop when someone along the side of the road waved it down, or when someone asked to get off enroute.

We went though the town of Ifrane. Its claim to fame is skiing in the winter and its bigger claim to fame is an American style university taught in English. The university is based on the King’s ‘tolerant Islam’ and the acceptance of all faiths. The guys on the train had told us about it. It is expensive about 7000 USD a year to attend and prestigious in the country. They have exchange students from out of country that attend. The town looked alpine and had the standard chalet roofs one would expect in a snowy region. This looks quite different from everything else we’ve seen here. Most people were in western clothing. The landscape changed from orchards to cedar and pine to add to the sense of changing culture.

The town of Azrou is small, about 50,000 according to the guide book and a half hour from Ifrane, but from my perspective it looks closer to a town the size of 15,000. I guess people live close together here.

We met two other English speaking travelers and exchanged travel notes over mint tea while waiting out the afternoon thunderstorm. One is on his way back to the states after spending six months in Paris studying French. The other is from Austrailia, has been a cook in Scotland, saves up until he has enough money to continue traveling. He’s been to Turkey, Nepal, Thailand, Bulgaria and the list goes on. His opinion is that this is one of the tougher countries to travel in due to the constant hustling. I think he will tag along with us as we head further south.

The hustling has gone away in this town. It has a line of cafes, two internet cafes (a kid and his dad are playing Balder’s gate on the computer next to me), an electronics store, teleboutiques (for those without phones at home, or those that need to make a copy or fax), gsm phone store, and an open produce/meat market. We bought a couple of postcards from a guy that has an extended inventory of carpets if we are interested, and from the market, two apples and a newspaper cone of peanuts for our long bus ride tomorrow. This is a nice town to chill in. The big thing to do is to go out trekking from here to see the Barbary apes. We don’t have sleeping bags, so we are just passing through on our way down to the Saharan sand dunes.

It still is amazingly warm, even in these hills. We crashed for an afternoon siesta and woke up in that muggy soggy state that you end up in when it is too warm in your room. We are near the mosque, so the call to prayer in the morrning will be waking us up as the sun comes up tomorrow.

The outside of Moroccan towns are not very pretty. The life of a house goes on inside around interior courtyards and so does the decoration. It is not really possible to tell a high-end home from a low-end one from the outside. Everything has the flat roof pink, yellow or white exterior with a good layer of color changes that come with years of existence. You get a glimpse of hibiscus plants in bloom that have overgrown the courtyards, but that is about it.

The men really have a corner on holding cafe tables for mint tea, smoking and chatting. The women have a room upstairs, but we haven’t ventured in to check the upper floors. As a foreign woman, I get the luxury of sitting outside with Derrell, and I don’ get much attention and haven’t had a raised eyebrow yet. It sort of is proof that Moroccans are friendly. There isn’t a sense that you are held to their customs, but you do get a sense that they will never quite puzzle out why you would really want to sit at a cafe in the afternoon with a bunch of men. After trying out the cafe perch for the afternoon, I think they have something good going. Much better to be sipping hot mint tea in the afternoon heat than washing, cooking, cleaning and shopping.

Anyhow, it is just getting dark and a sprinkling of lights are coming on in the city. Hopefully, the rain doesn’t return and we can go on an evening stroll. There isn’t much else to do in the evening. There is no drinking which makes the streets extremely safe. Without TV, people come out on the streets enmass. And the weather is warm, so it is an excellent time to pull up a park bench and watch the evening go by. Now only if the rain stays away, mate.

The 2003 World Sacred Music Festival is different than we expected, but what isn’t in this country?

It is within walking distance from our slightly run down hotel, Hotel Batha.

Starting from the entrance… the street is gated off for foot traffic to be routed on the far side of the street and festival entrance on the other. Sort of like what you would expect for a large concert, except there are only a hundred people or so on the street, many of them police in various uniforms. And, yes, unlike what we were told at our hotel, they do sell tickets at the gate.

We hand over our tickets to be torn off to the finely dressed men in suits at the Bab Mekina arched gateway at the medieval wall, then are ushered through a metal detector complete with bag scanner. The three coins in Derrell’s pocket set off the detector causing the usual reaction you get at an airport. Everyone is very cordial and we are thinking the bomb blast in Casablanca is triggering the extra security, since there are many Europeans and upper class Moroccans here.

