Report from Morocco

     Wednesday was bittersweet as we departed Vaison after too-short-a-visit:

Can't Get Enough of This Shot!

     But new adventures awaited us!

     Indeed, the drive from Vaison to Marseille was uneventful, and the flight to Casablanca was grand, marked by a good old-fashioned, hot out of the galley, on-the-house airplane meal. 

     But when we arrived in Casablanca we were greeted by a long line at passport control and a Moroccan passport officer with a serious case of Napoleon Complex.  He made it his goal to give everyone at his window a hard time, and we were not spared.  He insisted that we write the exact address of our place of residence in Morocco . . . . and as we did not have the address of our first hotel . . . we were balled out big time.  But Le General struck back!  Without missing a beat, she stepped aside for one moment, looked in her guide book (which did NOT list our actual hotel), and simply wrote the name and address of a random hotel.  As Mr. Bonaparte had no way to verify what she had written, this plan worked perfectly.  See ya sucka!!! 

 

 

     We were met outside customs by Muhammad, our driver for the first two days.

(This is Actually a Departing Photo, But We Are Using It Here To Show Who Muhammad Is)



     We planned to bypass Casablanca and drive directly to the fishing port of Safi, three hours to the south.  Since our flight arrived at 6:30 p.m. (and then there was the passport officer to outsmart) this turned into a night drive . . . . on bad roads . . . . through many small settlements (for lack of a better word).  It turned into a bit of a harrowing experience. Drivers here are aggressive, ours included, and the kicker is this:  there are pedestrians, donkey carts, dogs and other animals, bicycles with no lights or reflectors, and old motos and mopeds without lighting of any kind hugging the side of the highway.  It's a free-for-all and highly dangerous, primarily for the pedestrians who are hooded in dark clothing and long robes, practically invisible to cars.  Anyway, Ed commented on this several times to Muhammad and he agreed that it was very hazardous.  Within an hour we saw our first casualty . . . a gristly scene involving car vs. pedestrian with a person impaled in/on a windshield of a stopped car. 
 

     We arrived at our riad after 11 p.m., but the riad was expecting us and they kept the restaurant open.  We had an absolutely FANTASTIC meal of tangines . . . basically stews of chicken, beef, vegetables and fish.  These were to die for! 

    The riad was adequate, nothing fancy, but everyone was very nice.

 

 

    A note on language:  French and Arabic are pretty much equally spoken and most people are fluent in those two languages.  All signs are in both French and Arabic.  So we are well suited for travelling with 3/4 of our party is communicating freely and Ed is feeling very proud about his ability to make himself understood and to understand others.

 

 

     The next morning, our party divided:  It was the plan of Ed and Ford to do a half-day of fishing (Safi is, after all, a major processor of sardines and other fish) and Averil and Asha planned to see some pottery works of which Safi is well known. 

 

 

     The fishing expedition was . . . how to put this bluntly . . . not organized in a "Western" fashion.  We were perplexed when the boat's owner was quite late, but the organizer of the trip told us that in Morocco people are not "slaves to time," and that things will happen when "God wills it." When the boat's owner finally arrived (nice guy) he set about shuffling around for a while and later decided to inform us that he "forgot the bait." Then it literally took eight men and boys more than an hour to casually ready the boat for launch.   So God willed that we got off quite late, and God also gave us a good lesson in the ways in which different cultures assign a value to time.  Plus, our boat owner asked Ford to please drive the boat while he fiddled with some over-sized and unwieldy fishing rods and Ford was only too happy to oblige!

God also willed that we would not catch any fish.

 

 

     Meanwhile, Asha and Averil had an excellent tour of the pottery "factory" which is really a collection of Moroccan artisans who were very nice and taught Asha about how to paint the pottery as well as explaining their methods.

 

 

     Then it was off to Marrakesh!  This time the drive was by day, so we have some photos taken from the car as we drove along:

  
  We drove into central Marrakesh, to the old medina . . . where we were taken to the most luxurious, impeccable, pristine riad we could ever want.  We said goodbye to Muhammad. 

     Here, we feel like sultans . . . two huge rooms, perfectly appointed, surrounding a central courtyard with a pool and palm trees.  One would never believe that such an oasis existed behind non-descript doors right in the middle of the old city. 

     Below are some pictures of our accommodations . . . . and as this is being written, we can hear the calls to prayer ringing out in the city. 

     We will be here for three nights and two days and then a new driver will take us across the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara desert. 

     But that comes later . . . tomorrow . . . we tour Marrakesh by foot!!!!