MOROCCO - Part 2

MOROCCO – Part 2
February 3, 2012


And so we continued south through the mountains. We had originally planned to go southeast more but that area is an uncontrolled drug growing region with plants covering the hillsides. One town is considered to be lawless with The Lonely Planet travel guide describing it as the place where criminals whose faces cannot be seen elsewhere in the country live. Those travelling through the region are thought to be there only to buy drugs. At the time we were to go through the area news came to us that problems were encountered. Decision made…we headed the chicken route.

The straight southern route we chose was lush farmland with spring crops giving off a bright green hue with new shoots covering the rolling hills. This region apparently gets over a meter of rain per year and it showed…no sand dunes here.

Little traffic gave us room to dodge broken roads and small herds of sheep. At one point the bike carrier on our friends’ camper broke when they drove too fast over a sudden bump. The rack was beyond fixing so we had to empty a large storage compartment in their camper, partially dismantle the bikes, and put everything else back in around them. Rain started to come done as we were doing this which made us speed up. Until, that is, we had to stop for a laugh. A Moroccan man walking on the road looked at the two bikes leaning against our van and very calmly and nonchalantly said in French, “You give me a bicycle?” Looking at him in total disbelief I replied “You’re exaggerating a bit don’t you think.” To which he politely responded “Oh, sorry.” And he simply walked off. Okay then…have a good day afoot.

We stopped for lunch during an especially heavy part of the downpour in a gas station. Covered though outdoor seating made for cold eating. Sitting next to a butcher stand with carcasses hanging in your face didn’t help my appetite.

The calm emptiness of the countryside was broken by the sudden appearance of the edge of Fez, a messy city of over one million. Now the focus was on surviving more potholes, air pollution, insane drivers, next to no road signs and the continued rain. Pedestrians, animals, motorcycles were constant obstacles. One driver almost hit Frans and Willemien while another almost nailed us. It felt like we were in a video game. Some guy on a motorcycle said something to our friends (we gathered he was offering to take us to a campground). Usually this is not good. We followed him to a campground in Fez with a bad reputation and it was too late in the day to find the other one clear across the city. He said this was the same as the other one we were looking for. When I confronted him with the word “BULL!”, his story changed. Welcome to Morocco. And of course he was back the next afternoon at our campsite to tell us that he was at our service and that his brother would be here the next morning to guide us in the medina in Fez. He would not listen or take no for an answer until…I lowered my sunglasses, pointed to him and forcefully said “NO! WE WILL GO TO THE MEDINA BY OURSELVES! UNDERSTAND?!” He finally left. By the time we left the campground two days later there was no one left. And the bad reputation? Very well deserved. Dawn and I can honestly say that after having used campgrounds in many countries, many of them Third World, this was without a doubt THE worst one!

The medina in Fez is some four square kilometers with endless alleyways leading in every direction. The place is crammed with shops, places to eat, people, the odd donkey being hassled by the owner, goods of all sorts, countless barbers, sounds of every nature and…smells. Ah the smells.

The smells range from coffee, foods, and spices (all good) to aging meats and animal skin tanners (all bad). The tannery business is in the middle of the medina. One place does the actual dyeing (each day is a different colour), another does the final preparation of the hide, and another works the raw goat and sheep hides brought in. The odour in the latter cannot be described other than heavy, thick, putrid, gut heaving, gagging, and very, very, VERY, putrid (did I already mention that one?). The men working in the filth are sitting in it and wallowing in it. I forced myself to rush to the edge of the place to take a quick picture before roaring back. Breathing through your mouth instead of your nose is of no help.

Remember this is the oldest medina in the Arab world. Many of the buildings have seen better days. Some of them are held up with wooden support beams braced against the building across the alley. A “you hold me up and I’ll hold you up” sort of thing.

With the help of a shop keeper we found an amazingly beautiful (inside) restaurant. Good food with the ambiance of a traditional rich Arab’s ancient home took us far away from the craziness outside.

The rains we had driven through a few days earlier also dropped a meter of snow on the high mountain roads we were to head south on. Frans felt very uncomfortable driving on narrow, crooked mountain roads so the snow didn’t help. Another change of plans had us going straight west from Fez to the coast, again through lush farmland. Warming temperatures met us at the side of the Atlantic Ocean. We headed south and by chance found a campground which is probably one of the nicest in Morocco and next to the water’s edge. On the way, and only for a short time, something (we still don’t know what) was being sold by the edge of the road.

We decided to have a tagine meal in camp one day. For about $11 you get food cooked in a tagine for two plus bread. The bread is delivered by a camel.

We did make a new camel friend…a cool looking dude complete with a hash pipe. His name is Ali Baba.

With bad weather in the form of colder temperatures (10C) and rain lower down and probably snow higher up, we decided to give up (sadly) on our plans to get to the desert we headed north again to Spain. Our plan now is to get back to Morocco in October mainly to get into the desert.

Feb. 2 we drove back up along the western coast to Martil to the campground we had first used on our way down. Rolling farmland with a few large sand dunes immediately on the coast. Some of the same style greenhouses we saw in southern Spain are also used here to grow fruit and vegetables. One difference? Many are used to grow bananas…on full-sized banana trees! We hadn’t realized these were grown inside.

The next day we crossed the Morocco/Spain border into Ceuta (still on the African continent), drove through the insane traffic of Ceuta and took the ferry. Must have gone through a dozen checkpoints from the border to the ferry as this is one of the biggest smuggling (drugs and people) between Africa and Europe. Our van was checked by inspectors, cops and dogs with many (people and dogs) of them having a BAD attitude!

Back into Spain with hundreds of windmills, beautiful scenery and a very nice camping place with grassed sites. We’ll probably be here for a few days even though the temperatures are very cold with a bitter north wind blamed on the Russians!! In North America. it’s the Canadians…here it’s the Russians…just doesn’t pay to be up north!