Teepee For My Bunghole

 

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?

This people in Zagora are funny. This other guy told me the other that it was a little cold at night.

“When?” I asked him.

“I think at 5am in the morning,” he answered.

He was serious too! I woke up one morning at 5am. My throat was dry and raspy and I had to French kiss the bottle of water next to my bed before I could breathe in without choking on the dry air. There mght have been a slight chill in the air, or maybe, my body had dried out to a husk and I was only skin covering bones left.

This is only the beginning of summer here. In the heart of summer they probably set themselves alight to cool down. On the upside I found more roads that were tarred. They were basically short roads that joined the other two but hey, who’s complaining about the state of the roads when it’s so hot.

You never see single storey houses even though there’s loads of space. I suppose that’s so that things don’t get too far apart to walk in the heat. Gotta go, gotta find another bottle of water to French kiss.

It wouldn’t kill them to at least have fridges that actually keep beverages below room temperature. But I suppose they figure that keeping it from being burning hot is effort enough. Two more hours till my bus…

I suppose I have to put in this update. The bus to Casablanca leaves at 6pm and I had to check out of the hotel at noon so I have to deal with this midday furnace without that glorious swimming pool.

The middle of the day Zagora is basically a place where it’s so hot you can’t even think up `It’s so hot…` jokes. So I’m in this internet cafe struggling to type, struggling to think, trying to get organised and phone some language schools for job positions. It’s just so hot.

It’s lekker mense here in Zagora. They look more like Cape Flats people than the up North. You can definitely see the Algerian influence, even though the border with Algeria is closed. There is an old “42 days to Timbuctu by camel” sign here somewhere and I might even try to find if… nah, its too hot.

Should be cooler away from the desert, but I’ll miss that pool.

So I was in Marrakesh for a day or so. Djema al Feena Square is simply magic. Buzzing with people and food stalls and music and spices and fruit stalls and lot of other stalls. Buzzzzz.

Anyway I had to leave because I had to go the desert. Turns out I had to take the 1h30am bus ride to Zagora 8 hours away.

On the bus at night trying to get some sleep and but can’t really because of the turns in the road and jolting awake in the early dawn looking out the bus window straight down a 100 meter drop into the gorge!

Groggily looking around, noticing this incredible gorge and the red mountains devoid of life – fucking Mars lookalike shit – and this narrow line of a road hugging the side of the mountain. So narrow that when you overtake, or an oncoming car comes, both cars have to go slightly onto the gravel verge. The abundance of blind corners would be nerve-wracking if Moroccans didn’t drive so slow. I’m beginning to see why.

Nobody bothered to tell me I had to cross fucking mountains to get to the desert but it was a nice surprise. The desert was jas and I’m staying in Zagora a few day because I was rushing through places too much. If “nothing” was a place, Zagora would be on the edge of it. But I splurged (to all of 70Dh a night), so I have an onsuite and best of all, the hotel has a swimming pool.

Chilling at a swimming pool in the desert, I like the sound of that!

Mmm… seem to have missed talking about going into the desert on camels. Ag, I got time because that’s a post all of its own.

So Fez pretty much was just a big Medina. Its should be better once they finish renovating all the monuments and let you in. The new King is stoked for tourism and so Morocco is gearing for a 500% or more jump in people. I didn’t give Fez much chance but after one day and it started raining, I got out of there quick.

The train is a cheap, efficient and comfortable way to get around Morocco. Fez to Marrakesh is 7 and a half hour ride for 170Dh. Except for the last two hours, the scenery pretty much looked like the rolling farmlands of the Western Cape. Just replace the wine farms with orange groves (I almost said orange tree farms there), the steeples with minarets and the shacks with low cost brick housing. Oh, and a lot of donkeys. Like a kak lot.

On the window of the train it says: Issue de Secours. On the back window of a Golden Arrow bus in Cape Town it says: “In case of emergency kick out glass” or something like that. I so want to kick out that window! Even the slightest accident is going to have me charging that window. By the time I sit down in a Cape Town bus I have figured out the most efficient way to pick myself up and charge the window no matter which side the bus lands on. No one is going to beat me to that back window.

Now I think “Issue de Secours” means “Emergency Exit.” So if on the news there is a Moroccan train crash (highly unlikely; they drive real safe) and you think I’m on it and they show an aerial view, look for the cabin where the window is 100 meters from the train – that’s where I got out.

So here I am in Fez. I loved Chefchouan (it is a gem) and will go back there some time but I needed to get to the desert (from Marrakesh) before the heart of summer.

I got another little broom closet for a room but at least its cleaner than the one before. I’ll probably lie awake again thinking of “This room is so small…” jokes.

“This room is so small, if I fart it only stinks in the next room.”

“This room is so small that to turn around I have to go outside.”

“This room  is so small I open the door to change my mind.”

Fez is known for its huge medina/market that you are guaranteed to get lost in. I’m getting tired of medinas but the women are near nirvana thinking about it. Will let you know a bit more when I’ve seen something besides this grotty internet cafe.

Chefchouan is a beautifully picturesque town. Great vibe, lekker mense. The longer you’re here the better it gets as the locals start recognising you and they know you already know where restaurants and hotels are and that you don’t need to buy hash.

Everyone smokes, you can even light up in a restaurant. I spent the morning hiking up a hill to the ruins of an ancient mosque with a panorama of this town. Then hiked along the path leading through the plantations of weed. Yep, weed is a tourist attraction here, Kodak moments.

I’m enjoying staying here, it’s laid back, beautiful and the people just amazing. Nice social squares and good hiking into the mountains. I’m probably going to hang about for a couple of days and then head down to Fez. It’s the easiest way to get out of Chefchouan.

Trust me to end up in the hash heart of Morocco purely by chance. It started out when someone pointed out to that the Rough Guide’s list of 37 Things Not To Miss In Morocco has Chefchouan at number 1. So a train, a grand taxi, Meknes, two small fart towns, two bus rides later, I’m here. Even at night the final approach was pretty spectacular rounding a bend in the Rif Mountains and seeing the town lights spread across the side of a mountain and into the valley.

But I started to notice when the bra getting into the grand taxi was smoking a joint, when I got off the bus and was offered, when anyone I mentioned it to told me and, last but not least, when the guidebook talked about fields of weed, that besides being the most beautiful small town in Morocco, it’s also known for its dagga.

Terrible, I tell you, simply terrible.