(To follow the full Morocco trip, start at TRAVEL: Morocco 1)
Only two more nights in Morocco remain!
Yellow light stirred us from sleep around 8am. Something about the cave gave us the most restful sleep so far. The realization that my glasses still need to be retrieved dawned quick, so I set to the bathroom to shower and put in my contacts. The shower took a full three minutes to heat up (we were warned of this) so in the meantime I decided to put in the ol' 'tacts. Unfortunately it's been a while, so I dropped my first one immediately. After 5 minutes of crawling, cursing and staring at a sinkwell, I found it on the floor. I put in the other contact to help search and after I washed the first one, I put it right on top of the already contacted eye and proceeded to panic again since everything was blurry. I sussed it out in the end but not a great portent for the day ahead.
After getting dressed, we climbed up to the dinning area for breakfast. This is the first place we've been that's had a bunch of international guests and it was fun to have the company. The food was excellent: dry oatmeal with bananas, raisins and yogurt, a breakfast cornbread cake, bread, jam, cheese and fried egg with cumin and olive oil. We also got M'smen - squares of fried dough we've eaten literally every morning but never learned the name of until now.
The remainder of the morning was spent figuring out the logistics of getting into Tinghir for my glasses from the bus stop. They said the bus would be there at noon and even sent Emily a little picture of the mailing slip that went with it. Apparently the buses also courier packages between cities. Smart. After Tym pet a donkey, we set out.
The way was a backtrack through the gorge and out, pretty awesome because we got to see it all over again. The city of Tinghir was bustling and the wide main road made it even more chaotic. We saw a soccer field just off the road completely netted like a batting cage. Following the GPS, we parked just outside the bus station. A guy came by and told us it was 100 dirhum to park and then guffawed heartily at our concerned faces after reassuring us we didn't need to pay anything. Another gentleman let us know, with help from Emily, that our bus would be showing up in ten minutes. And sure enough, it showed up right on time. Unfortunately, after Emily showed the bus driver the picture of the package ticket, they gestured that the station we needed to be was much farther down the road. They gesticulated for one of us to jump on the back of this dude's motorbike but Emily and I managed to say we would just follow in the rental car, despite them continuing to insist we ride with him.
And we were off! The guy on the bike went pretty fast and didn't turn around to see if we were following him so the stakes got pretty high. We sang the Mission Impossible song to pump ourselves up. Eventually we followed the lone biker into a busy station and Emily got out to follow him into a small storefront office with the logo of the bus company displayed at the top. It's been fun to see her get more and more comfortable working through speaking her French. They came back empty handed but it turned out they needed me to verify my identity for the package. Overjoyed, I hustled into the small space and showed him my credentials and viola! My glasses. Gone barely 24 hours!
Tym needed to send a postcard to his folks so we tracked down the post office. After paying 3 dirhum for parking, a gentleman descended on us, speaking english and being incredibly friendly. We told him we needed a stamp to send a postcard and he led us straight to a tiny shop round the corner. The card got stamped and Tym deposited it in the little yellow box outside. Then the guy proceeded to lead us in the opposite direction while he talked about his pregnant wife and called Tym Mustafa, while putting his arm around his shoulder. It became clear rather quickly he was trying to strong-arm us into going to a shop or something. So we peeled ourselves back to the car, but not without this dude following us all the way there.
Returning back the way we came, we decided to stop at the sheerest part of the gorge, which just happened to be the most touristy. The minute we parked we were swarmed by children selling little animals woven out of palm leaves and scarf salesman. We escaped to the river to watch mountain climbers and ogle at the other tourists. We saw the first Asian tour group since getting to Morocco and tons of vendors lining the cliff-base side of the road, selling silks and rugs and trinkets. Emily and I wanted to get a small rug, but needed a game plan so we scoped out everything from the river to avoid too much time with the intensely pushy vendors. Deciding on a rug, we went up and talked to the salesman. He started the bartering off out at 500 dirhum ($50) and we talked him down to 350. I imagine we still overpaid but we liked the rug and didn’t mind helping out the vendor. We learned that him and his fellow merchants walked an hour and a half with all their goods to sell at the gorge.
Further down the river, we watched a small waterfall and checked out this ingenious aqueduct that peeled off a section of river to direct the flow elsewhere. Heading back to the car, Tym and Ellen tried to buy some chips and a bottled water and the guy asked for a ridiculous 400 dirhum and then went down to 100 after he saw our faces. Maybe it was a miscommunication but we passed on it. A kid holding out some Euros asked us to make change but fearing a potential scam, we brushed him off. I always feel guilt over things like that.
