Dublin to Morocco

So……Left off at the end of London visit.  I´m not feeling too well right now due to heat exhaustion and possibly Spain´s tap water, so bare with me if I sound out of it or don´t make any sense.  I´m doing a city by city deal since there was so much to say.  So for Morocco, I´m doin Marrakesch in this one and I´ll post others every other day after…..like you care…but I´m important.

Laura and I went to see Bruno at the theater down the street form our hostel in London.  It had it´s funny moments, the Brits thought it was halarious.  I thought he would be more daring.  It seemed liked a lot of old hat, but the sight of a penis pointing at you and screaming “Bruno!” was priceless.  I bought a giant candybar the size of my head and ate almost all of it….got a little nautious and gave it to the New Zealander in our room.   The day of our departure to Morocco we pretty much sat around at the hostel.  Ordered some food, ate it.   Some middle eastern guy walked in with a turbin….I believe it´s called that, on his head.  He was kinda scary.  He seen me staring at him.  He walks over.  Asked me if I wanted to wear it. Nervously I agreed.  We switched hats.  I looked like a ” terroist” and he looked like a tanned John Balushi in The Blues Brothers.  He then showed me a 666 tattoo on his arm for some reason I´m unaware of.  I smiled and nodded thinking to myself  ” please leave”.   The energy about this guy vibed to me that he is the cause of violent episodes in many small bars across London.  He left. Thank god.  There is a picture of me in the pics with a look that describes. Actually no….those pics aren´t up yet.

Hop on the bus and head to the airport where we sit and wait for ten hours.  I didn´t really want to sleep so I decided to order some coffee at the airport cafe.  I wanted the Mocha and upon ordering I noticed underneath the Mocha heading it said “the long dark one¨.   I told the young man standing behind the counter this and he laughed.  He never noticed it before.  He gave me the Mocha  “here´s your long dark one”.   I think he was hitting on me.  Underneath the expresso it stated “the small strong one”.  It´s the motion in the ocean.  Although long dark one probably better describes a turd.  And the small strong one: a midget.

We board the plane.  I was a little nervous about Morocco.  All the horror stories I had read and heard about Morocco was seeping into my conciousness.  Streets filled knee deep in horse shit, constant harrassment, gang rape, machete slicing……etc.  Anyway.   Looking at Africa from the plane….”where the hell are we going?”   We circle Marrakesch for about twenty minutes because they only had one landing and taking off strip.  We land, get through customs, cash out the atm, and outside to the seven or so taxis waiting for us like prostitutes with a heroin problem.  “One hundred fifty durham to city center¨ …..”NO”    “One hundred”   ¨NO”        We got him down to fifty durham but he wanted us to share with some other people and put our bags in his trunk….fuck that.  The bus was twenty durham.  Hopped on that and headed to all holy filth.

The smell is what hits you first of all the places in Morocco we went.  It is not just one smell.  Take all the nastiest smells you´ve smelled mixed with some pleasant ones and there you have it.  Morocco.  Horseshit, piss, dead carcass of some kind?, olives, meat, hashish, vomit maybe,  humid vaginal secretion, dick cheese,  and spices of various sorts, body ordor.  It was a lot to take in at first, but eventually you get used to it.  I´ve come to like the smell of horseshit.   When I lived in Michigan we lived out in the middle of nowhere behind a cow farm used to supply the local milk.  I learned to love that smell.    Anyway.  We got a little turned around trying to find our hostel cause the supposed alleys they called streets were kinda tricky.  Found hostel, had some mint tea and headed out to the city markets and souks.  By the way, they speak French, Arabic, Spanish, Berber, English and other languages in Morocco.  Most Moroccans speak at least four or five languages.  Pretty impressive.  So…  I decided to stay away from French other than ¨Merci”, which means thank you.  My ears like the sound of Arabic better.  A little spanish here and there.  Throughout this trip I learned some key phrases to survive in Morroco:  Chukran-thankyou,  Barracha!-enough, Cous amo- I curse the place from which you come…..in other words..fuck your mother´s cunt.  Ahem.          No laham- no meat, but that was more for Laura, cause I´ll eat any meat.  I wanted to try some brains but the twenty or so flies crawling all over them kinda changed my mind.

