Crossing the River

It might sound romantic to some, a night in the Sahara, with the sand dunes as your pillow and the stars forming a canopy over your head. To others, the idea of sleeping in the frigid night, with the sand crunching in between your teeth, the camels galloping around in the background, and the people in the next tent rustling might not be the best way to spend the evening, when a proper hotel with a proper bed and shower might only be a couple of miles away. It's really a matter of perspective. Except that the full moon is actually really bright, especially if you're used to sleeping in the dark.

I actually didn't end up sleeping well, but I still have to say it's quite an experience to see the camels running around under the light of the moon in the middle of the night. Early in the morning we hiked back up to the top of the tall sand dune, to watch the sun rise. There were some clouds on the horizon, so we missed the actual event, but soon after the sun, higher in the sky, rose about the clouds and made the reddish brown sand resplendant in every direction.

Jason had brought his Bible up, and had his own moment on top of the dunes.

We returned to the breakfast at the camp, and quickly packed up for a camel ride back out. Back at the hotel in Marzouga, we had to wait a little while for our driver. In the meantime we had a chat with one of the camelmen, Moha, a Berber who had been working as a camel guide into the Erg for quite some time. He was trying to trade his Berber shoes for our Nikes.

From the hotel we heade back to Erfoud on the Land Rover, where we got back into our grand taxi to head to Marrakesh. The return trip was two days of mostly driving. We'd start from Erfoud and briefly visit the Todra Gorge, then stay in a town called Tinghir. The next day we'd make our way first to Ourzazate, then over the mountains to Marrakesh. Although long, I'd have to say it wasn't a dull drive as we watched the scenery change from desert wasteland to patches of oases, then to mountain and then back down to plains.

Our drive to the Todra Gorge and Tinghir was not too eventful. Of primary interest were small town after small town that we passed through as we made our way through the edge of the Sahara. Little towns, almost clones of each other from our foreign perspective, repeated themselves, with the same architecture of pink buuldings, the same storefronts, the same donkey carts and women enshrined head to toe in black. The people we had met in Casablanca were all working to create businesses that would allow them a work visa. Out here in these villages though, the chances of seeing any spiritual influence other than Islam seems dim, unless perhaps some organizations working to alleviate the poverty might show up. In the towns out here, many of the working men are seasonal labourers in Europe, hopefully sending some of their earnings back to their families.

The Todra Gorge is indeed a rather impressive gorge with sheer walls rising up some 300+ feet. we walked along the river at the bottom, and noticed foreign rock climbers who had come to conquer the stone walls. There's a tourist village of restaurants and services at the bottom of the Gorge. The overall size isn't that impressive when compared to features like the Grand Canyon, but it was a nice stop during the day of driving. When we made it to Tinghir, Jason went to bed, struggling with whatever bug was still having its way with his insides. Driss took me to another "artisan exhibition" of Berber goods, where the same process of "buy or no buy, we are still friends", "don't buy one, buy more, I'll give you a good price", and "I'm sorry, but you have expensive tastes" was repeated.

The food at the Hotel Kasbah Tizimi in Tinghir was actually very good (had cous cous, with harissa, the local hot sauce). Since Jason stayed in bed, I ended up having dinner with Driss, we danced around topics of religion, family, filial piety, and why one ought to buy presents for ones parents when travelling. I have to say, the Muslims here certainly have their religious faith and everyday breadwinning tightly integrated. The oddity of this fairly comfortable hotel was the shower, where botht he toilet and shower sat behind the shower curtain that stopped about a foot off the ground, guaranteeing a good sized pond in the bathroom after a shower.

The next day was November 7, and as we came out of our hotel room located on the rooftop, we noticed that it was wet out, and it had been raining during the night. As we made our way towards Ourzazate, there were occasional spots where a stream from the rainfall had overrun the road. We'd see a section of asphalt ahead disappear under reddish brown rippling waters. Luckily our car was able to navigate over all these instances. Locals continued about their business in the rain, and on more than one occasion we saw women in hajib walking along the highway with baskets balanced on their heads despite the rain and wind.

We stopped briefly in Ourzazate to see casbah that had once belonged to some wealthy chieftan near the early 20th century. The town of Ourzazate is home to a thriving film industry. There are a number of studios with soundstages here, and a lot of moviemaking is done in the desert-like countryside. After the casbah, it was a short drive to Ait Ben Haddou, a classic looking Berber village built up the side of a hill. The locals were rather proud that part of the Gladiator was filmed here.

