Marrakech

Acrobats, musicians, dancers, wild animals, story tellers and mini-doughnuts are all things you might expect to see and likely remind you of a late-August afternoon spent wondering the grounds at the PNE. Add the call to prayer, fortune tellers, snake charmers serenading cobras and rattlesnakes, leashed monkeys doing backflips for change and row upon row of food stalls offering up delicacies such as sheep's brain and cinnamon/ginger tea and you know you aren't at Hastings and Renfrew anymore but rather that you have arrived at Morocco's most well-known square: Marrakech's Djemaa El-Fna.
 

As you approach the square from souk laneways which all seem to end there your senses are slowly taken over by a way of life that has attracted thousands of people, both tourists and locals alike, every night of the week for hundreds of years. The sound of heckling vendors trying to sell you touristy kitch is replaced by the sound of berber percussionists, the smell of two-stroke engine exhaust from scooters that zip through the narrow pedestrian laneways of the souk is replaced by the smell of dinner sizzling away on a grill and wafting from the food tents in a haze of smoke so thick you can taste it.

Djemaa El-Fna might not be the ideal place for two convalessing guys with apparently sub-par gastrointestinal fortitude to make their final recovery but on both of our two nights in Marrakech, Gord and I found ourselves drawn to the centre of the action. We decided to pass on the sheep brain this trip and instead settled for Moroccan lentil soup, grilled chicken and a plate of fries. Vegetables seem hard to come by in this country and as a result, both of us will likely have to have our essential mineral (and cholestorol !) levels checked upon our return to Canada. Although the bazaar (and the bizarre) typically carry on well into the night, neither of us had the energy to witness it all unfold and instead retreated to our rooms in a 350 year-old Riad to read, rest-up and organize for the trip home.

Morocco has been a fascinating country to visit and I would highly reccomend it to others who may be curious as to what the Kingdom has to offer. At many of the sites, on many of the roads and even in many of the hotels, Gord and I were the only people around and it truly felt as if we had the place to ourselves. Morocco is quite compact by African standards but it packs a lot in to its borders: from ski hills (yes, you can ski in Africa and not just on sand) to desert, tropical oceanside resorts to lush cedar forests and villages with mud buildings to cosmopolitan centres of commerce. The people here have been extremely friendly and contrary to what we had heard, very low-pressure in their sales approach...except for that swindling carpet salesman of course.

5 bucks says this guy doesn't have a dentistry degree

Djemaa El-Fna...alive and buzzing with activity

Sick in Taroudant

Trust can be defined as remaining calm when you open your eyes to see your deaf Moroccan barber about to shave your jugular area with a razor blade he just disinfected by dousing it in alcohol and lighting it on fire. Now imagine the same scenario playing out but only a few minutes after you noticed what looked like a Canadian flag on a cassette tape the barber had in his stereo that you removed to show him (he's deaf after all !) but that wasn't really a Canadian flag but rather, as he explains to you in sign language, a religious tape that he uses to pray to Allah five times a day. Ooops. Thankfully this barber understood that I was trying to build international relations and not destroy them like the infidel I am and both Gord and I walked out with the cleanest, closest shaves we've ever had for about two bucks each (that's with about $1.20 tip for goodwill in the event that I had actually violated some sacred tenant of Islam).

The half an hour spent in the barber's chair probably wasn't the type of relaxing down time my mother suggested I take after getting sick yet again while overseas but it did mark the end of the motorcycle-riding portion of our trip as Gord and I shaved off the two weeks of attempted biker beard we had grown. After being bed-ridden in our respective rooms for the past two days with some sort of gastrointestinal bug we woke up this morning and decided it was probably best to get a lift back to Marrakech instead of trying to ride the bikes 300kms when our bodies were still weak and our minds still focused on where the nearest bathroom was instead of on the road.