Moroccan cities all have Medinas.  Medinas are a huge square where they have shops and restaurants and snake fights, boxing matches, monkeys, swindlers, henna ladies, folklore, and various stalls to serve traditional Moroccan foods…..all in all, many people trying to rip your sorry polite ass off.  Did I mention it was about one-hundred degrees……it was dry heat so it wasn´t as bad as it sounds..but….one hundred is one hundred.  We heard rumors that it was even passed that, more near one-twenty.  We checked out the medina.  Definately shocking at first.  Came to the snake tent where they were playing there snake charmers music.  They were setting up for a snake fight where one of the snakes end up dead in the end.  But we were standing there too long and got bored.  I love snakes.  We met a guy in Prague who had gone to Marrakesch and said he was robbed at snake point.  For one-hundred durham.  I wouldn´t have had a problem.  I am not in the least bit afraid of reptiles…..except Comodo Dragons because they are fast, have razor sharp teeth and just a knick of their saliva can kill you very quickly because of all the bacteria in their mouths.  Anyway….if he would have shoved a poisnonous snake in my face and requested money then I would have just ripped it out of his hands and slapped him in the balls with it.  Not so charming now, are we, Mr. Snakeman?

We head to the monkey station where a couple of men walked around with a chain tied around a monkey´s neck.  I was apprehensive at first, I heard stories of these guys training their monkies to rob your pockets.  How great would that be.  Just sit at home and send your monkey out to the public so he can rob´em and bring you the goods.  We both got pictures with the monkey.  It was sitting on my shoulder chewing something that looked and smelled like shit jerkey.  Afterward the man maid the monkey do a flip by pulling on the chain and making a circle motion with his arm.  Of course the damn monkey is gonna flip,  hmmm, either get choked or flip, which one?  Most of the animals in Morocco looked malnurished.  Even the horses.  They were ancy.  There are tons and tons of cats there.  They are the most miserable, dreadful looking cats I have ever seen.  I remember seeing one that was missing an eye.  One walked by us very slowly thinking about suicide.  One looked like a kitty pancake.  There were so many of them I was sure that they were being eaten.   You´d probably have to skin about ten of them to get a decent meal.

We walked around a bit more.  Seen a woman witha black eye, staring straight ahead.  Seen another one with two black eyes staring straight ahead.  Most guys there did not even acknowledge Laura´s presence.  She´d come out of a store ” can you please go in there”.  I was surprised to see so many tourists dressing very seductive.  I´m sure they got there share of harrassment.  The men´s way of harrasing was a “sssssssssssssss”.  Creepy sounding as hell. I was kinda jealous they weren´t doing it to me though.  ssssssssssssssssexayyy!

We stopped and got something to eat at a Cafe De France…or  Fwwrooonce.  Laura went to the bathroom while we waited for our food.  Across from us was a construction site type thing with a bunch of tubes and plastic and brick just lying there.  All of a sudden about fifteeen scraggly dogs all at once came running out of the tubes barking at people, marking their territory.  I fisted a fork just in case.  I quickly thought about where I would stab first, the eye.  “come on Cujo, time to die!”  A couple of minues later a one of them was yelping loudly but no once could see which one until he walked out of the pile limping. Walked around the medina again to see how it was at night.  I stopped and got henna of a scorpion on my forearm.  It looked good, real good.   We headed in for the night and I fell asleep on my forearm…smeared it a bit and got black henna all over my other hand and all over the pillow.   In Morroco the people don´t use toilet paper, well most don´t,  they use their left hand.  So it is impolite to shake or do anything with your left hand.  I scrubbed my  left hand until the color was no longer black, but yes, shit brown.  It looked like I had shoveled my ass and didn´t wash my hand for about a week.  I was fitting in already.

Laura took a shower not knowing that you had to pop the plug from the bottom of the shower to let the water drain.  She flooded the room.  Not just the bathroom, but the whole room.  She busted out of the bathroom door stark naked.  “Shit!”……”Fuck”    We tried asking the receptionist for some help but he wanted no part of it.  The room across from us did the same thing the day before.  You´d think they would put a sign up, but I believe they like to see us scurrying around looking for anyway to soak the water up.  It was hot and humid in the room and now it smelled of mold from the towels used to mop up the water.  We laughed for a minute.  Got dressed and headed out.

Took a walk through the souks.  A souk is basically a huge section of mazes filled with merchants of all types of goods.  From an old solo unwashed sock to houkas to clothes and jewelry.  1989 t.v. anyone?  In the souks one haggles.  “How much for this?”     “One hundred-eighty durham, vawy guude pryce” .   You haggle him down to one quarter the price and if he doesn´t accept then you pretend like you are walking out of the store.  It´s funny how fast they agree to your price.   As you walk down the souks many merchants come up to you and try and get you in there store.  You can´t even look at something without being asked.  I learned to fixate a straight stare, but after a while you get tired of it and start fucking with them.  Moroccans have a great sense of humor.  They really take nothing to heart.  “What are you looking for my friend?”   ” I lost my camel.”

