PACE

I woke up this morning, had a stretch and ah, a morning yawn and..

Walked out of my riad – you stay one more night? No, I check out today – 12 o’clock. D’accord. Merci, Au revoir.

I walk out and up the narrow road towards the main street leading to Jemaa Al Fna. Round the corner past a few ladies, covered in the Islamic gear. Head down to meet Calif and Abdul for breakfast.

The street is narrow and stone. Shops on either side are small, maybe 6 or 8 feet across and packed with goods. I pass a butcher and a fruit stand. People on small mopeds go by and people shrink up next to the walls to let them pass.

I’m going to meet Abdul and Calif, two guys I met the other day who are studying English at a language school here. They live here in Marrakech and have dreams of getting out to America. These guys love America and especially the rap music. ‘I need to get to America, you know homie?’ ‘P. Diddy, he was here, you know? I tell you the truth homie! He spends 1 million dollars for one night, he had a HUGE party in one of our palaces. He brought all the laides, He is a true pimp, belive me homie, you can google it , i tell you.’ Awsome.

I met these guys walking down the street where I live and at first thought they were the typical touts that just try to get you into the shops, but it turns out that these guys are halarious and just real cool people. They want so much to give us a good image of Morocco.

Yesterday we took a ride with them up to the mountians and hiked up this mountain through a series of waterfalls. Calif’s family was from there, so he knew the area. We were about an hour and a half outside of Marrakech. After the hike we ate Tagine and grilled chicken kababs, sat around and drank tea and chilled.

Getting back to town we went to an Herbalist where we picked up this black soap to go to the Hammam, the public bath.

The Hammam was really awsome. For about 1 dollar, you get in there and walk into a 3 room area. Increasing in strength, almost like a steam bath. There are all these Moroccan guys in there (in bathing suits) washing up with buckes and these gloves that are for scrubbing the skin.

So we get in there and there is a whole process to this place. We have 4 large buckets. First we fill them up and slosh the tile floor, the whole place is tile and really hot inside. Then we sat down and chill and sloshed some water over us to wash off. Then we rubbed this black soap all over us and once again relaxed for a minute. The stuff takes a while to set in.

After its set in we rinse off again then exit for a rest, because its too hot in there. Then after a few minutes go back inside. Abdul tells Oscar, the Mexican guy from Cali, to lay down on the floor. He then puts on this black glove thing and starts scrubbing him down. I have to leave because again its too hot.

When I go back in I lay down and Abdul lays into me with this black exfoliating scrub thing. He basically scrubbed my whole body front and back then rinsed me off with a few buckets of hot water. When in Rome…

After that we went to rinse with buckets of hot water, then mixing in some cold water, then finished off with buckets of cold water. Sitting in this hot steam room and rinsing with these buckets of cold water, it was so good.

I would have never had this experience of walking into this public bath place on my own. No way. It was such a cool experience though. This is daily life (or actually 2x a week life) for the people here. I got to experience what they do, the real people. I still get these moments of awe where I realize where I am and what I’m doing, and how far outside of the life I was living these experiences are.

I meet Abdul and Calif for breakfast, OJ and omlette and some bread. We’re going to meet at noon and head to Casablanca to stay with Calif’s brother and ‘cook some chickens, they are cheap homie! only 20 dirhams, we’ll cook so many chickens, ya , I tell you!’

‘You have to wake up and stop kidding yourself. Travelling around 15 countries or something. You have to settle down, be near to your mother and father, find a nice wife. I tell you.’
-Abdul

‘Konto Atajawalo Hawla Al Alam’ (‘I was travelling around the world’ – in Arabic)

The night before that we went out to an underground place that serves beers after hours. We smoked the cheecha, which is fruit tobacco or something like that. We chilled there all night and listened to the Moroccan music. Calif and company got us in and for free.

On my way to pack up my bag and meet everyone in the square. Get some train tickets and head to Casablanca.

Salaam Walechem.

Walking through the main square of Marrakech, Jemaa El Fna, I am blasted with color, sound, and a beehive of activity. There are snake charmers coaxing up cobras with flutes and drums yelling and singing, attracting a crowd. People gather round to see whats going on.

