Nothing is ever simple here
Those of you who have read my prior blog postings will know about our attempt to get to Egypt for holidays. During that attempt, I had requested and received a multiple entry/exit visa for Garnet. The law states, that upon the issuing of these visa, the holder has to exit or ‘validate’ the visa within 90 days. Hmmmm The day before we were to depart for our holidays – me to Morocco to meet Donna and Garnet to fly to Dubai to be with a school friend and family and attend convention, I realized that his visa had not been validated by leaving the country, as per law. You see, we never did get to Egypt and Garnet being in school and me working, we had no need to fly out of the country. I learned that to have an expired un-validated visa was to cost me over $350 in a fine on top of the cost and panic (thinking of contingency plans for him to stay) to get another one issued ‘that’ day for our departure the day following. A pox on SAMA Airlines I say! 8-/
BUT, everything worked out as planned and I was able to get to the airport with Garnet by 7am. Once there… after waiting in line at the ticket counter, the attendant looked at Garnet, then back to his ticket and then promptly walked away. Both of our hearts sank… now what else could go wrong? He returned a while later with a supervisor who issued the ticket, asked Garnets’ age, suggested that maybe he would not be able to fly alone and then told us to go talk to customer services. Off we went with Garnet asking me if he would not be able to fly – and me thinking what to do as my flight was in 4 hours time. Customer services had us fill in a brightly colored pamphlet with my contact details in KSA (but I was not going to be here…, and the name and contact of who would meet him in Dubai). We carried this through immigration and at some point along the way, it was taken from us and we were told to carry on. I do not believe Garnet ever saw it again. I have a feeling that VERY few minors ever fly alone out of this country!
Started 10 days before Garnet and I departed on our holidays, I contacted a company to get travel insurance. Through much effort I was able to receive a scanned emailed copy of the policy on the day before we left. I received the official documents by FedEX package 7 days after I returned from the 10 day holiday which was 4 days after the policy expired. Thank goodness for email!
Casablanca
I flew into Casablanca a day before Donna and both of us were met by our driver Husain and guide Mustapha Ayoub. Husain drives his own tour van and we found this self-interest in the well-being of his vehicle to be a definite plus regarding our safety on the roads.
Here is a You Tube video I made of a few short clips I recorded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZLxY-uEWZ4
I will place a link to our photo diary at the end of this blog.
The hotel that we stayed in, in Casablanca (both coming and going), was right on the beach and can only be defined with one word… ‘tired.’ In the Lonely Planet guide for Morocco, it is said to be a family-run hotel. I think the whole family that built the place is still working there too – I suspect that the average age of those working there is around 60+. The place had that ‘old man’ mustiness to it… The one day that I had before Donna arrived provided me with time to walk along the beach, looking out over the Mediterranean Sea. It was Armistice Day and I suspect that the close proximity to the Islamic holiday of Eid also added to the lack of activity because no one was on the roads, even at 8 am. I walked along corniche with morning joggers and local fishermen. At about the 8 km point I reached a small fishing village that turns into an island each time the tide comes in.
I was sitting down in the lobby lamenting the fact that I could not use the computer in the lobby when Donna walked in – how wonderful it was to meet her in this distant land! Did you know that there is such a thing as a ‘French’ keyboard? This is what flummoxed to begin with as I tried to log into my gmail account. I could understand the French, Google interface but when I typed, it was like someone had not only swapped around the keys, but also changed the wiring behind them.
The next day we luxuriated in the fact that we actually had a ‘private tour.’ With only Donna and I in the a van built for 10 passengers plus the driver and guide, we had a lot of room to spread out and swap seats. This first day was spent visiting the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca as well as a few other buildings around town. Really, there is not much to see in this rather run-down quasi industrial city of more than 3.5 million people. Our 4 hour trip took us for part of the way, along a toll road and past vast tracts of agricultural land much like a ‘slightly’ hilly Saskatchewan. The analogy breaks down though, with the presents of small utility tractors or horse-and-plows and people sowing their fields by hand.