It was still raining at this time. As we got out of the car and walked towards the village, it was clear that a rushing river blocked our path. Some entrepreneuring locals with horses stood by the river, offering a ride across the rushing waters. We took up the offer (it only ended up being 50 drms total for the 3 of us). On the other side, the ground was a bit muddy, but turned to rock on the way up. The village was pretty quiet. There are few locals that live there, and the ones that do run various shops for tourists. I did notice a woman on a loom weaving a rug through an open doorway. There were few other tourists given the rain, and we made our way all the way to the top of the hill (despite our guide giving up at the top of the village). There were only ruins at the top, but it was clear that at one point, this hill had been a commanding location. One could see in miles in all directions, with a clear view of the river and the plains below.

The rain let up as we left Ait Ben Haddou and headed into the High Atlas mountains (a different mountain range than the Middle Atlas we had passed through on the way from Fes to Erfoud). The hills near Ourzazate grew into towering mountains with deep valleys. The towns changed from the pink buildings of the Saharan villages to terraced Berber houses, where the entrance of one house would be on the roof of the one below it, much in the same ancient style of Ait Ben Haddou. In the larger towns, minarets would tower above the town, the central landmark much like the way church spires stood in small European villages.

The missed photograph was a brilliant quarter rainbow against the mountainside, as light streamed through the clouds, painting spots on the rock face that dropped hundreds of feet into a valley below.

We had a brief stop for Berber omlettes (eggs in a tagine pot, cooked with spiced oil and cumin), and some sort of Berber porridge for Jason, and from there we started the descent in the winding, mountain roads, somewhat treacherous in the rain that was occasionally starting and stopping.

As the sun set, we hit the foothills and eventually the plains. The drive was now treacherous in the dark, with nothing to light the roads, not even the reflectors we're used to in California. The road no longer contained hairpin turns, but even around the wider turns, there was always the danger of seeing a donkey cart loom up instantly in the headlights. Passing cars on the two lane highway was occasionally frightening, but eventually we saw the signs of civilization grow as we slowly made our way into Marrakesh. The lights in the distance closed in, and eventually we crossed the outer walls, and made our way into the medina, the old city, and towards the Djmaa El Fna, the famous city square that defines Marrakesh. Our hotel, the Riad Omar, was located right off the pedestrian square. After the extended ride, I couldn't wait to explore the bustling medina.

Wandering in the Desert

In the US, the Bible belt where the fundamentalist Christians reside tend to be more rural farmland. Likewise, in Morocco, the cosmopolitan cities of Casablanca and Fes appear much more liberal than less developed areas, if judged only by women's fashions.

The next morning, we were taken back to Rissani to see the souk, or local market. While we had already been through the medinas (old city areas) of Casablanca and Fes, we were still surprised to see sellers hawking fresh fruits and vegetables to women, almost all in hajib, and the vast majority in all black. Donkey and human drawn carts routinely wound their way through the crowded streets.

Beyond the stalls was an open area with numerous donkeys braying, roped to posts, with the occasional horse thrown in for good measure. The equivalent of a used car lot, old men in julabas (traditional cloak) bargained, apparently angrily, over their beasts of burden. In the corner two men reshoed a horse as the owner watched nearby.

Beyond were additional stalls, filled with cows, sheep and goats. This was not your average Californian farmers market. After were other markets, for clothing, woodworking, and dates, given that it was just nearing the end of the date harvest.

After the souk we were taken to see two casbahs nearby. A casbah is a walled city or fortress, usually accessible by two or more gates and made of mud and straw. The first we visited served as a town. Houses are all attached to one another, and two stories (plus the roof). The streets, mostly smelling of animal filth, were occasionally tunnels under some architecture of the casbah. Dark sections were plentiful, but we saw that the walls were wired for flourescent light for nighttime.

The dirt paths might better be described as gutters, with the two sides raised and a wide trench in the middle for clearing rainwater. This certainly wouldn't be a pleasant place in a rainstorm. Driss brought us to a Berber woman's home in the casbah. Although she looked far better off than the nomads living in tents, the relative poverty of the place was still apparent from the darkness, the smell, and the flies. On her roof was a satellite dish; this is still seen as a luxury item in North America, but in Europe, there's a good quantity of free satellite programming, so the dish is pretty much the equivalent of a TV antenna and fills the skyline of any Moroccan city.

