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	Morocco continued... Tuesday, Mar 16, 2006 We tossed our things in the car to walk around Todra Gorge, one of the locations of the movie "The Mummy", where the movie scene with a huge wall of water ready to consume the main characters courses through a steep walled canyon. This is the place. Quite impressive. A kid asked us for money to "Make sure the car is safe." Haha! Omar, our intrepid guide, talked him away. We checked out a hand dug cave in rock made for nomads. Totally solid rock. Got a photo of a goat herder, but some Italian dude had already given his 0.20 Euros. I gave him 10Dh for a direct portrait but really hate giving money but he wouldn't have it any other way. Once the precedent is set from many years ago of paying people, that's it. We stopped and visited with some nomads by a well in the middle of the desert. It was about 60 feet deep. The nomads were nice and shared some tea cooked on a fire (in the hot desert) with us. It tasted sweet and thick. One of the guys had a terrible open blister on his heal, all swollen. Louis-Philip, Anne-Sophie (the Canadian couple) and I pooled our sad medical supplies and did the best to help the poor guy. It really needed stronger Neosporin and a seriously large bandage but we did what we could. It looked incredibly painful to walk around like that with sandals in the desert, leading camels around. We stopped in Merzouga to visit to visit Maison Touareg, a carpet vending shop. I got called a Berber and finally, at the end of negotiating, a Jew, for including shipping in the negotiated price so I know that I did fairly well, as that's a pretty good insult coming from those people. But, I saw people who had bought six carpets for $110US each where my medium one cost $140. The guy started at $1,200 for a large one and I started at $100. Should have started at $50! Same ridiculous price gap for the smaller rug. Should have brought a sports team t-shirt and I could have traded it for a larger carpet for a song. Take the advice online and bring stuff to trade. Dang it. Driving out to Erg Chebbi, you'll drive into the desert and you better know where you're going because there are several locations and roads running all over the place. This is when Omar, our driver, earned his total value. We arrived at the north building complex in a string of buildings along the dune erg, maybe a mile north of the water tower and larger building group. Getting there two hours before our appointed camel ride time, we had time to eat and drink. 60Dh for a bottle of water and tagine was a bit steep but you're also a captive audience here. We could only bring one backpack, Louis-Philip's, so I grabbed my essential camera gear, ignoring the potentially important things like toothbrush and such. Note - you have to bring your own water into the desert!!! Don't forget this crucial detail. Buy it before you get there, as the prices are five times higher here. Again, this was another place where bringing an American t-shirt for trade would have worked wonderfully with the Berbers at the buildings. Unfortunately, by this 3rd day of very little sleep, I ended up with a runny nose. Crap, my immune system sucks. I didn't religiously use my hand cleaner, either. Paid the price! We mounted our mighty steeds (camels) and headed into the desert, lead by a guy walking the dunes. Omar advised me to wrap my camera in plastic as the blowing desert sand was guaranteed to destroy it. Albertson's plastic grocery sacks to the rescue. We rode for an hour, quite a ways into the dune sea of Erg Chebbi, a treacherous place where you'd easily die if you didn't know what you were doing. Riding a camel isn't the most comfortable experience, even with blankets and a big wrap around the hump. Riding downhill is the worst because you slide onto the camel's back. The flats are okay and uphill is the best. This is all relative, mind you. We arrived at camp in one hour - quite a busy place! There are small and big camps for various groups. The guide uses a "Shhhhh" sound and lowers his hands to tell the camel to drop you down, front legs first. Seeing as we had little time before sunset, we began the trek up the 230 yard tall dune. A tiring, rough hour later, we arrived at the top via a round-about approach. Directly climbing the steepest part is impossible. The sun had already set when we arrived at top. Of course. There is no penumbra (pink) in the sky here, no pink between the lit sky and the Earth shadow. Unfortunate! I finished the climb to the far top dune, took a few worthless snaps and headed back down. Dinner had begun by the time I got back in the dark. At first you're served a bunch of tea. Very good, like the nomad tea of earlier today. Then bread was brought along with a massive tagine of vegetables and chicken. It was incredibly flavorful but there was so much food we couldn't