Morocco Day 7

The Coast

Our night was a bit rough… hot without AC and an open window to cool the room let a mosquito in, which of course buzzed all of us to the point Billy had to turn lights on at 2:30 to try and kill it. He never succeeded but thank goodness the mosquito never resurfaced.

It was a bit of a leisurely departure, we had a nice breakfast on the terrace, another great chat with Jean, and then Jenny and Lila exchanged contacts before we headed out dropping Lila off in her village.

As we pulled into town, Billy noticed Mohammed (the shop owner who stopped on his moped yesterday) sitting on a nearby wall; Mohammed noticed us and jumped up and walked over to the car. He asked if we were leaving town and would we come by. I assured Mohammed we were not interesting in buying rugs or anything like that. “No problem. You can come take a look anyhow. We have many many other things too.”

We somewhat reluctantly followed Mohammed to his shop, Maison du Troc, where we walked into a room piled high on all sides with carpets. He then led us into another room that was full of an array of other items including jewelry (which was what we were after and actually where we were headed when he abducted us). Billy and Jenny spent some time perusing it but before you knew it, we found our selves in an even larger room, maybe twice the size of the entry room with rugs piled up just as high and Mohammed giving us a lesson on the various rugs. It was actually quite interesting and his knowledge and respect for the craftsmanship was impressive and…before you knew it…we bought one. A little one but still. Truth be told, there were a few we would have bought and the crazy thing is in Marrakesh the bigger ones were selling for $5,000-$8,000, here they were selling for $450-$800. I am sorry I got so wrapped up in the moment that I forgot to take pictures.

All told we bought 1 rug for me, 1 painting for Jenny (which they removed from the stretchers and rolled up), and two silver bracelets – one for each of us. Mohammed was funny because he said he knew when I said we wouldn’t be buying anything that dad would be saying yes!

As we were leaving, Mohammed overheard that Jenny was looking for apples to eat. He saw her and Billy walking towards the fruit stand but he quickly stopped them, went into a small restaurant (where our Swiss friends were actually dining) and came out of the kitchen with four apples for Jenny, and then refused to accept payment for them.

We finally made it of town at 1:00, backtracking on some of the road we had entered town on, passed through another checkpoint successfully and immediately were blown away by yet another drive through the majestic Anti Atlas mountains.

We are amazed by all the terraces that there are- obviously old ones that are crumbling and some newer or better maintained ones. In such a dry climate, I wonder what they could have possibly grown on all these mountainsides.

By now, you have heard it said that the mountains are incredible and the scenery just stunning but… you are going to hear it again, because it is truly breathtaking.

We stopped for a while to watch a flock of camels and all their little babies, some seemingly wobbling on their stilted legs.

The only stop I had planned was at an agadir – think of it like a modern-day storage facility. Unfortunately, the man with the main key was not there so we couldn’t go in to see it. However, two young boys decided to join us and walk us around the outside, then over to the ruins of another facility of some sort, where we picked up another tour guide.

There was little we understood but the experience was rich and one of the boys found a baby tortoise he showed us, which I loved (as I once had a tortoise as a pet).

As we were leaving a group of older women, all dressed in beautifully colored kaftans, approached the car. We stopped, rolled down the window, greeted them and they immediately approached the car talking and gesturing to us. Jenny didn’t understand a word they were saying, nothing about it was even remotely familiar. At one point, they noticed Billy in the back and appeared to be laughing the two women were up front and the man was in the back. It was a funny exchange, the one lady was so spunky.

Finding our road was a bit of an adventure. It is located on a bluff high above the Atlantic Ocean. Five failed attempts (including two by Billy) to make it up a sandy road before the owner came out to redirect us, with the help of a local guy Ibrahim, that jumped in the car with us to reroute us another way.

The riad is actually pretty cool – in a fun and funky way; it is very authentic in its age and that has been incorporated into the design. You got to love that you don’t need a nightlight because there is plenty coming through the inch-wide cracks in the door, not to mention the three-inch wide gap around the door.

We walked down to the edge of the bluff overlooking the waves and watched the local fishermen, one of who stopped by on his way down to say hello and welcome us. Salah works in the enormous desalination plant that is just up the coast and wanted to know if we could exchange numbers so we could talk from America.

Dinner was abundant, ridiculously so, with a chicken tagine with lemon and olives which were almost too bitter to eat, probably our least favorite of the trip. We had great conversations with one of the friends of the owner, also called Ibrahim, and the owners – a young woman I believe of Moroccan heritage (though she was dressed in shorts and a tank top and a much older French husband who was Armenian by birth). We had a lot of laughs, especially when Ibrahim did his take of the US southern accent.

We figured sleeping was going to be OK as far as the temperature went since there was no A/C, between the air passing through the door and the bathroom window open, we figured it would stay cool. Billy considered opening the bedroom window but when he saw how low to the ground it was, he quickly changed his mind – not because of the fear of human intruders though, but because he figured we would have a pack of dogs in here by morning.