It seems that the salad we ate at lunch a few days ago, the same salad that we figured was safe because busloads of European tourists before us had eaten theres, was cursed with some sort of hate for us.Yes I know you should never eat uncooked veggies in a country like this but it did seem as if they ran a brisk business and unluckily that they would poison unsuspecting tourists day after day. If it wasn't the salad it may have been those damn omelets we ate.... likely made with eggs that sat in the sun for two or three days before they made it to the frying pan. In any case,dozens of bottles of water, rolls of tp and prescribed antibiotics later we called this portion of our trip quits and decided to rest so that we could try and enjoy the last few days in Morocco before heading home.

We couldn't have picked a better place to get sick as it just happened to hit us at the nicest riad we've stayed in the entire trip. The French owner took good care of us by giving us our own rooms, making special meals for us and calling the local doctor to our room on two occasions (including once to give me two needles in the butt cheek to stop the pain I was experiencing). The staff we left tips for certainly earned them,(especially the poor maid) and I'm pretty sure Yves will be getting complaints from his neighbours who may have heard me cursing away throughout the night between calls to prayer. 

I don't seem to be doing much to follow Obama's call to help bridge the gap between Islam and the west this trip do I.

We're off to Marrakech for the last few days in Morocco before heading back home via London.



The less graceful side of exotic travel.... me getting a needle in the butt cheek. No... I don't normally wear black socks with shorts, it was cold !



Thankfully this guy didn't have Parkinsons




Not quite how we wanted to return the bikes to Marrakech...

 

Our auberge/hospital in Taroudant

Fleeced by "cactus silk"

Locked in what I had hoped was a goodbye handshake with a friendly Berber tribesman, I tried to pull my hand away but somehow instead agreed to purchase a Berber rug for 2000 Dirhams (approximately 300 dollars). Gord and I had been hassled and wooed with mint tea by various carpet salesmen several times in the past few weeks, each time saying no no no, but somehow this short, well spoken mountain man in the town of Tinehir had managed to convince me that I needed a new rug and before I knew it I had walked out the door with a 12x6 living room rug neatly folded and packaged up in an old potato bag.

The morning had started off innocently enough, sitting in the sun on the main road in town eating a cheese omelet and sipping our coffees. A Moroccan man sat at the table next to us and struck up a conversation in English while a local kid polished my leather shoes for a mere 40 cents. The man said that he now lived in Madrid but was back in Morocco visiting family during the sheep killing festival and asked us where we were from, how we were enjoying our trip and similar small talk. Our conversation eventually lead to discussion of our hamman experience and the friendly stranger started to give us a lesson in what we needed for our next hammam experience and offered to take us to the nearby souk to purchase the required items (glove for soap that has NOT been used on 3593 other people before us, etc etc). With an hour or so to spare before continuing our ride west, Gord and I took the man up on his offer and quickly shown different aspects of the market we wouldn't have seen had we just walked through ourselves.

The man noted that both Gord and I were rather congested and suggested that we stop at a market naturopath for a quick remedy. Barking at the 16 year old naturopathic "doctor" in Arabic, the man opened a number of mason jars and scooped a small amount of powder out of each and into a cloth which he then tied off at the end to shape into a small ball. We each took our turn holding the cloth ball up to our nose and huffing the deepest breath possible through nasal cavities, essentially sniffing a line of unknown spices, powders and snake oils into our system. Remarkably the combination seemed to do the trick though, and the kid didn't even charge us for it. Hmmm... I wonder how many others had put their nose up against that cloth.

The next stop in our tour was to see how local carpets were made and although we figured it would be yet another sales pitch, the seemingly genuine nature and no pressure approach of our "guide"during our past few market stops made it seem unlikely. The Berber man who ran the co-operative welcomed us inside, offered us mint tea (oh oh... bad sign) and began to ask us questions about life in Canada before having his wife demonstrate how she weaved a carpet together over a period of six to eighteen months *cough*bullshit*cough*. Next came the display of various rugs on offer and that is when I made the fatal mistake of showing even a little interest in one of them. This minor interest did not go unnoticed by the Berber and within seconds he was giving me his initial price and asking me what my "happy price" was. When I explained that the carpet was lovely but that my "happy price" likely wasn't enough and that I didn't want to insult him, the Berber, sharp as a knife and a damn good salesman, always had a quick reply. At one point he looked me over and said I could trade various pieces of clothing and/or my watch along with cash for the rug and even took my Timex in hand to examine it. 

