Day Three. Morocco - Meals and Wheels
Woke up twice in the middle of the night, and am slowly beginning to realise the powerful diuretic effects of mint tea. Taking a leak in the desert is in itself a rather disturbing experience; you have to contend with shadows darting from side to side, the braying of a rather disturbed camel, which I was expecting to follow me out any time soon to lap up my urine, and of course, the thought that, everytime i unzipped, Berber men were laughing uncontrollably in their tent.
After the second awakening, I told myself sternly, enough was enough; the desert chill played a huge role in convincing me to move into the tent to sleep.
...Which I blame squarely for missing the sunrise the next day. FAREWELL PHOTO OPS.
The disappointment was well and truly assuaged, however, when I got back to Kasbah Tomboctou, after another backbreaking 2-hour camel ride - this time with the camelman taking a leak of his own in the desert, with the camel swiveling around to gaze sagely at its owner, and myself trying my best to bow my head in embarrassment - and encountered The Buffet Breakfast.
I LOVE MOROCCAN BUFFET BREAKFASTS.
The Kasbah essentially is a typical three-star hotel with a camel-trekking division - the camel trekkers however DO end up eating the same food as the high-flyers. THANK GOD.
Some of this flatbread, stuffed with amazing slabs of cheese and (halal) ham...
The AMAZING mlawi, the closest you can get to roti canai in Morocco - and uncannily similar too!
A LITTLE different, the msemmen; this one is a little more like naan
Moroccan pancakes, the beghrir; a little like roti jala but squashed flat. Best eaten with honey, which I did. SO MANY times.
And the piece de la resistance...the bakery/patisserie section, which effectively absolved me from all Moroccan bakeries for the rest of my life:
Amazing, simply amazing. Morocco has seriously combined the best of French, Arabic and Berber food.
And with that, my day, literally, ended. Well, of course, there remained the fairly unsettling issue of how I was to get out of Merzouga to Marrakech, some 500 km away; but there's nothing a little politeness has not been able to resolve, and this time, salvation was in the hands of a Spanish-British couple, who were only to keen to have me on board.
200 km and 4 hours of speed-driving later, through an alternative route which did NOT repeat any of yesterday's travails, we ended up in Agdz, a little town which is apparently more reputed for its view than anything. That was where my journey with them ended; with another 50km to Ouarzazate, the aforementioned provincial capital, I needed a taxi, and urgently.
Unfortunately, the taxi stand; nay, the TOWN, seemed devoid of human settlement. This called for urgent reinforcements - in this case, hitchhiking in a local gas station. After my message was passed on to the gas station owners, a little truck offered to take me there. Staring at the emptied chicken cages loaded on the back, I took a deep breath, and said "I do."
Now THIS ride was just...phenomenal. To loud, screeching Arab music, he jabbered away on the phone with one hand, while I, squashed between the gearbox and his adult son, attempted to hang on to said son for dear life. As we whipped our way through one of the most glorious mountain passes in all Morocco, the Tizi-et-Tichka, he overtook enough heavy lorries to send one's blood pressure reeling:
And NO WAY was I travelling that high up.
The view from the road we were on, steep fall included in the price
In half an hour, we were in Ouarzazate, and I had had at least five minor heart attacks. Taking a taxi to the bus station cost 40 DH; exactly the same as if I had just opted for the sane taxi driver from Agdz. But then again, my travels generally function on the "grandchildren principle" - if it doesn't yield a story worth telling them, then don't do it. The bus from Ouarz to Marrakech was clinical; a 5-hour journey for 70 DH, and a 2-hour wait for it to depart at that.
And this is where I discovered what possibly is the cheapest tajine in all Morocco, and in this price we include school cafeterias, prison mess halls, and old age homes. The moment I attempted to leave a shop after spending one hour on a mint tea, the old man in charge immediately offered me the following:
...25 DH (THAT IS LESS THAN 2 POUNDS just in case you were wondering!) and one hour later, I was the happiest man in the world, at that one magical moment.
I had found the cheapest tagine in all Morocco.
