Today again the morning sky is pearly overcast, with a cooling breeze blowing in, but the crash of the waves is muted and you can see the little fishing boats offshore. I think this will be our last foggy morning, because today we head north and east, into the desert and the city of Taroudant.
I took an early walk, the light is soft on the colorful city, and the breeze has the red Moroccan flags snapping.
In doorways, at corners, on random ledges and overlooks, older people squat, robes draped over their knees, arms tucked in for warmth. They squat and look, just stare.
The Lookers.
How long have they been out? It is 6:30 while I am walking and they beat me to it.
How long will they squat and stare?
Extreme Boredom could be a sport here. Probably a spectator sport. It would give all the shop keepers something to watch.
I am just amazed at the number of people sitting by the road, tending sheep, the shop keepers, the market sellers, who spend the entire day, every day, sitting and just staring (or sometimes sleeping) at what? And it is not just here in Morocco, I have thought the same thing in other countries as well.
It makes me wonder, in a curious way, not a bad or condescending way, but could it be that in some people the natural curiosity part of the brain; the part that makes you dream and remember and think, that part never really is stimulated or turns on?
Is that a cruel thing to say?
I just would go absolutely nutty just sitting there all day. Hell, I can hardly stand a full afternoon at the beach. I wonder this about kids sometimes. I have known five year olds who are happy to just sit and stare at the wall. No classwork, no playing, no toys; they just sit and stare because “school is boring.” At least now I know that can be employed somewhere when they get older.
Or… Or perhaps I am wrong.
Perhaps they are all on a higher plane of existence, perhaps they have connected with some inner sense of being that I cannot even imagine, and they are the ones who are truly in touch.
Whatever.
This question runs through my mind as I stare, looking past the lookers, out to sea.
We ate a simple breakfast, just breads with honey and almond butter, and better coffee for once. What a relief, to have a decent cup of coffee. By now I have been drinking so little of the truly awful stuff that I want to drink a pot of this, but can only manage a cup and a half.
While the Lookers keep watch, we turn our backs on Sidi Ifni and start up the car.
Soon we are through the police checkpoint (cars behind me, in front of me and next to me all stopped. I am waved through.) and on the road heading back north, all the way up to Agadir before we turn inland towards the desert. Not that we aren’t in the desert here on the coast. As we drive we pass a random camel grazing on the dust, and several women walking hunched over, loads of what look like weeds and sticks bundled and held in place by a head strap on their back. Cactus grow in what look like actual managed plots, which makes sense because of all the cactus fruit dealers squatting by the side of the road.
They squat and look, hopefully, some waving at us as we zip by. Maybe they recognize us as rich tourists, able to buy an entire crop of cactus fruit if we wanted to.
They too are lookers.
We stop in town at an ATM. I need more cash.
Morocco seems to be a “cash only” country. Everyone has WiFi, but no one takes credit cards. In the 11 days here, I have charged one tank of gas, one car rental, and two meals. Everything else has been cash: rooms, food, any items bought. You need a good sturdy ATM card here to get around.
Going back round the car, I notice some kid wrote on out dusty back window last night: Sidi Infi in block letters, with a heart over the first i.
Cute.
Dust, dust, there is dust everywhere. Each day we wake and the white car is browner than the day before. The sky is brown, the Atlas Mountains obscured by the haze. The wind kicks up the dust, and it settles in everywhere. In the markets there are kids who go around with feather dusters made out of thin plastic, and they don’t dust the items, they flog the dust off them.
We make it to Taroudannt in about three hours. It is a walled city, founded in 1056 at the end of the Souss Valley, an important agricultural and trading center. The walls are mad elf mud, built in the 1500s, and continually being restored. A gate is called a Bab. At Bab el-Kasbah, one of the main entrances, you can climb up on the wall, but not go anywhere. There is a huge plaza with a fountain below, the women and children hang out here while the men take over the square in the medina.
I have a map. Looks simple enough: go in the Bab, straight for a couple meters, on the left is guarded parking right by the mosque.
Well, the mosque had a huge fire last year and is being rebuilt. The left turn into the parking is blocked, you go right and soon we are lost in the maze of streets. I am stopped, crowded way over on the side of the narrow street staring at the map and a guy knocks on the window.
“Francaise?”
“Oh no, not now…” I am thinking.
He switches to English, “Are you lost? What are you looking for?”
So I bite the bullet and tell him the name of the parking lot.
He nods. You are going right. You have to go here, then this way and then turn there… and so he explains it and I start off, slowly, picking my way through the narrow streets, trying to avoid the bikes and mules and carts and people. There is a knock on the window as I am driving, and there he is on a scooter. He gestures me to follow and so I do, and after five minutes of left left right right right left left…
We are there.
Well that was the single most helpful thing that has happened to us here in Morocco so far. So I pay $15MAD for the parking and go over to shake his hand. I want to tip him, but he says no, he just wants to practice his English, and besides he was not busy right now. He asks a few questions, has a brother in Minnesota, and wants to know where we are staying.
Now, I know how to get to our Riad from here, but he insists on showing us. Along the way he offers to be our guide for the afternoon (no thanks) invites us to his mom’s for a real home - cooked tagine (not another tagine) and tells us a little about the city (Gail is bored by the history).
At the riad, as we enter, he says, “I will wait here for you, we go walk after maybe an hour?”
So I step into the safety of the riad, pull out a nice tip because he was very helpful when we needed it, and go out and thank him once again and insist he takes the money. Then I let him know we don’t need a guide, and again shake his hand and say goodbye.
I had asked his name earlier, and it was Yazzine or Yousef or something.
Gail insists it was Urine.
That can't be, I would have laughed when I first met him. So he shall be "My Friend" from now on.
