Poor coffee again today. Not the worst, but not good. Second worst ever.
Good god.
How many days till we get to Spain???
I am feeling a touch under the weather, stomach slightly unsettled, not in the puke way but a little in the diarrhea
way. The trots. In high school we called it the squirts.
If it keeps up I may go to the Green Crescent Pharmacy.
I have always been one to eat and drink most anything…
I think back… it could be the salad I had, or the ice cubes in the drink in Marrakesh? Maybe the time I forgot and used tap water to brush my teeth, or perhaps it is simply the awful coffee… the fruit salad for breakfast, the ice that cooled the crab, and the glasses are washed out with tap water… it could be one of a million things.
Well, I can’t stop eating and drinking and taking the trip, so it will just have to sort itself out. I hope it is like most travel bugs: it should go away in a day or so as I adjust to whatever it is.
It is surprisingly not hot here in Morocco. We thought it would be blazing hot, but really, I have broken a sweat once so far, and it is almost chilly here in Mirleft, at least in the morning and afternoon, which pretty well seems to cover the day. Maybe around 15:00 it gets hot for two hours, but by 17:00 it is totally overcast and chilly, certainly not beach weather for us.
Then again, I am from a place where 105° in the summer is OK and “normal."
At any rate, I slept great last night, between the coolness, the ocean breeze and the continual roar of the surf.
So, I awoke with a plan.
The plan is to hike up to the old fort on the hill, visit the mosque, then walk along the cliffs and try to find a warmer beach. Perhaps sit in a cafe later, or see if the restaurant is open so we can get a glass of Gris.
We found out last night that the reason that no one is serving drinks in town now is because Ramadan is coming up this Saturday, and so the police have cracked down on sales in advance.
This could be an interesting two weeks here, once the holiday hits on Saturday the 28th.
We walked out of the B&B, into town and up the hill to the fort, taking our time in the warm sun and cool breezes, two kilometers into town, then through the town and up the hill. It was not a hard nor a particularly long walk, just a stroll really, but we enjoyed it and the view from the top looking over the town was really interesting. It looked like colored cubes jumbled in together, with a second minaret over to the left. Way out on the cliff we could see our neighborhood, and then the newer neighborhood over to the south, and then the worn out jumble of “downtown” Mirleft. We scrambled in and among the ramparts and interior rooms, trying to imagine the Spanish garrison here; the sleeping cells, the horse stalls and the stockade. There were some painted designs left on a few walls, but most of it was crumbled and wrecked, full of trash and used as a toilet. It’s a shame, as it could be a tourist attraction if cleaned up, bring much needed dirhams to the economy.
Mostly we took in the view below.
On the hike down we ran into a man in a robe hiking up.
“Français?” he inquired and you know the rest of this story, except for the unique part about his burro having nothing to eat for days now.
But by then I had trouble understanding English.
"Sono Italiano..."
We walked back through town, over across the open desert plain to the newer section of town in the south, where we found Aftas Beach. It is a cute little cove, tucked into the cliff; a steep trail leads down but there is also a steep road in. At the beach there are a few little buildings; a “restaurant” of sorts with warm drinks and a few cold cans of soda, two guest houses and a kind of crash pad with a communal (stand up) bathroom and little, ten foot square rooms with mattresses, hooks, candles and colorful drapes and sheets. You could live here, cheap, and spend days staring at the waves.
We pulled in under the canopy, got two cold cans of Fanta, and sat to read in the breeze. I finished my second book of the trip, then we decided to pull up stakes and hike across the trashy wasteland between us and our B&B.
See, Morocco is a conundrum. On one hand it is beautiful and exotic, filled with lavish rich mansions and good food. But on the other side of the scale it is filthy, garbage ridden and poor; an unfit world for any of you readers (or me, the blogger) to inhabit. We had just been to a beautiful little hideaway beach, but heading up the hill past the trash pile, we cam across the construction debris dump where a guy was scavenging god-knows-what leftovers. Piles of smoking garbage were scattered here and there, and trash was just blown about and caught in the sparse vegetation. Looking over the top of it all, manicured mansions (owned by foreigners) ignored it all, windows all focused on the open sea beyond.
