Diary

Stuff That Happens

 Updated 28 November, 2003

6 November, 2003

Day 138: Tangier, Morocco, Africa

Couldn't put it off any longer, time to leave Europe. Yesterday I took the ferry from Algeciras to Tangier, spent most of the crossing with a Dutch trucker who's been doing this run for ten years, but doesn't seem to have ever left the cab of his lorry. He spent a lot of time warning me about Morocco - 'They're all bisexual there, the police are corrupt, don't ride at night, take a taxi' and a final 'Remember, don't trust anyone'.
I knew it was mostly bollocks but still, it was dark when the boat docked, I was already in a state of nervous apprehension and my first encounter with a Moroccan in Morocco, the customs man, just went to reinforce the Dutchman's prejudice; he stood there, my exit visa in his hand, "Just give me a small note and I let you go." Yeh, fucking welcome to Morocco.

The map in the guidebook was, as usual, useless, and wandering around lost in the dark in an alien city does nothing for my self composure. Getting far more attention than was comfortable; calls from the street, voices out of the dark - 'Hey, hotel?', 'Where you from?', 'Francais?', 'Something special?', 'Chocolate?' (Spanish slang for hashish). Then the cash machine swallowed a bunch of my money (either that or it was the sllckest, fastest swipe I've ever seen, or rather not seen), and I was in a state of serious unhappiness - my 'hard-bitten stranger in town' facade rapidly breaking down to 'scared boy on a bike'. I let a hustler, Ali, take me to the youth hostel, but by that time I was in such a state of paranoia that when I saw the rather crudely stencilled IYH sign I thought for a moment that it might be a set-up, and for the second time this trip uncovered the dog-stick.

A few cigarettes later and with Betsy safely stowed at the hostel I had relaxed enough to go to the clothes market and try out my very first Moroccan haggle, for socks - "40 Dirham, are you crazy!! I could buy a pair of shoes for 40 Dirham!....", and let Ali take me round to his tiny flat for some mint tea.

Today was something of an improvement, wandered around the medina, the old part of town, a warren of narrow, mysterious alleyways punctured with hole in the wall shops and glimpses of colourfully tiled courtyards behind the arches. The city is fairly quiet in the morning, for a city, most of the shops are shut for Ramadan - you can find food but coffee can't be had for love nor money before 5. Around 3 things start to busy up, and at 4 the city just explodes with people and noise and rather wonderful smells as the ovens and stoves and grills fire up ready for everyone to break fast at 5.
Wandering around the centre of town I stumbled on, of all things, an Anglican church, St. Andrews, a sort of Brit-Moorish fusion design, tree filled graveyard of British great and good, looked after by a caretaker, Mustapha who sits in the 'church cottage', more of a doghouse by the gates. Place seems barely used though it advertises two services a week, and is a small island of calm in the bustle of the city.

Everyone, in this city at least, has some French, many have Spanish and a lot, especially the hustlers, have a workable English. So there's no problem communicating but even the feeblest attempt at Arabic, a salamu lekum - hello here and a shukran - thanks there, can turn an inscrutable stare into a smile and a handshake.

A few essentials; Twixes go for 5 Dirhams (at about 10 Dhs per Euro), non-black market Marlboro Lights are 30 Dhs - not as cheap as I'd hoped they'd be, and coffee around 5, and is very good. Hob Nobs, alas predictably, are nowhere to be found and I finished off the stock from Gibraltar early on this afternoon.

Definitely cheered up after last night's ugliness, and slowly starting to appreciate the place. However this is a city, and a port city at that, with a generally poor, young population with access to western tv but not to the money needed to buy the stuff they see there, so as a 'rich' European security can't be ignored. If I was smaller I would probably find it tougher - and if I was a woman alone possibly intolerable. The call for sexual attention here is, to my ears, an irritating and rather sinister hissing sound.

Chefchaouen, Morocco

The Fès medina, El-Bali

The tanneries of Fès El-Bali

The really rather spooky kasbah of Midelt

Through the Atlas mountains with Fabrice and Sylvain. They're French.

28 November, 2003

Day 160: Rich

Sitting outside the house where we're staying in a town called Rich, in the middle of the High Atlas. The house belongs to the Nabaoui family, Abdoallah and his sister Fatimazara have been hosting us, we've met his mum and dad, Fatima and Mohammed, who only speak Berber, and a couple of his brothers. Typical Arab-Berber hospitality, feeding us silly, showing us around town and telling us about life in the Atlas mountains, and in more private moments talking darkly about politics.
Next door there's a one room school, 3 and 4 year olds, doing a maths lesson. The kids are every colour - Berber, Arab and Black and everything in between.
A couple of doors down the other side there's a wedding going on, continuing on from last night, these affairs go on for days. A group of women leave the grooms house, chanting, clapping, ululating and banging drums to a complex but perfect rhythm, on their way to the neighbours to pick up presents.
The Nabaouis are a bit special, with a claim to be descended from Moulay Idriss, the founder of Morocco and himself descended from Ali and Fatima, the daughter of Muhammed the prophet himself. There isn't any shortage of claimants to the Huhammed line, but in this case it's backed up by fairly ancient documents, on gazelle parchment and signed over the centuries by successive kings of Morocco. This possibly illustrious lineage isn't otherwise obvious, the father was a maintenence engineer in the military and Abdoallah makes his living working the evening shift at a cybercafe, living in a modest terrace house down a side street and occasionally receiving international travellers as guests.

The ride up to here was just magnificent, the land getting drier and higher, from cedar and pine forests to semi-desert, vast valleys of nothing but dirt and rock, and further north a few habitations dotted about, a small town or two. The mountains and valleys immense areas of red sandstone, cut through by dried out  riverbeds or 'oueds', grey clay and stones. Occasional flecks of colour in the far distance, Berber women working patches of soil or walking, always walking, children on their backs.
Just over the next mountain range and we'll be in the Sahara proper.