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Casablanca: Business, not pleasure
Posted by daveb on April 4th, 2008
Casablanca is more interested in business than it is in the tourist dirham, with the exception of the Hassan II mosque which is the world’s third largest mosque and is open to the paying public. (The two largest are in Saudi Arabia, including Mecca.) An impressively-scaled building, built on reclaimed land in the Atlantic ocean. Friends’ weddings aside, it’s probably the only mosque that we will be able to visit and so we jumped at the chance — even if it did cost us the equivalent of two night’s accommodation in the city. Favourite moments include:
Tour guide: “The men sit here at the front of the mosque to pray. The women go upstairs and to the back. Or outside, if upstairs is full.”
Male tourist: “So do important people have a special place to pray here?”
Tour guide “No my friend. In the mosque, everyone is equal. So the rich man and the poor man sit side-by-side and pray together. Everyone is equal.”
Female American tourist: “Everyone, except women, that is.”
Tour guide: “WHY?!”
(All other tourists look down and stare at their feet.)
Female tourist: “Oh never mind…”
Casa’s coastline is said to be playground for the young, rich set who want to see and be seen. Towels and cossies in bag and with high expectations, we caught a taxi over to the coast to hunt-out an upmarket beach club for the afternoon.
Sometimes I want to sit down with the Lonely Planet authors and ask them what drugs they had taken before writing various chapters. Take a look at the pictures to see for yourself — what a ‘hole! In fairness, recessed a road back, there were one or two nice looking bars/restaurants. But on the beach-front itself, the best place we found to eat was a Kentucky Fried Chicken. A KFC. On the beachfront!?! Please, I ask you! Having said that, I lurve KFC and so took the opportunity to munch a few chicken strippers on location… :-)
In the evening, we escaped all-things-Moroccan to the Ibis/Novotel hotel bar for a juice and had a cracking sweet and sour chicken in the local Chinese restaurant which, as I went to great pains to explain to the chef was “the best food I’ve had in all of Morocco”. Squiffy later explained to me that my pidgin French had actually translated to “I don’t like you”.
Another day, another cultural boob.
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Fez: Shields down to enjoy
Posted by daveb on April 3rd, 2008
After our recent shake-ups in Er-Rachidia and Rissani, and mentally prepared by our guide book, we both donned our emotional battle-armour and entered the Fez medina ready for a carpet-fight. However, there was none to be had. As we soon learnt, this town is much more relaxed than is written. Friendly, even.
Fez has a nice medina with lots of artisan souqs, in which we had a pleasant time wandering. Clearly, the shopkeepers here are more in-tune with doing business with Westerners: Happily, we never found ourselves on the receiving end of a hard-sell or unsolicited, irrational aggression nor violent mood-swinging that we have so often met in our travels elsewhere in the country. What a breath of fresh air!
Our guide book had warned us that the leather and rug salesmen in Fez were the most persistent in the country and could sell a leather bag to a vegan. Not so. We even walked away empty handed and unscathed from the leather tanneries — which can only be accessed via a long, winding maze of leather goods pushing all-things-leather.
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UAE stages camel beauty contest
Posted by daveb on April 2nd, 2008
The BBC writes that the UAE stages camel beauty contest. I shall never look at a camel the same again…
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Fez: Youth Hostel sucks
Posted by daveb on April 2nd, 2008
We arrived bleary-eyed in Fez at 5.30am and were advised to shelter in the bus station until daylight. This felt a bit weird as usually at the end of a long journey one doesn’t have to sit in a waiting room again!
Once morning had broken, we scooted-off to find the youth hostel. We weren’t able to book a bed online previously. Nor would the hostel take a reservation over the phone. Rather, the staff advised us to show-up on the day. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Bonjour. Do you have any beds available tonight please?
Staff: I don’t know. You’ll have to come back at 10am. After checkout.
Me: Oh, erm, ok.
(Two hours later)
Me: Bonjour. We came earlier and you asked us to return at 10am to find out whether you have any beds tonight.
Staff: No. We’re full. All beds are reserved.
