Teepee For My Bunghole

Yeah. So it’s been four days since I’ve written but it feels like forever. The festival has been a cauldron of people and music and missioning through crowds and incredible music mixed with cheesy music mixed with high energy dancing with people and snatches of sleep and grabbing bites on the go and home-cooked meals.

Intense. Fucking intense.

So during the festival I was looking for something surreal to beat the Moroccan rasta freestyling in Arabic from my first night in this town. Rachid Taha, the Algerian rock star that looks like he is one of the Rolling Stones was a contender, but then the reggae/heavy metal group (yes – heavy metal and reggae don’t seem like to opposites to this band) at a 4am sunrise was definitely more arb. But the winner will have to be the light coloured camels carrying people along the water’s edge at night past us listening to Moroccan hip hop on the beach. The white skins shining from the lights of the beach against the dark sea and sky will have to be some of the surrealist shit ever. Ever.

To give you some idea of what the festival schedule was, the concerts start at about 3pm at the smaller venues and going till 8pm. The larger venues start from about 7pm till midnight when the small venues start again till about 3h30am (fajr). After that the crowds drift off to the beach (which started at 8pm) where the last show starts at 3am and carries on till about 5am. That’s when I would usually try and get some shut eye.

In between I also spent half a day with some really cool guys from Essaouira – swimming, braaing (grilling) sardines, drinking tea – on the rocks next to the bastions behind the port. Good times, good people.

Now I need to rest. Staying in Essaouira one day longer than I thought because all the easy ways of leaving (i.e. Supratour or CTM busses) are full and I don’t smaak to mission plus I might get in a longboard surf tomorrow.

So this place is starting to buzz for the festival. Rastas and hippies, tourists and locals, people and more people. Energy, vibe, anticipation.

My first night here I got a taste of Gnawa music. I ended up in the back of a cafe with some Moroccans and the Scottish who are staying in the catacombs with me. It was after the cafe was closed and the guys working there turned out to be pretty good musicians but also fetched a friend who was brilliant on the guitar. Another rastaman was also excellent at drumming on the table and freestyling ragga. It was fucking cool hanging out playing music, drinking tea and talking kak in broken English, French and Arabic.

The festival starts tonight and continues till Sunday. I’ve not planned who and what I’m going to watch since I don’t know many of the artists. I figure I’ll just go with the flow.

I’m in Essaouira now which in down the coast in south of Morocco. Known for windsurfing but I’m here of course for the music festival. Ironically I’ve moved further away from Europe but this place is more European than the North. Apparently the south is like that – a European version of what I’ve been seeing.

It’s kind of expensive here and the ‘cheap’ place I’m staying at is twice as expensive as the other places I’ve been. Still pretty cheap compared to other countries though. Anyway, you have to see this spot. Its affectionately called The Cave but to me it’s more like catacombs painted blue. A creative real estate agent would market it as: “A cosy little hideaway in the old medina of Essaouria, close to the heart of the city. Open plan with lots of character and colour.”

If you actually pay attention to what my plans were, I was supposed to work my way slowly down the coast to where I am now. What happened was that I got stuck in Mehdia because I was enjoying myself, but a bra there knew a bra and I managed to get a lift with a very Cape Town looking ou straight down to Essaouira. The guy didn’t speak English so it was a very contemplative drive. Nonetheless, he was cool and we overnighted with some cool brasse of his in Marrakesh on the way down.

When I got here I had the number of another bra, Kabir, that someone had given me, and I phoned him and he hooked me up with a bed in the Cave. The vibe in the Cave seems cool – I’m meeting the other mense later. It’s kinda weird living dorm-style again after having a room to myself for so long.

Mmm, seems like my first options for working in Morocco aren’t working out so I have to start looking at what my options are:

• Extend my holiday visa for Morocco (finding someone to tell me how is proving kak difficult)
• Get a post teaching English (for little to no money) in Morocco and get a resident’s permit (though finding how to apply for a resident’s permit is proving kak difficult)
• Get a shengen visa through the Norwegian embassy (unlikely but I’m going to try)
• Teach English somewhere else (Korea, Saudi, Thailand)
• Work in IT in the middle east (I don’t smaak this though)
• Go to some country (Switzerland, Brazil, England) to just chill and get a visa for returning to Morocco on holiday
• I’m sure there’s more options

I’m missioning on most of these options but there’s so many factors that nothing seems to be going anywhere. Bureacracy is unintelligible here in Morocco so it’s hard to get things done or even figuring out what I need to do. It’s even harder when you spend most of your time watching football and lying on the beach.

So here’s the river that flows from Kenitra next to Mehdia. Normally you surf along the couple of kilometres of beach to the left (where Mehdia Plage is, the beautiful barrelling right is just next to the left pier though) but when it gets too big (5 meters) you surf inside the river at the bottom left of this picture ) where it should be a perfect 2 meters.

Over the last couple of days the wind has been south, so apparently even though its onshore here, there should be perfect waves at Slimane. The problem is that you have to paddle across the river with the current trying to push you out and dodging the ships going to the sardine factories further upstream. Some people claim it’s a 6 minute paddle but later admit it’s about 20 minutes. I’ve rather been surfing the onshores, dodging fucking ships is not my idea of a good time.

