After the worst bus ride I have had in recent memory I arrived in Azrou. It's a small berber town of about 50 000 and I think Moroccans in big cities would call these people hicks. Moroccans in big cities are also uniformly crappy people. Azrou is probably the best looking place I've visited in Morocco, it's cradled in the foothills of the middle atlas and looks down onto a huge plain of farms, with more mountains on the other side. The mountainside is covered with large trees, and if you squint it kind of looks like parts of British Columbia. You have to squint because even though the trees are great, there are still the usual piles of garbage everywhere.
I left Marrakesh thinking all moroccans were total jerkoffs, but now, as I stated earlier, I only believe that all Moroccans who live in big cities are total jerkoffs. Everyone I've met here has been really nice and I am glad I decided to visit this town.
Today I had a pretty excellent day, but it kind of began yesterday when this carpet salesman invited me into his shop for mint tea and, instead of selling me a carpet, drew me a map of the best walking routes in the area and told me to come back the next day and he'd explain to a taxi driver where to take me.
The next day I went to this big weekly berber market and it was kind of weird, I was expecting tourist junk, but it was only boring practical things like pots, clothes, and sheep. so many sheep. After that I had a crappy breakfast, but at least the coffee in Morocco is always fantastic. Then I met the carpet guy and he got all my shit sorted with the cab guy.
The walk was great, it was mostly up hill and there were great views of the valley. It was kind of strange to be in the middle of North Africa and be in a large forest, but I got used to it pretty quick because the forest was full of barbary apes (which aren't actually apes). When I was about a third of the way through the loop I found myself in a tourist trap campground place, but I was the only tourist. There were a few Moroccan dudes offering horse rides on the healthiest horses I have seen in the country. One of the guys was super friendly, especially after I told him all the arabic words I know and he offered to take me on the horse for $6CDN. I was a little suspicious about this as a result of my past camel-related experiences, but I have been told that a camel is just a horse designed by a committee, so I was willing to trust this guy to not fuck me over.
My faith in the superiority of horsemen was rewarded greatly because my guide turned out to be a great ride. He took me out for more than the promised half hour, and we hung out on the plataeu of the mountain for a while. It was an awesome alpine meadow and so quiet. The way back was kind of upsetting because we went through the campground and all the french tourists just throw their garbage into the forest and forget about it. the pigs.
I drank mint tea with the horse guy and his friends until a big bus of tourists arrived, then I kept on walking. I was going steadily for about 20 minutes when i saw a group of morrocan guys having a barbeque picnic on the grass and listening to arabic rap music. they invited me over and we had an awesome time. They didn't all speak very good english, but mostly they could understand my french so that wasn't a problem. They were probably the nicest dudes I've met so far and they made me eat lots of their delicious grilled chicken. They then gave me a tour of the region, stopping in all the best small towns and not letting me pay for anything. They took me back to Azrou around 7, we ate a delicious meal, and they made me promise to email them, which I will. excellent people.
Now I'm kind of worried about Fez. Probably I'll only spend a day or two at the most there. goddamn city moroccans.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
trans-saharran express
- after my last post i finally rode a camel. i can't believe that it took me so long to do it. the guy wanted about $40cdn initially, but i bargained hard and got him down to $12. I was then prepared to gallop mightily across the beach and over the dunes on the back of my savage beast, but apparently they don't trust reckless tourists with their precious camels (but how precious could they be: I met a guy who told me that a moroccan man had offered him 10 camels for his girlfriend, which is a pretty poor exchange on camels) so someone went out with me. It was pretty awesome and i would do it again, but just as it was getting really exciting, the guy said we had to turn around. when i complained he said, "what you expect for 100 dirham?" i guess that is reasonable, but those lazy camels just sleep on the beach all day and eat, except for the half hour they actually have customers, which is a lot of wasted camel power.
after that i met some americans who were in the process of getting drunk and they made me come with them to eat an enormous feast on the roof of a restaurant in the medina. it was pretty good and a very warm and clear night, but it was outrageously expensive. good thing they wouldn't let me pay.
the next day i bought a bus ticket to Marrakech. the first class bus company i had travelled with before was too expensive and didn't leave until 8pm, so i just walked to the bus station and got on the next bus, which was half the price. of course, the seats were small, ripped, the air conditioning was broken and the windows didn't work, and i was really worried about my luggage the whole time because they didn't think it was necessary to tag my luggage or even give me a card. after all, who would take luggage that didn't belong to them?