Given the religious atmosphere, it would seem to me that either TV broadcasts or Internet access might be the only exposure to the gospel that people might have here.

As we left, Jason tipped the lady 20 drms, and she grabbed onto him, repeating something in Berber. From her tone it sounded like she wanted more, but our guide said it was actually profuse gratitude (for about $2.50).

The next stop was another casbah nearby, this one a crumbling 300 year old palace. The outer walls still stood, as well as some of the rooms with their lofty decorated ceilings surrounding sunny, paved, courtyards and gardens. An old army official maintained the harem quarters (since the palace is still property of the king), and had invited musicians and guests for an afternoon of entertainment when we toured the palace.

We had luch back in Erfoud, at a nondescript restaurant in the nouvelle ville. I just had a salad in hopes that my oncoming stomach troubles would work themselves out (they persisted). On the way back to the hotel, Driss dropped us by a "workshop" where they worked a local marble that is filled with fossilized shells. The pieces would actually make great countertops or sinks in a fancy home, but that's not for us.

Back at the hotel, there was a rugged Land Rover waiting for us. Within a half hour, we were out on a 4x4 track in the desert, a flat and rocky barren plain that stretched into a horizon hazy with dust. There were little spots of weeds here and there, but nothing close to the dry shrubs that are typical of the deserts in California. Along the dirt path in this wilderness, there were one or two nomad tents, with tables of rocks and trinkets, manned by children and aimed at tourists.

It was about an hours drive into the Sahara (pronounced exotically as Za-ha-ra, with well enunciated syllables and a rolling R) where we were able to see the golden red hues of the Erg Chebbai rising in the haze of the horizon. It reminded me of the dunes in Death Valley, but instead of seeing the patch of dunes in California, it was a wide, expansive stretch. We had arrived in Merzouga, but from where we were there wasn't much of a town to be seen, just a few, well spaced casbah hotels.

We pulled into the Auberge Dunes D'Or, which was going under massive renovations as a pool was being put into one of the courtyards. We checked in and pulled out our toilletries and long sleeved clothes as we left out bags in the hotel and jumped onto two camels lead by two Berber teenagers on foot.

They led us about an hour into the desert. A camel ride isn't exactly the most comfortable method of travel, with bumps in the ride that tending to shift you into the wrong position, so that the camels hump or bumps in the saddle poke at the wrong places with each step. I was constantly considering whether to get off and walk. It might have been a good idea.

Photographs cannot describe the vastness of the dunes, with no point of reference, I was mostly able to get pictures of piles of sand, but I'll assure readers that the piles were very big, and grand, and stretched quite far. The Erg in Morocco is not as big as ones that cover much of Algeria or Tunisia, and only takes a few hours of trekking to reach from one end to the other. Inside though, you certainly feel the vastness around you as you cannot see an end to the sand.

As the sun had set, we made our way around a huge sand dune. As we came around the far side, we saw a patch of tiny palm trees and tents, an oasis used by the hotels. Each hotel had a camp of three or four Berber style tents. Although it feels sufficiently remote, its not quite isolated. Voices and laughter can be heard from nearby camps, and within a camp, tents are side by side. There is definitely no electricity or running water. There is a shallow well from which water can be scooped out from, and I never discovered whether bathroom facilities were available since we didn't wander to all the other camps. It seemed like all the camps were serviced by a couple of Berber families, and the kids that did all the cooking often ran between the various camps.

We happened to be the only two people in our camp, and as we arrived, some Berber kids pulled out a large rug, two mattresses, and a small table and set it up in the courtyard formed by the tents in the light of the full rising moon. It brought a new meaning to the phrase "prepared a table".

As the kids started cooking something up on a gas stove in one of the tents that served as a kitchen (with walls of straw mats!?) , Jason and I started hiking up the giant sand hill, 150m in height. With numerous stops and laboured breathing, we eventually made it up to the top. From that virtual mountain we saw the sea of dunes spread beneath us, a landscape of lines and shadows in the moonlight. The kerosene lanterns of the camps shone below as the quiet and cool desert wind blew constantly from the east.

