Who is This Person?

For those of you who know me in Australia, you also probably know I can be a bit of a picky eater. Six months ago you probably couldn't have gotten me near a fish finger, let alone a plate of sardines. My, how things change! Today for lunch Josh and I woolfed down a plate of delicious BBQ sardines here in Essaouria, fished out of the Atlantic Ocean that morning.

Sardines cooked over an open flame is a Portuguese specialty, introduced to us by Pedro and Birgitte, that the colonists brought to Morocco. They are incredibly yummy and we can't wait to make them in Australia.

But this isn't like eating just any fish - you have to work for your meal. They are cooked whole and you have to scrape off the scales, de-bone and de-gut them before you can eat. This does get a little tiring and the guts can turn you off your meal, but it's worth it. We do it the Portuguese way - with knife and fork - however we were introduced to the Moroccan way today which involves only your fingers!

How Massive Is This Bird?!

Can you believe it?! The seagulls here are bigger than crows! (And as we all know, crows are massive). The photo above was surreptitiously taken by me this morning, as the bird was greedily eyeing our delicious breakfast on the roof terrace of our hotel.

They are the same size in Europe too and we saw one of them eating (or perhaps it may be more correct to say tearing the flesh off) a pigeon in Barcelona. I'll say it again, just in case you disbelieve me or think you may have misread my words (and also to increase the effect): it was eating a pigeon. Needless to say, we steered clear of that particular bird.

On the bright side, they don't squawk as horribly as ours do.

And that is the end of this quite random post.

Religion in Morocco

Morocco is a Muslim country. Or more correctly, it is a secular country populated by Muslims.

Despite this, religion is pervasive here. Anyone who knows a few words of Arabic can tell you that the word "God" is worked into everyday speech. Dress is generally quite conservative (especially in the smaller towns), with both men and women to a large extent covering up. And five times a day, the call to prayer can be heard from all of the mosques (see video). This latter aspect is particularly unfortunate for those of us who are not Muslims and would prefer to continue sleeping at 4 am.

However, in the words of our Fes medina guide, Hamid, Morocco is "a country of Muslims, not Islamists" and the country is secular and laws are modern. Most Moroccans appear not to be particularly devout. Many women walk around with their hair uncovered and some adopt fully Western dress. Although coffee is more popular, wherever they are available, beer and wine are drunk. On Friday afternoons, there are many more people outside the mosques than inside them. And, despite what the media would have us believe, we've been told by the locals themselves that most Moroccans admire Western culture (in the words of one Moroccan we met, they see it as "superior") and aspire to become Westernised.

So in other words, society here is subject to contrasting modern/Western and religious influences. And nowhere is this contrast more apparent than at the beach. It is quite an amazing thing to see women almost completely covered next to other women in string bikinis; it being treated as a personal choice. And for those of you wondering, the Arabic words written on the mountainside in the photo mean "God, King and Country".

Moroccan Cuisine: Same Same But Different

In order to escape the furnace that is Agadir, I'm going to update you on what you've no doubt all been dying to hear: Moroccan food. These are some of the observations I've made over the past three weeks:

1. There are two types of Moroccan meals: tagine (slow cooked stew) and grill. There is also a faux third type of Moroccan food which they call 'couscous', but this is really just tagine on top of couscous. While this is all really delicious, it's pretty much all we've eaten for the past three weeks, which explains why we just had onion soup for lunch in 45 degree heat.

2. There are two ways in which Moroccan food can be served: touristic or local. For the tourists, there are restaurants decked out in 'traditional' decor, with beautiful tiles, great service and, if we're lucky, air conditioning (by the way, have I mentioned that it's hot?). However, for food that tastes better at half the price you can't go past the local restaurants. There aren't any tablecloths or menus and the hygeine may explain what's wrong with my stomach, but the food's exactly the same or better anyway.

3. The most ubiquitous two things about Moroccan cuisine: olives and mint tea. The olives are absolutely fantastic, and just like in Portugal and Spain are served before every meal. The mint tea is less fantastic (kind of like drinking hot toothpaste), but is served after every meal and during most business transactions.