on the bus i made friends with a group of spanish people and, after i found my bags (entirely unstolen), we went to the hotel they had stayed in last time they were in Marrakech. it's a great place, built around a central courtyard with a terrace on the roof and every surface is covered in tiles. also very close to the centre of the medina.
the city's most famous feature is this enormous public square full of people selling shit called djema el fna. it reminds me of the pne because it is big, smelly, and mostly overpriced. the only real difference is that cars, motorcycles, donkeys, and horses are all going as fast as they can through the square and there are no lines painted on the ground. the street theatre is part of a thousand year old tradition of ripping off tourists and is a UNESCO world heritage thing, but i thought it was pretty shitty. It was mostly just a bunch of dudes in robes hitting drums and dancing badly, with very little snake charming or suspended rope from a basket climbing (you know what i mean) going on. And the worst part is that if you stand even remotely near the crappy show, some dude with a box will come over and demand you pay. i have no idea how i kept getting singled out from the hundreds of other people in the square but it was pretty tiresome and i eventually just pretended to be Danish. the only language moroccans don't know.
we met this old weaver guy who the spanish people had made friends with before, and he invited us into the back alley and up into his workshop. it was really weird, but i would compare it to a castle for a really poor person. He served us mint tea and talked like we were old friends before he tried to sell us the same junk they sell in every other store except at a slightly higher price because he claimed his cousin made it. i almost bought a pair of sandals from him for 36 dollars, but on the way to an ATM i asked a guy in a shop how much his were and it was less than half that. The old dude was really mad that i wouldn't buy his overpriced crap and he called me a child and told me not to come back, but i think that is only stage two of the bargaining process. now it is my move. on the way out of the market some guy offered to sell me a fake Cartier watch and the same slippers for what the old guy wanted for just the slippers. what a country.
my spanish friends left this morning and it was very sad. who knew i would ever be sorry to say goodbye to europeans?
Thursday, May 6, 2010
under african skies
Thanks to my religious friends I easily caught the bus, and, after a terrifying few kilometres during which I was convinced that I had been tricked and was on the wrong bus, I arrived in Essaouira with this very nice Russian couple I had made friends with on the bus.
Apparently this place has been settled since the 7th century BC when Phonecian people built a lighthouse and a town just off the coast, and later it became a Roman settlement because there is some sort of purple dye you can get if you squeeze the right fish or something. It used to be full of hippies and Jimi Hendrix (my guide book tells me that people here claim the ruins on the islands inspired him to write Castles Made of Sand, but it also says that he released that song a year before he came here, so if I meet any locals who try to tell me that story I will humilate them by exposing them as liars), but now it is mostly package tourists wearing the same shirts and pretending to be interested while a guide lectures them in some sort of European nazi talk.
The city is pretty crazy: the central part where I'm staying is surrounded by an enormous wall and is apparently an excellent example of 18th century european military architecture in north africa. The medina inside is made up of all these long, narrow, and winding passage ways, some of which dead-end into groups of bored and angry looking young moroccan dudes. The main streets are cleaned daily and the city is very tidy and kind of relaxed, especially because they don't allow cars in here. Outside of the walls there is a grimy and poor section of town which is what some asshole hippies would probably refer to as "the real morocco" which is a bunch of bullshit. There is also a very big beach and, about half an hour's walk south, a fantastically ruined fortress, either portuguese from the 16th century or Moroccan from the end of the 18th, but it doesn't really matter because it isn't guarded and you can climb all over it and play soliders or whatever. The only thing that has stopped Essaouira from becoming a tourist trap is the intense wind. It's incredible how powerful and consistant it is, but you need to wear a sweater or, at least, a heavy shirt if you're going to be out in it for long. Also the city is full of cats, like, if you put a basket or your hat down somewhere and walk away, it will probably have a cat in it when you come back. The fishermen feed them in the evening so they're all in pretty good shape and they probably keep the rats down.
I explored the town with my Russian friends and we walked all the way to the end of the beach. It was pretty great and this place is nice, even if there aren't any actual sights. At the end of the night we were sitting in a room high up in a building, watching the angry waves crash against the city before retreating back to the atlantic, and the whole thing was lit up by the brightest stars i've ever seen. pretty amazing.
Apparently this place has been settled since the 7th century BC when Phonecian people built a lighthouse and a town just off the coast, and later it became a Roman settlement because there is some sort of purple dye you can get if you squeeze the right fish or something. It used to be full of hippies and Jimi Hendrix (my guide book tells me that people here claim the ruins on the islands inspired him to write Castles Made of Sand, but it also says that he released that song a year before he came here, so if I meet any locals who try to tell me that story I will humilate them by exposing them as liars), but now it is mostly package tourists wearing the same shirts and pretending to be interested while a guide lectures them in some sort of European nazi talk.
The city is pretty crazy: the central part where I'm staying is surrounded by an enormous wall and is apparently an excellent example of 18th century european military architecture in north africa. The medina inside is made up of all these long, narrow, and winding passage ways, some of which dead-end into groups of bored and angry looking young moroccan dudes. The main streets are cleaned daily and the city is very tidy and kind of relaxed, especially because they don't allow cars in here. Outside of the walls there is a grimy and poor section of town which is what some asshole hippies would probably refer to as "the real morocco" which is a bunch of bullshit. There is also a very big beach and, about half an hour's walk south, a fantastically ruined fortress, either portuguese from the 16th century or Moroccan from the end of the 18th, but it doesn't really matter because it isn't guarded and you can climb all over it and play soliders or whatever. The only thing that has stopped Essaouira from becoming a tourist trap is the intense wind. It's incredible how powerful and consistant it is, but you need to wear a sweater or, at least, a heavy shirt if you're going to be out in it for long. Also the city is full of cats, like, if you put a basket or your hat down somewhere and walk away, it will probably have a cat in it when you come back. The fishermen feed them in the evening so they're all in pretty good shape and they probably keep the rats down.
I explored the town with my Russian friends and we walked all the way to the end of the beach. It was pretty great and this place is nice, even if there aren't any actual sights. At the end of the night we were sitting in a room high up in a building, watching the angry waves crash against the city before retreating back to the atlantic, and the whole thing was lit up by the brightest stars i've ever seen. pretty amazing.
Mcdonald's for everyone
I had a pretty great day after i wrote my last post, I made it to the beach and hung out on the expensive side because it was slightly cleaner. The day was beautiful and so I asked some old French people to watch my junk while i went swimming.
I only saw two pieces of plastic floating in the water (i thought the first one was a box jellyfish), which is probably pretty good by Moroccan standards. I spent the next hour chasing large schools of fish around the water, watching seagulls dive in to catch them, and always making sure that there was someone further out in the water and directly across from me so that, if a shark attacked, they would be eaten first and screams would give me enough warning to escape back to shore with a heroic tale of survival to tell. no sharks came.
I ate my dinner at mcdonalds, which means that I have now eaten at Mcdonald's on three continents (it would have been 4 but none of my friends in London wouldn't go with me, so that will have to wait until spain). From Phucket to Agadir to Vancouver, the food is always adequate.
While it was kind of reasurring to see the large Mcdonalds on the beach (sharing a patio with pizza hut and at the end of the row of fancy restaurants), it was also kind of unsettling, but not because I am bothered by the spread of American culture across the world, as that means that I can usually find someone who speaks some English, and there will always be a large air conditioned restuarant for me to hide out in. No, it is upsetting for the opposite reason: Mcdonald's has gone too native. Instead of operating as an embassy for embattled north americans, it was full of Moroccans on holiday and European families. It was even staffed by people who could barely speak english and couldn't understand me when i tried to order a 10 piece chicken nuggs. It was like entering your home and learning that it was now inhabited by a new family who couldn't understand you and didn't want to talk about your family. Being the only english speaking person in a Mcdonald's was weird. Of course, when an overweight sunburnt family from england sat down next to me and began yelling at their children I immediately missed the silence. I just can't win here.
After that, I bought an early morning bus ticket to Essaouira and went to sleep at 8 because the sun drained all the life from me. I didn't bother to set my alarm because the mosque next door always provided me with a free wake up service at 5:20am.