finish it. Also had Moroccan soup before the tagine, again excellent. The last plate was a dish of cut oranges and melons. Yum! We did all of this eating in the dark by starlight and a single candle which provided more than enough light. In fact, sometimes that single candle was blinding compared to the darkness outside. It was a comedy to handle the candle when a slight breeze did come up. We created a makeshift candle holder from a chopped water bottle and ballasted it with sand which we had no shortage of. Unfortunately to get that bottle, I had to slam down a huge amount of water. Big, big mistake before bed. We lay out under the stars and enjoyed the incredible view. Saw a satellite and three falling stars. Oddly absent was the Milky Way. Wrong time of year? I had a sleepless night from being up every 15 minutes to relieve myself from all the water I gulped down after coming down from the dune and for some reason my mind spun wildly and wouldn't shut up. And then I had a runny nose. Take away that veil of hell and it would have been a pleasant night of sleep. Maybe got 4 hours in. While sick. That sucked. Wednesday, May 17, 2006 Waking up for the sunrise to the sound of birds was nice, if I had slept. Obviously paying for my past evils last night and today. Being very fatigued, I slowly plodded over to some distant dunes east of camp and did my best to raise my spirits with activity. Found the peak of a nice dune and did notice the pink penumbra of light on a sole cirrus ice cloud hovering over the desert. It left quickly, happening as I was walking up to my perch. Even with the polarizer and split grad, a tripod was necessary to entertain that mediocre shot. Some-what got in the grove with a fascinating pattern of light and shadow over the dunes. Due to the copious amount of dust in the air, the sunlight was subdued, almost fleeting. You could see it but there was no defined edge on the huge dune west of camp. Experimented with several different composures and approaches with the intent to get the best I could, given the way I was feeling. Found a scarab beetle waddling across a dune and entertained him for a while. I learned what sort of tracks it made so I could identify them later in other dunes. Other creatures must have passed by in the night, as many tracks didn't match the beetle tracks. Wonder what they were? This was a time where I had wished I'd brought a tiny backpack to keep gear. My camera battery was dying after 400+ shots, with virtually no chimping. I think a lot of metering ate up the battery. Will learn to cut that down to a minimum, too. Very impressive considering I couldn't charge my battery last night. The 4GB compact flash card had plenty of space up to this point, too. Observing that the sunrise watcher groups were headed back to camp well in advance of me, I secured my gear and began the walk back. Those with better sleep/health/energy tackled part or the entire huge dune in the morning as well. Quite impressive. Surprisingly, much of the sand was quite firm to walk on, not nearly as hard packed as wet beach sand but not nearly as loose as dry beach sand. For this, I was grateful. Breakfast was the bread from last night, orange marmalade, a very soft cheese, tea and thin orange juice. It was all quite good, served on a Japanese-height table on the carpet that we slept on. Accursed flies bothered the meal, though. We folder our sleeping sheets and the amazingly comfortable blanket (slept on a thin mattress), piled them up and waited for our guide to prepare the camels. Omar, also the name of our camel driver, clapped his hands and commanded our camels up. We mounted and began the one hour ride back to the little Kasbah to meet Omar, our driver. Being tired, the ride back was even less comfortable. At least it was cooler, may 80 degrees F in the morning sun at 7am. Hahaha! I did my best to absorb every aspect of the ride, the smells, sights, sounds and feelings. Again I concluded 1 hour into the dunes is a ridiculously long walk if you don't know what you're doing. We arrived without incident and I bought a polished fossil from our guide as a tip, 80Dh. We woke Omar from his Moroccan late morning slumber and he offered the shower facilities for our use. Whoa, it was gross. And when I'm grossed out, that's bad. I just rinsed the sand out of my hair. It was good to get the grit out. But the smell of that place, gah. Hopped into our mighty coffin Hyundai Atos and began the very long drive back to Marrakech. This car doesn't let you miss one bump, crack or undulation in the road. It's only slightly softer than riding in a forklift with a direct connection to the road surface. I was hoping to sleep on the way back but that was proving to be impossible. And, Omar noted that he wasn't given enough cash to run the AC without running out of gas. Piece of crap, inquire next time. I tried to nod off when I could