Marrakech
Upon arrival in Marrakech we are taken to our hotel. In Marrakech, small hotels or B&B are called ‘riad’. Ours is the Riad Aquarelle. We were looking at each other and wondering what we had got ourselves into as we were being driven into the depths of this old city down one way streets with two-way traffic equivalent to any large NA motorway. We unloaded our luggage beside one of these busy one-way streets and took off after our guide on foot into a side tunnel, along a warren of small cobbled pathways with 4 story buildings on each side an arm’s length between. At the end of a ‘take a right, first left and second left’ we stopped in front of a carved wooden door and knocked. Our concerns were washed away when the door was opened and we were ushered into a jewel of a B&B. We dined on the roof under a camelhair tent that evening and morning and punctuated the meals with a walk to the old souq down the road about a 20 minute walk.
The souk,
...Something that you just have to experience. Dubai had a few imitations…. This place has the real thing! All I can do is encourage you to view the photo-diary we have put at the end of this blog. Something that I wanted to take photos of, but was not able to, was of the area that had animals, leopard skins, live chameleons, live birds of prey, live turtles and tortoise, large stuffed lizards, antelope skulls, bones herbs and bottles with mysterious pickled or dried objects inside. I believe this place was the witch doctor/medicine area (I kid you not!). There were also artisan areas for: tinsmiths, leather-workers, a few odd shops here and there doing carpentry, rug-makers, tailors, and just about any odd trinket you wanted to purchase. Over the period we stayed in Marrakech, I believe we made over 5 trips into the souq. We would only come out when we became hungry and then, we would take a rest in one of the ‘upscale’ restaurants around the edge of the large central square. We were careful to not eat any of the food from the local ‘venders’ as we wanted to make sure that we remained healthy for the whole trip. I think one of the things that I found most interesting was that this country was totally authentic and that Dubai has taken most of this place’s architectural key features and rebuilt whole districts which look the same. It was nice to see where all the ideas of the imitations came from.
Tuluete
Our first stop on our way out of Marrakech was in Tuluete (which we were told was 52 days walk by camel to Timbuktu). Just on the edge of Tuluete is the castle or Kasba (earth block building) of Pasha Glaoui whose claim to fame among other things was a bloody tyrant who attempted to beat the will to live out of the local Berber tribes with the help of French fire-power back in the ‘50s while he managed the trade routes that crossed his land. Websites claim that he was one of the richest people in the world at the time – who would have thought a person from Morocco eh? This illustrates how active these trade routes have been.
Following our visit to the castle, we stopped at a nondescript wreck of a place and were told that we were going to be eating lunch there. Donna and I got hesitantly out of the van, looking around at the few scruffy individuals – and no other tourists visible (not a good sign!) and followed our guide inside the Palace de Telouet restaurant, through rooms that looked clean and newly painted but still without anyone around and up onto the roof to find four other groups of tourists ‘taking the air.’ What a total surprise. Above all else, this place had the best food on our whole trip! (you might need to refresh the site as there is a slide show that loads slowly when you click on the ‘visite’ link. A link at the bottom of the main page is to a You Tube video of a wedding on the roof terrace where we had our lunch) .
Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou
Anyone who has seen a movie with an ancient desert fortress has probably seen this town. No one lives here now as it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. Many movies have been shot here – about 2 per year since ’82. Gladiator is probably one of the recent popular movies. The current village is on the West side of the river as the river floods frequently and cuts the town off from trade and transportation from the road on the West side. So the leaders up and moved the town, leaving this wonderful structure cascading down the hillside abandoned. These days, many of the old buildings have been refurbished and now contain small curio shops. We arrived just in time to see the sun set from the top of the hill. Our hotel that night was in the new town and had much to desire, but gave Donna and I lots to talk and laugh about – as one has to have a sense of humor in these situations.
On the way into the area we passed a gas station – no, not a ‘petrol’ station as that would be something relating to the local economy – this place was a movie set. I think it was a Phillips 66. I could just picture the empty highway movie scene; coming over the hill to find an abandoned gas station with dusty door flapping in the breeze and tumble weeds piled up against the garage bay door. But this was in the middle of nowhere in Morocco! Go figure! We were told that it was a famous location… but both Donna and I not being movie aficionado, it was all rather meaningless – other than being surrealistic.