We got back to our room, found out that the local bar down the street was closed, and so had a glass of wine at our B&B and took a rest before heading off to town for a walk and dinner.
Dinner: During Which I Eat Man's Best Friend...
IF you ever go to Morocco, and IF you end up in Mirleft close to Ramadan, you can email me and I will send you the name. But I won't publish it here.
You will know why in a minute.
About 20:30 we walked down an alley and stopped outside a door. I pushed the buzzer, and a minute later the door opened and we were ushered into a fantastic kind of scene: an entire restaurant was hidden back there. I put my head back out the door and looked at the plain walls, the littered alley, then in again at the scene in front of me. No, I was not dreaming. We were pulled in, and the door shut and locked behind us.
There was an outdoor eating patio, a formal indoor dining area, and it was all decorated tastefully and modern, with great lighting. Outdoors the colors of the couches, chairs, tables, decorations and canopies were purple, pink and black, the dining room was black and white. An eclectic soundtrack played softly in the background. We could have been at home in California, but the entire place belonged to us.
We were the only customers.
We were led out to the patio and given banana and pineapple based cocktails, and an appetizer of green and black olive paste, and warm eggplant paste to spread on thinly sliced, toasted bread. I liked the eggplant bast because of the spicy taste, Gail liked the green olive. Our waiter, for yes, we had a waiter, told me that the eggplant spread was a very traditional Moroccan food.
So we sat out in the patio, enjoying the evening and music, and after a half hour the waiter returned with two menus listing all the possible things they serve, and proceeded to tell us what was actually available this evening. Gail was tired of fish, so she chose a lemon salt and rosemary Lamb dish, while I chose the Dromedary Chop.
Yes. Dromedary.
That is Camel.
I was going to eat man's best friend: the Camel.
Hey, where and when else am I ever going to get to try this? And it's not like I am eating the hump or something, though I did have a few questions in the back of my mind:
Is this a one or two humper?
How large exactly is a camel chop? I mean, they are big animals.
When we go camel riding in the desert next week, will my camel smell his relative on my breath?
Well, the cook got the order and left the restaurant to go buy the meat and ingredients out on the street, right then. Fresh and locally sourced. Soon we could smell the meat cooking over the open fire in the kitchen, and we were moved from the outdoor patio into the formal dining area where we had our choice of tables.
A bottle of sparkling water, the plates were taken away, wine glasses removed ("It is Ramadan" the waiter whispered...) and then a cold can of Coke was placed on our table in plain view.
We were given two plain drinking glasses, then a chilled bottle of red wine, wrapped in a couple bags, was discretely placed under our table so I could hide it.
If the police or church came knocking, we would be drinking Coke.
I poured us two glasses of wine. This was a good wine, better than the other Moroccan wine we have been drinking; smoother, not as much of a bite at the end, still not full bodied at all, nor a "big" wine in any way, but it was just a good, smooth drinking wine, slightly chilled. When no one was looking I snapped a quick photo of it.
So it occurs to me that if they have to take this much trouble to serve wine with a meal, then there could be some type of consequence if word got out about this happening. So that is why I will not tell you where we ate, nor post photos of the restaurant.
Seems crazy, doesn't it? But I think that is what you get when you mix religion and state too much, and that is why we in the US need to be wary of religious leaders mixing with political issues.
I am seeing now that there must be this "underground" Morocco going on, where you talk to someone who has the right connection, who knows someone who can get you something even if it is banned.
Soon the meal was plated up and brought out. The presentation was marvelous, the vegetables all perfectly done, the meat tender and just so. It was an enjoyable evening, mixed with a little intrigue and mystery; a surprise.
What?
What does camel taste like?
It does not taste like chicken, how about that.
Not pork or lamb, sort of like a beef steak that is singed a little on the edge. But not really.
It was good.