but the rough ride made that impossible, able to doze at best. And the heat was unpleasant. At our gas fill-up point, I told Omar that we were using AC and I didn't care, so I contributed 100Dh to get the gas so the AC could be on the whole way back. I was a little hot about it but I realized Omar was too nice to be part of a Moroccan money squeeze ploy, he was only a driver. I wanted to squeeze the money out of the dude who set up the trip but I voted later for harmony since the guy hangs out at Hotel Challah, where I'm staying. Don't want my stuff ripped off as a coincidence. Omar dropped us at our hotel after a miserable 8 hour drive - it was hot, I was tired and had an evil runny nose. If I'd slept and not been entertaining a cold, it wouldn't have been nearly so bad. Gave Omar a 50Dh tip - he was nice and accommodating and I didn't hold anything against him. Exchanged email with Louis-Philip and warned them of the difficulty of finding a taxi in Marrakech in the morning (6am), as they had a very early flight. I went to have an excellent salad and chicken/French fry dinner at Café Toubkal, outside the alley way to the hotel. Came back, showered and took a Tylenol PM and went to sleep, with earplugs in. Slept until 6am until the birds blasted me awake. Thursday, May 18, 2006 Felt much better with the first decent sleep I've had since I've been in Morocco. Had to buy the train ticket to Fes and get a sleeper car (couchette). Lonely Planet didn't say if there was one available to Fes, though. Hopefully. Brushed, showered, charged and downloaded all the images from the past few days. I hadn't shot nearly as much as I'd anticipated thus far but I'm not shooting many duplicates of the same things, cutting down on the editing once home. That'll be better anyway. I had to carry the Lonely Planet with me today because I lacked the foresight to photocopy the relevant pages. It was okay because I needed the full book to use at the train station anyway. The taxis here are supposed to meter but they don't without a huge fight, just like Lonely Planet says. They say 20Dh, you counter 10Dh. They usually capitulate. Discovered there were no convenient overnight trains to Fes but Patrick, a nice old British guy, suggested using the sleeper car to Sidi-Kacem (9pm-3am) and then catching a train to Fes at 8am or using a grand taxi. That should get me in early enough to find a place to sleep without trouble in Fes. We'll see! Taxied over to Jardin Majorelle and the Museum of Islamic Art to have a look-see. The garden (30Dh) was peaceful and I rested 1/2 hour before moving on to the museum (15Dh) which had mostly modern pieces. Never the less, it was a pleasant respite from the insanity of Marrakech. Went to the Saadian Tombs and caught a taxi to Palais el Badii Saddians to see some of the most impressive tomb architecture finery, with some of the most excruciating detail I've ever seen. The place isn't huge but the artwork is incredible. It did take a bit of "pinballing" (asking people every few blocks) to get to them but it was worth the effort. The Palais el Badii seemed like an initial disappointment of ruins but it yielded a few gems. It had a huge woodwork minbar (an Islamic pulpit) from the 12th century and was in amazingly good shape. You can't get very close to it but it was just fine anyway. No photos allowed in there. Exiting that, came out, turned left into the next entrance and found a bunch of holes covered with grates in the ground, suggesting hidden passages. I wandered for a bit and found access to the underground labyrinth. Quite fun and much cooler than the outside, being underground. Leaving the underground, getting on around this ancient palace clockwise, I saw many huge stork nests. They make a funny clicking sound (hence called Ack-ack in Arabic) and are huge. They really could carry a baby. Finished that and headed back to Djemaa el-Fna and the hotel to shower up, go over to Cafe Toubkal for a spectacular supper of an excellent salad (romaine lettuce, beets, cappers, onions, cucumbers and other unidentifiable vegatables) and a chicken tagine with potatoes and capers in a wonderfully tasty sauce, sided with two types of olives with hot chilies and bread. Highly recommended. Walked back to the hotel and made a stop at Shiram Internet for 5Dh for 1/2 hour to shoot of some emails and then sleep. Friday, May 19, 2006 Met post-grads Penny and Fahn from Berkley this morning. They were going to do the souq walk so I invited to join me on the walk. They're both grad students studying chemical biology stuff. Sounds like fun. Ha. Shared with them the basics of how the food, ATMs, pharmacies and such work here since they arrived in Morocco last night. We picked up a bread omelet with chocolate and headed out for the walk. We had great difficulty finding where to start the souq walk and wandered around, finding a mosque to observe how