Arrival: Tangier
After a 2 hour ferry ride, accompanied by a 2 hr time shift, we arrived in Morocco at the same time we left, technically speaking. We arrived in rainy Tangier, and I was nervous, having been warned repeatedly about hagglers and thiefs. After taking out some money at a bank machine (yay Durhams- Moroccan currency makes you feel rich, its about 15 Dh to the pound, or 5 or 6 to the Canadian dollar :( boo). Apparently, it hadn't rained in over 2 months, and we were about to get soaked..... our luck was changing already.... lol. The only thing motivating us in the rain and cold thus far was the fact that we were migrating south towards warmer and more tolerant weather..
We waited a bit for our friends Matt and Jess, who were supposed to be arriving soon. We ran into a couple of hitchers, also waiting for their friends in the rain. After they received a phone call from them, it turns out coincidentally that their 'people' had met our 'people' somewhere in Spain, so the whole lot of us headed over to a coffee shop, far too far away in the rain, as we walked in dripping wet. After just a sip I was reminded why I fell in love with coffee in the first place- it was so aromatic and strong, just how I like it, so I was certainly quite buzzed for what was about to happen next...
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Chefchaouen
After a delicious coffee and toast, we proceeded to make our way to our first stop Chefchaouen. Although a bus would have been a more economical bet, we decided to find taxis to take us there to save some time, especially considering we didn't know when buses were leaving. We found a couple drivers to take 7 of us for 1100 Durhams, which meant about 16 euroes each. Keep in mind, this was a couple hour's ride..
Well, I must admit that it was more like paying for an amusement park ride, as I cannot, for the life of me, recall how many times I felt we came nearly close to dying either in the middle of a lane-free free for all roundabout, or driving in the chaotic streets with pedestrians crossing at every point and angle, or cars making sweeping, passing turns alongside the highway, not to mention, a truck also fell over and pushed our journey back by half an hour. Oh ya, and our cab driver literally got out for a second or two. Welcome to Morocco.. There must have been far too many times when Steph and I glanced at each other in horror and shock, breathing heavily, feeling like we had escaped yet another close call, while Jeff laughed at us from the front seat hehe.
As we drove into Chefchaouen, we passed by the rolling landscape of the riff mountains (which is beautiful against blue skies), and drove into a beautiful, precious city awashed with blue walls (as painted by the earlier settlers).. so breathtaking.
We made it there eventually, and checked into hotel Yasmina, which was right in the middle of the medina, which is very similar, I find, to the old city of Jerusalem, aka, the central markets. For 70 Dh a night (7 Euros) we got comfy beds and loads of blankets because it was still cold and rainy, and to our surprise, it was FAR cleaner than that other place we stayed in the night before taking the ferry. whew.
To reward all of our hard work thus far, we went out for dinner, had some amazing Moroccan soup which I love, lots of bread, couscous, tagine (a meat dish with veggies, comes in a clay pot), strawberry-orange juice (freshly squeezed), and Jeff's favourite (and now one of mine), olives. It was a perfect start.. I still think that was the best meal I had in Morocco. Following dinner, I suppose we managed to find the 'black market' for alcohol (which is relatively scarce compared to what we're used to- but due to religious reasons in the predominantly Arab country of Morocco). We had a fun time sitting around in our hostel and eventually I made it to bed around 2am, which with the time change, felt more like 4 AM..
After a well-deserved sleep, we awoke to yet another day of rain and cold misty fog coming in from our window, with a beautiful, yet climatically obstructed view. Though the day was in an instant redeemed by a beautiful, momentary break of warm sunshine, it was not quite the vacation we had envisioned. We had breakfast, all of us, as I ordered a delicious omlette and coffee of course, and an elderly Moroccan with a flute of some kind and a drum sat beside us and began to play for us as we clapped along. Hehe it was great fun as he taught us something he had made up where you stick out your thump and raise it in the air in a projectile motion, and go ahha-ha-haha- eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuuum (as you lower your hand). Really, you had to be there..
We walked around the medina, met a man named Abdul, who showed us his shop, had a friendly chat with us, and even told me I looked Moroccan...hmm. He gave us a lot of insight into Arabic culture, and just seemed quite genuine, even though he may have subversively been trying to haggle us, as he pointed to some guy and offered him to be our tour guide- we declined but he still followed us everywhere... usually, they want to give you a tour, and then take you back to a relative's carpet shop- for the hundreth time, we don't have the money nor the room for a carpet!! We tried to find Jeff some shoes so the rain wouldn't sop into his socks, I tried some of the sweet Moroccan mint tea which I really liked. We had a really nice 3 course dinner that night with everyone, but we were so tired and headed back to the hotel.
We awoke the morning of the day we were leaving, to sunshine. What a bitter twist of fate. We were going to take the bus to our next city- Fez/Fes. More on that adventure later... But I must say, that I recommend that if you are going to travel to Chefchaouen, it is perhaps best to leave it for last. It has a homely, small village feel to it, and I feel I'd have appreciated it far more after I had been to all those other places...
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Arrival: Fez
One of the strangest experiences of my life happened on route to Fez. I boarded the bus alone in order to find some seats for Jeff, Steph and I while they made sure that our bags were put on the bus- in many instances, the bags are often tied to the roof.. But as I ascended the stairs and made my way down the aisle to the back of the bus, I got a bit of a culture shock. Like Othello, I got a very distinct chance to know how it feels to be the 'other'. On board a bus full of natives, I felt all eyes on me, staring, peering, examining, scanning me from top to bottom, and then to top again. I felt as if I was a rare museum artifact, a novel object to indigenous eyes. It was quite the humbling and scary experience, one that made me acknowledge the fact that they probably stereoptype me just as much as I may stereotype them. We always seem to instictively fear that which is different. Such a shame.