4. I also can't write a post about Moroccan food without mentioning cactus fruit. These prickly fruits from the prickly pear cactus plant (funnily enough) are sold absolutely everywhere in the country and the taste is kind of indescribable. Think watery banana/pear and really hard passionfruit seeds. We prefer the honey soaked pastries for desert instead!

While we've enjoyed most of the food here, there really isn't enough variety, so much so that we're actually looking forward to eating English food next week!

Rural and Regional Morocco

We've been seeing these carriages round about in this charming town of Taroudannt, so we thought we'd hop on to see what it was all about. Putting our misgivings about the touristic nature of the expedition firmly to one side (note: locals use these as taxis), we took a 1-hour ride around this town of 60,000 people, all of which is still contained within centuries-old walls.

But the start was not without its difficulties - apparently the carriage we chose was not the "first" one, so after a heated discussion between several carriage-drivers and much posturing of mobile phones (we can only assume the threat was to call the head honcho carriage-driver), it was decided that we were to swap carriages. That dealt with, we were on our way.

Despite the above, the atmosphere here, like in Chefchaouen, is much more relaxed than in the bigger cities (especially compared with Marrakech) and the locals are genuinely friendly. But it is hot. It has been getting close to 50 degrees Celcius during the day here, but thankfully it cools right down to the 20s in the early evening (which, for abundant clarity, is when we took our ride).

But I digress. We saw plenty on our ride, including some more chicken and meat shops, the walls (including where old, dilapidated wall meets new, renovated wall), lots of Moroccan flags and photos of the king, who they all seem to love and whose coronation celebrations are occurring next week, as well as white sheep with black faces (crazy, I know).

At one point, one of our drivers (there are two on every carriage) hopped off and someone else hopped on (the driver's cousin) who could speak English and who gave us a bit of a rundown of the sights. Then we headed back into the walls and the driver started getting a bit annoyed at our horse, which appeared to be collapsing from fatigue, or lack of water, or both. Anyway, we made it back to our starting point, despite the driver's whip and all the cars honking their horns at the horse (although I'm not too sure whether the horse will ultimately pull through).

Monkey Business

Since we have recently discovered how to post videos to our blog (see post on The Sahara), I thought that you might enjoy this video that we took during our time in Gibraltar:

And for those of you wondering, this monkey was at least 4 times smaller than the one that decided to appropriate Tova's apple!

Sahara Postscript

The photos we took in the Sahara were so beautiful, we thought we'd share a few more of them with you. Here they are:

Camel Riding: a Mixed Report

We just got back from a four day stint in the Sahara, including six hours of camel riding. Actually, they were dromedaries, but in order to continue the Moroccan 'camel riding' charade, I'll call them camels. Fortunately, this did not involve six straight hours of pain, but only four lots of one and a half hours worth of pain (plus the many hours of associated muscle soreness). This picture represents our first introduction to camels, and it pretty much set the tone for the rest of the trip!

Nevertheless we hopped on board, wearing the latest in Berber fashions, only to experience a one and a half hour ride involving bumping, chafing and motion sickness - in the dark! We then got up at sunrise to repeat the whole experience, except on muscles that were already incredibly tender and sore.

Luckily, our next camel experience was much better, making the whole trip worthwhile. This one occured in the proper Sahara desert, with thicker saddles and soft sand, which absorbed much of the impact. Even if the pain had been as bad, this was offset by the stunning beauty of the Saharan desert. Seeing as 'by camel' is the only way to appreciate this, I would definitely recommend it!

The Sahara

We are finally back online, having spent the past 4 days on a tour of the High Atlas mountains and the Sahara desert. A lot of driving was involved, but it was well worth it, and the views in so many places were simply spectacular. What I've included here is simply a taste of what we saw.

One might imagine that there is not a lot to see or talk about when it comes to deserts. However, despite there sometimes being kilometres and kilometres of dry ground, it was a really interesting trip and we saw a lot.


First and foremost, life is pretty tenuous out there. And just looking at it makes you thirsty. After spending our first night in a Berber tent near Zagora (we rode dromedaries there: more on this from Tova!), we all went back to the town (again, by dromedary) to take a shower. However, the water simply ran out after only one shower! Apparently, water pressure in the town had been turned right down due to the drought (yes, apparently that can happen in a desert) and the place where we were taking a shower had run out of reserves.