morning prayers proceeded. The prayers maybe last 20 minutes, 5 times a day. You take your shoes off before entering, do an absolution water wash and proceed with prayers. Quite fascinating to watch. We proceeded and finally found the Museum of Marrakech, with great searching. The souq walk actually starts north of the alleyway to Hotel Challah, almost directly across from Chez Chegrouni (a great food place) down an alleyway. I discovered this after completing the museum tour, but that's okay. The Lonely Planet start location description leaves something to be desired. A nice old man virtually took us to the Musee du Morocco. He was kind and not a "guide", looking for money, just helping out. You never know in this country what you're going to get. Fahn & Penny's French skills came in very handy, though it took a while to teach them the pinball technique rather than aimlessly wandering when a specific goal is in mind. The Musee du Marrakech is quite nice and has a good selection of pieces from throughout the region. It was well worth the search to see the main hall of the museum alone. The next three sites on the souq walk are connected by joint tickets so buy all three places for 60Dh as they're extremely close and all worth seeing. Naturally, we didn't initially buy the combine ticket but were able to weasel the second place on the first ticket price of 40Dh. The Ali Ben Youssef Medersa is the most impressive of all three, being the biggest theological college at the time in the region, housing what seems to be an impossible 900 students at the time. You can get lost wandering through all the rooms. I did. The Koubba Ba'diyn is of historical interest, with a few photographs around of the excavation but you don't miss much unless you like ruins. All of these places were fun to visit but we could have done without the irrepressible heat, powering down a 1.5L of water and not hitting the toilet once. Even the most powerful perfume or deodorant doesn't save you here. It was entertaining from the male perspective with the veritable sweat-wet t-shirt contest but the small amount of entertainment was outweighed by the discomfort of the heat with no breeze. Needing to head back to the hotel and get supper, I took my leave of Penny and Fahn and headed off. They were off to buy bus tickets to Ouarzazate and then to rent a car to get to Merzouga and bus to Fes. I warned them with, "Good luck, ladies". After having a guide run me through there, I'd never try that on a tight schedule as you'll never find your way well enough. In retrospect, I would never bother renting a car there for the suffering you'll go through. Walked through the wonderfully smelling leather souq on the way back and stopped at Cafe Toubkal for my last meal in Marrakech. The head waiter recognized me, shook my hand, and offered me the front row seat where it was relatively cool. I enjoyed a mouth watering mouton tagine along with a salad and freshly squeezed orange juice. All of that and a pretty sunset while the endless madness of Djemaa el-Fna played out in front of me. Finally took a photo, a bad flash one, of the old man in a wheel chair between Internet Shiram and Hotel Challah. And I stupidly paid 25Dh, negotiated by a young girl who knew how to squeeze for money. I was too gutless to try this during the daylight when I the shot would have looked good. The old man did get a good laugh looking at the photo I took, though. The whole day I was enjoying a miserable cough and nose, requiring many visits to the toilet to clear it. Disgusting. Hit the hotel, wrote a bit and caught a taxi to the train station. Had left my backpack at Hotel Challah in a storeroom during the day, as checkout was at noon. Just like Casablanca, the metered taxis are 50% more expensive at night, so the 20Dh fare was more reasonable this time. Guess who I can into in my assigned berth in the train? Patrick, the Brit who suggested this actual route! What an irony. We had a pleasant chat and an older Scot joined into the conversation. The Scot happened to be buying property in Essaouira. Patrick said that at my age, he financed traveling for 6 years by taking odd jobs and not minding where he slept and what he ate, doing everything from flipping (and living off of) burgers in the US to being a helper in a game park in South Africa. That story seems to be consistent with the way I've heard other people do long term travel, landing lucky jobs and being blessed as you go along. I'd guess it'd take half a year to learn to do that properly. Patrick said he doesn't even know how to drive and is retired, a character from a bygone era. What an incredible life! The Scott was also pleasant, too. Both the Brit & the Scot were old and funny guys. Sleeping in a couchette (sleeper train) was fine with earplugs. I was off to Sidi-Kacem. Previous page   Next page
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