Now, one important thing about Morocco is that a bus journey is always far longer than the estimation given by the bus company. What you will find is that the bus stops randomly to pick up people on the side of the road, may stop for half an hour at a time, or maybe just five minutes. A FULL day's bus ride may often not be accompanied by a bathroom break. We departed from sunny Chefchaouen (finally sunny) and arrived in rainy Fez by dusk. On the way we saw the most magnificent rainbow over the plains. We checked into Hotel Cascade in the Medina, which I admit had uncomfy beds and dimly lit rooms, but for only 60Dh we did not complain. We had dinner nearby, couscous and kebabs as a couple of donkeys rode by. To my eyes, Fez seemed remarkedly similar to the old city of Jerusalem, only a bit dirtier, and on this day, rainier.
The next morning, after a honey-crepe and coffee breakfast in a cafe overlooking donkeys and the pouring rain, we headed to an internet cafe to upload some pictures as we were running out of memory on our cameras. We were trying to figure out the most efficient and economical way to get to Marrakech and some guy was helping us call up the bus company- to no avail. On top of some suggestions, he also insistingly offered us a tour of the city for 3 hours for 100 Dh. Eventually, we agreed, and somehow along the way, he tried to convince us to let him guide us on a desert trek for 1000 DH each, excluding transportation, which supposedly would cost an additional 300Dh, and even inviting us into his home for tea to show us some pictures of his previous treks. We said we'd think about it.
He did give us a great tour. We saw Riad Fez which was gorgeous and well expensive, which was to be expected. We got a panoramic view of the city above a rooptop, where I managed to slip off the ledge and fall into the puddle below 3x, and he took us to the tannery, where they make leather - start to finish.. I have to say that the sights and smells were awfully revolting, but it is a rare opportunity that we appreciate just where much of our necessities come from. Steph had a similar experience watching chickens get beheaded... I didn't actually see but I probably would have been very distraught as well. Immediately after the tour they pushed us to buy leather from the shop, which I could not muster the stomach to do.
Of course, this being Morocco, our initial condition for accepting the tour was that he wouldn't take us into a carpet shop, and guess where we ended up? They convinced us to let them get some lunch for us, on our wallet of course, and started showcasing rugs even though we expressed over and over that we were not interested and had no intention of buying. I don't know how many times Jeff had to say, "we are students, with very little money and very little living space...". Although we admired the delicate craftsmanship of 1500Dh rugs, we simply could not afford it. Yet they pushed and persisted. THEN, if that's not enough, the carpet guy offers us his OWN camel trek, which our guide spoke well of for 1700DH including transportation. This was far too heavy for our wallets, and we tried to bargain while he kept trying to sell us rugs, even telling us to narrow down the selection he brought out for us to the ones we liked. I jokingly said I'd be able to afford a tiny square... He then made Steph name her price, and she said she didn't want to insult or offend him, yet he persisted, so she wrote something marginal down, and he got offended, of course, and kicked us out of the store... It was an immense waste of time and an unecessary amount of stress was placed on us. I think we should have simply said no and left, but it was so sketchy in that our guide was trying to convince us to take the carpet guy's deal because he gets commission off of it, but then why did (or didn't) he pitch his own trip??!!!!! AH maaaaaaaaaaadnesss! You can imagine how frustrated we are at this point, especially when he tries to converse and huddle with us as if he is on our side, then speaks to the carpet guy in Arabic..
ANYWAYS, I was rather pissed off at this point, as I had done my best to respect their culture, and felt as if they outrightly dismissed ours and assumed that our pockets were overflowing with money, and then disrespectfully kicked us out of the shop after all that. But ANYWAYS, our guide took us to a perfume/spice shop, kind of an herbal medicine shopp, where the guy there, I guess you could call him a pharmicist, let us smell and sample the various creams and spices for sale. He did this whole presentation, which was so rehearsed, but we nonetheless enjoyed and showed us viagra, saffron, spices, black seed, vanilla creams.. etc..
After all that we headed back, it was getting dark, and met up with Jess and Matt and some other hitchers at their Riad and thought about catching the bus with them that night into the desert, but after a bit of deliberation, or should I say the fact that when we got there the bus was full, we decided to catch the 6AM bus.I still can't believe how indescisive we all were that day.
To make things even stranger, when we got back from the station, some guy tried to sell us accomodation in his hotel, just a kid really, and we said no thank you, and just then, two police men said "ok lets go" and linked his arms behind his back and put him into a van... I felt really bad.. and then, after that, we ran into our tour guide, who too, almost got arrested, but we were like nononono we know this guy!!.... wheeeeeeeew.
We met Matt, Jess and Catherine for dinner, as the day got even weirder. We just wanted a quick quiet dinner, and being the British ones they are, Matt and Jess asked for beer, which the waiter said they had, and then him and the other servers spent an hour running around the restaurant. It seems they had run into a problem with the black market... we didn't get our food till two hours later, and to make things even more worse/strange, he brought us a tray full of beer poured into glasses and didn't hand them out. We found out later that we had to pay extra for these... how sneaky and conniving, especially considering that we had eaten so much bread and soup while waiting for our meal to cook while they were too busy running around trying to find beer that we were too full to even enjoy the main course... At least we were on Moroccan currency..
Whaaaaaaaaaaaat a day. Now, 4-5 hours of sleep until we have to wake up at 4-5 AM in the morn....
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