Me: Oh dear. Oh well. Hold on. We were told that we couldn’t reserve a bed here.
Staff: You can’t, no.
Me: So would you help me understand how are all the beds reserved?
Staff: Group booking. No beds today.
Me: Ok, we’ll find somewhere else today. Now what about tomorrow?
Staff: You have to come back tomorrow.
So we found a nearby hotel–at three times the price–and returned to the youth hostel a day later to retry our luck. This time we were greeted by a lady, so I let Squiffy do the girl-to-girl thing:
Squiffy: Bonjour. Do you have any beds available tonight please?
Staff: No. We’re full. All beds are reserved.
Squiffy: Group booking?
Staff: Yes. You have to come back tomorrow.
Squiffy: Could you let us know how long the group are here for please?
Staff: You have to book on Internet.
Squiffy: We tried, but you wouldn’t take reservations on the Internet. Can you tell us when the group are leaving?
Staff: It’s in the diary. (Points to diary, four inches from fingertip.) (Now shouting) I’M NOT LOOKING IN THE DIARY. YOU MUST LOOK ON INTERNET.
Squiffy: Why won’t you look in the diary? I don’t understand.
Staff: I’M NOT LOOKING IN DIARY! YOU MUST LOOK ON INTERNET!
Squiffy: (Points to computer, six inches from fingertip.) Could we use your computer? Could you show us where we must look please?
Staff: YOU WILL NOT USE MY COMPUTER AND I WILL NOT LOOK AT THE DIARY! WE ARE FULL AND YOU ARE WASTING MY TIME!
I asked Squiffy’s permission to shout back at the hostel, but my request was declined on the grounds that we might come back the following day. We retreated scratching our heads, attempting to understand what had caused this women to flare-up without provocation.
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Touts: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em
Posted by daveb on March 31st, 2008
I’ve become more adept in dealing with the touts and shopkeepers. Rather than meet their anger and force with straight-forward firm responses (my original method, which served only to incite further anger and force), I now find myself deaf to most solicitations and any responses I make are convoluted, nonsensical and deliberately confusing. It works a treat! Example:
Hard-selling tout: Where you from?
Me: (Pretends not to hear.)
Tout: (Stands directly in front of me, I do not stop walking. Tout walks backwards, maintaining a distance of six inches from my nose.) I SAID WHERE YOU FROM?!
Me: UK.
Tout: England?
Me: No. U of K.
Tout: America? (Mental money-hands begin rubbing together.)
Me: No. U-OK, man!
Tout: Australia?!
Me: No! I said U-o-K! It’s in Europe!
Tout: (Confused) Oh… U-o-K, I see friend.
(Unable to judge my net worth based on my homeland, the tout moves onto easier prey.)
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Rissani: My first death-threat
Posted by daveb on March 31st, 2008
It has been a long day. It started with watching the sunrise in the desert thirty kilometres away and ended with a through-the-night bus from Rissani to Fes. Joyfully our new friends John and Wendy gave us a lift from the desert auberge to Rissani in their hire-car. Thanks very much to them for this — it surely saved us the usual messing about with taxi-touts.
At Rissani, we all mooched around the local market together which was the most varied and [probably] most authentic that we have seen so far. It appeared to be a market more for the locals than the tourists, of which there were only a handful. We waved goodbye to our friends and sat-out the next seven hours to wait for our coach.
Market aside, Rissani is a fairly basic town and we struggled to find somewhere half decent to eat. We spent half our time walking the streets and half our time hiding in cafes to get rid of the child-beggars who followed us around the streets. Seriously, they are persistent: One group followed us for over two hours and even camped outside the cafe awaiting our return to daylight. I now know how a celebrity must feel with constant paparazzi in-tow — and that I never want to be famous.
After what seemed like a lifetime, the time came to board the bus. After nearly being scammed by a false baggage handler, the coach driver recommended that I waited outside until the luggage door could be closed. With Squiffy on the bus and out of trouble, I fended-off the usual touts, beggars and sellers alone and had the dubious honour of receiving my first death-threat. I boarded the bus feeling frustrated at our treatment in the “in-between” towns. Squiffy and I are trying to integrate into our surroundings and travel like locals, but on balance I can 100% understand why most tourists book the whole Moroccan travel package with a reputable firm back home and swallow the higher cost in exchange for a better overall experience.