Our place is Riad Maia and it is a delightful little place. Really well done, efficient use of space, and full of little twists and turns and nooks and crannies. We have a small patio outside our room with table and chairs, and there are stairs that climb up to a terrace, with stairs up to another, then twisting up to yet another with a little room on top. Just a cool place.
We unpack, get signed in with our passports, clean up a little and set out.
We get out the door, go through the archway alley, and when we get to the main street turn left to explore.
And suddenly My Friend appears next to us, like a genie.
POOF!
Well, we thank him and tell him no thanks, and smile and set off.
At the first intersection we pause to decide, Left or Right?
POOF!
My Friend.
So he shows us the right side goes here, and we thank him, but no thanks.
So he falls into step beside us chatting away, and soon we are all three stepping way, way into the twisted maze of the souk, doing exactly what we don’t want to do: shopping in crowded areas with people pestering us.
We end up at yet another co-op, this one for aragon oil, which is interesting to watch, but we are not going to buy any, and I have no small money for a tip so I can take a photo, so it is just a frustrating waste of time.
Yet again.
I don’t know what to do, so I turn to him and very rudely (I think, but I am finding out that it is the accepted way to make your point) say, "We are going THIS WAY and we do NOT need you to guide us!"
We smile, shake hands and part ways, seeming that no offense offered, none taken.
I looked back a couple times, but that did it; and thus we lost My Friend.
So freed, we got out of the stupid souk shopping area... I mean really. What is there for us to buy that we can't get at World Market? Add in the shipping and it is sure no deal to be had here. Anyway we ditched the souk and went wandering the streets, heading for the square in the center of the medina, then the wall, then looking for Hotel Tarroudannt.
Why?
See, this is when it really pays to stay with these independent Riad, hotel, B&B, guesthouse and hostel owners: they have all the local, inside info. So Henri told us about Hotel Tarroudant. It is a throwback to the 1940s, hasn't been updated, has no real customers, but...
But you can get a beer, maybe wine there.
So we walked in and it is totally dark, dead and closed. We find a guy, mostly asleep, disheveled hair, eating lunch in a back room. I start to try to ask in French, but Gail just asks, "Beer?"
The guy jumps up, huge grin on his face and beckons us through into the interior courtyard, and digs out two, very cold beers. I can't believe it. So we pull out our books, set down and spend the heated hours of the afternoon reading.
Later, the moaning, upset call for payer echoes loud and menacing through the courtyard.
Seriously. They just can’t give it a rest.
All the muezzins here sound like they are totally constipated, like they are grunting out a log... Anyway, the call starts up like an air raid warning…
So we tip our beers and drink a toast to Ramadan!
Eventually we get around to getting a bottle of red wine for the evening, for after dinner. We pay the bill and set back out. Up and down the streets, up onto the wall on one spot, then through the gates and around the fountain.
German did not work today with a tout, nor did Italian.
Next I will try Pig Latin, as that is the only other thing I know.
“Francaise?”
“Ixnay on the Ancaise-fray!”
People here can be so callous, but I suppose you have to be.
For instance, we are walking behind a one leg cripple, who has one crutch only, so he crutches and uses his hand to sort of support his butt on that side, so he can almost walk, but slowly. A car gets behind him when he is half way across an intersection, and the car starts honking, just wildly HONKING!!! at the guy to get out of the damn way!
Then there is the guy in a wheel chair with a stick for a leg. A stick. You know, like pick it up off the ground type of a one inch thick, crooked stick.
For a leg.
The guys with no legs have these awkward, hand pedal, four wheel bikes they use. Then there are the women beggars with the brain dead kids, sitting day after day after day in their primo spot, begging for coins while the kid's brain slowly rots.
The kid is a useful prop, however.
I suppose in a way he is feeding the family.
There is much traffic here. Every city is so different in noise, traffic, style, people. Here inside the walled city, it is nothing for a mule cart to cause a block long traffic jam, as it trot trots down the alleyway.
I hate driving in places like this, that is why it was worth the dirham to be guided to the parking.
We ended up right across from the riad for dinner, again on the recommendation of our hosts. The doors are locked, no one is inside, one light is on, so I rap on the window.
A friendly face appears, opens the door, ushers us in and re-locks the door. Thus, once again we are the only people at dinner. We order, then stare out the window, people watching. Now we are the lookers, but this is fun, because no one can bother us behind glass! Not even My Friend!
We see one other tourist couple. They see us, and come in. Sitting away from us, we never talk, but each enjoy our private solitude from the noise outside.
We have an excellent meal: I start with Briwat: Moroccan style spring rolls filled with meat and vegetables, while Gail had Mixed Moroccan hors d’oeuvers: eggplant puree, humous, and tapenade with carrot, lemon and coriander. Then I enjoy a beautiful looking Safa: minced chicken on a bed of couscous with sweet almonds and cinnamon sugar powder, while Gail has Moroccan style chicken pie. For dessert we both have biscuit cake, orange sauce.
It is all delicious, it is all beautifully prepared and presented; we are eating works of art.
Late that night, sitting out on the little patio, drinking the bottle of wine we snagged and blogging. It turns out that this wine is the best we have had so far, darker colored, with a small oak aftertaste. But still, in general these Moroccan wines are a little too, too, mild? Not well balanced? Bland? Just not memorable wine. No big fruity taste or anything.
And as I write this, at 23:15, the night’s last call to prayer shouts out, loud from the grand mosque next to us, then echoed by the other mosques across the city. It is followed by a half hour of mysterious moans and mumbles, kind of like he left the mike on, or perhaps butt-dialed the minaret, and we are listening in on his private gripes and complaints.
Then...
a little static, a click!
And the night is silent, the big dipper is overhead; I take a last swallow of wine, close the laptop and...