D-Dog’s Blog

Since leaving Marrakesh, much has happened. Our whirlwind visit to Essaouira turned out to be as pleasant as it was brief, our journey to Casablanca turned out to be as unpleasant as it was long and Casablanca itself has turned out to be just as thoroughly unpleasant as we were told it would be.

 Essaouira is a charming gem of a town, surrounded by high sandstone walls, the cosy medina has a satisfyingly complete feel, its shops are relatively hassle free and walking about you feel safe and at home. The vast walls are dotted with a series of ramparts, which, while being medieval in look, are only a few hundred years old, built by the European colonisers who left behind hundreds of cannon, which decorate every gate and sea wall in town. Of these ramparts, the most impressive is the northern one, which faces out toward the Atlantic Ocean, from it you can sit mesmerised, watching huge Atlantic swells throw themselves over the little islands being battered half a horizon away. Once you have drawn yourself away from the views, you can explore the craft markets, which seem to be the most authentic I have seen in any town in this country. You may also indulge in some fantastically creamy Italian ice-cream before embarking on a walk across the vast windswept beach, which reaches out from the medina like a giant tick, flanked by hotels, bars and windsurfing shacks. If you are not too afraid of food poisoning (my lacklustre companions are), you can sample some fresh sardines fried over beds of dried wood which burst with oil and flavour.

Leaving Essaouira was something I did not want to do, but in order to keep to the tight schedule set by my fellow travellers leaving me, I had to. This involved a hot and cramped six hours in a coach.

We have been in Casablanca for half a day, the place has the feel of a European capital, only run down and filthy. Covered in sleazy bars, drunk people make the atmosphere jarringly unfriendly and for the first time in this country, I was mugged. It was about half past twelve in the afternoon and the sun was not too hot, so I decided to make the journey along the main road to the Hassan II Mosque. I was lazily making my way along the pavement, cursing the fact that they had built a six-lane road, destroying my view of the Atlantic, when I passed two kids doing the usual puppy-dog-eye begging routine, pointing at their mouths and appearing as destitute as they could. Looking at them and shaking my head, it occurred to me quite how odd it was to beg holding kitchen knives. As soon as this thought had completed its mental breath, one of them put a knife to my face, and the other a hand in my pocket. Stealing 400 Dirhams, they ran off laughing. The only person who does seem to have enjoyed this place is Pascoe. Using his pretty-boy looks, he attracted the attention of a Moroccan student on the coach.

Tensions are running high…video footage of one of Frank’s unprovoked attacks (sorry about the quality).

Duncan’s Note: The crash at the end is my retaliation. Enjoy.

Leaving Marrakech, after twelve days of macaroons, lazing around in the sun, ice cream and general laziness, was a bit of a pain. As the earliest riser in the group, it was deemed my job to make sure everyone was up in time to catch the eight-thirty bus to Essaouira. Despite my fears that it would prove difficult to rouse Frank from his often seemingly impenetrable slumber, we made our connection and soon found ourselves back on the coast, this time facing down the mass of the Atlantic. But accounts of uneventful journeys are, well, uneventful, so instead I’ll give a final summing up of Marrakech, the town that became, to us, Morocco’s answer to ‘the big easy’ (although, that makes little sense, due to the fact that the lax restrictions on alcohol that originally gave New Orleans its nickname clearly do not exist in Morocco, a Muslim country). Anyhow, I digress. During our twelve days we frequented the square and only the square; most of our days consisted of brief sorties into the outside world to procure ice cream and to use the internet (I am, after all, a busy editor). The ‘assembly of the dead’ could not be a less apt name for the enormous square that dominates the centre of Marrakech’s medina. There are the snake charmers, the con artists (according to some people one and the same), the henna artists, the orange juice sellers, the Berbers in their blue turbans who sell incense from rugs on the ground and the thousands of pasty tourists who throng in shorts and bumbags. Essentially, its a pretty lively place, especially once darkness falls when the tourists change into sensible cargo trousers and enter the fray looking for food. Needless to say, the residents of the square are only too willing to help, with thrusting offers of menus and phrases (directed towards the British tourists) like “it’s the dog’s bollocks”, “bloody marvellous” and “have a butchers”, all spoken through tongues more used to speaking throaty Arabic. And then there are the mobilettes, little bike-scooter hybrids that are surely the motorised equivalents of the weary mules they share the roadways with.