As we tried to back out of the room and then the shop as politely as possible, this guy kept hammering away at me and bargaining the price down. Just as I gave in and had decided that I mind as well support a poor villager with nothing instead of a rich shop owner in the big city, the Berber produced a visa swiping machine out of nowhere and had my transaction processed quicker than I could change my mind. Funny that in a country where most hotels still don't take Visa, this guy did. It IS a very nice carpet though... I swear.

Road to Dades Gorge

The medicine man mixing up a potion of some variety

Moroccan rush hour

Merzouga... at the edge of the Sahara

I know this may not earn me a great deal of sympathy right now while you all sit in the snow/rain back home but I have to say it anyways: riding a motorcycle for five to six hours a day on mostly deserted highways in brilliant sunshine in an exotic foreign land is damn hard work ! First of all, I've developed a raccoon-like sunburn around my eyes from wearing goggles, my butt and legs are sore from sitting on a German-engineered leather seat, my shoulders are sore from maneuvering the bike around winding roads that parallel lush green oasis massive gorges and lastly my lips are dried and cracked from a combination of the sun and wind. All of these hardships added up after two long days on the road and I decided it was time to take a break and trade on a bike for sitting on a camel.

Alice (Im not sure my camel had a name so I called them all Alice) lurched up from her sitting position in rather violent fashion and let out a combination of gaseous noises that I'm sure some Pepto-Bismol would have cleared up as Gord, I and a few other resort guests prepared for our overnight camel trek into the Sahara just north of Merzouga. The noises didn't stop as we climbed the first of dozens of sand dunes but the bucking bronco motion did and as we moved deeper into the desert, a calm that could only be felt in a place so harsh and desolate set in. Our group of four stopped to watch the sunset before continuing on to our camp and as day turned to night the temperature dropped to a chilly six degrees and the stars came out. So many stars in fact that I'm now in desperate need of a chiropractor to help with the kink in my neck suffered from staring up in the sky while saying "wow" over and over. With no other light to compete with, stars in the desert can be seen in 180 degrees from one horizon to the other and aside from the burping/farting of the camels that were "parked" a few hundred feet from our camp, they were the only entertainment around for miles.

Our wake-up call came early at 6am and we hiked up a nearby dune to watch the sun rise over the mountains in nearby Algeria before riding our camels back to the resort an hour and a half away. By the time we arrived we were walking bow-legged and the last thing we wanted to do was spend a half a day riding our bikes again so we decided to make it a "short" day and only rode 180 km today. We arrived at our destination in time for lunch and spent the afternoon exploring the area around Todra Gorge, a massive gorge of stunning orange, black and brown rock that seems to attract more Caucasian tourists with collared Columbia shirts tucked into their khaki pants than any other place in Morocco. We have no idea where all the tourists are staying though, as we are the only guests in our circa-1935 hotel. This may explain why they had no problems allowing us to park the bikes in the lobby (again !) on their beautiful rugs and why, as I sit here on the couch writing this, they appear to operating a brisk bootlegging operation to locals out the back door of the hotel.

Tomorrow is another short day (200km or so) before we head for the Atlantic coast on Sunday morning.

