Bad Shaves, Brawls and Cous Cous

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Morocco is not a place ideal for diabetics. Drink of choice is 'berber
whiskey' or mint tea, a drink which contains about as much sugar as tea by
default. The moroccans use a solid aubergine or marrow sized block and
chip away with a hammer, and often the lump has trouble fitting into the
neck of the teapot. So the opportunity rarely comes around to see just how
much sugar goes in. Today at the bus station waiting to go to taroudannt I
got my answer. I was given 9 cubes for what in the uk would be a single
cup of tea (moroccan tea cups are a lot smaller). The unfortunate thing is
that I am now so used to this particular tea being so sickly sweet that it
just doesn't taste right if you don't put some sugar in it, 2 seems enough
though.

Waiting for busses is rarely fun, especially when the gentleman in the
ticket office refuses to sell you a ticket even after the departure of the
bus. Thankfully on this occasion it was not due to him being an arse as I
originally thought, rather that the inward bus was delayed. It was
obviously a bus that had already made a decent length of journey, and had a
ripe stench to show for it.

Now this bus journey is one I am eyeing with a degree of suspicion. The
guidebooks seem to say it takes a fair 2 1/2 hours whereas the various bus
companies that run the route say 1 hour... We will see - I am expexting the
longer of the two of course. At 45km an hour it was never going to take 1
hour to get there when the distance was 80 odd km. I just don't get thus
driver... He does 45km on an open road then as soon as he sees bikes or
motorbikes on the road he ups it to 100... What the???

In the end 1 hour and 45 minutes was the journey time, really not that bad
considering. Taroudannt on first impressions has a fronteir town feel with
red mud walls and a slightly raw feel to it. It maintains this feel
throughout, but not in a bad way. The central square is charming,
surrounded by cafes with umbrellad tables outside. There are two main
souks or market areas - the arab souk to the north and the berber souk to
the south. The former is far more touristy with much the same goods you
see elsewhere whereas the latter is more fruit, vegetables, spices and
cookware. There is certainly less pressure to buy than in the arab souk.
- find the opening line of the arab traders very entertaining "here in
taroudannt there is no pressure to buy, I make you good price". For me it
has as much authenticity and sincerity as any sentence starting "I'm not
racist but...". For some reason most people were trying ro sell me shoes,
which while they make great photographic fodder I just can't imagine
wearing them back home in london. Sure, the leather is lovely and soft and
the craftsmanship is good and the price is good... But that doesn't mean
I'm going to buy it. There must be thousands of pairs sitting unworn
across the cupboards of the world. Something hard to communicate here is
that you simply don't want something... The seller always assume you have
issues with price / colour / quality when I really don't need a carpet
thankyou very much.

I would reccomend to anyone who is shopping in the souks to look in a fixed
price shop first, just to get a ballpark. Knowing the price of something
is a good tool to getting the right price. A full size tagine (for cooking
with rather than a decorative one) for example should cost no more than 50
dirham, which is a lot cheaper than many will end up paying, and is
certainly cheaper than i would have tried to go.

Something bizarre is going on in taroudant. There is an invasion of
scousers. I kid you not, its something straight out of the fast show (or
was it harry enfield). I have seen at least 4 people wearing the
obligatory tracksuit and perm and walking with arms in time with their
swagger. Priceless.

I've also observed possibly the freshest eggs you can get. I didn't see
this in any other city, although I presume it was the same there. All of
the egg shops are 1 half egg stall and one half chicken hutch. You can get
the eggs straight from the rear end as it were.

I have also lost my faith in moroccan barbers. I only had a few days
growth which is possibly what caused the barber to attempt to take half of
my face as well. I was most displeased, the barbers sheepish sorrys doing
little to dull the pain or mop up the blood. As long as I'm healed ill go
again in marrakech tho...

I had lunch in the main square... A rather dissapointing yet inspiring
kofta tag

In the afternoon I decided to take a kableche, or horse drawn cart around
town. Although I'd walked the majority of the walls it seemed like fun,
and at less than a fiver an easy way to unwind. The journey was nice but
pretty uneventful, other than my driver anbari trying to make the
exotically named zidane (yes, after the footballer) drag the cart up a very
high kerb threatening to either break the front right wheel, or flip the
whole thing over. Zidane could thankfully reverse, so all was well and I
didn't have to add more cuts to my already shredded face ;-). Taroudannt
maintains the same feel from the outside, but only from afar. The fantasy
feel to it is soon destoyed by the fact that the outside of the walls are
effectively used as landfill. It still is very beautiful though if you
gloss over the detail. The atlas mountains are also visible, and it seems
that if you could get far away with a long lens you could create a
fantastic photo of this place.

The real highlight was the fact that anbari took me to his home with the
offer of tea. However when we arrived his wife had just prepared a huge
dish of cous cous and vegetables, and I was invited to join them. It was
absolutely fantastic, a world apart from cous cous we have at home. It was
flavoured with spices and a light stock and had little more than
courgettes, carrots, pepper and onion on top, but was all the more
delicious for its basic ingredients. As we went to leave anbari gave me
some photos of his family. I'm not really sure why, but I accepted them
anyway so as to be sure as not to offend.

When I chose my hotel this morning it was a picture of tranquility with its
huge jungle like interior courtyard. However the setting sun seemed to
have bought with it a change of character and the whole place became a huge
bar. And the locals are really taking advantage of it. By 10pm there was
singing, there was crying and there was plenty of "dude I ****ing love you"
type hugging. I decided to sample the mayhem for a swift beer but soon
retired to the safety of my room as I realised quite how many of the
drunken hordes was somewhat edgy if not outright aggressive. Although one
man did actually try and sell me his wife before that....

The party obviously didnt stop, as at around 3 am I was woken by the sound
of a brawl outside. I was glad I had chosen the bed rather than the booze option!

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