The concert is in the courtyard between the two arched gates and there are about six white festival tents setup similar to those at any state fair or farmer’s market. One side holds the sponsors such as TV5, the otherside has three tents selling food: the first selling sodas. (I tried a bottle of Hawai soda which is similar to Fanta but without the saccahrin aftertaste, but still mighty sweet. They have Fanta and Coca-Cola everywhere here printed in Arabic and French which make them rather interesting to inspect.) The next kiosk over had chicken or sausage or ‘meat’ with onion and cabbage on a fine baguette. (Derrell snagged one of these the second night and gave them a positive thumbs up.) And the final tent is a huge arabic tent with red rugs on the ground and hanging inside, low chairs covered with slipcovers and small tables. Waiters are serving mint tea on silver platters with ornate glasses and small silver teapots. With the warm evening air swirling about at 9pm in the evening, this has a nice feel.

We pass through another set of ushers. The women are dressed like airline stewardesses, the men in suits. The festival seating is setup theater style with a special center section of about 6 rows. Section A for about 20 Euros and a section B on a raised platform behind for about 10 Euros. There is not many people 45 minutes before it starts, so we have a complete arena of seats to choose from. Two out of three nights they had pamphlets printed about the act, one time in English, the other in French, the first night not at all… a sure sign we are in Morocco.

Folks arrive in all sorts of dress. There are women in western wear, dresses with heels, jeans and t-shirts. There are men in suits and some in jeans, only one European in shorts and he looked only slightly out of place. Backpackers in the standard needs washing and a haircut look were sprinkled throughout. And in this crowd some girls wearing Indian saris, some from asia. Basically, a complete hodge-podge of people.

It is a calm event, similar to going to the theater to watch a play at a fine theater. Large lighting scafolding and a good speaker system hover over the stage that is covered in red Moroccan rugs and ornate pillows for the musicians. The backdrop is the second gateway that they have lit with red lighting giving a good contrast with the Arabic tiles proclaiming a verse of the Koran and the pattern of green mosaic covering the archway. It is a small venue that could be easily expanded to handle more patrons if the festival ever grows in size, but currently it looks like it could hold about 1000 people.

Our first night was the highlight so far. We listened to classical Iranian music given by Mohamed Reza Shajaran singing Mystical Songs of the Persian Radif. His voice was fantastic. There were three musicians with him sitting on pillows playing classical instruments that neither Derrell or I could name, one a lute, one a string and bow, one a drum, all sounding very mystical and beautiful.

The third night we listened to Sengal drumming. This was loud and active and colorful. It felt like a lurking lion may come up from behind and join in the tribal drumming and prancing with them.

The middle day was spent getting a ride out to the Voulibus for the concert at the Roman ruins. We knew it would be a long ride, but two hours in a Land Rover with 8 others in the heat of the day with all the windows open was a bit exhausting. This is after we were expecting to be riding in the airconditioned bus. Well it was cheap, a whole 15 Euros and you get what you get. We really wished we had more time to explore the ruins, we needed at least one to two hours. Instead the Land Rover stopped at Moulay Ibiss to see if we could check out the museum. There was some issue about getting in so everyone headed back over to the Voulibus instead.

The Voulibus venue is open air roman columns with no shade. The park has a postcard stand, tea cafe and WC (my first experience with a toilet without running water). We had grabbed a large bottle of water before we left and sitting in the sun after the scorching ride were quite glad to have it. Some folks must have been thinking about cooling it down too much because halfway through the concert just as the first artist was finishing up an afternoon thunderstorm cranked up. We ran under the VIP tent until that blew over, everyone was completely soaked. So we hid behind a roman column to keep the onslaught from soaking us. I had a spare plastic bag to keep our passports and camera from getting drenched, so we survived without too much complaining. The rain stopped, but the wind kept going. They went on with the concert and my body temperature went from above boiling to chilly in the course of a few hours. It was a clammy two hour ride back. We were stopped at a police checkpoint coming back into Fez and the guy asked our nationalities. A spaniard-moroccan next to us had rolled his eyes that he had climbed in without his passport on the way out, we didn’t understand this could be an issue until we were stopped on the way back. Yet another thing to learn in this country.

So that is the World Sacred Music festival in Fes. We have one more concert tonight and are looking forward to it.. the Whirling Dirvishes of Syria. Inshallah (if God so wills).

