Day 2: Of ruins, and relics, and scary men

Today was a bit of a mixed day - on the one hand, we found out that we could fit seven people in a taxi, maybe eight if the eighth person was a really tiny little person, and then on the other hand, Jackie and I almost got stoned for not being Moroccan.

The day began with us girls waking up at 9:30am, exactly the correct time for breakfast. Unfortunately, since our room is situated on the ground floor with the door opening onto the main common foyer with the communal food table, this meant that everyone was watching us as we made our shameful ways out. Jackie, an American who was travelling by herself, joined us for our day trip to Meknes, a city that is half an hour away by train.

At the station, James and I went to buy the tickets, and at last, we could finally put our GCSE French role plays into use! You can get some pretty decent prices for the train - 20 DH for an aller retour, deuxieme classe which was still our own carriage, albeit with some dodgy faux air conditioning. 

Once we arrived, we bargained with a taxi driver to take us to Volubilis, a city of ruins that lies half an hour away from Meknes. We were told by another traveller that he paid 350 DH for the trip, so we decided to tell the driver that an American got the journey for 250 DH, prompting the man to lower his price from 400 DH to 300 DH. Fantastic, apart from the efforts to fit six of us into four seats. The pictures will follow.

On the way, we saw some pretty neat wildlife - tall cactus trees, short cacti bearing fruit that was sold at the markets, goats and wild horses. At Volubilis, we proceeded to explore the ruins, adopting Katy as our tour guide. It was breathtaking to see just how well some of the mosaics had been preserved, and despite attempting to sacrifice Jackie at an altar in exchange for rain, we only received a mild cooling breeze as relief from the scorching sun.

By the time we got back to Meknes, it was around three in the afternoon, and we decided to go look for food in the souks...which only turned out to sell "Adidas", "Ralph Lauren" and "Gucci" belts. We wandered around that maze for ages, seeing so many pretty clothes - wish I'd made some purchases - and so many everyday things for sale. This place seemed to be the market for locals, as opposed to the souks in Fes that seemed to target tourists. 

Eventually, Angela, Jackie and I gave up and headed to a cafe on the square whilst the others carried on looking for budget food. Not gonna lie, the soup, sandwich and chips were totally worth it - something the cats thought so too as they congregated around our table in droves. One particular tiny cat made a show of sitting next to me, gazing upwards into my eyes and meowing pitifully, repeatedly begging for food. Gave in, and fed it a small piece of sausage but then instantly regretted that when even more cats began to migrate over...

When we joined up with the rest, we headed to the palace to have a look around, only to be told we weren't allowed in. The guidebook warned us that we would be left with an impression of high walls, and indeed, it was not wrong. Drawing ever closer to the time in which we'd decided to head back, we caught taxis back to the station and waited it out for the five thirty four. Unfortunately, this is where it all started to go wrong.

Parched for thirst, I'd decided to buy a Solero and in my haste, forgot that it was bad form to eat in front of the fasting natives. We were walking though a tunnel when one of the men began to say something - something like, "you are eating an ice cream, blahblahblah." Didn't think anything of it.

We went to our platform, sat on some benches and proceeded to wait for the train. A few minutes later, the same man emerges from the tunnel, walks towards us, sits down next to me and then starts to have a go at me. Jackie tells me to ignore him, and from then onwards, he turns onto her and starts a barrage of abuse that completely shocked us both. We were coming into the country without respect for the locals, she was dressed like a prostitute because her shoulders were showing, her mother was a hooker, we were all hookers, she was ugly, I was ugly, in this country we were ugly, etc. etc. 

Jackie scared him away by yelling about how we were going to get the police involved, to which he replied, get this - "fuck the police".

Like seriously, which TV show did he watch to learn that line? 

We thought that would be the end of it, but he wasn't finished with us, not by a long shot. He crossed over to the other side of the tracks, hung around for a bit, eyeing us up, and then jumped back onto the tracks, and picked up a rock with the intention of throwing it at us. 

Um, what?

This had just begun to turn really nasty. Now all the girls were standing in a group, with the guys in front of us, facing off against each other. It took two local Moroccan men to drag that dickwad away, who then started arguing with all of the men on the other platform, presumably about us. Eventually, he turned up again, this time to apologise and to tell James and Big Matt to inform us that we should not speak.

Like, seriously. In this day and age. 

He then proceeded to get on the same train as us, albeit on a different carriage, but not before walking through every carriage to see where we were sitting.

By the time we got back to the hostel, we'd recovered from this incident, but it left a bitter taste in our mouths, especially for Jackie, who as a lone traveller had been subject to abuse like this for the duration of her travels here. It was such a shame, as the day had started off so well too, and we'd wanted to give her a pleasant experience for the end of her journey.