And with that, even the hustlers on the bus, the one-hour late departure, and the six-year-old hustlers BACK in Marrakech, who tried to cheat me out of 100 DH just for showing me to my hostel at 12am, faded into obscurity, as I had a good night's rest, ready for the following morning's 6am departure to Imlil, the base of Jeleb Toubkal, 3rd highest peak in Africa.
After the second awakening, I told myself sternly, enough was enough; the desert chill played a huge role in convincing me to move into the tent to sleep.
...Which I blame squarely for missing the sunrise the next day. FAREWELL PHOTO OPS.
The disappointment was well and truly assuaged, however, when I got back to Kasbah Tomboctou, after another backbreaking 2-hour camel ride - this time with the camelman taking a leak of his own in the desert, with the camel swiveling around to gaze sagely at its owner, and myself trying my best to bow my head in embarrassment - and encountered The Buffet Breakfast.
I LOVE MOROCCAN BUFFET BREAKFASTS.
The Kasbah essentially is a typical three-star hotel with a camel-trekking division - the camel trekkers however DO end up eating the same food as the high-flyers. THANK GOD.
Some of this flatbread, stuffed with amazing slabs of cheese and (halal) ham...
The AMAZING mlawi, the closest you can get to roti canai in Morocco - and uncannily similar too!
A LITTLE different, the msemmen; this one is a little more like naan
Moroccan pancakes, the beghrir; a little like roti jala but squashed flat. Best eaten with honey, which I did. SO MANY times.
And the piece de la resistance...the bakery/patisserie section, which effectively absolved me from all Moroccan bakeries for the rest of my life:
Amazing, simply amazing. Morocco has seriously combined the best of French, Arabic and Berber food.
And with that, my day, literally, ended. Well, of course, there remained the fairly unsettling issue of how I was to get out of Merzouga to Marrakech, some 500 km away; but there's nothing a little politeness has not been able to resolve, and this time, salvation was in the hands of a Spanish-British couple, who were only to keen to have me on board.
200 km and 4 hours of speed-driving later, through an alternative route which did NOT repeat any of yesterday's travails, we ended up in Agdz, a little town which is apparently more reputed for its view than anything. That was where my journey with them ended; with another 50km to Ouarzazate, the aforementioned provincial capital, I needed a taxi, and urgently.
Unfortunately, the taxi stand; nay, the TOWN, seemed devoid of human settlement. This called for urgent reinforcements - in this case, hitchhiking in a local gas station. After my message was passed on to the gas station owners, a little truck offered to take me there. Staring at the emptied chicken cages loaded on the back, I took a deep breath, and said "I do."
Now THIS ride was just...phenomenal. To loud, screeching Arab music, he jabbered away on the phone with one hand, while I, squashed between the gearbox and his adult son, attempted to hang on to said son for dear life. As we whipped our way through one of the most glorious mountain passes in all Morocco, the Tizi-et-Tichka, he overtook enough heavy lorries to send one's blood pressure reeling:
And NO WAY was I travelling that high up.
The view from the road we were on, steep fall included in the price
In half an hour, we were in Ouarzazate, and I had had at least five minor heart attacks. Taking a taxi to the bus station cost 40 DH; exactly the same as if I had just opted for the sane taxi driver from Agdz. But then again, my travels generally function on the "grandchildren principle" - if it doesn't yield a story worth telling them, then don't do it. The bus from Ouarz to Marrakech was clinical; a 5-hour journey for 70 DH, and a 2-hour wait for it to depart at that.
And this is where I discovered what possibly is the cheapest tajine in all Morocco, and in this price we include school cafeterias, prison mess halls, and old age homes. The moment I attempted to leave a shop after spending one hour on a mint tea, the old man in charge immediately offered me the following:
...25 DH (THAT IS LESS THAN 2 POUNDS just in case you were wondering!) and one hour later, I was the happiest man in the world, at that one magical moment.
I had found the cheapest tagine in all Morocco.
And with that, even the hustlers on the bus, the one-hour late departure, and the six-year-old hustlers BACK in Marrakech, who tried to cheat me out of 100 DH just for showing me to my hostel at 12am, faded into obscurity, as I had a good night's rest, ready for the following morning's 6am departure to Imlil, the base of Jeleb Toubkal, 3rd highest peak in Africa.