On our second night, we again rode dromedaries and spent the night in a Berber tent, but this time near the tiny town of Merzouga (very close to the Algerian border). To get there, we left the bitumen and drove about 10 kilometres along a track in the sand. Despite the feeling of complete vulnerability (there was no water in Merzouga and our bus was pretty old!), it was worth it.

What we saw were real Saharan sand dunes, just like you'd imagine them. It was simply amazing and watching the sunset and sunrise from the top of the dunes was beautiful. From where I was, the only noise I could hear was my watch ticking.

And in the evening, we were treated to some traditional Berber music by our guides.

Our third night took us back from Merzouga part of the way towards Marrakech, and on the way to our hotel, we visited some gorges containing oases. I always thought of oases as a couple of palm trees around a very small wetland. But the oases we saw were more like valleys following the course of a river, which only existed because there happened to be a spring in the area (in fact, most riverbeds we saw were dry). We'd round a corner in our bus and suddenly see a shock of green in the middle of the surrounding brown wasteland. People would be living a subsistence lifestyle in towns there. Really amazing.

One oasis we visited in the Todra Gorge supported quite a large town called Tinnehir and had a complex irrigation system arranged by the tribes of the surrounding villages. While we were there, we had a guided tour of the farming areas, which grew everything from grapes and figs to peaches and apples, cabbages and corn. Being there, you would hardly know you were in the middle of a desert, apart from the heat and the thought that if the spring dried up, everything would die.

All in all, it was an amazing trip - and as you can see, we've got the photos to prove it!

Marrakesh Madness!

Our guidebook tells us that tourists either want to engage with or escape from Marrakesh. In my experience, this couldn't be closer to the truth, with part of me loving it here while the other half of me can't wait to leave. We took our a 6 hour train ride through the most arid part of this country we've seen yet to arrive in steamy, African chaos. Here's some of the stuff we love and hate:

Love: The souqs. This is a shoppers paradise, with spices, perfumes, carpets ceramics and all the fake Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Chloe that you could possibly want! It's really fun walking through the maze of shops, while shop keepers call out to you (not to mention the bargaining process).

Hate: Getting ripped off. Never have we felt more ripped off than since we arrived in Marrakesh. Our taxi drivers have tended to demand almost five times the correct fare (before proceeding to drive like complete maniacs) as did the washing lady at our hotel for a bit of laundry. Everyone asks us for money here, or at least gets their kids to.

Love: The exotic Djemaa el-Fna. This square in the middle of the medina is absolutely crazy - it pretty much blew our minds! Our first experience when walking into it last night was the snake charmers. About half a dozen groups sit around this square with their lutes and drums, hypnotising actual live cobras! In addition to this there are African drum groups, delicious food stalls, story tellers and general craziness going on everywhere. We can't wait to go back, but we're giving the snakes a wide birth (not to mention the women running at me with syringes full of henna)!

Hate: The annoying touts. Man, every time I walk down the street the same touts offer me the same brochures to the same restaurants. People follows us down the street trying to get us to buy some gum, or go to their shop, or show us a carpet. It's happened elsewhere, but it's way worse here and it's getting old!

Love: The funny touts. Yes, they do exist! Last night, one got us to eat at his food stall in Djemaa el-Fna by offering us air conditioning (despite the fact that we were totally outside). The ones at the natural pharmacies are hilarious too, loving the fact that we are already familiar with all their olive soap, berber aftershave and Rif lipstick, as six in a row ask to identify their crazy products.

Hate: The traffic. I thought Meknes was bad, but this is insane! It's impossible to cross the road and in doing so wouldn't be at all suprised if someone ran us over, all the while beeping for us to get the hell out of the way.

Love: That we're going on a four-day desert trek on Saturday. We'll be back after that with more photos and stories and undoubtedly I'll have something to say about the CAMELS that we will be riding (!!!!).

Just Married!

Just kidding! These 40c rings that we bought in Sefrou are helping me ward off unwanted male attention and get a little more respect from the hustlers on the street. All we have to do is flash these babies and I'm getting called Madame and offered some mint tea. It slightly makes up for the fact that I am (shockingly) showing my shoulders off today - after seeing a number of tourists wearing short shorts and singlets, I decided the local population could handle it!