The streets were filled with donkies, carriages, cars, bycyclists, mopeds, trucks, and cats.  Chaos.  Laura got hit by a scooter, but she was ok.  Headed out after a nap to get something to eat and to escape our humid room, turned the corner on a main street fille with crowds of people.  Yelling and screaming and pushing people…it was fun though. You could see smiles on many peoples faces at how crazy it was.  I felt a full hand squeeze my whole ass cheek.  “Why the hell is Laura grabbing my ass?”……  a couple more squeezes later I turned to my right to see Laura with a look of shock on her face standing on her tippy toes looking behind her, “I´m getting mauled back here”.   I went into protector mode and got in the guys faces behind her  ” Don´t fucking touch  her¨   He looked embarrassed and put a finger to his lips for me to keep quiet.  I pulled Laura in front of me so they could no longer touch her.  A minute later I realised they were trying to pick pocket us.  Horrible pick pocketers.  If I was to dip in on someones pocket I sure as hell would not squeeze there whole cheek.   No wonder they are so poor.  I felt violated but then I felt ripped off cause I wasn´t aware of the situation…..I could have taken advantage my free cheap thrills.

We came upon a crowd of people circling a young boy and a young girl.  I felt bad for the boy, she would have pulverized him, she looked pissed.  She kept making sad faces and acting as if she was worried so poeple would throw more money into the pile before the fight.  It never happened.  She made the money she was supposed to make and walked away after twenty minutes of standing there.  An old pedophile looking whiteman was standing in the crowd and was dishing out money to show how generous he was to all the young prostitute boys.  It´s a common thing in Marrakesch.

The Moroccan people live off of tourism.  They feed off the vulnerabilty and fear of those who don´t know what the fuck they are doing or too polite to say no.  A kid just walked up to another old pedophile whiteman and stuck his hat out upside down.  The man fumbled around in his pockets looking nervous and stupid.  What a pity.

I don´t know what it is, but the Moroccan peeps loved touching me.  We´d have a whole group together walking and the kids would hold their hands out for a shake.  They would say “rasta” because of my mohawk.  Old ladies and men would pat me on the back and grab my arm.  One guy passed me up, had more than enough room to walk but insisted on grabbing my arm tightly and massaging it  “pardon”.  Weird.   I needed a fresh shave so as we passed a sketchy hole in the wall barber shop I decided why not.  Of course I had to haggle a bit….Laura actually did it for me…women are better hagglers in muslim countries cause the men don´t expect it, and Laura is a very forceful woman.  Got my hair cut…had a good time.  The guy had three teeth….all three were gold.  Grillz….Walked around a bit more…Laura got hissed at, I hissed back.   I started to loosen up a bit and found myself jumping in front mopeds to fuck with them…they just laughed.   I was constantly asked if I wanted hashish.  ¨good smoke my friend…hashish?….vawry gude pryce”  No thanks.  A common practice the dealers do is sell you some hashish and then threaten to  turn you into the cops unless you gave up some dinero.   Sometimes I would get sarcastic replies like  “that´s whack man” or “awwwwessoooome!”

Our hostel was adjoined with a company that did Sahara excursions which included camel riding and berber villages and gorges, a free night stay in a hotel, and constant stops to tourist traps.  We decided to take the three day two night tour.  Why not.

Next day we pretty much just walked around a lot.  Everyday we got up, walked around,ate, took nap, walked around, ate….sleep.   Nice schedule.  Naps are great.  You should try them.  They sound kinda old ladyish, but old ladies obviously know what they are doin.  Actually every one in Spain seems to do that. Ciesta!!

So we walked in a part of one of the souks that hold live Chickens, half dead cats roaming around, and  Rabits.  It was a vegetarians nightmare.  The men would grab about four chickens at the same time by their wings and just swing them around like it was nothing.   Maybe he was trying to disorientate them before chopped the heads off….or bit it off..who knows?  The rabbits……I haven´t seen anything on any menu stating any of the meat was rabbit…hmmm….I´ve had rabit before though.  My brother and I used to hunt with our dad and bring home some pheasant and time to time  some rabbit….it tasted pretty good.  There was just something wrong about all of it though…..maybe it was Laura´s jaw dropped to the floor that added a special effect.

Got up the next morning to head off to the desert……  Oh yeah, the whole Coca-cola deal.  So Coke is huge in Morocco.  It´s rediculous.  Every other banner on top of the shops is Coke.  You could be driving through the desert where there is virtually nothing and off in the distance you see red and white…….not a toilet….not anything but the one and only Coca-cola.  There was something very depressing about this.  These people are poor as hell but they are drinking Coca-Cola…..im hatin….they are still  in the bottles over there so they actually have taste to them.  and orange Fanta.  I´ve been drinking a lot of that lately…..got to get your Hitler support in there some how.  Shut up.   I´ve got to shit again.

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