All this running-around!

This is too cute not to be apocryphal, but I had someone tell me once that the East African slang term for a white person, muzungu, was etymylogically descended from another piece of slang, kazungu-zungu, which means "drunk" and literally translates as "my head's going round and round". The connection? What else do we foreigners do but meander pointlessly about? Not to mention drink. In any case, if anyone is reading this from East Africa and can check this piece of traveller gossip, feel free. I'll work with it, because going round and round is exactly what I've been up to for the past few weeks, in the best sort of way.

As of last actual travel update, I was writing from the Atlantic seaside town of Essaouira, where Mr. Mike Brown and I were doing our best to chat up the town drunks and stay attached to the ground in the face of some of the fiercest seaside winds you've ever seen. We did, in fact, have a showdown with nature on our last full day there, when we quested down the beach on hearing rumours of there being a ruined house in which Jimi Hendrix had written. We found the ruins, alright. We even startled awake the homeless fellow who was squatting in them. Upon further googling, of course, Hendrix had never actually been there, nor had he based "Castles in the Sand" on them. He had, however, spent a good long time in the area, and it was a quite interesting walk. Walking back, however, reminded us just why that town is the windsurfing capital of North Africa. In any case, with good food, a gorgeous old town, cold beers and sunsets to be had, Essaouira was a winner.

Life isn't all seaside and sunshine, though, so the following day it was up early and off to the bus, with a brief iterlude as we were pursued down the early-morning street by a rather disturbed fellow mumbling nonsenses, pointing at us, and throwing some pretty hefty rights at the air. I think he got distracted by a plastic bag, and we made our escape. After a couple hours of highway cruising, we arrived in Casablanca and settled in the lovely Hotel Colbert, a hotel 2 floors up in an old art deco pile for which we fabricated some sort of relationship to its satirical TV host namesake.

Casablanca, amongst travellers, gets a bit of a bad rap. I blame Bogie for filming the whole movie on a Hollywood soundstage. As the major port of entry to the country, and as the biggest city, most people pass through it. Lots of them expect some orientalist vision of Moroccan souks, or a city straight out of the 40s, full of piano bars and intrigue. You get neither. What you do get, though, I rather like. Much of the central city was built in the prewar years, and there's something I've always liked about old art nouveau and art deco buildings gone slightly to seed, with washing hanging from wrought iron balconies and clanking elevators in stairwells. That's central Casa. It's full of old cafes and bars in which the decor clearly hasn't been updated since the French left in the 50s, which when combined with the ubiquitous bow-tied waiters, does give it a bit of a decadent edge. Mike and I explored just that by launching into a proper pub crawl, managing 8 or 9 fine establishements before last call (at 11!). Hookah pipes were smoked, locals chatted to, and when one place turned out to be a brothel, prostitutes effectively dodged. A fine evening. Interestingly, although this was less true in Casa than it has been in some other Moroccan cities, bars are the one place where you may see the gender balance even out. While sitting at a sidewalk cafe table drinking tea is an exclusively male preserve, bars are socially transgressive enough already that you do find a reasonable feminine presence. As far as atmosphere goes, think the grungiest suburban strip mall joint and you might be on the right track.

This is not to say that we spent all our time in Casa just drinking in the local culture. Wandering around the city led to some cool finds, including the unfinished Catholic cathedral, where a few dirhams got us climbing the bell tower and running roughshod on the roof. Continuing the religious theme, we took in Casa's major tourist attraction, the feck-normous Hassan II mosque. Built on billions of dollars in public subscriptions in 1993, to designs by a French architect, the place holds 25,000 people inside and 60,000 in the outer courtyard. I was marvelling at the intricately carved ceiling so far above me when the tourguide mentioned nonchalantly that the whole bloody thing was on rails and opens like a stadium roof! Oi vey, oi vey...

