Not much going on today.
I was up first, and our hostess left a pot of coffee on our little terrace. I sat outside in the dawn, drank coffee and read. When Gail got up we ate a big breakfast downstairs in the African themed room.
We have a pet tortoise here. I call him Tut. He crawls in and out of our room, and hangs out by us on the terrace, trying to nip my toes.
We walked out along the beach to the train station, about 3KM north of town, and bought our tickets out to Tangier for tomorrow. Then we walked down on the beach back into town. It was hot, the beach was semi-trashy, and did not look like a great place to spend time because there were virtually no women there, and those who were had on their robes. There are no big umbrellas and beds, just metal chairs under a few flimsy umbrellas, including one that said "Cerveza" and one from a German beer company. In Morocco. During Ramadan.
I just shake my head as we walk along this fine fine golden sand, blue waves crashing in... dodging camel poop and plastic and cans and god-knows-what. It is such a waste of a great beach. But I guess that is what you get from a "mens only" society, where they don't really know about relaxing at the beach nor have an aesthetic eye towards beauty; a society where the police are charged with enforcing God's Religious Laws which include many many rules on how the women are to act, look and think.
And this is a progressive town, in Moroccan terms.
We walked through the medina looking at the art. The medina is pretty clean, not all crowded with stalls, and the vendors stand back and wait. Most of the homes in the old medina are owned by Europeans, and so it has a different look and feel than most others.
We headed out to walk the main street out of town, along the bustling market. There is just no way to describe the markets here, piles of food on the side of the road, trucks and vans literally packed full or oranges, melons and whatever spilling out the back doors onto the ground. Burros pull carts, or carry baskets full of celery, eggplant, tomatoes or whatever, and the fish vendors have their silvery darts laid out, on ice, on the sidewalk in neat, shining rows as they constantly sprinkle handfuls of water on them to keep them flopping. The smells all intermingling, people yelling and singing out what they are selling and the prices, the robes and scarves and hats all flowing this way and that. One lady holds a gallon sized, ziplock type plastic bag open wide, as another lady carefully measures out one, two three cups of fresh milk into it.
Traffic snarled and honking as a woman calmly leads her mule down the middle of the street.
We went back to our room in the late, hot afternoon, bought another bottle of the Portugal White wine, and drank and read. I fell asleep a little.
We finished with dinner back at La Perle, where Gail stuck to the goat cheese salad, and I changed to a cobb salad with bacon, BACON! After three weeks with no pork, it was like a gift from allah, I was just hoping the Ramadan police wouldn't come by, but I was prepared to just stuff if all in with one bite if I had to... anyway I had a great salad, and a plate full of Langoustine in garlic wine sauce. We shared a raspberry tart and cappuccino, and the owner treated us to a glass of good brandy to finish the evening.
The crowds were lighter tonight as we walked back to our room.
Tomorrow we say goodbye to Morocco, and hello to Spain.
Yea!
Can't wait to get into Europe, just 14 kilometers north of Tangier.