The Abstract Art of Moroccan Driving

Or perhaps one might say that it is an example of impressionism: from far away it looks ok, but up close it is one big mess. Let me explain.

We made the wise choice not to hire a car in Morocco (thankfully: the driving has been getting worse the closer we have been getting to the equator), so I can only provide a perspective on the topic from the point of view of a passenger and a pedestrian. There are several things that stand out in the driving stakes here in Morocco, and in the style of my earlier posts on Spanish and French driving, here they are one by one:

First, if we thought the signs were crap in Spain, we had another thing coming. Not only are most things (including streets) not signposted, where they are, it is unclear in what direction or to what they are referring (this renders the fact that they are in French as well as Arabic utterly useless).

Secondly, there are no lanes. At least, that is what appears to be the case to the untrained eye. On closer inspection, there are faint white lines on the road, although they might as well not be there, as the drivers move back and forth between them and also on to the other side of the road. In fact, each car appears to treat the entire road as its own, with the consequence that cars will overtake into oncoming traffic and expect those coming in the opposite direction to move to the shoulder (if there is one). This appears to be assisted, like all other road manoeuvering here, by a liberal use of the car's horn.

Like the lines (or lack thereof), traffic lights are few and far between. Yesterday we were in a taxi which stopped, it seemed to us, for no reason in the middle of the road. It turned out that there was a red traffic light, conveniently located behind a tree. And given the lack of lines on the road, it would not have been possible to know it was there, unless you already knew. Thank god I'm not driving here!

Fourthly, the lack of lines and lights is repeated in the pedestrian sphere, with persons wishing to cross the road having to guess that the light for cars (the location of which is not quite clear, as mentioned) is red and hope that they will not in fact be run over by the stream of cars bearing down upon them. It is not wise to expect cars to stop for you, even when you step out into the traffic (which has been necessary at crossings in Spain and Portugal). Here, they do not stop, but beep at you angrily. Imagine - a person getting in the way of the traffic! Outrageous! Accordingly, we have sought shelter behind locals and cross the road with them.

And finally, as if all this isn't dangerous enough in a country in which tailgating is the norm and cars already inside a roundabout have to give way to cars entering it, seatbelts are few and far between. On the few occasions where we have been lucky enough to find a seatbelt in a taxi, we have been told not to put it on by the driver! Usually we all make a joke about it (a nervous one on our part), which results in us explaining that it is no offence, but in Australia that is our custom. But not so this afternoon... our driver appeared to take real offence (in his words: "Non non non non non!") and we had to put our lives into fate's hands again.

Volubilis

Having been sent Rome-mad by Patrick and the Masters of Rome series, we spent the morning touring the ruined Roman city of Volubilis, north of Meknes. Our knowledgable guide, Mustafa, showed us around these amazing ruins, which are the biggest in Africa (40 hectares).




These photos show some of the remarkably well preserved mosaics, buildings and columns that we saw today.

I negotiate like a Berber...

... at least, according to the salesman at the tannery we visited here in Fes today. And who am I to argue?: I ended up buying a leather jacket and a few other items at 27% of the original asking price (that is to say, a 73% discount), which betters our previous bargaining record of knocking 38% off the price of some goods that we bought.

But I have got a bit ahead of myself, so let me start from the start.
Today we took a guided tour of the Fes medina (which, according to our guidebook and the map we have, is impossible to negotiate without a guide). Our guide, Hamid, took us through the tortuously winding and narrow streets back in time from the 21st to the 14th and then to the 6th Century AD.

During our 4 hour tour we visited a school set in an amazing building (which also offered a panoramic view of the city from its roof), the tannery mentioned above, a carpet and rug shop (where they showed us the weaving process), a natural pharmacy and a bronze shop (where we also saw the artisans at work). We also visited a shop selling traditional Moroccan clothes including the jilbab, a kind of airy dress worn by men and women alike. Ever since we got here, Tova has been trying to convince me that I should adopt the local ways in this respect, but despite being dressed up in this insane outfit today, I have decided (for the better, I think) to stick to shirts and trousers. On the other hand, I think what Tova tried on suited her very well!

