je ne prend pas les drogues

I am now in the city of Chefchaouen in the Rif mountains of northern morocco. It's apparently the marijuana capital of the country and every asshole in the streets is trying to sell it to tourists. If you ignore them its actually a pretty nice place with huge green mountains, good weather, and the whole town is painted a very clear white and blue. Also it's got a lot less garbage than most other moroccan cities.

I got off the bus at a town called Dardalla which you will not find on any map, and soon realised i would have great diffictuly getting to the city, especially because it was a cold night. There was a gas station with a cafe across the street and I was planning on waiting there, except it had flooded or something and there was water and garbage all over the floor and the owner/staff people were sitting outside looking sad.

I then walked across the street and met some very friendly police officers who made me drink their redbull and wanted to hear my bad pronounciation of arabic words. they were pretty solid, especially when they stopped a cab heading out of town and made him turn around and drive me for a very reasonable price. moroccan police get shit accomplished.

finally found a hotel, and the next day i met a very nice australian guy. He was very different from any australians i had previously met, and i quickly found out it was because he doesn't drink. what a difference that makes. we hung out, and were walking around town, getting offered hash from everybody and they all said, "hello my friend, i have good shit, all natural, good price." every single one. same pitch every time. And it didn't matter how many times you told them you weren't interested or didn't do drugs, they'd still follow you down the street yelling at your back. One guy even offered me opium after I told him I didn't want any hash. What the hell?

After that we met up with three guys from new york and hung out in their hotel room complaining about drug dealers and carpet salesmen. When the australian guy and i got up to leave at 4am we found we were locked in the hotel and had to nap on the hard couches and it was cold as hell. woke up two hours later and the reception guys were finally there. they let us out and i slept pretty well in my hotel.

tomorrow i am going to climb the biggest mountain in this part of morocco. much love.

chicken bus to fez

While still in Azrou I met this moroccan guy who spoke pretty good english and invited me to come hangout in his house and drink mint tea. He was really into african music and it was all pretty alright, except he tried to sell me a burned cd for 5 euros. I didn't even charge that much for burned CDs when I was the only kid in school with a CD burner and I had to download all of the songs on 56k from napster so I just ignored him. I'm running out of stuff to read so I asked him if he had anything in english, and he started showing me his library. The first book was called "How to break your own heart" and was strongly recommended by Woman's World Magazine (unfortuantely the back cover was missing so i don't know what it is about, but the last sentence is the first kiss of the central couple =D), and the next was called "Bad Behaviour" about a successful girl living in her own apartment in downtown Dublin (i know, right?) who has everything except a man to make her less horribly lonely. Then she finds out her ex boyfriend is coming back to the emerald isle to marry her ex bestfriend and the blurb on the back implies so somehow wins him over or something. I was looking at the other books when the guy pointed at the first two and said, "those have very good stories." No doubt.

I left Azrou the next day and made it to Fez aboard the chicken bus for $2. I was happy they had cleared out all of the chickens before i got on, but the seats were still in pretty horrible condition and there were exposed wires hanging from the panel where the light and fan should have been.

Fez was pretty alright, just like most other large moroccan cities, except in a much nicer location. It's got green hills with fields that you can see from the old city and they look a lot like the okanagan. Could have been worse.

My hotel was kind of crappy because I was staying on the roof in a little cell with a heavy metal door that couldn't keep the cold out. it was especially bad because it was pouring rain and hailing later in the day. I didn't mind any of this because the lady who runs the place was such a sweet old grandmother and when i was coming back to sleep she called me into the office to show me a cat that was sitting on her stool and she thought it was hilarious and that the cat would soon be asking for passports and trying to check people in. I kind of miss her.

Fez has the largest intact medeival medina in the world and there are no cars allowed, which makes it much nicer than Marrakesh, but I got lost a couple of times. This wouldn't have been so bad except you couldn't ask anybody for directions as they all wanted to take you to their "cousin's" shop or show you the tanneries for a price and then a commission of anything you were pressured to buy. I let some guy take me to the top of his store to see the tanneries, and they were pretty sweet, but he predictably tried to sell me some leather stuff in his store downstairs. I looked it all over and i didn't want any of it so i turned to him and said, "i don't think that..." and then i just left. he was kind of stunned and by the time he figured out what had happened and was demanding a tip I had already disappeared around the corner. a great victory for the civilised man.

That night I met up with a pretty decent Canadian and a French guy and we hung out the next day and explored more of the city. unfortunately friday is a holy day here and almost everything was closed, but that made it a lot less hassle to get across town.

I had already checked out of my hotel because I had had enough of Fez and wanted to get to Chefchaueon in the north, but it turned out the only bus there left at 730 that morning. Fortunately a nice con man was able to direct me to a chicken bus that went to a nearby town that wasn't on any maps. I was a little suspicious that the place didn't actually exist and also a little worried about showing up in town at 2am, but it was better than sleeping on the streets of Fez.

today i didn't even have to use my AK, i gotta say, it was a good day

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.