There were a bunch of mountain climbers, some trekking at positively dizzying heights. Birds flew out of nests hidden in crevices of the cliffs.
Heading out of the gorge we saw back-backers and a kid wearing a hat from the Pokemon anime series. After we passed the castle hotel from last night, everything went desolate. The people we saw were few and it was clear folks hit the gorge from the opposite direction and turned right back. There was a big red crane working over construction or a quarry, it was hard to tell. Fully out of the gorge river space, we were among what we’ve been calling “fingerprint” mountains for the thin wavy ridges that cover them. The color of the landscape became almost dull in comparison to the vibrant red of the canyon. The roads started getting worse and the few towns in this area advertised hotels and restaurants. The gas “stations” here are shacks or garages with barrels of oil inside. In one town, a group of men walked together, dressed in white, no doubt coming from a service at the mosque. Many towns we’ve passed in rural Morocco have ruinous walls right next to regular homes. We wonder how old they must be.
Within the car we ate the kiwis from the bag of fruit given to us by the hotel a few days ago, skin and all. They were juicy and sweet.
We hit a couple towns flanking a lush green riverbed and finally got two lanes on the road again. Then we climbed out of the canyons along thin roads carved delicately in the rock. The view was spectacular, with lines of deep gargantuan scars in the earth. The roads got worse again and civilization suddenly just disappeared. We drove for about 15 minutes without seeing a single person or building. Just foothills, rocks and the open road.
As the valley started to green slightly the land became divided into rectangles of farmland. A few farmers toiled below and many were hauling fat bags colored blue and yellow. And suddenly our hotel was on the right at the outskirts of a small town called Agoudal. The outside was colorful and there were happy children playing ball outside who said “bonjour” excitedly. The gentleman that led us to our lodgings was curt but kind. The rooms were divided into a bathroom section, with a shower stall and a toilet stall and sink outside, and our bedroom with a wood-burning stove and a full and single bed. We eyed the stove longingly because the rooms were very cold.
Feeling adventurous and a little cramped from the drive, we went for a walk through the town. The main road passed close by farms, where we saw women washing clothing in the canals and men tilling the earth by hand. One farmer had a plow pulled by a donkey. Upon entering the town proper, a man with clean tennis shoes, jeans, sweater and a polo baseball hat came up to us and said hello. He was excited to see us and spoke English rather well. He followed us as we walked and we learned his name was Ibrahim. A charismatic guy, he talked about his time in Agoudal, where he lived his whole life and about how he led tours and ran a hotel down the road. Three small girls dressed in bright colors (one with SpongeBob on her shirt) also walked with us and Emily talked with them in French. At one point they asked for candy and I was bummed I couldn’t give them any. Young boys on bikes circled us at shouted things in Berber. We were quite the little caravan.
Ibrahim led us to his hotel and we had mint tea and snacks on the back patio. He smoked as we sipped the tea and chatted. The town has around 4,000 people in it. Tourism will often cause an inflation in prices for the people in the town during the spring and fall, the busy seasons. During the winter they can get snowfalls as great as 3 meters. They make money off tours of the caves and stargazing for meteorites. Ibrahim has a Guatemalan girlfriend who lives in Seattle and who he will see soon (so his says. I really hope it’s true). He talks about how hard life is in town for the Berbers and how little boys try to get to Spain under trucks. He talked about how one fell and lost an arm under the tires.
He taught us some phrases and we tried paying him for the tea and snacks but he refused. Real stand-up guy. We then headed back to our hotel. We played a little bit of soccer played in the streets, a woman walked past with a pickaxe over her shoulder, and we saw graffiti that said “Fuck You”. Ibrahim introduced us to his uncle, who drove a white van, and his sister, mother and donkey. His niece ran down the center of the road too fast and lost one of her crocs. We said goodbye to Ibrahim and he gave us his Facebook and WhatsApp information.
We chilled at the hotel for a bit, literally. The cold was intense but we managed to read and play a game and take advantage of the wifi in the common area. Eventually they lit a fire and Tym went for a run before dark. Apparently the kids of the town loved him and ran along side him for a while.
We had dinner by the fire, with bread and cumin soup and of course, a tajine with peas, carrots, yellow squash and tomato. Perhaps it was the small town effect, but it was the best tajine we’ve had yet.
Thankfully, the hotel stoked a fire in our bedrooms which made them almost uncomfortably warm. We went to bed with things already packed so we could get an early start for tomorrow’s 6 hour drive into Casablanca.