Rounding out our major monotheistic religions, Mike's last day in Morocco was partially spent chasing down the Jewish museum, the only one in the Arab world. Our taxi driver clearly had no clue where it was, but neatly solved the problem by driving to the Jewish part of town, finding one of Casa's 5000 remaining Jews, and asking him! Blunt, but fairly effective. Eventually, we got there, and the museum was actually fairly interesting, with most Moroccan cities having hosted large Jewish communities until the foundation of Israel drew them away. After that, it was time for one last beer, and Mike headed off to catch his plane and resume his madcap African cris-crossings.

As for me, the next day saw me hopping on a go-train-esque commuter run to Rabat, capital of the country and a rather different place than Casa. When the French built them, they intended the relationship between the cities to echo the Washington DC/New York one, and so it does. Casa is the brash, busy economic powerhouse, while Rabat is a lower-rise, tidier, hassle-free government town. It also happens to be rather pretty, with a pleasant old town, some beautiful old whitewashed homes in the old Kasbah (fortress) and a new town with plenty of cafes and palm trees. I heard mumblings that day of concerts in the evening, and upon a quick internet check, discovered that I had wandered in for the final weekend of the Festival Mawazine, a "festival of world rhythms", and would be treated to a free Alicia Keys concert that night, and Stevie Wonder the next. Both shows were fantastic, although it was interesting to see the local audiences, normally so quick to dance, a bit unsure how to come to grips with Western idioms and English stage banter. Surreal. Rabat, otherwise, is a city of small pleasures - cheap fish sandwiches eaten overlooking the sea, quiet cafes and gardens and other little escapes, all a pretty good way to recover from the surprisingly crowded concerts. At one of the other shows, there was a stampede that left 11 people dead, something I wasn't even aware of until a few worried comments popped up on my facebook wall!

For all its joys, Rabat is a difficult place to kill more than a few days, so by the 24th I was off again, to Asilah, a tiny seaside town famed for gorgeous beaches and one of the prettier medinas in Morocco. Pretty it was - but I must admit, I wasn't a fan. Having been thoroughly gentrified, bought up by rich Europeans and filled with galleries, it was eerily quiet, completely unlike the old towns anywhere else. I rented a shack on a family's rooftop for a couple nights, which was lovely, although finding it involved a frustrating experience with some rather agressive touts. In any case, it's hard not to be a bit charmed by whitewashed walls and seaside castles, so I was far from grumbling. The main beaches were nothing to write home about, being coated (as, unfortunately, many are) with plastic bags and other sea detritus. Nonetheless, I spent a gorgeous day reading a book, attempting to swim in 6-foot waves, and turning myself a nice lobster-ey shade of red before hitching back from the beach in a dump truck and cracking a can of beer at sunset. Not bad, not bad at all.

It is, however, way too early in my trip for me to need a vacation, so I was soon off from Asilah to Tangier, another city unfairly slighted (in my mind) by foreigners for dirt and hassle. I suppose if you do arrive on the ferry from Spain and are chased through the streets by touts as soon as you pass customs, you might think something like that. With my arrival by train and easy settling into a cheap hotel with orange trees out my window, I wasn't complaining. Tangiers itself is a historical oddity, a city that was an international zone, run by a pretty dodgy council of representatives from 26 countries. As such, it was never a part of French or Spanish Morocco, and long served as a shelter for all sorts of shady dealings, artists seeking refuge, and other misfit things. That atmosphere lives on in a fairly pleasant way, with a thick layer of decadence lying over the place. The night I arrived there was the night of the European champion's league final, and the city was divided tribally, with different cafes devoted to Barca and Man U fans. It was the only time I've seen a female majority on the streets here, as essentially every man between the ages of 15 and 50 was in a cafe watching. Now, I'm no football fan, but I arbitrarily decided to support Barcelona because their shirts had "Unicef" on them instead of a corporate logo. Since they gave Man U what can only be described as a royal whupping, I was well placed to enjoy the festivities, which turned the city into a giant mass of car horns until well into the night.