After sorting out our finances to some mint tea on the roof with the new Hungarian travellers, we decided it was time to eat - by then it was nine in the evening, and whilst we weren't particularly hungry due to the heat, brain said it was a good idea to pack in the calories so we headed back into the medina, to the area where we'd eaten yesterday. This time, we went to La Palma, upon being won over by Abdul, a man with a silver tongue and the catchphrase: "We don't push like George Bush", much to our hilarity.

We played the touts off against each other at first, until Abdul agreed to give us the set price menu for 40 DH instead of 70 DH with free drinks and mint tea and bread. Hells to the YEAH.

I had Moroccan soup, lamb tagine and melon, all of which was yum. Whilst the soup was better at lunch and the tagine better at the place we went to yesterday, the prices here were top notch, as was the entertainment from Abdul. Not only did he teach us how to say "We don't puch like George Bush" in Arabic, he also taught us the classic, "High five", "No thanks", and "What the hell are you doing?" all very important phrases that every traveller needs to be made aware of. In addition, he gave us the number of his friend Mohammed, a taxi driver in Marrakech who would apparently give us cheap travel. Lols.

After dinner, Jackie and I went to buy some fruit - I found four donut peaches for 10 DH!!!!!!!! AHH MAHH GAAHH, when in England they're like 40p each???!

Back at the hostel, I showered and washed my clothes again, only this time, my magical Moroccan washing genie did not appear and I had to make do with poor technique.

Highlights:

Volubilis! i.e. ruins, and relics, disciples and the young~

Dinner avec le Abdul the waiter

Fails:

The threat of being stoned by a maniac

Day 2 survived in a mere 40 degree high!

xxx

Day 1: Of Sandal Tans and Marriage Proposals

That's right, two hours out of the hotel and I'm sporting my trademark sandal tan, the annual epidermal nemesis that like a cancer, just won't go away (until winter time). 

Anyway, this morning, we woke to a wonderful breakfast spread of muesli, yoghurt, deliciously pulpy orange juice, flat bread with cheese, a bowl of fruit salad and some mint tea. After being slightly suspicious of the fruit salad and being assured that I would not die if I consumed it, I decided I was in gastronomical heaven.

Yum. Mere words cannot describe the experience that only comes with sight and taste, so I'll leave it at that until I can find somewhere with an SD slot to upload my photos.

We decided to explore the medina of Fes today, and wandered around the old quarter, circling the mosque - which we are forbidden from entering, but managed to catch some tantalising glances through open doors. Not sure if we were allowed to take photos, probably not...

During our explorations, I finally had my first experience with the local tout, the guy who follows you around, convincing you that he is your best friend in the two minutes you have known him, the guy who does his utter best to part you from your cash, yet cannot hope to go against the likes of the five of us. We tried several times to evade one particular tout who was determined to take us to his tannery, and eventually lost him, after a lot of backtracking and time wasting.

However, we did end up in a tannery, on Big Matt's recommendation, and we made a pact to help each other resist the shopkeeper's advances, should he try to sell us anything. Climbing up many flights of stairs, we reached the roof and gazed out onto an incredible sight - vats upon vats of dyes, and so much wool strewn everywhere. I think these vats are pretty ancient, hundreds of years old!

Walking around the small streets was pretty awesome, especially when there were so many shops and stalls to look at. The souks sold everything - instruments, slippers, jewellery, all with a Moroccan twist. And the cats...cats, cats everywhere! They were tiny, tiny little things, roaming the streets like pigeons. We saw so many donkeys as well, lugging around bags and goods. In some stalls, I saw turtles, pigeons and chickens for sale - in fact, one of the men tried to shove a pigeon in Angela's face, much to my amusement.

What I found weird was that everyone here thought I was Japanese - I had konnichiwa yelled at me all day, which was extremely disconcerting - guess they don't get many Chinese tourists here. Pretty lady, and various marriage proposals also seemed to be normal forms of sexual harrassment. So, girlfriends, if your self esteem is in need of a boost, then rock up to Morocco and no matter what you wear, even if you cover yourself from head to toe and have bug eyed reflector shades on, rest assured that you will still have at least three marriage proposals per day.

The heat made it difficult to get about after midday, with a high of forty three degrees. Everyone became extremely lethargic, and had the hunger sucked out of them, but I insisted on eating and determinedly made my way - solo - to a pizza place I'd spotted, realised they only spoke French, and ordered...not a pizza, but a sandwich and chips that inspired another traveller at the hostel to follow suit! What a trendsetter. ^_^

In the afternoon, we visited the not so old part of Fes, but didn't make any of the attractions - the synagogue or the Jewish cemetery simply because we were being harassed by too many locals, all wanting money from us. Massive shame, but at least we got to wander through the souks and look at lots of Hello Kitty tshirts and fake Ray Bans.

