Morocco Day 5: Braving “Mount Puke-ed”
The day dawns beautifully and most people are going to go on a walk through the valley after breakfast before we need to leave around 10. However, D’s international blackberry started working and given a choice of exercising my fat backside or checking email, I checked email. it had been about 6 days since I’d checked and I was started to get the shakes. Reception was dodgy and we found it would suddenly kick out unless you moved somewhere else in the room. The toilet was an especially good spot at getting reception.
We left the valley, stopped at a place that specializes in selling rose stuff (essence of rose oil, first generation rose water, or something like that), then began another day of driving. The roads were utterly nauseating and Thomas nicknamed the road “Mount Puke-ed”. I don’t usually get car sick, but despite 2 dramamines, I had to move to the front of the van so I wouldn’t vomit. Part of it is the switch-backs, and part of it is the fact you climb and fall in huge altitudes within short periods of time. We also had a bit of an incident where some in the car felt the driver was driving recklessly and told him so. The driver didn’t speak English well, but knew what “driving crazy” meant and he pulled over and go out of the car he was so pissed off. Eventually he cooled off and came back and we were on the road again.
There seemed to be two fronts on the driving issue. One group who adamantly felt he was riding the brakes and going to lead to the death of us all, and another group who felt he was a perfectly fine driver and the road just sucked. Several of those who felt the latter had their heads somewhat ripped off by the group who felt the former, so that sentiment wasn’t openly discussed much. I was in the front seat and didn’t notice anything amiss, but it may have been something you could only feel if you were in the back.
Finally finally, we get to Marrakesh. We’re split into two Riads because we can’t all fit into one. Unfortunately, this Riad had been under construction when JBT checked it out some time ago and they never saw the finished product. My and D’s room was great, and we both had one of the best night’s sleep we’d had in a long time. The morning proved that this was not quite the case for everyone, however…
Tags: Africa, Dades Valley, Marrakesh, Morocco, Travel
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