After a few days there, it was goodbye to the seaside and off into the mountains. My first stop was Tetouan, which was once capital of the Spanish Protectorate and still maintains a distinctly Hispanic style in the new town, as well as the old, which is sometimes called Little Grenada (after the capital of old Islamic Andalucia). I spent a couple days there chatting with locals, making meals out of generous free beer snacks, and kicking my feet up on the balcony of my hotel room (which I shared with some impressively girthy roaches!). Continuing with the Andalucian theme, it was then off to Chefchaouen, the town in Morocco that probably draws the most backpackers.

This is not without reason. The town itself is gorgeous and clearly shows its Andalucian heritage with blue-washed walls and red clay roofs and pretty little squares. More important, from a backpacker perspective, is that 2/3 of the region's land is devoted solely to the growth of kif (marijuana), making this place once a famous stop on the hippie trail. Although those days have passed, there are plenty of stoned backpackers about, and plenty of people offering you everything from copious amounts of weed to the finest colombian coke (the path of which I would love to trace). Not being one for the international drug trade, I still rather enjoyed the place. I met up with the ever-affable Simon, a Quebecois fellow from Montreal here for a short trip, and we scrambled up one of the mountains hanging over the town, which took a solid day's climbing.

Since we were going the same way, Simon and I stuck together for a couple days, and he made pleasantly intellectual company as we made our way to Fez, grand-daddy of all ancient Moroccan cities, with an old medina that defies description (or navigation). Mile upon mile of twisted alleys leading to all sorts of mosques and squares and markets and workshops and other such chaos. As it happened, we also showed up for the Fes Festival of Sacred music, which led to encounters with sufi devotional chanting, Islamic rock reggae, dubiously religious pop, and other such fun. Having a tight schedule, Simon left quickly, but I lingered in Fes until last Thursday, wandering the "new" (post 14th century) town, taking in the tunes, and making 4 meals out of a huge watermelon, something my guts were regretting for a couple days.

Having heard that Mauritanian visas were no longer being issued at the border due to the upcoming elections, I needed to head back towards Rabat. Since embassies are useless on weekends, I stopped a couple days in Meknes, another old imperial city of some import. The town itself was nothing too impressive, it being a Friday (which sees most old-town places shut their doors), but it was well worth the stay for a hotel with loaner novels (I read 3!) and the chance to hop a couple shared taxis and walk through the countryside to Volubilis, the best-preserved Roman site in Morocco. I had the good fortune of arriving just after a school group led by a Canadian prof, who I stalked around the site all day for interesting tidbits. I'm not normally much for tours, but when visiting a huge ruined site, they can do wonders. Instead of colums and stones, I could see in my mind's eye this little provincial Roman city where only 2 actual Roman families lived, the rest made up of local Berbers frantic to imitate their Roman rulers by ordering Mosaics and columns from catalogues. Neat. The setting also helped - that part of Morocco is a solid Mediterranean climate, and the rolling hills of grain and olives around it look a lot like Tuscany.

And so it goes. From Meknes, I've now returned to Rabat, where my passport has been dropped off, along with $50 and a smile, to the Mauritanian embassy for a visa. With luck, it'll be ready tomorrow, and the next day I can start making my way south. I must admit, I'm looking forward to a bit more rough-and tumble travelling. Enough of these 4 hour train rides and sit-down toilets, I say! And I think I'll get my wish. From here, it's a quick 5 hours by Train to Marrakech, and then it'll be a 25 hour bus ride to Dakhla, the last town in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. There, I have to hunt for rides as there is no scheduled public transport, but within a few days I should either have found a spare seat somewhere, or paid for one in a 4WD. It'll be a long slog the 500 kms across the Mauritanian border to Nouadhibou, where I'll stop to rest, get some cash, and then wait for a trip I've been dreaming of for years - rattling my way across the desert for free in the empty hoppers of the world's longest train as it heads back to Zouerat to pick up another load. I can't wait.

So there we go. Now y'all know where I'm at. If I have the energy, I'll post a couple more times about Morocco. I'd love to discuss, for example, the food - but we'll see. In any case, look to my facebook tomorrow for some photos to go along with this long stream of babble.
Peace
Josh