Ouarzazate to Tarauddant
We traveled on to the modern (could I say brand new?) city of Ouarzazate where Jacques Chirac, the former president of France has a home – this place has wide (wide!) modern roads and is really clean – with lots of brand new buildings and shops where we picked up a few snacks and exchanged some money. We continued our trip swinging west from our southerly direction to curve around northwards and on towards Tarauddant. We stopped at one of the many women’s cooperatives that have capitalized on the newly publicized health benefits from the oil of the seed of the Argon tree.
That night we stayed in another Riad called Riad Hida which is just outside of the city of Tarauddant, which was a nice surprise as it was a rich person’s old home with private orange garden complete with about 10 peacock strutting around in the undergrowth and beside the swimming pool. We wondered around the grounds sampling the different varieties of oranges hanging ripe for picking on the trees. I brought one home for Garnet in Saudi Arabia for a little taste of Morocco.
The next day we traveled into Tarauddant proper, to see the silver smiths and silver shops that this town is famous for – which happened to all be shut due to the Eid holiday…. I think this was the only souq that I got quite concerned about being lost. Even using the compass on my watch, I still felt a little bit panicked because we were not much interested in being there in the first place and nothing was open that we wanted to see, so we walked in and then turned around to come out. Thanks to Donna recognizing a shoe display (one among HUNDREDS) she was able to say, we 'turn right' here and 'go straight'… we got out.
Tizi N Test pass and the High Atlas
We picked up lunch fixings for our extended trip over the High Atlas mountains for a second time. We traveled to/through the Tizi N Test pass (6900 ft) on a well kept, paved, single lane road with a suspiciously high number of breaches to the retaining wall at many of the corners (see video at beginning of blog and photo-diary).
We spent the night at another B&B (hotel), the Ksar Les Sel Dailleurs. This one had an interesting dynamic to it that we did not appreciate. The place was nice for the paying guest, but when our drive and guide inquired about where they could stay, the owner brushed them off like they were low-life. They had to travel back the hour and a half to Marrakech 5 times (4 ‘extra’ times) than they had planned because that was the closest place to find a bed (they had an apartment there) and most of the hotels were closed due to Eid. I was not sure how the extra gas consumption was dealt with since the driver was an independent operator…. Both guide and driver were Berber and they were quite happy to give evidence of how much more hospitable the Berber were than the ‘Arabs’ who had colonized the country hundreds of years ago – which was the owner’s heritage.
The next morning Donna and I went for a 2 hr., 10 km hike, from 976m at lower hotel to 1233m at the guest house that we reached -- through some of the local Berber villages. Everyone we passed as we walked was dressed up for Eid. This morning was ‘killing day’ and every man we passed had a knife in hand. Generally, the oldest married man in the home was to bless a goat or sheep, turn its head towards Mecca and then cut its throat and hang it quickly to bleed out. We observed one family butchering their animal below us at the guest house (Dar Tassa) at the top of our hike where we had a lunch break overlooking the local village.
Marrakech and home
The next day, we continued on to Marrakech to the Riad we first stayed at – did some last minute shopping in the souk and the next day on to Casablanca. The day after Donna and I took a small taxi (were ripped off on the fair) to the light rail transit train station, then on to the airport where I saw Donna off on her return flight through Paris, Montreal, Ottawa, and then Edmonton. 24 hours later, she had landed in Edmonton. I was still in Casablanca as I remained one extra day due to the availability of Saudi Airlines flights to Jeddah. I got home at 3:30 am, and returned to the university campus, then back to the airport again for Garnet’s flight at 3:30 that afternoon. Garnet had a blast! And promptly went into recovery mode by going to sleep at 8 pm for the next couple of days.
Here is our photo-diary. Hope you enjoy. 8-)
Oh, and as of the writing of this blog, I have 12 days before we leave KSA for good. It has been an interesting year and a half for me. A new job awaits me in Edmonton and I am ready for it.