Surfers are a nutty bunch and sure enough there’s fuckers who do this mission for waves. How they must feel paddling back I don’t know.

I’ve been running to the toilet a lot over the last couple of days but I’m over that now. I had something that didn’t agree with me that first day in Mehdia but I’ve been eating lots anyway because sometimes the guys pop over to the place I’m staying at and cook. Everyone cooks really well around here so I’ve had some fantastic food. Much better than at the cafes.

I rented a bed in this house but its crazy because they gave me a key and I’m alone there at night so its basically like my own spot. The house has rooms and beds to rent and is a chill out spot for clients and friends of the Mehdia Surf school though its off season for them now. Summer season (July, August) it gets really busy and the surf season is October to December. So there’s lots of surf movies and magazines and posters and everybody in and out during the day. I love it. I find it hard to believe I’m in Morocco sometimes, at times I feel like I’m on an island somewhere.

I need to go to a music festival in the south next week but I wish I could chill out here more. I might come back after the summer depending on how plans go. For surfers I’m trying to get some info on the surf scene and put together an article for you ouens to make yous wys of this duidelike spot. We’ve been missing out. And I’m surfing in baggies.

I’ve managed to watch some football in the cafes along the beach. So far I’ve watched games with German, French and Arabic commentary. No chance of English. And I must be dreaming if I think I’m going to watch a rugby game anytime soon.

Yessus I missed the ocean. Almost as much as hot showers. I got both today and I’m deliciously tired from it. The surf here is small and the wind picked up this afternoon but swell is expected!

I’m staying with the guys at Mehdia Surf School and they’re a cool bunch. Mehdia Plage is a little seaside town outside a little seaside town. Kenitra being the bigger neighbour has about 300 000 people. Mehdia Plage will surprise me if it has 10 000 people.

Anyway, surf here gets BIG (note the capital letters, that means really big, like gigantic and stuff) and I’m digging the surfer vibe so I’m gonna chill for while here. There’s only one internet cafe here (which is kak unusual for Morocco) so don’t expect much updates.

Getting here was a bit of a mission since all I had was an address that I though was i Kenitra. So I had to mission at night to here to find that the hostel almost no one knows about was closed. Luckily one of the 10 guys along the way who helped me turned out to be (beside the bodyboard/speedbump champion of Morocco) quite helpful. He works at the surf school and got his boss out of bed to rent me a place to sleep.

I think I’m going to have a siesta and then another hot shower. Ya, that sounds good right now.

 

This is taken in Moulay Idriss. The kids are sitting at one of those fountains (usually just changed to taps and usually not working) that you see everywhere. The condition of the mosaic is still pretty good on this fountain.

I’ve got a Flickr account now and will be updating it with pics now and then. It lets me put posts across like the one you are reading now and you can click on the pic to view it in a larger format and to check my other pics.

So I’m halfway through a day mission from Meknes. Just got to Moulay Idriss from Volubilis – the Roman ruins. It was from around 3 BC. I’m not too hot on history but I scheme that’s a bit before my time.

Now I’m in Moulay Idriss because taxis don’t go between Volubilis and Meknes. I have to make a move soon because there’s no transport to Meknes after 3 and Moulay Idriss has no tourist facilities. Mainly because non-Muslims up to a couple of years ago were not allowed to overnight. In fact, until recently they didn’t allow non-Muslims into the town at all. Hectic.

I arrived expecting to find an inbred hole in the wall town but it looks surprisingly like a good place to chill. Nice modern-looking square to lounge around and great scenic views as the town’s on the side of a hill. Apparently there’s also the actual mausoleum of Moulay Idriss somewhere (the bra who fought off the various colonialists and formed the ‘current’ Morocco kingdom) as well at the only cilindrical minaret in Morocco but I doubt I could be bothered to go find those.

Be nice if I could see them beat up a non-Muslim though. Just kidding.

So after 12 hours in a bus (Zagora to Casablanca) and 3 hours on a train, I’m back in Meknes where I left my surfboard with the lovely obliging Jillian. Now that I’ve done the interior I can start hugging the coast as I slowly make my way down to the Essouira music festival.

I’m staying at a dodgy dusty youth hostel where the guys don’t seem to want business. I’m looking for another place but nothing seems cheap and good in Meknes. I’ll check the spots in the medina tomorrow.

Today I had a cheese burger and chips and wandered around the Meknes’ city nouvelle. Every Moroccan city has the new and old part and, after so much time in the desert and in the medinas of Fes and Marrakesh, I figured I deserved some city slicking. Always gotta keep balanced ya know.

Things I’ve lost so far:

• sunglasses 
• jeans
• the new sunglasses
• towel
• handtowel
• guidebook
• the password of my internet banking

Nothing too serious yet, though I’m finding it a bit hard without the guidebook (I have hopes of getting it back from the bus company) since there’s not much like “Tourist Information” here. I also bartered off my old sandals for a turban.

Oh, did I mention that the bus broke down and had to be repaired and that I got on the wrong train and that by the time I got to Meknes I felt like a sticky rag doll?