Speaking of the donkeys, after a long time spent witnessing their hardships, one cannot help but feel sorry for them. There’s something in their appearance which means they permanently look glum. Of course, the fact that they are literally worked until they die doesn’t help. In order to stop them running off, some owners tie their front legs together; others, so as to prevent them from scaring in crowds, put their eyes out. They are rarely fed, and only occasionaly complain with hee-haws and shrugging and bucking. Perhaps when I get home I’ll give some money to the donkey sanctuary. Hmm. Anyway, we rarely ventured beyond our comfortable surroundings, favouring instead to sit and read, drink and talk. Everyday but one the weather was marvellous, which made lying around even easier to justify to myself. Too long spent in the midday heat can cause you terrible problems. It’s true. Sunburn, heatstroke, melanomas. Do you think I’m going to go out there and risk DEATH? You must be a mentalist. No, instead I’ll sit here, sip from my jus de banane and read Doonesbury (do you read a cartoon? It’s like eating soup, it just doesn’t make sense).

Yes, Marrakech was good. Perhaps too good, for the place we have just checked into is shabby, and the roof terrace poor at best. Upon further inspection I discovered that there is NO ROOFTOP CAFE (!) and that some negligent person has dumped an old bed up there, complete with the customary mangy bit of animal hide. We shall have to see how Essaouira measures up. Seeing as I don’t surf, I shall have to find other things to occupy my time. Actually, I haven’t read today’s Doonesbury yet (has anyone else noticed that the Guardian is recycling old Steve Bell cartoons? I’m not happy – not that I ever really understood what the man was talking about). So there it is (was), the first post from Morocco’s Atlantic coast. Expect more tales of lazing about, ice cream, donkeys and Doonesbury.

Today is expected, at the time of writing, to be our last full day in Marrakesh, and at this point I realise that we travellers have told you folks at home almost nothing about this fine city. This is chiefly because our activities within it have been limited, for the most part, to lazing about on our roof terrace, eating ice cream, taking a few walks, going to the internet café, stabbing Duncan, and, on my part at least, being beaten on the posterior with a twisted-up newspaper (thanks for that particular piece of advice, Jimi). However, there are some truly wonderful things about this city that have largely been ignored in previous posts. The architecture is imposing, particularly the Bank Al-Maghreb and the mosque(s), and the place is littered, here and there, with flashes of greenery which, outside the medina at least, help to maintain the impression of cleanliness and modernity that makes up exactly one half of one’s perception of the place. There is a lovely, shaded park area consisting of walkways among tall palms, the perfect place to get one’s shoes shined if one has shiny shoes that should be shined or shone or shiny for sure. Anyways, the quiet bits are nice, but the best part of Marrakesh, as in most Morrocan cities, is the medina. Marrakesh’s medina is different in structure from that of others. Whereas most medinas consist entirely of tightly-knit, labyrinthine streets, wherein lie the souks, markets, street vendors, dealers, hustlers and merchants that bring such colour to the Moroccan experience, Marrakesh’s medina is so populous, so thronging with tourists even during the quiet season, that there is simply not enough room in the rat-run of the medina per se to hold the mass of people. So the action is relocated to the Djemaa-el-Fna, the “Assembly Of The Dead”, the huge square that from the sky, or at least on the map, gives the distinct impression of a heart, pumping the droves through the veins of the medina’s tight, winding streets. The Djemaa’s openness is all that saves the atmosphere from being constrictive. So much noise, so many smells, so much noise, so much noise, one can hardly make out a single person in the humming crowd for more than a few seconds, and at night, the impression one gets is of the myriad shapes and noises moving as one, clustered in huge numbers around the dancers, storytellers, musicians (competent or no) and snake charmers that populate the square.

Venture north from the Djemaa during the day and you are entering the covered souks, where shafts of sunlight slash through the slats of wood and corrugated iron that make up the ceiling, where the shopkeepers attack you like hungry wolves if you are too ill to stop them, or so I have read, and hassle you like shopkeepers if you are fit and well, and where, if looking for a bargain, all but the most competent haggler would do well to avoid. Purely as a sight to see, though, a few circuits are certainly worthwhile, in order to soak up the scent and colour of the medina, as potent a spirit here as anywhere else.

All this can be read in the most basic and traditional of tourist guides, though, and what’s the point of sending a correspondent if all they’re going to give you is old material? Some of the best things about Marrakesh, for me anyway, cannot be discovered in the pages of any book I have read. I have already mentioned the macaroons (oy vey) and some of the interesting characters who filter down from the North, oh, and the weather (it rained like hell all day yesterday, but it’s back to glorious again today), but the one thing I have failed to mention, despite the definite impact it has made on me since I first arrived, is the call to prayer. Most of you will know what I am referring to, the call made from a minaret atop a mosque, calling the faithful to worship Allah. What you probably won’t know, though, unless you yourself have travelled to a Muslim city like Marrakesh, is the truly amazing effect that the call to prayer has when there are a large number of mosques in the area. The sound echoes from minaret to minaret, and the musical, mystic intonations of the words, rising and falling at different times, give the druggy, intimidating, frightening, cinematic, glorious effect of a whirling cacophony of sound. It lasts for a few minutes at most, but it will be one of the things I remember, and never stop telling people, about Marrakesh.