In the evening, we planned on heading to the tombs to watch the sun set and the cannons go off to signal the end of fasting - again, this didn't happen on account of us getting lost and losing too much daylight. Given that we can't communicate too well here, the last thing we wanted was to be stranded up on the hills with a broken ankle, scrabbling around in the dark - perfect start for a horror movie.

Dinner, however, was something we all managed to make - Big Matt strategically played all the restaurant touts off against each other and managed to get us free drinks at the place we ended up at. We had cats eyeing up our meal, and the only way to deal with them was to scare them away. Loved the complimentary bread and lentil dip. I ordered a beef tagine with vegetables, and boy was it delish. The meat was so tender, the flavours so mouthwateringly tasty that I am now resolved to figure out the secrets of this dish and bring it back home! ^_^

Finally, we got back to the hostel, and after a shower interrupted by many scary horror movie style power cuts, I headed up to the roof to join the others for some mint tea, after attempting to handwash my clothes and having the same Moroccan woman as yesterday turn up magically and take over, completing what I couldn't do in a mere minute before my very eyes. Seriously, she hand washes clothes like a boss.

Highlights of the day:

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, Moroccan oranges

Lows:

Too much "Konnichiwaaaaa!! Arigato!" ~_~
43 degree furnace

Day 1, survived. Roll on the next...

xxx

My Moroccan Adventure

Hey all,

So...it's been a while...had to deactivate the blog for a bit and clean it up (for uhh...legal reasons), which resulted in some abandonment out of sheer laziness and a desire to complete my degree. But now I'm back, and as you can probably guess, I'm currently in Morocco. A lot has happened in the year since my last public post, but for now, I'll just keep you updated on my Moroccan adventure! :)

This was kind of an on the spur of the moment thing for me, having never considered Morocco before as a holiday destination, but since it will probably be the last big trip I'll get to go on unless I end up employed (AHAHAHA), I figured it'd be good to get out of my comfort zone. That was the rationale until the day of the trip, when I decided that I was probably going to die from heatstroke and stress over whether the department was going to burn down and take my belongings with it...since I've dumped like a quarter of my inventory there on account of college being anal and not letting me leave stuff in my room for free even though no one has booked my room for the time in which I am away...

Anyway, going back to the trip. We started off with nine people, but a few days ago, two dropped out, and then, get this, #3 decided to drop out, just as our plane was about to take off! Now Ryanair is the only plane that I've flown with where the passengers applaud a successful landing, which kinda says a lot about the airline, and is probably a valid reason for adventurer #3 to bail out, but still...sucks to be without my COSMO buddy... :(

The rest of us continued onwards, minus one COSMO magazine plus an hour of delays on account of the owner of the COSMO magazine, and eventually arrived at Fes to an intense, dry heat, with still half an hour to go until sunset... Before we set off, I'd been dreading the heat, and upon landing, it felt like I'd been struck by a wall of hot air. The temperature change was so sudden, and within minutes, I knew that I was probably going to die. After my body decided it didn't want to do that, it went into self preservation mode and initiated some rapid cooldown mechanisms, allowing me to awe of the alien landscape, the waves of visible air rising upwards, and just how different the buildings were in comparison to the Western world.

Wary of potential scammers, we tentatively accepted a taxi ride for 150 DH that took us to the Riad Verus, "the best hostel in Africa"! Having not been anywhere else yet, we could hardly contest that claim. But with a website that has a youtube video showing you how to get to the hotel, this place must be pretty high up on the list of best hostels in Africa.

Nevertheless, the decor here is pretty fantastic, and very importantly, they have air con! They also provide free breakfast, and food/water which you can purchase on an ad hoc and hyper-inflated basis. Now, if you are thinking of going here, I can tell you that for payment, they accept Paypal and bank transfers, so you can save your Dirham and avoid racking up withdrawal charges. They also have a place where you can do laundry, either by machines or handwashing, and they have free Wireless too, for all of your Facebook needs.

We spent some time hanging out on the roof under a canopy of stars, eating Big Matt's bread and catching up, as it got darker and darker. Keen to explore, we also went for a walk to check out the Medina before lockdown - what I found really odd was that there were so many many men out in large groups, no women present - all the women were in their own groups with the kids. It was disconcerting, especially since they all stare at you like you have two heads, but since we had two very big guys with us, it was fine. We found a fairground, and lots of lots of food stalls but I resisted the urge to pick up anything, and eventually came back to hang out with the other travellers before bed.

Day 0.5 survived! :)

xx