Blogs from Morocco, Africa - page 242

As long as you have strong eggnog, pumpkin pie, Bing Crosby and a tree it can feel like Christmas in any country. -Anonymous PCV I had an absolutely wonderful Christmas weekend in Tazert, a small Berber village not far east of Marrakech. It was very small and very Berber, and in Darija doesn’t even merit the name of village; they call it a ‘duwar’ and as far as I can tell that means something like the French ‘hameau’. At any rate, it was very different from Kelaa. Luckily it’s not far from Kelaa though. I did have to take three different grand taxis to get there, but each ride was very short and with all the fares put together it cost me just under two American dollars. Grand taxis are the old Mercedes, usually very ... read more

Do first what only you can do. -Daisy Hepburn This was a long sabbatical from my blog, and not entirely a voluntary one - though I suppose I could have found a way to make it work if I really had had the motivation to do so. Actually, this past month I have been busy enough establishing myself here in Kelaa and I really haven’t felt pressed to post much since I have so much time here. I figured the more time I spent getting to know the place first the more accurate and in depth the future blogs would be. Of course, that does take away some of the initial excitement, first discoveries and first impressions - but not all. Kelaa is big enough and life and culture here are complicated enough that I ... read more

Well the call at the bus station all day that I could hear from the room of our hotel was 'Agadir, agadir, agadir, agadir' so after organising for us both to do some washing on the roof top of the hotel I went down to the bus station to organise our tickets southbound. I had no idea when the next bus south would go or when it indeed where it was going to go. I walked into the bus station area with everyone continuing to shriek town names and then they all piled on me asking me if I wanted to go to Agadir, Marrakesh or anything else (except a southern destination) so I just walked through them all pointing at the ground and saying 'Tan tan, Tan Tan, Tan tan' which had most of the ... read more

The day came, Wednesday 14th December, I met with my new travel partner a day or so before and he spent some time seeing Carcassonne & it's historic Cite. Sitting in a bar in central Carcassonne across the road from the Eurolines bus stop for the bus to Granada ... wine was sipped for several hours amongst a few friends of mine. Phone call after phone call it turned out the bus was running an hour, then 2 hours and then 3hrs late, after being kicked out of the bar at closing time, my friends having left, we took shelter in the station until 1am! Finally on board the bus, I caught a few winks as far as Valencia, we were transferred to another bus where I caught up on a bit more sleep and enjoyed ... read more

M is for Morocco. And Tangier, it's northern-most port and the gateway between Europe is my first taste of Africa. In Tangier you can experience your worst nightmare and an enchanting fantasy in the same convoluted maze of streets and alleys that make up this ancient town. As a port town, and with a long history of changing powers, Tangier now has a full mix of cultures, peoples, languages and everything that goes along with it. On the streets arabic is the language of preference, but one also hears french, spanish, english and the native tongue of the Berber people who inhabit the surrounding mountains. Tea houses are the popular hangouts, where people go for discussion, to watch religious broadcasts blaring from television sets, trading hash, hashish and opium, and of course to sip away on ... read more