After some failed photos in the dark, and a moment to enjoy the peacefulness, we ran, screaming down the steep slopes of the dunes. We washed our hands in the water of the oasis, and returned to hot chicken tagine and bread on the table, with carrots, onions and potatoes. The hearty meal was perfect after the hike, and luckily for me, no immediate adverse reactions kicked in.

Immediately after dinner, we were brought thick blankets and asked if we prefered to sleep outside or in the tents. We decided on outside. The clouds and the bright moon excluded all but the brightest few stars. As the kids took the dishes and the table and retired somewhere, so we also settled into the mattress that were previously our seats, under the shelter of the sky.

The Exodus Story

Our pastor Scott Grant seems to have two favourite Biblical themes, the Exodus and the Woman at the Well. These themes are repeated in the Bible, and Scott loves to find them in various stories through the Old and New Testaments.

Jason, having just quit his fulltime position at Microsoft, has beem trying to find his own Exodus story, and the next part of the trip has to be the Wilderness.

Our driver, Driss, showed up a little late at our hotel. I have to say I was a little annxious waiting for him, both as to whether he would show up and whether we'd get along with him. He would be our driver for the next 6 days, and I suspect a good relationship could make all the difference in this trip.

The first day consisted of mostly driving from Fes to Erfoud, a town on the edge of the Sahara that's ysed for tourists for staging excursions into the desert. Along the way, we drove over the Middle Atlas mountain range. It reminded me a bit of Nevada or Arizona, or southeastern California, rocky with small dry shrubs dotting the landscape. Huge sedimentary rock formations were all around, and the layers were visible, often at an angle.

Occasionally there are small stands at the side of the road, selling honey, rocks containing fossilized shells, or crystallized minerals or figuerines carved from them. The other common sight were nomadic shepherds tending their flocks, and sometimes tents or huts.

Eventually we got to the river Ziz, which carved a valley in the rock that was filled with green date palms, an oasis in the rocky mountains. Along the way here, terraced Berber houses lined the valley walls. On the roofs, piles of dates were being dried, the fresher ones yellow, the drier ones brown. We happened to hit the annual date harvest season.

For lunch, Driss brought us to a typical tourist restaurant. It was built in a kasbah style, with three tour buses parked out in front. This had me annoyed. If I wanted bus tour food, I would have asked for a bus tour. I suspected he was bringing us there for the kickbacks. However, being fairly non-confrontational, I was just going to suck it up and deal with it.

Jason saw my disdain though, and walked us right out of the restaurant and asked Driss for another, more local choice. It's funny how one of us would be "daring" in ways the other is totally uncomfortable with. I'm not sure which part of the wilderness journey this would be (I'll need a post-mortem with Jason on this), but we ended up at an empty truck stop, with the three of us, the owner, a cat and a beggar. The three of us ate a rather tasty chicken tagine on a plastic patio table with our hands. In retrospect, this could have been the big mistake of the trip, but it was certainly off the beaten path.

I'm not sure if it was my cynical side, but I noticed that Driss got a lot quieter after we declined the fancy restaurant. Jason thought maybe he was hungry and we made him drive further, but I'm suspicious that we screwed some business deal of his.

He did cheer up as Jason asked him for a suggestion for a better place to have dinner than the hotel since it was my birthday. He immediately picked up his phone and set up something special for that evening, and was back to his semi-cheery self.

We arrived at the Hotel Kasbah Tizimi in Erfoud around sunset. It was more roomy than the one in Fes, with a better air conditioner, and no mosquitos in the room. The shower was a bit odd, with the showerhead mounted about chest level and having no curtains. Like all the other showers we've seen in this country, the shower head is handheld and attached with a hose.

The hotel was located a bit out of the town center, but once we walked out we were accosted by kids who either wanted to sell us trinkets or guide us to the "downtown" where their friends owned shops. We let one 15 year old Hassan lead us along after he hounded us for a good 10 minutes. He took us to a shop where Jason bought a head scarf for the desert, for 70dms (from 150dms).

We headed back to the hotel, where Driss met us to take us to the home of some Tuoregs, nomads of the Sahara.