I only saw two pieces of plastic floating in the water (i thought the first one was a box jellyfish), which is probably pretty good by Moroccan standards. I spent the next hour chasing large schools of fish around the water, watching seagulls dive in to catch them, and always making sure that there was someone further out in the water and directly across from me so that, if a shark attacked, they would be eaten first and screams would give me enough warning to escape back to shore with a heroic tale of survival to tell. no sharks came.
I ate my dinner at mcdonalds, which means that I have now eaten at Mcdonald's on three continents (it would have been 4 but none of my friends in London wouldn't go with me, so that will have to wait until spain). From Phucket to Agadir to Vancouver, the food is always adequate.
While it was kind of reasurring to see the large Mcdonalds on the beach (sharing a patio with pizza hut and at the end of the row of fancy restaurants), it was also kind of unsettling, but not because I am bothered by the spread of American culture across the world, as that means that I can usually find someone who speaks some English, and there will always be a large air conditioned restuarant for me to hide out in. No, it is upsetting for the opposite reason: Mcdonald's has gone too native. Instead of operating as an embassy for embattled north americans, it was full of Moroccans on holiday and European families. It was even staffed by people who could barely speak english and couldn't understand me when i tried to order a 10 piece chicken nuggs. It was like entering your home and learning that it was now inhabited by a new family who couldn't understand you and didn't want to talk about your family. Being the only english speaking person in a Mcdonald's was weird. Of course, when an overweight sunburnt family from england sat down next to me and began yelling at their children I immediately missed the silence. I just can't win here.
After that, I bought an early morning bus ticket to Essaouira and went to sleep at 8 because the sun drained all the life from me. I didn't bother to set my alarm because the mosque next door always provided me with a free wake up service at 5:20am.
Monday, May 3, 2010
morocco could be worse
today i was woken up by the stupid mosque with its incredibly powerful speaker system and long, whiney voice. it sucked, but what're you going to do?
i went to the famous beach which is apparently the only reason people come to this town, and wqas kind of dissapointed: it was really dirty and the water was cold. but it was nice to soak my feet and there are no jerks trying to sell things there, which was a pleasant change.
i found a clean spot and put my towel down, getting ready to relax, when these young moroccan guys asked me to play soccer with them. i did and it was awesome. we communicated in a mixture of badly spoken languages and signs, and they were all very nice. we kicked the ball around for a couple of hours and they told me they wanted to go to canada and kept asking questions about the girls there. Hammad gestured that he was a breast man and began thrusting wildly in the direction of two 30+ year old french women wearing bikinis on the beach.
women who come to morocco from europe and north america should probably not wear beach clothes here. the men are all sexually repressed disgusting pigs who think that foreign women are just begging for their tender and sweaty touch. it's pretty horrible, but i guess this is their country and they can be as revolting and stupid as they like.
anyways, after that i bought 3 disposable camers for 6CDN each, a very good deal provided they actually work, so there will be pictures as soon as i can get the, developped on CD
i then went back to my hotel and made friends with the reception guy. he's pretty awesome and never pantomimed sex once so it was a good conversation. i just wish my french were better.
i went to the famous beach which is apparently the only reason people come to this town, and wqas kind of dissapointed: it was really dirty and the water was cold. but it was nice to soak my feet and there are no jerks trying to sell things there, which was a pleasant change.
i found a clean spot and put my towel down, getting ready to relax, when these young moroccan guys asked me to play soccer with them. i did and it was awesome. we communicated in a mixture of badly spoken languages and signs, and they were all very nice. we kicked the ball around for a couple of hours and they told me they wanted to go to canada and kept asking questions about the girls there. Hammad gestured that he was a breast man and began thrusting wildly in the direction of two 30+ year old french women wearing bikinis on the beach.
women who come to morocco from europe and north america should probably not wear beach clothes here. the men are all sexually repressed disgusting pigs who think that foreign women are just begging for their tender and sweaty touch. it's pretty horrible, but i guess this is their country and they can be as revolting and stupid as they like.
anyways, after that i bought 3 disposable camers for 6CDN each, a very good deal provided they actually work, so there will be pictures as soon as i can get the, developped on CD
i then went back to my hotel and made friends with the reception guy. he's pretty awesome and never pantomimed sex once so it was a good conversation. i just wish my french were better.
fuad the madman
i felt sad leaving london because it was fun, my friends were great, and also because i hadn't slept the entire night and i am always sad when i miss my sleep, but my first day in morocco made me feel even sadder.