Gord  and Alice...just hanging out on the side of the to road to Merzouga

Group heading for their night in the Sahara

Our camel train

Keeping the sun at bay any way possible

Rich

Throwing my leg over the saddle of a motorbike for the first time in almost a year, I nervously started the engine of my rented BMW 650GS as we prepared to leave Fez and head south on the Moroccan oasis route. Even though I've been riding motorbikes on and off for nearly fifteen years, the thought of riding anything more than a scooter in a foreign land required me to focus and remember which pedal was the brake and which was the gear shifter as we slowly worked our way out of the city core and on to a country highway that would climb up and over the middle atlas mountains. The directions given by our guesthouse owner Mohammed were not all that great and one hour and a dozen people stopped to ask for directions on the street later, we were finally on our way.  With perfect riding weather (sunny and twenty degrees) on our first day, we made it through 290 kms of spectacular scenery. We rode through olive groves, cedar forests, lunar-like landscapes and mighty gorges that split both the middle and high atlas mountains. We zipped by waving locals, donkey carts, hurds of sheep and rabid dogs all while litterally gasping at the beauty of the landscape around almost every turn.

As the sun began to hang low on the horizon and we approached the town of Midelt, we observed a sudden abundance of Moroccan flags and police officers positioned at the side of the road which seemed kind of odd. Around the next corner we noticed group of approximately ten helicopters and high end vehicles parked in an empty patch of gravel. Also weird. When we stopped to get gas and asked the attendant what all the fuss was about he told us that the King of Morocco was going to be visiting and that the roads would be shut down temporarily to accomodate the royal visit. No problem we figured, as long as we're ahead of the motorcade and not stuck behind it we should be ok and be able to make good ground before sunset.

We casually pulled out of the gas station and back on to the highway and continued on our way through town, only now the streets were lined with not only police officers but also throngs of people waving moroccan flags while cheering and clapping as we passed by. Wow we thought, this is quite the reception we're receiving... did someone in our fan club let the local people know we would be riding through town on this date ? When I noticed the car two lengths in front of me was a black Land Rover and that the police appeared to be saluting it as it passed by I didnt really think too much of it, but when I followed that same car up what I thought was a continuation of the highway (but which I quickly learned was an access road to an exclusive hotel/restaurant) it all became clear. The two or three well-dressed men that ran out of the crowd towards my motorbike with their hands up in a STOP signal made it clear that I would likely be shot if I got any closer too or continued to follow the Land Rover which I now assume was  carrying his royal highness to dinner. Oops. The fact that neither Gord or I was tackled and/or shot dead, let alone that we unknowingly got so close to the King's wheels and weren't physically stopped and questioned is beyond either of us. But try and throw a pie in the Prime Minister's face in Canada and we'd be in for a world of pain from his protective detail.

Our day ended when we could no longer safely see the road (the streets aren't lit here) and we pulled in to the dusty and dirty hole of a city inappropriately named Rich. This place was so sketchy that our rooms only cost $4 a night, we felt safer walking back from the Hamman (yes, we're starting to live like the locals) on the side streets and the only safe and secure place to park our bikes for the night was in the hotel lobby. As Gord road the bikes through the front door to where we would park them and the owner moved a few tables and chairs to make room, he told us we could pay a local kid the equivalent of $2 to watch the bikes for the night to make sure they didn't go missing by morning. That kid earned his keep and by 10am the next morning we were on our way and headed for the south east reaches of the country near the closed border with Algeria.

Our horses

An oasis on our way south...no that's not hash this time

Another oasis

Gord, valet parking in the hotel lobby

Fez

[There may be spelling errors in these posts....it isnt easy typing on a half Arabic half French keyboard !]

As we passed through a gate in a large concrete wall and into the medina (old city) in Fez, Gord and I immediately felt as if we'd been transported back in time several centuries. Other than cars and motorbikes passing eachother in lanes that were obviously made for nothing wider than a donkey cart, the 9802 laneways that make up oldest imperial city in Morocco look as if they havent changed much since first being built in the 9th century (807 A.D. to be exact). It's a good thing that there are only three places that sell beer in this city of two million people as there is absolutely no way people could consistently stumble their way home at all inebriated in the labiryth of a corn-maze they call their streets here. The reason Fez streets look like MC Escher drew them is not to confuse drunks (or tourists for that matter) but rather out of intelligent design. With few wide open spaces, the laneways, which fucntion as storefronts, school yards, mosques etc are all kept cool during the scorching summer heat as very little sunlight can find its way into the narrow recesses of the lanes to further rot the meat.