Driss had driven us to the nearby town of Rissini, to a large building where we were greeted by a gentleman in traditional dress named Abdul. He led us into a large room in what was obviously a large carpet shop, with walls lined with rugs. It really was rather beautiful and expensive looking. We had a seat by the wall as Abdul opened up a thick orange rug in the middle of the room (dyed with saffron, as we later found out) and set up a short table and invited us to make ourselves at home. His cousin Ali joined us and they told us how their family would travel in the Sahara in caravans and find tribes in the desert with whom they would trade.

After some time, the food came out, a large flatbread, much like the inch tall circular breads seen in shops all over, except that this one was maybe 18 inches in diameter, rather than the typical 6. As they cut it up though, we realized the inside was filled with spiced meat, liver and onions. It wasn't just bread, it was a meal. They told us this was a special Toureg dish, which I appreciated, since everywhere else we've seen the same couscous, tajines, and brochettes.


The food was pretty good (could have used a bit more salt, but I've noticed every restaurant tends to be low sodium here), and we ate to our fill. It was followed by fruit and tea. The lights then dimmed as they bought out a birthday cake, complete with my name mispelled in icing and candles, and Ali pounding away on a hand drum.

This was all quite festive, and I was getting kinda cheery, but it was after the cake that the magic happened. Ali got up and gave us the grand exhibition of their carpet collection, from tribes of nomads, berbers, touregs and bedouin. He said they were called kirim, meaning message, as the design of each rug held a story, with symbols and icons representing different facets of tribal life.

By the time he was done, the large floor was covered in carpets, Ali was sweating, I was asked which ones I liked, and Jason was on the porcelain throne.

"What style do you like?", asked Ali, "Buy or no buy, we are still friend" (a line I've heard a number of times after this incident). "Pick which ones you don't like", he saidn dutifully folding up and tossing aside the ones I disregarded.

Franlky I wasn't interested in most of the carpets. Even though they're made of wool, and varied between basic and intricate designs, most where fairly rough to touch. After saying no to his various carpets for a good 20 minutes, and feeling almost guilty for the dinner and festivities, Jason reappeared and I buckled and picked a few that didn't feel so rough.

"Buy more, we give you a good price", said Ali, trying to get us to buy 6 or more, "sell them to your friends". Eventually after we had a few that we liked, he pulled out some paper and a pen and wrote down some prices. I was aghast, with rugs I figure to be $50 coming in at $250 or so. "I cannot help you have expansive tastes", said Ali. "I can sell you 500dms rug ($60)", pulling a huge gaudy coloured monster out, "but it is cotton and. synthetic dye".

Eventually we went from 8 or so rugs down to 2, and talked the price of the two rugs from 5400 dms to 2250. "Just a little more", said Ali, which, we figured means we hit a good price. In retrospect he might have been happy with less, but we bumped it to 2500 (too used to dealing with nice round numbers).

Driss chimed in (all part of the game), "they're young, give them a break. Maybe when they're older they'll come back for more, ensh'allah". Ali looked disappointed and started to roll up the carpet. We had struck a deal. Jason paid by credit card, and our rugs were packed up and we were ushered out. We also paid 300dms for the dinner.

Driss seemed quite cheery as he popped in Bob Marley for the drive back to the hotel.

Libitibito!

I'm sorry I'm a few days behind on the blog, but right now I'm standing on top of a 150m tall sand dune in the western sahara and the sunrise is spectacular!

Tourist Time!

I think I managed to upload all of my Casablanca photos before our internet connection crapped out, and I was getting too lazy to write a huge post on the blackberry.

I'll try to do a quick review of the last two days. While I arranged the first half of the trip (admittedly with large chunks unplanned except for the host we were staying with), I found myself running out of time and booking a tour with an agency specializing in Morocco.

That pretty much involved us checking their website and finding the suggested tour sounded interesting, emailed them with the time and place we would start and end, and commented that we'd like to try an Anthony Bourdain style goat in the desert. The agency asked me the level of hotel I wanted to go with and quoted me a price a few days later.

The first part of the trip we spent a lot of free time wandering semi-aimlessly and hitting gold occasionally on things that we stumbled upon. Although rewarding, it definitely chewed up a lot of time, and there were things like the Catedral in Granada we missed out on.

Fes began the first part if the agency planned trip. After getting off the train, we followed directions to get to a hotel arranged by the agent, where a mention of the name of our travel agent set things in motion that whirled beyond our comprehension, in arabic.