Today's HaikuYellow light stirred us from sleep around 8am. Something about the cave gave us the most restful sleep so far. The realization that my glasses still need to be retrieved dawned quick, so I set to the bathroom to shower and put in my contacts. The shower took a full three minutes to heat up (we were warned of this) so in the meantime I decided to put in the ol' 'tacts. Unfortunately it's been a while, so I dropped my first one immediately. After 5 minutes of crawling, cursing and staring at a sinkwell, I found it on the floor. I put in the other contact to help search and after I washed the first one, I put it right on top of the already contacted eye and proceeded to panic again since everything was blurry. I sussed it out in the end but not a great portent for the day ahead.
After getting dressed, we climbed up to the dinning area for breakfast. This is the first place we've been that's had a bunch of international guests and it was fun to have the company. The food was excellent: dry oatmeal with bananas, raisins and yogurt, a breakfast cornbread cake, bread, jam, cheese and fried egg with cumin and olive oil. We also got M'smen - squares of fried dough we've eaten literally every morning but never learned the name of until now.
The remainder of the morning was spent figuring out the logistics of getting into Tinghir for my glasses from the bus stop. They said the bus would be there at noon and even sent Emily a little picture of the mailing slip that went with it. Apparently the buses also courier packages between cities. Smart. After Tym pet a donkey, we set out.
The way was a backtrack through the gorge and out, pretty awesome because we got to see it all over again. The city of Tinghir was bustling and the wide main road made it even more chaotic. We saw a soccer field just off the road completely netted like a batting cage. Following the GPS, we parked just outside the bus station. A guy came by and told us it was 100 dirhum to park and then guffawed heartily at our concerned faces after reassuring us we didn't need to pay anything. Another gentleman let us know, with help from Emily, that our bus would be showing up in ten minutes. And sure enough, it showed up right on time. Unfortunately, after Emily showed the bus driver the picture of the package ticket, they gestured that the station we needed to be was much farther down the road. They gesticulated for one of us to jump on the back of this dude's motorbike but Emily and I managed to say we would just follow in the rental car, despite them continuing to insist we ride with him.
And we were off! The guy on the bike went pretty fast and didn't turn around to see if we were following him so the stakes got pretty high. We sang the Mission Impossible song to pump ourselves up. Eventually we followed the lone biker into a busy station and Emily got out to follow him into a small storefront office with the logo of the bus company displayed at the top. It's been fun to see her get more and more comfortable working through speaking her French. They came back empty handed but it turned out they needed me to verify my identity for the package. Overjoyed, I hustled into the small space and showed him my credentials and viola! My glasses. Gone barely 24 hours!
Tym needed to send a postcard to his folks so we tracked down the post office. After paying 3 dirhum for parking, a gentleman descended on us, speaking english and being incredibly friendly. We told him we needed a stamp to send a postcard and he led us straight to a tiny shop round the corner. The card got stamped and Tym deposited it in the little yellow box outside. Then the guy proceeded to lead us in the opposite direction while he talked about his pregnant wife and called Tym Mustafa, while putting his arm around his shoulder. It became clear rather quickly he was trying to strong-arm us into going to a shop or something. So we peeled ourselves back to the car, but not without this dude following us all the way there.
Returning back the way we came, we decided to stop at the sheerest part of the gorge, which just happened to be the most touristy. The minute we parked we were swarmed by children selling little animals woven out of palm leaves and scarf salesman. We escaped to the river to watch mountain climbers and ogle at the other tourists. We saw the first Asian tour group since getting to Morocco and tons of vendors lining the cliff-base side of the road, selling silks and rugs and trinkets. Emily and I wanted to get a small rug, but needed a game plan so we scoped out everything from the river to avoid too much time with the intensely pushy vendors. Deciding on a rug, we went up and talked to the salesman. He started the bartering off out at 500 dirhum ($50) and we talked him down to 350. I imagine we still overpaid but we liked the rug and didn’t mind helping out the vendor. We learned that him and his fellow merchants walked an hour and a half with all their goods to sell at the gorge.
Further down the river, we watched a small waterfall and checked out this ingenious aqueduct that peeled off a section of river to direct the flow elsewhere. Heading back to the car, Tym and Ellen tried to buy some chips and a bottled water and the guy asked for a ridiculous 400 dirhum and then went down to 100 after he saw our faces. Maybe it was a miscommunication but we passed on it. A kid holding out some Euros asked us to make change but fearing a potential scam, we brushed him off. I always feel guilt over things like that.
There were a bunch of mountain climbers, some trekking at positively dizzying heights. Birds flew out of nests hidden in crevices of the cliffs.