Speaking of meat, you can find all sorts of gastronomic delights here including camel or goat heads, tongues, stomachs and a variety of other tasty treats that I'll save to eat another day when I'm more than twelve months free from acquiring any bug overseas. I did manage to convince Gord to east a camel burger but my next challenge will be for him to eat the eyeball in a sheeps head. I keep trying to tell him it is a decilacasy that will keep him verile for years but we usually both settle on more traditional Moroccan dishes such as tagine: vegetabes, potatos and some lamb meet cooked over hot coals for hours in a special cylindrical clay plate. It seems very healthy (I'm sure they can steam those parasites out too), comes with bread and only costs two or three dollars most places.

Each section of the medina (there are several hundred) must have their own madrassa (no Ian, apparently not funded by the Saudis here), water source, bread baker (families bring their uncooked bread to a communal wood-fired oven every morning) open green space (a riad) and of course, a mosque. The only problem with the location of our guesthouse in our section of the medina was that the mosque was right across the laneway.... with the speakers pointing directly in to our room. Thankfully I wear earplugs to bed and was able to block out most of the choice words Gord had for Alah during the 530 call to prayer.

After a walking tour of the medina and another hearty meal, we headed to a  traditional hamman (Turkish spa) just a flew blocks from our guesthousel. I'm usally pretty good at handling sketchy situations (I may even enjoy them a litte) but this did seem like it might not have been a good idea when 1) the entrance wasnt signed or marked anywhere 2) the stairs leading down from said non descript entrance were rather dark and winded out of sight to a darker area where there was another unmarked door with no buzzer. Hoping that we had been guided correctly by the guesthouse and weren't about to enter an opium den, sweat shop or perhaps even worse, we were completely releaved when a dwarf-like man in his 70's answered the door and welcomed us inside with a smile. He didn't speak very good anything but from what I understood the 70 dirham cost (about $10 Canadian) included the use of the harram and a traditional Moroccan massage and body scrub. Gord and I looked at eachother not knowing if Moroccan massage was anything like Swedish massage (minus the 7 foot tall blonde female of course), looked around and noted all flooring surfaces seemed suprisingly free of other people's dead skin and agreed to see what all the fuss in our Lonely Planet book was all about.

We changed into our bathing suits and moved into the sauna-like room next door where we collected large buckets of hot and cold water and began to splash it over ourselves at opposite ends of the room. Within a minute of getting our buckets set up, two toothless 70 year old'ish men appeared in speedos and started contorting and stretching our arms and legs in a variety of directions much like a trainer on a professional football team would. That seemed fine until the grandpa splashed a massive bucket of warm water on my head and then a freezing cold bucket immediately after. The geriatric hamman boss then spun me over onto my soapy stomach and began to exfoliate the skin on my arms, legs and back with a special glove he had on. Two thoughts immediately came to mind at this point: 1- Why does it feel like he is using an sos pad or possibly even steel wool or sandpaper to exfoliate and 2) How on earth am I going to describe this in a travel blog without it sounding completely... well... wrong. 

Truth be known though, hammans can be found in almost every Moroccan town and visiting their local hamman is pretty much a ritual for most people here. While some hammans are gender specific, others have hours for men and hours for women but the two are never found in a hamman at the same time... though I'm sure someone could make a small fortune if they opened such a hamman up. The whole experience was rather amusing and seeing as neither Gord or I has yet come down with a staff infection or rash after sitting/laying on the hamman floor for half an hour, we should be ok. At the very least it should help limber us up for the first day of the motorcyle riding portion of our trip tomorrow.

Fez leather tanneries...oldest in the world.

Salmonella anyone....

Goats who have lost their minds