The hotel price was half board and included dinner. I figured we could give it a shot since we were staying two days. Foodwise it was a bad call, but easy on the pocketbook. At least we had a taste of chicken tagine and meat skewers. The hotel was very basic, and clean enough. There were towels and soap provided, and even an old air conditioner, which helped since we had to bunker down after finding mosquitos in the room.

The next day we met a guide in the foyer at a preset time. Our guide, Halid, dressed in a sports jacket, was a little cold at first, but soon warmed up. He opted to walk initially instead of taking a cab, and I have to admit that I was initially suspicious of him for bring cheap and minimizing costs.

However, he turned out to be an awesome guide. He basically took us through all the sites mentioned in the lonely planet, all efficiently. It was probably also much quicker since it was a friday, the muslim equivalent of sunday, and many shops were closed and the medina uncrowded. While we weren't allowed inside a mosque, we did get to see a madresa, a Koran school, Some of the sites, like the tannery or carpet coop, included both an informatiobal aspect and a sales aspect. Our guide stayed completely out of the sales aspect, even helping us to get away from salesmen quickly.

He seemed like a pretty devout Muslim, and was very enthusiastic about explaining various aspects of. his faith. He also dropped us off at a restaurant for lunch as he. headed to the mosque. The tourist. restaurant was very nice inside and served very good food, six or so moroccan salads, a chicken pastilla and a beef tagine, with fruit and tea for dessert.


Stuff we talked about reminded me of conversations I've had with co-workers that really showed that I didn't have a good understanding of Islam. Often I've been told of the 5 pillars of Islam that must be followed for entrance to heaven, which certainly makes it sound as I one is earning his or her way there. However, they also believe that if you're not quite good enough, the prophet Mohammad has the power to forgive you and grant entrance to heaven. While this certainly clashes directly with Christianity, it also bears the same image of a gracious God, who offers salvation and forgiveness by grace.

After lunch he brought us to see a few more places we asked to see. We had asked about dinner, and he not only suggested a place, but also brought us there to check it out for our approval before making a reservation and arranging a ride for us.

We tried to take a cab back to the new city, but given that it was friday, cabs were few. He ended up negotiating a ride on some random guys minivan. The van reminded me of the starting scene from the Insider, but it worked out well.

We spent the afternoon wandering the ville nouveau, which could have been a poorer neighbourhood of a european cities with city streets. We had coffee and fanta and sat and chatted business and watched people for a long while, which seemed appropriate for a cafe.

We returned to our hotel to meet our ride. Instead we got the owner of the hotel with a cab and a call from Halid appologizing about not sending a proper ride. The dinner menu was similar to the lunch, we ordered a harissa soup, pigeon pastilla and a roast lamb (complete with smoky wood flavour, but with no salt) and enjoyed the two hour show with live music, singing, drum performance, belly dance and magic show.

With the guide, the day was full yet still relaxing. It didn't feel as adventurous but I thought it was a worthwhile way to see Fes.

Spain 3:17

Kudos to Jason for acting, editing, and producing. I just held the camera.

Fes

So it sounds like there's not much going on in terms of nightlife in Fes. But no fear, we have unencrypted wifi from our ghetto hotel room!

Casablanca

In a university philosophy course I had once read about St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the ancient Church Fathers. This was interesting because Hippo is located in North Africa, what we now consider a primarily Muslim part of the world. Once upon a time the area was under significant Christian influence.

Given the modern day situation between the two faiths, I found the history of this region of the world incredibly fascinating. Way back in 2002 I had bought the Lonely Planet guide for Morocco, but I have not gotten around to travelling until now.

By some stroke of providence, a friend of mine set me up with some friends of his who live and study here, and offered to host me for my time in Casablanca. This has been absolutely fantastic, as they've introduced me to some friends of theirs, some of which are entrepreneurs. The time here has been positively inspiring. Along with being able to enjoy a traditional, home made couscous meal, we were able to chat up about the various tech business opportunities here. People starting to use the internet, DSL seems to be widely available, but there are very few shopping, informational, community, or web 2.0 type sites serving the local market.

There's a bunch of people who are looking to start up businesses here, and it's really interesting to talk to those who already have something going. We've been talking to some guys at various stages of the process, and it's pretty inspiring to hear about the stuff that they've been working on and what drives them. They all have different approaches and reasons for coming here, which is all quite fascinating over lunch or coffee.