i stupidly decided that it would be a good idea to take public transport from the airport to the nearest large town and then cab from there, and it would have been too, except my camera and 12CDN were stolen from my pocket, which is why there have been no pictures of england. i really miss those pictures.
later that day i went to use the internet and, on my walk back to my hotel, was approached by a moroccan man named Fuad (or something like that). he was very nice but kind of weird and smelly, which didn't bother me because morocco itself is kind of weird and smelly. his english was ok and he bought me mint tea and we sat in a cafe and drank it and he talked about morocco. to repay him i gave him 4CDN for cigarettes. he then volunteered to show me around town. i didn't think this was weird because everything i'd read about morocco talked about the great hospitality and friendliness of the people. he took me to a couple of stores but i didn't buy anything because what the hell am i going to do with a kilo of spices or a pair of pointy sandals? third world people have no idea what kind of shit north americans like.
Fuad and i were getting a long well, but then he started asking me to buy him booze. i told him i didn't have any money and then he reached into his waistband at the back and we had a very strange conversation "i am poor man. you will give me money"
"i'm really sorry but i can't afford it, my budget is very strict"
"i have knife. give me money"
at this point i was like what the fuck? i doubted that he actually had a knife but i tried to guilt him into going away because i had been told muslims love guests or something, but that didn't work. i was way bigger and stronger than him and could have given him a pretty good beating, knife or not, but he had said hello to quite a few people on the way down and i had no friends in the entire city. so, i told him ok and tossed him my large water bottle with the cap off, he jumped back and i took off down the street. he didn't follow, i suspect he was satisfied with the water. bastard. i was thirsty all day.
he only wanted 50dirham. or 6cdn, but fuck that, nobody robs craig when he is paying attention.
i spent the rest of the night reading in my room and trying to nap. it was difficult because my hotel is right next to a mosque (thanks for leaving that out, lonely planet) and the call to prayer is incredibly loud and annoying. when i am on a better computer i will try to find a youtube video of how awful it is. they do it at 530am too. sorry about spelling, this computer has a french/arabic keyboard so nothing is where it should be
i stupidly decided that it would be a good idea to take public transport from the airport to the nearest large town and then cab from there, and it would have been too, except my camera and 12CDN were stolen from my pocket, which is why there have been no pictures of england. i really miss those pictures.
later that day i went to use the internet and, on my walk back to my hotel, was approached by a moroccan man named Fuad (or something like that). he was very nice but kind of weird and smelly, which didn't bother me because morocco itself is kind of weird and smelly. his english was ok and he bought me mint tea and we sat in a cafe and drank it and he talked about morocco. to repay him i gave him 4CDN for cigarettes. he then volunteered to show me around town. i didn't think this was weird because everything i'd read about morocco talked about the great hospitality and friendliness of the people. he took me to a couple of stores but i didn't buy anything because what the hell am i going to do with a kilo of spices or a pair of pointy sandals? third world people have no idea what kind of shit north americans like.
Fuad and i were getting a long well, but then he started asking me to buy him booze. i told him i didn't have any money and then he reached into his waistband at the back and we had a very strange conversation "i am poor man. you will give me money"
"i'm really sorry but i can't afford it, my budget is very strict"
"i have knife. give me money"
at this point i was like what the fuck? i doubted that he actually had a knife but i tried to guilt him into going away because i had been told muslims love guests or something, but that didn't work. i was way bigger and stronger than him and could have given him a pretty good beating, knife or not, but he had said hello to quite a few people on the way down and i had no friends in the entire city. so, i told him ok and tossed him my large water bottle with the cap off, he jumped back and i took off down the street. he didn't follow, i suspect he was satisfied with the water. bastard. i was thirsty all day.
he only wanted 50dirham. or 6cdn, but fuck that, nobody robs craig when he is paying attention.
i spent the rest of the night reading in my room and trying to nap. it was difficult because my hotel is right next to a mosque (thanks for leaving that out, lonely planet) and the call to prayer is incredibly loud and annoying. when i am on a better computer i will try to find a youtube video of how awful it is. they do it at 530am too. sorry about spelling, this computer has a french/arabic keyboard so nothing is where it should be
london is awesome
after my last post i ended up having a fantastic day in london. zoe`s room mate chris was a great guy and we met up with 2 other people and he showed me around london. the weather kind of sucked, but i saw the tate, st pauls, westminster abbey and big ben, the large ferris wheel, and the london museum. we also saw one of the weirdest things i have ever seen: birds playing guitars at the barbican. i could not possibly describe how bizzare it was in words alone.
we stayed out late that night and i had a terrible kebab. the food in london is uniformly awful.
i slept late the next morning, but my kind host woke me up and i had a traiditional english breakfast. it was gross. who needs fries for breakfast, and why would anyone want to eat blood pudding? there was a large family next to us and they were all drinking at 1pm. i never saw so ,uch public drunkenness in my life. As to the awful food, i found out that english people eat something called "chips and bap" or something like that, and it'sz just a french fry sandwich on white bread. a fried chicken sandwich where the bun was fried chicken (also known as the double down) would be better for you. probably.
after that, we went and saw sherlock holmes's house and it was great. at this point; zoe had had enough walking but i still wanted to see some stuff, so after a brief visit to uniqlo i went to the british museum. at least, i tried to. it was really hard to find and no one knew where it was. i kept getting vague directions but felt for sure i was slowly getting closer, which was important because it was raining very hard and my pants, socks, and shoes were soaked through.
i went up to these two guys to ask directions and, by the time i noticed they were chavs drinking cider, it was too late. i asked the closest one where the british museum was, and he looked at me, soaked to the bone and still dripping rain but with a polite smile, and he said; "fuck you." his friend tried to give me slightly better directions, but neither one of them actually knew where the museum was. what a shock.
i finally found it and was leaving wet footprints behind me and it was awesome. too bad it closed so eaarly and i had spent so much time looking for it.
after that i met up with zoe, we shopped, and she made me a delicious dinner with chicken and roast vegetables. i turned the leftovers into a delicious sandwich because i am such a responsible guy. that night at 2am i left the safety of Zoe's house and caught a bus to a coach station near buckingham palace. everything was poorly marked and this american girl and i missed the only bus to gatwick until 730am (it was 315 and my flight to agadir left at 630). i thought we were fucked because a cab ride would have been 90 pounds. but apparently there is an express train to gatwick that nobody bothered to tell us about, so we caught that and ,ade it to the airport without incident.
sorry there are no pictures, i will explain why in the next post
we stayed out late that night and i had a terrible kebab. the food in london is uniformly awful.
i slept late the next morning, but my kind host woke me up and i had a traiditional english breakfast. it was gross. who needs fries for breakfast, and why would anyone want to eat blood pudding? there was a large family next to us and they were all drinking at 1pm. i never saw so ,uch public drunkenness in my life. As to the awful food, i found out that english people eat something called "chips and bap" or something like that, and it'sz just a french fry sandwich on white bread. a fried chicken sandwich where the bun was fried chicken (also known as the double down) would be better for you. probably.
after that, we went and saw sherlock holmes's house and it was great. at this point; zoe had had enough walking but i still wanted to see some stuff, so after a brief visit to uniqlo i went to the british museum. at least, i tried to. it was really hard to find and no one knew where it was. i kept getting vague directions but felt for sure i was slowly getting closer, which was important because it was raining very hard and my pants, socks, and shoes were soaked through.
i went up to these two guys to ask directions and, by the time i noticed they were chavs drinking cider, it was too late. i asked the closest one where the british museum was, and he looked at me, soaked to the bone and still dripping rain but with a polite smile, and he said; "fuck you." his friend tried to give me slightly better directions, but neither one of them actually knew where the museum was. what a shock.
i finally found it and was leaving wet footprints behind me and it was awesome. too bad it closed so eaarly and i had spent so much time looking for it.
after that i met up with zoe, we shopped, and she made me a delicious dinner with chicken and roast vegetables. i turned the leftovers into a delicious sandwich because i am such a responsible guy. that night at 2am i left the safety of Zoe's house and caught a bus to a coach station near buckingham palace. everything was poorly marked and this american girl and i missed the only bus to gatwick until 730am (it was 315 and my flight to agadir left at 630). i thought we were fucked because a cab ride would have been 90 pounds. but apparently there is an express train to gatwick that nobody bothered to tell us about, so we caught that and ,ade it to the airport without incident.
sorry there are no pictures, i will explain why in the next post
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