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Merzouga, Moroccan Sahara: One hump or two?
Posted by Squiffy on March 29th, 2008
Before I tell you all about our experience in the Moroccan Sahara desert, I need to clarify some animal facts. I’m sure you’re all aware that there’s no such thing as a camel in Africa. Camels, for the record, have two humps and are only found in Asia. The desert ships that we rode were dromedaries – they have only one hump and live in Africa. Or so we’re reliably (?) informed by our camelteer (though I can’t explain why he’s not called a dromoteer). For ease of writing and so I don’t feel too pompous, I shall refer to them as camels.
After all the hassle in Er-Rachidia we were relieved to get to our lovely kasbah just north of Merzouga, which seemed like a real oasis of calm in an otherwise crazy world. At the foot of the Erg Chebbi sand dunes, it had amazing views from the roof terrace and we looked forward to our camel trek into the dunes the next day. After a fabulous buffet dinner we had an early night in preparation for our adventures.
Can you imagine our disbelief and disappointment when we awoke the next day to puring rain – pouring rain in the desert for goodness sake! The day before had been beautifully hot and sunny and we just couldn’t believe our bad luck when the trek was cancelled, especially after the mission we had to get to the desert. Fortunately however, we didn’t have any onward plans so we were able to sit out the day of rain (in a mud built hotel not made for bad weather) and take the trek the next day, when the sun reappeared.
Along with about 15 other people we dubiously mounted our camels, which were tethered together in small groups so they didn’t run amok. After initial giggles and complaints about how uncomfortable these desert creatures are, the chatter subsided and we enjoyed the silence and beauty of the dunes. As the sun began to set, they turned a golden colour. Two hours and a break to stretch our legs later, we arrived at our desert ‘camp’. This consisted of a few square tents with mattresses on the floor and a porter loo.
We sat together in the largest tent, perched on stools to eat a feast of tajine and mint tea served by candle-light. Everyone in our group was great and we had a very sociable evening. Before retreating to bed we admired the clear night sky and managed to identify Orion and the North Star. Bizarrely we could hear techno music pumping away from behind one dune, so perhaps our fellow campers were having a rave in the desert??
The next morning we were up at 6am to watch the sun rise, before riding our camels back to the kasbah for a buffet breakfast, over which we compared our levels of camel soreness. Altogether a novel and great experience, if perhaps not the most authentic one.
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Er-Rachidia: Trust no-one
Posted by daveb on March 26th, 2008
“Trust no-one”
(Our hotelier at Er-Rachidia.)
We’re on our way to the desert. To ride a camel. We caught a coach to take us as far as we could go: Er-Rachidia, a cross-roads town where travellers change transport as quickly as they can. From Er-Rachidia we need to go south to Rissani, after which the road turns into a dirt track for about twenty kilometres to reach our desert auberge and camel (seriously, a camel).
So, how did we get on with the local transport? Badly. Really badly. And we’re not coming back to Er-Rachidia if we can help it.
We already found that the shopkeepers, snake charmers, street-food vendors, henna-tattoo ladies et al. of Marrakesh can be a little pushy towards tourists in an attempt to put food on their table, but for the most part it’s carried-out in a light-hearted way. In Er-Rachidia however, the game is very different and the faux guides and taxi-touts are ruthless and threatening. Worse, it appears that those who are not themselves touting accept this obnoxious behaviour on their doorstep.
Having paid-off the driver, touts boarded our coach and began hard-selling desert tours an hour before we got into the town. Upon arrival, we couldn’t buy bus tickets to take us to the next town as the taxi-touts had intimidated the ticket operators and, it seems, even the policeman at the station. I want to ‘thank’ in particular lanky “Mr. Intimidator” who appeared at random intervals throughout the evening to pick a fight with me. Thanks also to all the other touts (most of whom I had no prior conversation) who shouted names at me from across the street, such as “Mr. Angry”, “Man With Hard Head” and “Racist Man” (without any substance, of course).
Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos to show you as I thought that it would be most unwise to flash any sort of wealth or gadgetry in this town, so you’ll just have to take it from me: This place is pants.
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Ouarzazate and Ait Benhaddou: A Hollywood favourite
Posted by daveb on March 23rd, 2008
Following a five hour bus journey from Marrakesh we found ourselves in Ouarzazate, a refreshingly laid back town when compared with our former location. I had caught a fairly strong headcold in the mountains and so this place served as a useful rest-stop for a few days. Squiffy lead me straight to a Lonely Planet-listed budget hotel for the princely sum of £8/night — and it wasn’t at all bad for our purposes, I must say (although, it goes without saying that I wouldn’t put my dear mother in there!).
Thirty-two kilometres away lies the impressive ancient kasbah (fortress) of Ait Benhaddou, the setting used in many Hollywood films including Lawrence of Arabia and, more recently, Gladiator. In the absence of a bus, to get to the kasbah we had our first taste of collectif grande taxis: Basically a old, beaten-up, six- or seven-seater Mercedes in which you buy a seat to a particular destination and share the cost with other people going roughly in the same direction. A great idea in theory, but in practice it’s an absolute minefield for wet tourists like us. Happily, a shopkeeper from the kasbah took us under his wing, showed us the ropes and kept the drivers honest. Of course, by the time we got to the kasbah we felt obliged to visit his shop and in all fairness to the bloke, he didn’t try to sell us a single thing. Sad really: This was the probably first genuine merchant that engaged with us and we were suspicious of his apparent generousity right up until we left his shop empty-handed and under no pressure to buy anything. We felt heartened that not everyone in this country wanted to take our money.
Soon after we got to the top of the kasbah, a quite-wicked sandstorm blew-up, whipping our faces with sand and so we dashed out of the site and squished into some more grande taxis to take us back to the town. All night, I kept removing bits of the desert from my head. (It took Squiffy three facial-cleansing pads–front and back–before she lost her orange glow.)
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Imlil: Trekking the High Atlas mountains
Posted by daveb on March 20th, 2008
It was my stellar idea to undertake a two day trek in the High Atlas mountains in Morocco. Originally I had wanted to go the whole hog and climb Jebel Toubkal, northern Africa’s highest mountain, but our Berber guide said that the recent snowfall had made it too dangerous for us to attempt now. Squiffy’s expression suggested to me that we should perhaps go for a more leisurely stroll around the base instead. Good job too, as I’m writing this entry two days after completing the trek with a stinking head-cold with complements from the mountains and neither of us have yet regained our ability to walk properly as our calf-muscles are so tight. It appears that our guide’s interpretation of “mostly flat” is somewhat different to ours.
The town of Imlil is considered the basecamp for the mountain range and is about an hour-and-a-half grande taxi ride from Marrakesh. We met up with the two Mohammed’s, our mountain guide and muleteer, and Muesli the mule — who would be carrying most of our stuff. Poor thing.
Our trek took us through a number of genuine Berber villages, in which the mountain folk still thrive. Many villages do not have electricity, and we didn’t see a single one with running water or sewerage… which obviously raises a few awkward questions. It was like walking into the Yorvik Viking Centre — a museum from the past — and we were both left scratching our heads, wondering how people lived this way:
- There are only a few roads. In one village, the weekly market was a three day walk away.
- Some villages had recently been connected to electricity — the first thing each family bought thereafter was a TV and a satellite dish!
- They keep goats, sheep and mules in their houses.
- Without electricity (and thus TV), the villagers had no idea about how other people live. Without TV advertising creating a desire for possessions, the Berber people appear to be happy with their lot.
- Squiffy & I were wearing modern hiking footwear and slipping around the mountain scree paths. The Berber kids were wearing flat soled shoes (slippers, even) and were racing up and down the same terrain.
Hats off to the two Mohammed’s who were very knowledgeable about the land and the people. The food that they prepared for us was better than I had eaten in Marrakesh. Special thanks to Muesli the mule who had the rough end of the stick from the start…
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