Pascoe

P.S. Read “The Hashmark”, our more widely-read partner blog, at www.thehashmark.wordpress.com

My enjoyment of Marrakesh has been severely dampened by the two or thee illnesses nature has sought to launch upon me since leaving Tangier Again. Yesterdays efforts to walk myself better resulted in stumbling, bleary eyed into the souks, my wits lost somewhere between my pressured, scratchy nasal passages and the bleary headache pounding against the inner walls of my skull. There are many reasons why one must maintain a nimble mind when confronted with the souks, they represent what can be compared to a slightly sinister Charlie’s chocolate factory, selling a vast multiplicity of objects that you neither need nor want. You find yourself at every turn being tempted, or thrust into the endless shops, all so similar that any but the most comprehensive navigator becomes immediately adrift upon a tide of startling noise, colour and movement. Comprehensive, I was not. It took me some time to realise first where I was, then that I had no idea where that was, all the time battling through the even present sensation that I did not like it. Shopkeepers here sense fallibility in a westerner, and as soon as they saw me, realising that I could barely see them, latched onto me asking if I was ok. Then offering to take me back to wherever I was staying, undoubtedly for a vast fee. I grunted and rudely swept by until one of them put his hand upon my back, and combining my flaccid momentum with a swing of his hand, flung me into his shop. As i turned around having nearly hit the back of the place, three men appeared at the front, two sat on chairs smoking, blocking the way out, and the third, the keeper himself, turned upon me. The ambush was complete. “Welcome to my shop, please look and maybe buy,” he said in a manner reminiscent of the Arabic villain “Jafar” of Disney’s Aladdin. It took me a while to sum up the situation, as I did, I gave off a mental shriek which, in my incapacitated state, may or may not have materialised. Then darted for the for the blocked exit, squeezing awkwardly through the smoking men, tripping up and falling into a puddle of what smelt like and almost certainly was donkey urine. Proving once and for all that every cloud does have a silver lining, this helped me become unapproachable, thus aiding my return to the hotel, which was, given the clarity adrenaline had brought to my thought, rather simple. Merely a matter of a few tuns constantly heading towards the minaret towering above and ignoring the strange looks that my bedraggled state was drawing.

This tale it in no way a condemnation of this city, indeed, since my recovery I have been enjoying it to its fullest, recovering my ice cream addiction and eating a lot of fantastic macaroons. I have also visited the Kasbah which seems to be mainly populated by hundreds of Storks who nest in vast, bushy sponges of recovered vegetation and refuse high atop the walls and roofs. All in all, with two days left here, the outlook it rosy and the bringer of my illnes, Pascoe, apears to have had his vile craft turned upon him and is coughing and siffing his way to bed. The only lesson must be that certain things cannot be achieved while you are desperately ill, a rather obvious end to a rather aimless post.

Francis

Due to unprecedented levels of public demand, I’ve decided to sit down and compose a post off the cuff, so bear with me. Today was the day we were supposed to visit the cascades, a series of waterfalls in the mountains. We’d received some good advice from a Canadian chap called Guy about the best way to do this, so we thought we were pretty prepared. Unfortunately, due to an untimely illness, Frank wasn’t well enough to go, so the eighty-five year old bloke, (Chris) who I believe Pascoe has mentioned in passing, came along for the ride. It actually turned out to be quite stressful; Chris spent the entire journey talking about anthropology and guffawing loudly at his own witticisms, and the driver decided that he would milk his cargo of rich Europeans for all they were worth by depositing us, at various stages of the journey, at establishments clearly run by his brother-in-law/second cousin twice removed/best mate. So we looked at pots, pans, hats, necklaces and other bits of traditional Moroccan paraphenalia, as well as being given a tour of someone’s house (?). Lunch was alright, and, of course, the scenery was magnificent. We arrived back at the hotel to find Frank feverishly tossing and turning and speaking in tongues (probably). A quick post, but stay tuned, we are still here.

duncan

I could write a detailed and damning apraisal of pascoe’s faliures as an individual; I will instead leave that to speak for itself, more than apt as it is for the job.

After an awfull train journey, marred by lack of sleep, sticky seats, being woken up by guards telling me to watch bags,food piosoning and worst of all, pascoe, Marrakech seems like a surreal and dreamy heaven. My body has yet to adjust from the wretcing pains that have bedevilled it since the arrival of Pascoe, my confused and consequently paraniod mind has sought a link between the two, but I am sure that in future my apreciation of this place will mature and improve. From what I have witnessed so far this place seems to be like a giant market, selling everything you would ever want to find and much that you would not, several times over. It has vendors ranging from clean, shiny, glass fronted shops, decked out with all the fittings of a western shop, and others consisting of dribling beggars with a few wares spread across a cloth, one of whom I am sure was selling Duncan’s phone. The place is also set against snowcapped mountains, which in the heatwave and distance apear to be level with ourselves. The prominence of hustlers, dealers and con-men also seemes to have noticably reduced since we left the north, very odd considering the prominence of tourists. All this could make Marrakesh our best visit yet, Pascoe and Duncan, thick as thieves, certainly seem to be loving it.

