Teepee For My Bunghole

So today I got some shopping out of the way. Morocco’s got some cool stuff but as always I’m contrained by how much I can afford to carry or ship.

The medina’s are great places for shopping but I have a limit to the amount I can do. Here in Kenitra you don’t need to haggle too much for the actual price, so it’s less effort.

There’s almost anything you can buy including all the Chinese knockoffs of famous makes – Nike, Adidas, Diesel, etc…

Best thing for me is to be able to see all the tailors and carpenters and weavers and caftsmen in their tiny little shops doing their thing. I love this old school artisan shit.

Yep in Casablanca and I have my Mauritanian visa. It was pretty easy to get with 200Dh, 2 passport photos and photocopy of my passport (besides the original of course). It is for one month from today, so I will effectively have 2 and a half weeks. Should be enough for a country I know nothing about.

I’ll be using the safarine malaria tablets but I still haven’t found a place to get mosquito lotion and the mosquito nets. That’s my next mission. I still need to figure out if I need any other shots. There are no other mandatory shots besides yellow fever, which I have, but I’m wondering what other vaccines are a good idea.

I also didn’t find a place that sold English guidebooks, so I payed through the hol and ordered one online from Amazon UK express delivery. I leave after it arrives; probably next week Monday.

[By the way the country Western Sahara that you see in the map I put in, hasn’t been a country since 1975 when Morocco and Mauritania took it over and split it amongst themselves. Apparently some of the locals too offence at that and there’s been some fighting but in the last few years it’s calmed down enough so that you don’t have to pass through by military convoy anymore. There are some left over mines though, so I’ll let you know if I see anyone blow up or any loose limbs lying around.]

• How much cash? Euros or Dollars? Do I need cash?
• Where to stay in Mauritania and Senegal?
• Fasting on Malaria medication.
• Find a travel clinic in Morocco
• Find the Mauritanian embassy

For travel down to West Africa… 

• Visa – Mauritania, Senegal
• Check the forums on sahara-overland.com
• Courier surfboard
• Buy Guide
• Malaria tablets
• Travel Insurance
• Mosquito net
• Sandals
• Flights: Morocco-Senegal; Senegal-London; London-anywhere

That last one is just in case something good shows up. It would be nice to be able to use my Morocco to London BA flight that I have.

I am almost at my self-imposed deadline for organising visa for Morocco. So its time to start planning and I think I’m going south into West Africa. I’ll try to extend my current visa so that I can stay in Morocco till after Ramadaan, but if I don’t get that right I’m leaving in the next two weeks. Travelling while fasting should be the opposite of fun but I’m just going to have to do it.

I was a bit skeptic on the whole idea of going to Mauritania and Senegal but then came across a website that stoked me. It was the first website I checked, and I only read the first page, but I’m stoked nonetheless.

The other day I went to the butcher to buy some lamb chops. The butchery here is slightly different from back home, especially since back home I was a vegetarian. [A vegetarian that ate fish. A piscatarian you might call it or a fishetarian or a seafood veggie or … I’ll just stop right there before I get really silly and say that back home I didn’t eat chicken or meat. Mostly.]

Anyway its interesting to see the meat being cut from the carcass and then chopped up into, well, chops. I was wondering if back home they chop it up by hand as well or if they use a machine. But then back home the carcass doesn’t hang over the counter, especially when the counter is facing onto the street. I shit you not.

You would think that being an ex-sorta vegetarian (for the sake of brevity let’s all just assume we all know what I mean when I use the word “vegetarian” from now on) that seeing the meat cut from the carcass would freak me out. But I’m not one of those vegetarians that does it because of ‘the poor animals’ or any of that crap, I do it for health reasons.

Eating snails that first time (long ago in Casablanca) was a bit queasy because after eating a few I started to realise that they have faces and that turns me off a bit. The other time was when I was here in Mehdia and someone dropped off a packet of small pigeon-like birds, I think it was quail, with feathers on and everything. Almost still looked alive. Sure enough later that day there was a stew of small bird with sultanas and mielies. It tasted delicious.

Yeah so its Ramadaan. I thought things were quiet before but now it’s a ghost town. The Moroccan schedule is to sleep really late in the mornings, do whatever they need to in the afternoon, break their fast with a meal of various treats and harira (soup), rest/go to mosque/smoke, then eat meal later and stay up till very late (I think till dawn for most people but I’m not sure). I’m trying to adjust but I keep wanting a meal when everyone else is chilling and walking around when no one’s about.

The first night I broke my fast with a friend’s (Youssef) family and it was cool especially because, since it was the first night, lots of their family pitched up out. Drank soup till it came out of my gills and basically ate lots of the delectables. Then came the rest time and when the guys went off to mosque, we went off to watch Barcelona versus Valencia (good match) at a friend’s place. After we went back for the meal of fish tajine. All in all a good experience of good food and good people.

Mostly though I break my fast at the school with Youssef. We have dates and crackers and drinks and whatever we feel like and then later the night make a meal. I’m starting to learn how to make food – even if it’s just to get the cooking started at an earlier time (before I fall asleep). Luckily Youssef is quite a good chef, he even studied it for a bit. Morrocans ingredients and way of doing things is all slightly different to back home, so its all quite a buzz. It’s a trip, I tell you.

Okay I am still here and loving it. It is the heart of summer so everything is buzzing and there is waves everyday. A lot of Moroccans living overseas are back here on holiday with their families and the vibe is just mal.

Too busy to write much because I just came from the South African Embassy in Rabat where I got a document authorised and have to get back to Mehdia for high tide. So if you do not hear from me for a while it is because I am having a jas time. I will try to post some pics soon though, it is just so hard to be constructive.

So I’m back in Morocco. Not a bad first morning. When I woke up this morning, I heard Meera in the kitchen of the surf school. Nora is normally the lady who looks after the place but they bring Meera in when there is a big meal to be prepared and she always makes sure there is food around. So I got a typical Moroccan breakfast including the mint tea and the freshly squeezed orange juice just before I went off to surf and chill on the beach. When I got back I had lunch and went back to sleep. Not really in the mood to be constructive.

Switzerland was really relaxing and I still can’t thank Shaheed and Fatie enough for their hospitality. Everyone remarks (actually more like hand signals) on how dik [thick] I got. And how my tan is gone. And how big my hair is. Moroccans aren’t really tactful.

My last night in Switzerland was pretty weird because the tannie [lady] next door invited us for tea but because Fatie was sick, Shaheed had to look after the kids and I ended up having tea alone with an 83 year old granny who couldn’t speak English. We got by though and I got to see the inside of a Swiss home at least. She gave me some cake that was kak sour; like really fucken sour. I told her that I had eaten a big supper and wouldn’t be able to finish the cake. Then I tried to figure out how I was going to eat a couple of more bites while keeping a straight face. So when she went to the next room to fetch some photos I took my gap and bit a huge chunk.

I know what you’re thinking but there was nowhere to dump the shit because Swiss keep their houses so neat and the shutters closed. So I figured I had to get it over and done with while I could pull a face. When she came back in the room, my eyes were tearing but I think I managed to keep a straight face. She put down the album and started to eat her piece. She poured sugar on it first. It was then that I realised what she had been telling me in French when she gave me the cake. It wasn’t too bad once I poured sugar all over the cake.

Okay, so I got my Morroccan visa a couple of days ago. Its for 2 months so I have to extend it by some means when I get to Morocco.

Its also valid for 2 entries so I can leave and come back into Morocco. Maybe even Mauritania if I don’t get my shengen visa.