Heading out of the gorge we saw back-backers and a kid wearing a hat from the Pokemon anime series. After we passed the castle hotel from last night, everything went desolate. The people we saw were few and it was clear folks hit the gorge from the opposite direction and turned right back. There was a big red crane working over construction or a quarry, it was hard to tell. Fully out of the gorge river space, we were among what we’ve been calling “fingerprint” mountains for the thin wavy ridges that cover them. The color of the landscape became almost dull in comparison to the vibrant red of the canyon. The roads started getting worse and the few towns in this area advertised hotels and restaurants. The gas “stations” here are shacks or garages with barrels of oil inside. In one town, a group of men walked together, dressed in white, no doubt coming from a service at the mosque. Many towns we’ve passed in rural Morocco have ruinous walls right next to regular homes. We wonder how old they must be.
Within the car we ate the kiwis from the bag of fruit given to us by the hotel a few days ago, skin and all. They were juicy and sweet.
We hit a couple towns flanking a lush green riverbed and finally got two lanes on the road again. Then we climbed out of the canyons along thin roads carved delicately in the rock. The view was spectacular, with lines of deep gargantuan scars in the earth. The roads got worse again and civilization suddenly just disappeared. We drove for about 15 minutes without seeing a single person or building. Just foothills, rocks and the open road.
As the valley started to green slightly the land became divided into rectangles of farmland. A few farmers toiled below and many were hauling fat bags colored blue and yellow. And suddenly our hotel was on the right at the outskirts of a small town called Agoudal. The outside was colorful and there were happy children playing ball outside who said “bonjour” excitedly. The gentleman that led us to our lodgings was curt but kind. The rooms were divided into a bathroom section, with a shower stall and a toilet stall and sink outside, and our bedroom with a wood-burning stove and a full and single bed. We eyed the stove longingly because the rooms were very cold.
Feeling adventurous and a little cramped from the drive, we went for a walk through the town. The main road passed close by farms, where we saw women washing clothing in the canals and men tilling the earth by hand. One farmer had a plow pulled by a donkey. Upon entering the town proper, a man with clean tennis shoes, jeans, sweater and a polo baseball hat came up to us and said hello. He was excited to see us and spoke English rather well. He followed us as we walked and we learned his name was Ibrahim. A charismatic guy, he talked about his time in Agoudal, where he lived his whole life and about how he led tours and ran a hotel down the road. Three small girls dressed in bright colors (one with SpongeBob on her shirt) also walked with us and Emily talked with them in French. At one point they asked for candy and I was bummed I couldn’t give them any. Young boys on bikes circled us at shouted things in Berber. We were quite the little caravan.
Ibrahim led us to his hotel and we had mint tea and snacks on the back patio. He smoked as we sipped the tea and chatted. The town has around 4,000 people in it. Tourism will often cause an inflation in prices for the people in the town during the spring and fall, the busy seasons. During the winter they can get snowfalls as great as 3 meters. They make money off tours of the caves and stargazing for meteorites. Ibrahim has a Guatemalan girlfriend who lives in Seattle and who he will see soon (so his says. I really hope it’s true). He talks about how hard life is in town for the Berbers and how little boys try to get to Spain under trucks. He talked about how one fell and lost an arm under the tires.
He taught us some phrases and we tried paying him for the tea and snacks but he refused. Real stand-up guy. We then headed back to our hotel. We played a little bit of soccer played in the streets, a woman walked past with a pickaxe over her shoulder, and we saw graffiti that said “Fuck You”. Ibrahim introduced us to his uncle, who drove a white van, and his sister, mother and donkey. His niece ran down the center of the road too fast and lost one of her crocs. We said goodbye to Ibrahim and he gave us his Facebook and WhatsApp information.
We chilled at the hotel for a bit, literally. The cold was intense but we managed to read and play a game and take advantage of the wifi in the common area. Eventually they lit a fire and Tym went for a run before dark. Apparently the kids of the town loved him and ran along side him for a while.
We had dinner by the fire, with bread and cumin soup and of course, a tajine with peas, carrots, yellow squash and tomato. Perhaps it was the small town effect, but it was the best tajine we’ve had yet.
Thankfully, the hotel stoked a fire in our bedrooms which made them almost uncomfortably warm. We went to bed with things already packed so we could get an early start for tomorrow’s 6 hour drive into Casablanca.
High in the mountains
front row seat to poverty
my little heart heaves
Today's Workoutfront row seat to poverty
my little heart heaves
(exempt due to travel)
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