We ended our tour at a local restaurant where we were amongst the only tourists and ate amazing Moroccan food (and I should say that all of the food here is amazing).

But back to the tannery and our negotiation. After being shown how the leather was made, we were offered "Moroccan whisky" (mint tea) and were taken to the various showrooms, where a plethora of leather bags, belts, cushions, jackets, shoes and every other item imaginable was on display. Everything is painstakingly handmade with natural dyes in an all-natural tanning process that is centuries-old (although apparently to "modernise" the process, the leather is now washed with some water wheels that themselves look as if they are 200 years old)! The goods are made of the leathers of various animals, depending on what they are and the quality (in order of best to lesser quality: camel/dromedary/goat, cow and sheep).

We tried on a few jackets, looked at bags and various other things and by and by got down to a few items that we appeared to be disinterested in but actually wished to buy. We then got down to business. This is how the conversation went (prices mentioned are just indicative and not actual):

JK: How much for all of this?
Saladin, our salesperson: Since you are buying so much and also because it is now hot and no one wants leather, I will take 1000 dirhams off the original price. So for this - 6000 dirhams.
JK: That is way too much! We can't afford that - we don't have any jobs at the moment and we have been travelling for a long time so we are running out of money... besides, I can buy a leather jacket for less than that in Australia! I'll offer you 1200 dirhams.
S: Oh, Mr Joshua, you know the work that has gone into these! But we make the price democratic here... in all honesty, how much are you willing to pay?
JK: Well it is true, they are well made... but Tova, do I even need a jacket? We didn't even plan to buy anything.
TG: That's true. And Australia isn't really that cold.
JK: I'll give you 1500 dirhams.
S: Oh Mr Joshua, you are worse than a Berber! Miss Tova, you are very lucky with him - he is so economique, you will be rich in just one year, inshallah!
JK: Well the thing is, we are going to get married back in Australia and that will also cost a lot...
S: Oh, I wish you good luck and long life!
JK/TG: Thank you, thank you.
S: This is your first time in Morocco?
TG: Yes it is.
S: And how do you like it?
TG/JK: Very much!
S: Inshallah! And Mr Joshua one day, inshallah, this jacket will be worn by your son. I offer you 5000 dirhams.

And so on and so on, until we got the price right (and by the way, I had been planning to buy a leather jacket all along). All of this is done as part of a social interaction, in good faith, without aggression and with the intention of a negotiation taking place (no one expects a buyer to pay the first price stated). No price is fixed, and depends on what the buying is willing to (and can) pay, and what the seller is willing to sell for.

Anyway, negotiating is great fun, and it is almost worth doing it just for the entertainment-value (although we'd go broke pretty quickly if we did that!). Part of our bargain was to give publicity to the tannery (which is a cooperative), so here goes:

Merveilles de Cuir, Terrasse de Tannerie
43, Derb Rhorba Gurniz
Fes Medina (opposite the Museum Belghazi)
T: +212 (0)35 636 194 or +212 (0)61 835 535

I highly recommend it!

A Day in Sefrou

Today we left the hustle and bustle of Fes to experience more regional Morocco in the quiet town of Sefrou. As a town with very little tourism, it was very different to the places we've been so far. The trip itself was quite an experience! Not being able to find a bus, we surrendered our fate to the gods by taking a Grand Taxi. These 1980s Mercedes congregate at official points around the city, waiting until full before leaving for the destination. Unfortunately 'full' means four in the back and three in the front, not making for the most comfortable (or safe) journey.

But we made it and spent a lovely couple of hours exploring the medina of this quaint town. The highlight? (Vegetarians stop reading now): finding out just how fresh our dinner is every night. In the 'chicken quarter' of the souq are a number of shops with live chickens waiting to be slaughtered. When a customer comes by, they weigh the chickens (whilst still alive), slit their throat, pluck them, gut them, wash them, put them in a plastic bag and hand them over! We watched the whole process and it was remarkably clean and certainly a unique cultural experience.

After a fantastic BBQ lunch, we were lucky enough to make it back to Fes in one piece, only to swelter in 45 degree heat for the remainder of the afternoon!