Today’s highlight was.. well, more than one. The waves crashing on the Atlantic coast. The impromptu game of beach football that got interrupted by horse riders. Getting stopped by the police – until I asked if they spoke English at which point they encouraged me to go away. But no, there’s an easy winner: I saw storks! On their nests! On top of, erm, mosques! Photos available some time next week, once I’m home and have had a chance to process them.
Photo inserted subsequently
Now up to 442 photographs, only 200 of which are of storks refusing to look up at me at the same time. Oh, and one from my mobile phone, for my mother:
She has a thing about tagines. So I bought her one today. Stopped at a market where no tourists could be found and a local was buying a tagine for 20 dhiram (i.e. about £1.70) so I asked how much a smaller (but prettily decorated) one was. 16 dhiram, and he couldn’t be arsed with the change so I got it for 15. Tourist prices start at 70..
Trickier day tomorrow, as I want to buy a nice scarf for the lady that’s feeding the cats for me while I’m gone. I’ve been quoted 120 dhiram (in Marrakech) to 350 dhiram (earlier today) so need to unleash my full negotiation skills. So no watch tomorrow, phone hidden, camera in bag, dodgy t-shirt and full on Aspergers stare at the initial price. Will let you know how I get on – no doubt quite terribly.
Fes is interesting. Not sure if it’s the islamic influence, or because it’s a favourite destination for Germans, but everybody here was very insistent that I take photographs of dead jews. I mean, eight different people told me that I had to. Three of them didn’t even know I had a camera. I hadn’t even made it into Fes before the first harassed me. Apparently I can hire his brother for the day for 250 dhiram, and he’ll guide me around Fes. Except I had a 10km walk before dinner and saw several of the sights anyway. Although three other people tried to guilt me into paying for their services as an unofficial guide by telling me about the thing I was looking at then going, “Come and look at this!”
One of them told me he’s jewish, then told me there are no jews left in Fes, then showed me the old synagogue (which looked like someone’s house from the outside; I didn’t go in) then tried to invite me into his house. He seemeed upset when I walked away and all his friendliness vanished when he realised I wasn’t going to hand him cash.
The other thing Fes has is walls. They have palace walls, garden walls, a big wall around the medina and kilometre long walls around cemeteries. To be fair, some of the walls are quite impressive, although I couldn’t photograph some of them: the Moroccans really really don’t like you photographing their police or army, and they had both guarding many of the walls and gates. I did take some pictures of the 20 foot high bronze gates though, ignoring the dozen soldiers, two officers and three policemen that watched me closely throughout.
They don’t like photos of people at all anyway. I keep getting suspicious looks when my camera is out. Walking through the souks I tend to put it away but had it in my hand today, and there was much glaring. Although that could be because I had bare arms; nobody in Morocco shows bare arms, men or women. Maybe it’s because it’s winter, all the men are in thick coats and I saw a woman with a bobble hat on. In the bright sunshine, while I was in a short sleeved summer shirt enjoying the warmth.
That reminds me: Photo of the day is not the storks. It’s in one of the souks, where an alley wide enough for four people had 80 yards of stalls and in between them were Moroccans of all ages packed 7-8 deep. Progress was very slow, and I had to keep holding my camera at chest height to avoid hurting the small children that kept trying to headbutt it. But then having it in my hand became worth the effort: I now have a photograph of a woman riding a moped through that morass while wearing a fleece winny the poo onesie.
Side note : If you want ladies fleece nightwear, come to Moroco. I’ve never seen so much on sale, every little market (even in the poor rural areas) had 2-3 stalls stacked high with it. Although half the women wear it during the day too. The men don’t, but they have their own weird ankle length dresses with pointy hoods, that they keep up all the time. I need to get a photo of one of them.
The drive from Casablanca to Fes was around 350km, although I could’ve knocked nearly a quarter off that by taking the (toll) motorway. Glad I didn’t, got to see some weird sights. And storks. Lots of building going on between Casablanca and Rabat, with massive developments of beachside apartments. One sign suggested you could buy one for 8000 dhiram per square metre – so around £32k for a one bed apartment? Cheap for permanent sunshine and a 200 yard walk to a bloody good surfing beach, but that’s around 8 times the average salary for what’s likely to be a holiday home. Not sure the locals will be queuing up for those.
The drive also reinforced a couple of thoughts I’ve had. One is that you can’t plough a field with a donkey. A plough needs two donkeys, or one horse. I guess you could rent a tractor (they line up in some villages, like a taxi rank) although even a tractor would struggle on one of the hills I saw a man ploughing with his horse.
Sheep (and/or goats – buggered if I can tell the difference) here require constant attention. Every flock has a guardian, sometimes 2-3. If solo the guardian may have dogs, or sometimes just a big stick. I did risk societal opprobrium by photographing one shepherdess today, she was too photogenic. Hoping those pictures work.
Leaving Casablanca at 8.30 was interesting. The roads were almost empty and demonstrated that Moroccans appear to afraid of empty roads and driving fast. They panic at a roundabout (so every three hundred yards in towns), coming almost to a halt, not seeming to believe that it could actually be empty. The worse are the ones driving a Dacia Logan. Hmm. Ok..
Most cars in Morocco are cheap. There are a handful of jags, I saw a Porsche Cayenne but most luxury 4×4 are Range Rovers (and not many of them). There are a few mercs, although 3/4 of them are 20 year old taxis, and one Audi (driven, surprisingly enough, by a complete cock). No BMWs. Most of the cars are small European models (Peugot, Citroen, the odd Renault, some Volkswagen) or Dacias.
Not many Dacia Sandero, a lot of Dacia Dusters and by far the most popular is the “fits all the family and the 40kg of fruit you just bought” Dacia Lodgy. Never heard of it before, like the name, fear the roof rack (looks like it weighs more than the car, and they all have it) and get overtaken by it more than anything else.
But then there’s the other one. The Dacia Logan. Without checking on the web I’m going to make some predictions about this car:
1 – it’s the bottom of their range
2 – it’s the bottom of anybody’s range
3 – its engine and gearbox are better suited to a Tamiya RC buggy
4 – it’s so cheap that it’s the only viable upgrade from a donkey
5 – you only need the same driving licence that you were using on your donkey
This is because I’ve never seen cars driven so slowly, so badly, with so little awareness, by people with so little self-respect. I’ve also yet to see one that doesn’t have a dented boot lid. Although that’s hardly a rarity in this country, my hire car has 11 dents and a dozen other scratches – took ages to fill in the damage assessment when I picked it up. I’m in a Kia Picanto which is a terrible car, but well suited to Morocco. It’s tiny (five door car that’s smaller than my two-seater) and although its top speed appears to be suspiciously close to the national speed limit here it does 0-60 in well under a minute.
In a five star hotel tonight, as its my only two night stay. Five star here means a room larger than the ground floor of my house for £30/night, and interestingly no concierge demanding to be paid to bring my bag up to my room. But it’s getting late, so time to test the kingsize bed..
Today’s approximate drive, as I’ve managed to forget around 60km the car recorded: