Day 5 - Larache
So yesterday Athena and I didn't really wind up doing much after our last update. Had some pizza (indistinguishable from any western thin-crust) which I found pretty comforting. It reminded me a bit of home, which I'm sort of longing for right now. Athena says its pretty normal to feel this way a few days into the trip, once it sinks in that you are no-shit not in Kansas anymore. Still not letting it ruin my day today though, which has been pretty good.
Athena and I cought a bus this morning to Larache. The trip was only two hours long, when our guidebook told us to expect something more like three. I think we got ripped off on fare, wandering through the bus station in our confusion, and I *know* we got ripped off on baggage. We'll know better for next time, and we plan to stick to the CTM bus line from here out, since they seem to be the most reputable of the bus lines here and many of their attendents speak french well.
I'm going to digress for a moment here to describe what the roads are like in Morocco. It seems wildly unsafe to someone accustomed to the 'bad' driving so prevalent in North America. They have speed limits, but those are only suggestions. They have lanes clearly marked out too, and these are also just suggestions. If a driver thinks he can pull of 120 km/h in a 40 zone, he'll go for it with gusto, weaving back and forth through the slower moving traffic. Curiously, the biggest problem with North American drivers is all but non-existant here. If you need to merge with traffic (or if you're a pedestrian looking to get across the street) someone will inevitably make room for you in very short order. Its also not as bad as I had feared (to see what I was worried about, watch a youtube video of traffic in Bangkok), people respect the lights and drive on the right side of the road, even when it would clearly be faster for them not to.
Anyways. Larache. Our hotel here is excellent, in spite of being the least expensive one yet. Big airy room withdouble bed for Athena and I plus a spare single and a table, a common area, and one of my personal favorites: clean western style toilets. I can manage the 'squatter' toilets so common here, but I definately don't like them.
So, once we got settled in in the Hotel, Athena and I set of for the ruined Roman city of Lixus. Athena has already discussed our adventures in finding the place, so I won't go over them again here. Suffice it to say that we get there and take this tiny little goat path up the side of the hill, completely missing the main path into the site (which we only found on our way out). This took us up to a building which we *think* may have been the church, plus foundations for a few other buildings. We spend maybe half an hour there and just as we're starting to wonder if this is the entire site, Athena spots a tower off in the distance. As we make our way towards it we find the main bulk of the site - the amphitheatre, baths, and the acropolis. We spent a very enjoyable three hours in the site (by ourselves, no less) before finally heading back to town. I'm kind of disappointed that there were no surviving inscriptions, but the site is neither enclosed nor guarded, so they have a problem with vandals there.
On the way back we got offered a ride by a guy in a vehicle thatis basically a miniature pickup truck bed stuck on the back of a moped. Got waved at a lot by passing vehicles. It was the first time I've ever hitchhiked, and was kind of an interesting novelty that way. Guy didn't even ask us for money, just decided to be nice to the crazy tourists three kilometers out of town.
In conclusion, I'm in a good mood. Hungry, though, so it is off for chwarmas for me.