مرحبا

Morocco spoke to me a bit more than I expected. This is a place I want to come back to and understand more of, but in a way where I can avoid all the annoying “false guides”.

We made the purposeful decision to do our own self-guided tour, and it was the absolute right decision. Rather than be encased in an air conditioned hermetically sealed bus with dozens of other tourists seeing the same things that every tourist sees, we got ourselves happily lost in the Medina; stumbled upon dead end alleys with beautiful flowers, random kitties, and friendly locals; had a whole restaurant to ourselves enjoying live music and a cous cous dish; sipped mint tea from a cafe overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar; people (and traffic) watched on Avenue Pasteur while enjoying the delicious fruit smoothies known as a panache; bought delicious pastries at random in some bakeries by just pointing at things that looked good; wandered around the Kasbah; shopped fresh strawberries and other fruit in the meandering hectic busy streets; practiced my French with various shop keepers; stumbled into a bar for a beer, where the hospitality was honest and welcoming – the bartender bent over backwards trying to understand our request and invited us to enjoy several complimentary appetizers, making us feel like an honored guest; walked along the beach with its new construction going on and with men renting camel and horseback rides on the beach.

Of course, we did get hassled by quite a few of the “false guides”, coming up to us offering friendly advice at first and then demanding money for the advice or their families. Usually a firm “no thank you” in Arabic would do the trick, but one fellow followed us walking for half a mile until Steve finally gave in and gave him the rest of our pocket change (we had no use for the local currency anyway). I feel for the situation of these folks who feel that they have to act dishonestly in order to make a living, but it does leave a small scar on this otherwise beautiful city. We knew this was the trade off for doing a self-guided tour, and it was never so annoying that we regretted that decision.

We are happy to be back in Spain tonight; though everything feels so mundane here by comparison. We’ve made the decision to take 4 days instead of 3 to get to Granada (we were going to train part of it), and camp the next 3 nights, going at a comfortable pace, as we get into more hilly terrain. We’ve both felt too rushed the past week or so, so it will be nice to take some more time to smell the roses.

(Despite how they look, these small fried fish were absolutely delicious! A mild white fish, tender and juicy. Anyone know what they are, precious?)