Casablanca's a Muslim city for sure. Five times a day the calls to prayer echo through the alleyways from the local mosques. The biggest local attraction is the Mosque Hassan II, the, 3rd largest in the world. On the other hand, it's also quite progressive. Satellite TV is widely available, and with it European channels. If you get a chance to see the tops of the city buildings, they're densely dotted with satellite TV dishes.

Near the center of it though, is an aging whitewashed, deconsecrated French cathedral. There's not much going on, but when we wandered in we were greeted by a little old man on a folding chair in the hallway. He invited us to see the inside, a big empty hall fitted with some flourescent lighting for using the hall to house events. Brilliant colours continued to stream through the dirty stained glass windows. We wandered up the bell tower, a narrow spiraling staircase, slowly crumbling under the age. The pigeons cooed and flapped high above our heads as their droppings crunched beneath our feet and feathers floated in the stale air. On the way to the top, the tower allowed access to the roof of the cathedral, a completely uncovered and unprotected affair where one could easily walk of the edge into the garden far below. Atop the cathedral was what I believe to be the best view of the city, second only potentially to the minaret of the Mosque Hassan II, which is open only to Muslim faithful.


It's a city where a Mercedes might drive along a donkey cart on the same road, or a woman covered in the hajib walking down the street chatting with another dressed in tight jeans and a tight top, with hair and make-up all done up. They say that you'll rarely see couples affectionate in public, but when the residential streets are empty, you may see young couples flirting. On one evening, we walked along the unlit path against the north shore, just west of the Mosque Hassan II. It was mostly deserted, but anyone coming here would notice the few couples, all young, finding a private moment.

It's also a city that's incredibly friendly and welcoming to visitors. While wandering the medina at night, an elderly, chatty gentlemen invited for couscous the next day, ensha'llah (if God wills/allows). Unfortunately we were on our way out to Fez, so we couldn't take him up on his offer. There were plenty of other chatty guys, often named Mohammed, who would use their few words (or more) of English for a little chat. It seems to me that asians are fairly rare here (even though cabbies say that many show up on business). We've definitely had the sense that we were novelties of some sort as the eyes followed us down the street and you could often hear people muttering among themselves, Japonaise? Chinoise? Often braver kids would make their attempts at koniichiwa or arrigato. On the other hand there's a strong entrepreneurial spirit, which has shown up as cabbies making blatant attempts at appropriating fares. On one instance, we stepped into a cab where the driver had not reset the meter, it went from 36 to 44 drms as we took the cab up the street for 10 minutes. He tried to charge us 20 drms, but we left him with 10 as he tried to blackmail us with the price on the meter and cops nearby. We haven't noticed anyone try to outright rob or pickpocket us, but we still kept our hands in our pockets in the busier medina.

Onward to Fez for getting ripped off some more.

Granada

I was impressed how painless our trip to Granada was. We woke up and headed to the bus station much later than we had originally planned. Add to that the fact that we wandered around looking for the bus station for half an hour, we could have been in trouble.

However, we managed to find the station and buy tickets just minutes before the bus was leaving. After about an hour and a half we arrived in Granada. The significant attraction in Granada is the Alhambra, an old Moorish fortress similar to the Alcazaba of Málaga, but significantly grander. We had ordered tickets online, so the first order of business was to pick up the tickets.

The cab cost about 8 euro, to the entrance of the ticket office, which wasn't bad at all. We picked up our tickets. It was a bit after noon, but our tickets were not good until 2pm. They have a ticket scheme that allows you to enter either in the morning or afternoon. In addition there is another half-hour specified where your ticket allowed access to the inner palace. Ours was at 6:30pm. You could stay as long as you want, but it only takes so long to cover the grounds.

We walked back down to the base of the hill to look for lunch, where a thriving tourist business surrounded a town square open only to pedestrians, buses and taxicabs.

A couple of restaurants advertised paella, so I thought I'd give it a try. The other option were jamon and queso houses, but we had already had a lot of that. Tapas here were a good 3.50 euro or more, compared to the 1.50 euro back in Málaga. After wandering for a good while, we settled on a very crowded bar, which turned out to be a mistake since the restaurant in the back wasn't half as full. There were a pair of japanese girls, and a big (tour?) group in another room. We ordered the paella espcial con arroz negro (special paella with black rice). I had high hopes, since I noticed that a lot of paellas were made en masse, and individual servings were simply scooped out. The special paella here was made from scratch.

We waited for what seemed like an eternity, watching boring platters shuffle from the kitchen to the group in the back. Eventually our dish came our, a steaming black mess on a in a wide metal plate that reminded me of a pie pan.

Now I have to admit that I'm not a paella expert, and that my expectations might not necessarily be authentic. So I'll explain my expectations first; my disappointment may not have been valid. I expect an exceptionally aromatic dish of rice, cooked to the perfect consistency where the grains start sticking together in clumps, but are still al dente enough to remain as clearly individual, chewy grains, with an assortment of tasty meats and seafood. The final touch is the crispy caramelized bottom, just greasy enough to pop of the bottom of the pan with the least bit of scraping.

Instead I got a platter of stewed rice in a greyish sauce that resembled watered down octopus ink (I'm not sure what to expect from black rice). The grains were al dente, but had not gotten to the point of sticking to one another. There was a tiny bit of liquid at the bottom of the bottom and no crispy goodness. There was mainly squid or cuttlefish in the dish, with a few less than fresh shrimp and a few mussels. It wasn't bland, but it wasn't very arromatic either. The one thing going for it was that the dish for two probably could have fed a third. The whole lunch cost 23 euro, which would have been enough for an all seafood (rather than mostly starch) lunch in a less touristy district.

After spending way too much time for lunch, we walked back up to the entrance. Jason got the electronic audio walking tour, which provided some interesting tidbits here and there. We spent about 2 hours wandering the Generalife (pronounced henaralifay) gardens, the castle of Carlos V, the excavated medina, a pottery museum, a rather small and spare cathedral, and the Alcazaba (the casbah, which is the central defensive structure, which is why it has the same name as tho one in Málaga).

The gardens displayed some ingenious looking and beautiful irrigation streams in channels running along pathways and into fountains. As you walked along, there were tiny streams of water everywhere, dropping between the different terraced levels.

After this we took a nap for about an hour on the stone courtyard in front of the Alcazaba, waiting for our turn at the Nasrid palaces. The palace of Carlos V had a huge circular central two story atrium that was reminiscent of Roman arcitecture.

The hour gap we had was a bit long, but too short to go back down to town and back up. If we had planned better, we probably could have started later and used the hour to investigate the grand Catedral in the city center.

The most impressive bits of the Nasrid castle were the ornate carvings that covered practically all the walls. I couldn't imagine the number of hours of work required for the work. There were also wonderfully long ponds that covered the lengths of some decent sized courtyards.

We had purchased bus tickets for 9pm before leaving the bus terminal in the morning. It gave us about half an hour to wander downtown before hailing a cab back to the bus station. Granada is certainly much livelier than Málaga, with more people wandering the streets, but I enjoyed the intimate feel and cheap food of Málaga better (though I'm sure there's better places to look in Granada.

We got back in Málaga around 10:30, and wandered on foot back over to the centro, the downtown area. We picked a random downtown bar and got two large beers and as many things which we hadn't tried before as possible.

We started with some bacon on toothpicks, turns out they wrapped up something sweet, perhaps dates. These sat raw in the refridgerated display counter, but were deep fried up in a minute. Somehow Jason and I both ordered peppers and onions (peps y pepe), but one deep fried version, the other with olive oil and vinsger. We also had anchovies and morcilla frita, deep fried blood sausage, which, to my surprise, I actually liked. The girls who had taken the spot next to us at the bar ordered pinchitos de carne, which looked good, and were good when we tried it.

After dinner we wandered around. Since people have dinner after 9 we were expecting nightlife, but we just hadn't seen much so far. We wandered the streets looking for well dressed people to follow around, and at almost midnight, the taperias were closing but the lounges were still vacant. Eventually we saw a a stream of younger people heading down a street, which ended up at the Merced, a square we had been at earlier in the week for dinner. It was pretty lifeless on the last outing given th rain. This time howver, the entire square was packed with people drinking, either with booze from the bars aound the square or from their own private stock.

There was no music, but the atmosphere was full of energy. People were generally quite friendly, with numerous people asking me to take their pictures after seeing me with my big backpack and camera. Unfortunately, we don't speak any Spanish, so conversations didn't go very far. Since the bus stopped at 11, we eventually made our way back out of the square and called a cab.