So here I am, 7:30 in the morning, sitting out on the rooftop terrace with a cup of coffee. I am looking down over the Chefchaouen valley, sitting in the shade, warm sun bathing the air around me. The air is crystal clear, and I can see houses, miles away. The roosters are crowing all around, birds calling, people walking here and back. The little desert fox is shyly sniffing around my feet; if I flinch he runs and barks.
I love mornings like this, a couple slow hours with nothing to do.
Not enough time to really run into town, because we have to catch the 14:45 bus north to Tangier, then get a taxi to the train station so we can drop down the coast to Asilah.
We will lose most of the day to travel again (the down side of public transportation: during Ramadan they cut the bus runs) so we’ll have two nights and one day to explore.
We spend the morning relaxing and reading, taking a walk around the neighborhood, then head to the bus station.
The three hour bus ride north to Tangier is a "two puke, one chunk-blower" event. Thank goodness the bus was cool, wasn’t crowded and we were seated way far away from them. The CTM bus did not pull into a station in Tangier, rather it just stopped on a street and dumped us all out.
Well, the only thing to do was grab a taxi to the train station, so that’s what we did. Along the way, we had to avoid the beggars who walked right up to the car windows, from the median stips or by walking between cars, at every stop or roundabout. They just stuck their hand in through the window, into your face.
At the train station we found out that the next and only train to Asilah would be at 21:45 that night, a four hour wait.
Ramadan schedules.
I am getting pretty tired of Ramadan.
We went back outside, and I went up to a cab driver, and he agreed to take us to our guesthouse in Asilah for $300MAD, or about $36. That seems like a good price to me, considering the four hour wait, so we load up and he is off like a crazy man, doing 120KM in a 60 zone, and just totally blowing through a police checkpoint! I ducked in the rear seat, then peaked back and the cop was standing in the street, waving frantically at us as we sped off… but they did not chase nor shoot us.
Huh.
I wondered what would happen if you did that.
Anyway, we covered the one hour train trip south in just thirty minutes.
Asilah looked beautiful as we pulled in, wide sand beach, paved boardwalk, little medina and lots of cafes. Almost a different Morocco.
We hear it is a little more liberal here.
The cab driver can’t get us right to the guesthouse, but drops us one block away because the street is closed.
I pay the driver, and a vulture in a white robe immediately sets upon us as we are unloading our suitcases.
This is where the day goes south.
Before I tell this part of the story, a few facts:
We are one block down and one block over from our hotel.
The cafe which is the landmark is just ahead of me, at the corner.
The paper that tells me this, which I read in the cab (remember the name: Cafe Massira... Cafe Massira... Cafe Massira…) but I have not seen it yet.
We have been on a puke bus, holding it together for three hours, and two taxi rides with a stop at the train station, so we are a little tired.
The place we are dropped is busy, choked with people and cars backed up honking at us as we pay the cabbie, and we are hustling out of the way.
BEEP! BEEP! HONK! Swear swear, yelling, a little pushing, I grab my pack, Gail grabs her suitcase, the cab pulls out, we are almost hit by the next two cars. I am looking the wrong way, turn and spot the medina gate, look past it to the left which is the way we want to go, then find Gail again and we move about three steps and suddenly there are four guys all talking at once, “Francise? English? Espanol?” We push through, take a couple steps, and one guy is literally dancing right next to us then in front of us yelling, “ENGLIS? FRANCAISE? HOLA?” like an annoying fly that you bat away from your face but it keeps landing on your eyelid and
Take a breath…
“ENGLIS? FRANCAISE? HOLA?”
I look at him, nod no.
“ENGLIS? FRANCAISE? HOLA?”
I ignore him and dodge right, left, right…
“ENGLIS? FRANCAISE? HOLA? WHERE YOU GO? HELLO!”
Here is my mistake. I spoke.
“NO HELP!” I yell. “LEAVE US ALONE.”
So I have just told him we speak English and given him permission to hound us.
In the midst of this we have, you guessed it, walked the block, just right past cafe what’s it called? that I have now forgotten, and we are entering “uncharted territory.”
Time out:
You see, all we needed was like one minute, or even thirty seconds to think and look.
But you just don’t get it.
I just cannot, for the life of me, figure out how in the world to get free of the “helpful hand out” people. Thinking back on it now, the next morning, the only thing I can think of is to possibly hit the guy, and that doesn’t seem the right move. Perhaps look for a cop? Yell “HELP, POLICE?”
But mean looks, swearing, yelling, ignoring, pushing past… it doesn’t work.
He continues to stick with us, now pattering on about the medina…
“YOU GO TO MEDINA THEN! I GO TO RIAD!!!”
the Riad..
“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME. WE DON”T NEED HELP.”
Anyway, we end up blocks past the turn. The guy ducks left and for some reason I follow, then we are suddenly winding over three, then back left (heading back the way we came but over a couple streets) then right, then left, and I know where I am in relation to everything except the one corner I wanted, and the guy is now going on about “Riad Flaminca, internation, no riad you go to” and we are heading the wrondg way, so I stop and tell Gail to turn around and we start to head back to the drop off point where I am going to find some way to get rid of this pest so I can stop and look at my paper and think, when…
"AH-HA!”