We are here and typing on a French keyboard, so this will be short and possibly choppy.

Had one of the best meals ever last night at an amazingly decadent Moroccan restaurant. It was five or six courses with almonds, olives, wine, 7 types of various spiced vegetables (wow!), pastry stuffed with quail, tagine of free-range chicken, layered dessert of pastry and milk sauce with juicy slices of orange sprinkled with cinnamon and, of course, mint tea. This was served in a sky high mosaic and curtained room with two sets of musicians playing instruments I didn’t recognize and with waiters lurking to refill your water and wine if they should go low. Stuffed pillows and ornate woodwork everywhere. A top 10 in the restaurant experiences of life. And all while wearing travel clothes.. western wear works as long as it is clean and in good repair.

In the new portion of the towns, life goes on in a city similar enough to any other city with plenty of French to go around. It is easy to get around, and cheap, by Petit Taxi. You see folks in suits, everything closed during siesta hours except restaurants, taxis and cars driving much less erratically than in Italy and lots of folks strolling the palm tree streets searching out the cooler shady paths.

We had a guide lead us through the medina this morning. I’m not sure I can describe what I saw. It was surreal and even now a few hours later seems like my brain must have misfired. Something along the lines of (if you’ve seen Naked Lunch, they filmed it here.. and Romancing the Stone) 9000 streets of souks (shops), mosques, donkeys, live snails in baskets, live rabbits tied by their feet (poor things), freshly cut meat (blood in the gutters proves this), sellers swattinng flies away from the fish and meat laid out on stacks of cilantro, date and almond sellers, Muslim schools, regular preschools with arabic script on the black chalkboard in the room opening to the street and sellers, carvers of doors, weavers of cloth, metalwork, carpetweavers, teapots, lamps, tailors, odd musical instruments, incredible smells, the most horrible smell from the tannery (suffice it to say they use urine in the first baths of the process, a nasty business to be in), electronics, spices, museums… everything is unique and exotic and old… much of it built near the 9th century and the age really, really shows.

The people are extremely social, yet the hustlers are a hassle, many of them are kids with wickedly good English. We have 6 hours worth of stories from people that wandered in and out of our train cabin yesterday. We only had one guy try to hook us up with an unofficial guide in Fes, folks told us the guide business is way down since the govt is cracking down on unlicensed guides. We met a student studying law and will become a judge probably for commercial shipping. And of all things met a student that just produced a paper on IPSec, L2TP and PPTP and is currently reading up on WinNT security. That occupied a few hours of our train conversation.

It is very hot. We have tickets to the festival tonight to listen to Sufi music from Iran. It is in the medina and, thankfully, does not start until 9 pm when it cools down. We’ve heard nothing but positives about the festival and music, so we are looking forward to a sedate evening.

Mint tea is everywhere, and extremely sweet. We’ve only been in Morocco two nights and have had about 6 glasses of tea already. It seems to be built into breakfast, lunch and dinner. Olives and fresh squeezed orange juice are also ubiquitous (I always love it when I can use that word.)

The food is fantastic. I could go on and on and on about it. They use spices, spices and more spices. Did I tell you about the food?

Parts of the cities are stuck in the 1600’s and part in modern day. The people are nice, but everyone is out for themselves to part everyone else with money. It doesn’t feel overly directed at us. If we could speak Moroccan Arabic (a mix of French and Arabic), we would do much better on negotiations. Overall, this isn’t too annoying when you consider the exchange rate, arguing over 30 cents in a taxi just doesn’t seem worthy of the effort. The toughest part is that when you need directions (and this seems to be constantly when walking the windy streets) is to not pick up a hooligan child’s interest or any other ‘guide’ hanging around unemployed. Overly social, overly helpful and overly wanting money.. a hard combination to shake.

The world is Muslim here. Very, very Muslim. It is also very welcoming. They like Americans and other travelers from Europe. Many we have talked to have traveled to Europe a number of times. Morocco is definitely on the great places to travel right now, (but only if you don’t melt.. I’ve got long pants and long sleeve shirt on… standard dress code if you aren’t wearing a robe and veil.. which most women were in the medina… but only about half outside of the medina).

I’m almost getting the hang of this keyboard. And that is a very scary thing. Shifting to get a period (’.') is outrageous.

Arabic music is everywhere and so are cybercafes… somewhere in this building I can hear a computer game going. It warms me’heart, it’does.