There is a crazed looking man in the center yelling and dancing around with a knife in his hand and a pile of snakes in the ground in front of him. A few cobras have their hoods up and behind them are about 4 or 5 other men banging drums or playing something that look like flutes.

There are stands of fresh orange juice vendors lined up one way, for 3 dirhams ( about 35 cents) you get a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. Next to them are fruit and nut stands, with piles of fresh fruits and nuts. Walnuts and some other nuts I’ve never seen, apricots, dates, and figs are all piled up. You get a huge mixed bag for about 4 dollars.

So this is a huge square bustling with activity and opening up into a huge market selling rugs, shoes, clothing, spices, and all sorts of other things. As you walk by people try to talk to you ‘Bonjour mon amie’ Hello my friend. Please come inside, what do you like? There are alot of people that just try talk to you to get you to buy stuff, or to lead you to their store or their friends store. I got taken into a tannery where they had pits dug into the ground filled with skins and different mixes to soften or color the skins. One second your walking down the street and the next second your walking over a mangy dog on a the communal lot of tannery families.

I wake up alone at 5 30 am. Im in Southern Spain. Its August already. I’ve been travelling for about nine months. Living out of a backpack. I havent shaved in about a week, but I dont have any cares, so this bothers me not.

I grab a taxi to the bus station and get my ticket. Two hours later I’m in Algeciras, the southern tip of Spain and entry point into North Africa. I walk to my friend Freddy’s house, who I stayed with the last time I was in Algeciras, but he isnt home. I duct tape a note to his door that says I’m going to Tanger and I’ll be back in a few days.

I walk to the port and make the typical travellers mistate. I buy my ferry ticket from a travel agency – one of the many lining the street to the port. ALWAYS buy tickets direct. The actual port sells tickets for alot less than these guys, just like bus stations always sell cheaper than small agencies. Rookie mistake, but oh well. I’m still on my way to Morocco.

I chill in the back corner of the cafe with my feet up on a chair, watching the people. Alot of Morccans speaking French. French is the second language, Arabic being the other. I dont have a place to stay in Tanger, but I have the names of a few hostels if the overnight train to Marrakech is all booked up. If the train is full and I can’t find a place to say, I can grab a ferry back to Spain and stay in Algeciras. My escape route is fully formed.
We pull into Tanger and as I’m going exit (sortie -brushing up on my French) the port, 2 people approach me and ask me if I speak English. Indeed I do. 2 people from Cali, they want to know if I have a place to stay or know whats going on. I tell then that I dont have a place, but I know whats going on.
They follow out of the port and on a whirlwind tour of Tanger.

A driver took us around to all the major spots- the rock of Hercules, the med side of the ocean, the atlantic side, and the point at which the 2 oceans meet. After than he dropped us near the Kasbah, the old part of town and some guy I thought he was a scammer showed us all around. He called himself the ‘Mickey Mouse’ of Tanger. He turned out to be a good guy.

Alot of people seemed to know him. Walking buy people would yell out -Hassan! then tell us ‘you’re in good hands.’ So I find myself sipping mint tea and getting show hand woven carpets and different goods. We walked all through the old section of town, through the local markets, and to some vistas. This took a couple hours and we were being shown around to places I never would have found on my own, at least not in 1 day.

The overnight train was not sold out and left Tanger at 9:30 pm.

I wake up in the morning at about 8 am. Been wearing the same clothes for about 3 days. The view out the window is like watching a movie. There is a huge hill/mountain in the background and different layers of hills coming closer. The contrast makes the hills in the back appear to hardly move, and the closer hills to zoom by. It looks really strange, the colors of the ground almost sand colored, but not sand.

After looking around a bit and winding through these narrow streets, we grab a place for 50 dirham a night – about 6 dollars. Inside is a square with the centered hollowed out. The center goes put 3 floors to the roof and the rooms overlook the opening. I grab a shower and wash the grime off. I realize that after you wash off the filth, thats all you’ve done. I’m ready to see Marrakech.