The guy jumps in front, rattles a rusty, locked gate, and says, “Gone. Close-ed.” with a triumphant sneer on his face.
And it is our Riad, closed locked and looking abandoned, with no bell to ring.
I am really pissed off now, and this is making no sense, as I emailed the lady just yesterday…
I knock on the wooden door behind the gated one.
No answer.
The guy is motioning to leave, go to a different Riad…
I knock again, this time the door opens. Looks like a kid; he doesn’t speak.
More confusion, the guy who was pestering us is now wanting to get in, he speaks in Arabic to the kid who gets a key and the guy charges in, acting like it is his place, showing us around, the confused kid standing by quietly, and I am thinking, “This looks right but where is the owner?” and “Who is this guy who has been following us and why is he here?” and no one can really speak English, and so…
It looks like the place, and I get the idea the owner might be out and return in ten minutes? SO I just sit and ignore the tout, ignore the kid, and try to think.
The annoying guy stands right in front of me with his hand out.
I wave him away.
He won’t go.
I can’t think.
Now Gail is yelling at him, now I tell him, “NO! NO HELP!” But he just stands there…
Side note: I should have just sat back and let him stand. When the owner showed up five minutes later, she could have told him to leave, in Arabic, and booted him out.
Something just doesn’t seem right, I can’t put my finger on it, if I could get rid of the staring guy in my face maybe I could think…
I pull out 10 dirhams ($1.25) and tell him “GO!”
He looks at it, then holds his hand out for more.
Side note: I should have grabbed it back from his hand and actually pushed him out to the door at this point. Or maybe started taking his photo and saying “Police, Police” or something. Just something.
Anyway, back to yelling, ignoring, can’t think…
Finally he leaves.
The owner shows up five minutes later.
She had run into him, he demanded twenty euro for helping us, she swore at him in Arabic and got him out.
That whole thing I wrote up above took maybe fifteen minutes, start to finish. It is hard to convey how confusion piles on confusion and if you just do not have any moment to think anything through, it is hard to figure.
I am still stuck, back at the start of it all. How can I create that space and moment to think, right up front?
And this little fifteen minute episode made me so tense, so angry, that it is hard to shake it, even though this is the best room we have had this trip, though she has an extensive, non-Moroccan wine list that we can buy from her, cheap, even though we had the best meal of the trip last night at a French-Asian Fusion restaurant…
Though things are really great right here, this fifteen minutes of just pure fighting put a damper on the whole day, town, experience; because for me, though travel is getting to know and see new cultures and ways of doing things, and it is about exploring, there is just a tipping point where the hassle outweighs the benefit.
And this afternoon, that tipping point was reached.
I am still angry this morning, and I still don’t know what to do up front. I mean, we were prepared and knew where to go and everything and still… it is like you get herded along somehow.
It is not just us. Other people we talk to who are on the bus, staying in a riad with us, or next to us at a table... everyone, I mean EVERY DAMN ONE OF US has the exact same stories and exact same exasperation. And nobody knows what to do about it.
Well, we got a nice bottle of white from Portugal and had a drink and a nice talk with the owner. She said it happens to her guests all the time, that there is a “gang” of men who look for a riad where the owners are away for holiday. hey break in, open it up, and tell tourists as they arrive that their riad is out of business or closed, but they can go to this other one… cash up front.. and of course they pack people in so suddenly you find others in your room, then you all realize no one is there as a host, then the cash is gone and of course the riad owner comes home to a mess.
She won’t leave her place for more than a day because of it.
Trapped.
Her friend brings a van of wine in from Europe for her, every couple months.
She is from Ghent, Belgium. Likes the heat and open space here.
As we drank, the sun set, and the siren blew for the end of fast.
I said, "I guess we can drink now! To Ramadan!”
It colled off fast as the ocean breeze kicked in.
But it is a beautiful room, with stained glass doors and windows, and great lights that cast interesting patterns. The room is big and comfortable, the stone tub is a swimming pool, with clay face mask and salts provided (Gail jumped right in last night, candles and all…) and we have our own little outdoor terrace area with couches and table.
The name is Dar Azaouia, and the room is more beautiful than the photos show.
And the place we went for dinner, La Perle, was most definitely NOT Morocan cooking. We were started with a little miniature hamburger, then I had a great avocado stuffed with shrimp and Gail had warm goat cheese on beets and tomatoes. She had salmon with a tangy sauce, and I had chicken, breaded and crisped with mushroom wine reduction. There was a side of hash-browned potatoes and vegetable peels, and for dessert we had four scoops of very good ice cream (except the prune). The chocolate and almond together tasted like an almond joy, but better. We ate outdoors, which was perfect.
It was a late dinner since we got in late to begin with, so we walked the beach boardwalk back to our room, among crowds of people who were just starting their night.
I was awakened by the “Stop Eating Now” siren at 2:30, then the moans from the minarets, and then the first call to prayer at 3:20.