Expect much more from this town, and Jimmy, keep up the bad work.

Dispel all glamorous illusions from your mind – the Marrakech Express is crap (at least it is if you don’t pay the extra money for a bed, something for which I, unjustly, was blamed). So we spent the twelve hour journey on uncomfortable seats, dodging the cockroaches (alright, there was only one, but isn’t that enough?), trying vainly to get some sleep and playing the band name game (after five hours there was weak material coming up – Kevin Federline, Nicole Ritchie, and the classic guessing of bands that might just exist). Anyway, the less said about the journey the better, but Marrakech is a breath of warm, fresh air. The weather is the best we have encountered so far and there seems to be plenty of things to do. Frank even seems to have made his peace with Pascoe, but I don’t know how long that will last; we’ll just have to wait and see. The heat is making me somewhat lethargic, so I’m going to leave it at that, but expect plenty more from Marrakech.

So here I finally am, sitting in a Tangier internet café, writing what feels like my memoirs. It isn’t, because many more instalments will follow, and I am merely recounting the events of a single day, however, my exhaustion is such that it feels much more.

The story begins at 5am yesterday morning, with a lift from my dad to Exeter Airport. I bid farewell to my loved ones and skipped aboard a plane to Malaga. As the plane touched down in Spain, a feeling of overwhelming optimism washed over me. The sun was beaming, I was ten minutes ahead of schedule, and I was looking damn sharp in my newly- acquired leather jacket (circa 1975), a veritable icon of retro chic. This optimism was, however, swiftly quashed by the realisation that I was in Spain. And I don’t like Spain. I don’t like the smell, I don’t like the mullets, I don’t like the food. I was, on the other hand, very pleased with the bocadillo con tortilla that, along with a packet of crisps and the accompanying cervezas, would prove to be my sole source of sustenance for the whole day. The coach journey to Algeciras passed without incident, save being woken from my deep, dribbly slumber by a pair of Spanish girls who seemed to think that I might like to get off early, at Marbella. I didn’t even smell too bad at that stage, and so was slightly confused at this implication. I spent the rest of the journey looking out of the window, marvelling at the rugged, mountainous landscape of southern Spain, which was a revelation to me.

Algeciras, on the other hand, was anything but. I, like many of you, had read the blog entry on it, and so was prepared for the worst, and was right to be. Algeciras is a real hole. Every fibre of its being is devoted to escape. Every other shop is a travel agent or ferry ticket office, its sole focus is the port itself, and everyone I saw enter the town began immediately to seek a means by which to exit. It is always a stop, but never a station.

I bought a ferry ticket, checked in, and jumped aboard. It was here that my troubles began. For a start, the ferry left a full two hours after it was supposed to, and then mild seasickness set in. To top that, there was a massive queue of people in the area adjacent to the cafeteria so I couldn’t get anything to eat. I managed to fall asleep, to my relief, and was awoken by a friendly Moroccan man who informed me that we had arrived. I looked around, and the ferry seemed deserted. I wasn’t late, all was well, so I joined the queue to leave the ship. Ten minutes later, feet away from dry land, I was refused entry to Morocco on the grounds that my passport had to be stamped on board, which of course explained the earlier queue near the cafeteria. I had completely neglected to perform this simple formality. Oh, bugger, I thought, now I’ll have to wait all over again. How right I was.

Back on board, I was told that I would have to wait for the border control officer to return from a short trip to the post office. That was at seven o’clock. At eleven o’clock he returned, by which time I was a gibbering wreck, having realised that I am a total craphead. After my passport was stamped and my visions of a disgraced return to Spain had dispersed, I tried to leave the ship, but the passenger gangway was long since retracted, and my only means of exit involved ducking under a lorry (the underside of which donated a small amount of muck to the top of my rucksack, which has now spread over most of my body and my clothing, including my white wife-beater) and exiting via the lower car deck. At the port I met a beaming Duncan and, having travelled for eighteen hours and thoroughly cocking up everyone’s evening, I went with him to the hostel and slept, only stirred by a fat man’s 80-decibel snoring and Frank’s quiet insistence that he hated me. I was utterly happy.

Now, I’m tired, I really smell and I’m wasting your time with this gargantuan post, so I now bid thee farewell, dear reader. Until next time, goodbye.