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[explorenadore]

Morocco pt. III - Encounters in Taghazout

The next morning, we were off to surfing lesson number two, that I could only watch from afar. My swollen ankle and half a toenail really did not look too good so I decided to lay down at the beach and get my tan going. I limped up to a beach bar after a while and grabbed a burger. I shared my fries with a stray dog and soon, the girls came back and we headed back to our place.

We spent the day looking around shops, buying way too much jewelry and drinking tea with new strangers. We walked alongside the beach and watched as the waves hit the rocks and the birds hunting for fish. We paid Tarek a visit and asked him if there is anything we could help him to prepare for dinner later. He smiled and said: „ Just be there at 8pm“. 

He made tea and there we sat again on a rooftop, again, listening to a beautiful stranger. He told us about his life as a Muslim, about his beliefs and his opinions on the different religions. I found so much peace in the things he was explaining. It seemed like he was completely rested and at balance even tough he was called to work every five minutes. We left to let him prepare the event and gushed about all the people and all the places we’ve seen so far. The girls were  smiling from ear to ear and so was I. 

As the sun started to set, we went back to Tarek's place and found ourselves in the coziest Riad with a band playing Moroccan music and a woman cooking Tajines like her life depended on it.

We ate, talked and laughed and after, we decided to go out for some more drinks. Taros kicked us out at around 1am (which was probably good, I couldn’t handle another crazy Taros night), which left us wandering the streets and picking up a group of five English guys, one of the band members, another English guy (Jack, if you read this, I hate you lots xx), Tarek and and some more people. 

The group mixed and split and we all had amazing evenings with too much booze (or just enough?). Karim, one of the band members, ended up taking me home on his scooter and I was already scared of the hangover.

The next morning, Lisa went shopping for spices with Tarek after we’ve had breakfast with Jessica and Jack. It was our last day in Essaouira and now it wasn’t the hangover that made me emotional. Linda and I went out for Henna tattoos that were as expensive as they were wonky, but I still loved them. As we were headed to our beloved smoothie-man, I heard somebody screaming my name. I turned around and begged for my memory to help me out  and it did. Anwar, another guy from the first night at Taros  (that helped me buy cigarettes and Pringles at around 1am) ran up to me and hugged me in a way that made it hard to avoid getting Henna all over his Linen. „You cut your hair“ I noticed and we convinced him to join us for juices.

Tarek and Lisa arrived with their spices,  Jessica and her friend  came by as well as Jack and Anwars friend, Kemal, that had joined us on the hunt for Pringles and cigs the other night.

The smoothie shop was packed and the owner busy with making our drinks. Everybody was talking to everybody and I almost considered slashing the tires of our rental to have an excuse to stay longer.

After long hugs and many goodbyes we started driving down the coast, onto our next adventure and boy did we get one. 

The girls forgot to tell me about their change of plans: As far as I knew, I was supposed to drive to Taghazout. Only the girls forgot to mention that they booked an Airbnb in Imsoane and only noticed the mistake about 20 minutes away from Taghazout. So we turned around and drove one hour extra, which I wasn’t necessarily mad about, considering the road was right in between dunes and the ocean. I enjoyed the view a lot, until I didn’t. We were 4 hours into our two hour drive and still couldn’t find the airbnb. Google maps had failed us relentlessly and led us onto the most suspicious looking and bumpy road you could have imagined. Great view, yes, we saw a sunset I won’t forget but I ran out of cigarettes about 3 hours ago and so I wanted to arrive anywhere where they would exchanges my Dirhams for a little blue pack of Camels.

We gave up on Imsoane and the Airbnb that simply did not want to be found, stopped by a kiosk and loaded up und junk food and cigs, finally managed to connect to the Bluetooth and were headed back to Taghazout since that was the only place we knew the way to.

It was almost Midnight when Linda hopped out of the car after Lisa pointed at a building with a rooftop that still had their light on saying: „This might be a hostel“

Linda came back after a few minutes with a big, accomplished smile: „We have a  room!!“

So once again, we dragged our luggage up the cobblestone and around 6 flights of stairs and while the girls checked in, I decided to pay the rooftop (overlooking the ocean, as per use) a visit. There were carpets on the floor, some candles and nice cozy couches around. 

I barely paid the two boys sitting there with their laptops any attention as I gave them an exhausted but happy „Hey“ and laid down on the floor, my feet up against the couch and the cigarette already lit. The girls joined me, being more sophisticated and sat on the couches.  The boys started laughing at me and my chosen seating- well -laying position.

We started talking to them and all of a sudden, the guy with the biggest laptop I’ve ever seen looks at me and says. „I know you“

Skeptical but curious, I turned my head away from the sky and answered, with half a grin: "I don’t think so"

"Yes. I saw you in Taros"

My grin vanished. The girls looked at me and then at him. I wanted to say something, I wanted to ask how or why or what but I just stuttered. He laughed and said: "You were with a guy with a hat and you two were-" The girls started screaming-laughing and kicking their feet as I buried my head in my hands. That, I remembered. 

After a great laugh, some regret and embarrassment on my side and a little surprise over how coincidences always seem to bite me in the ass, we went out for drinks with them.

The boys, Yusef and Yasser were photographers and filmmakers, half spanish, half moroccan, half living in Dubai, half around the world and whatnot. 

Lisa did the mature thing and went to bed. Meanwhile Linda started talking to some people at the bar and me, Yusef and Yasser ordered drinks and fought about who gets to pay.  

After a couple cocktails we went back to the Hostel with a bunch of sandwiches and sodas. We ate and after a while, the others were headed to their beds.

Yusef and I ended up staying on the rooftop for a while. We talked and talked until it was almost 5am. 

The next morning, after breakfast, I avoided heading out for a beach day with the girls. As much as I love to move around, I also love being lazy. Snuggled up on the rooftop with a book and the two filmmaker-boys working next to me, I felt perfectly….tired. I ended up falling asleep for almost two hours (best.nap.ever.) and when the girls came back, we went out for dinner. After we found a place that allowed card payment and had gluten free and vegetarian meals and a nice view over the ocean (it is hard finding a restaurant with five opinionated people), we finally got to sit down and eat. It was our last night in Taghazout before we were headed back to Marrakech, so we decided to invite a few people from the hostel for drinks. 

We started off on our rooftop where Linda was getting some dreads, Lisa was smoking pot and I was drinking the vodka a newly befriended couple brought us and the night started.

The boys and I went out to a bar and got way too much Belvedere (I’m not a snob, that was just the only vodka they served). Soon, the group got smaller and smaller as we headed back to the hostel.

I spent the whole night on the rooftop, surrounded by pillows and blankets and city lights that blended with the ocean.

The hangover the next morning really became a tradition at this point.

We got up for breakfast and said goodbye to the others. It was a bittersweet goodbye as I looked back but oh well, that’s life. And somehow, looking back at one person specifically, I knew we'd see each other again.

We spent our last night in Morocco in Marrakech on a - you guessed it - rooftop eating dinner. As I looked over the city, over the palm trees and the mountains in the distance, I realized. It was really all over. The past week went by too fast.

Goodbye Morocco. Trust, I’ll come back.

[explorenadore]

Morocco pt. II - Essaouira

 The next morning, I was thrown out of bed and  chased up a dune so steep and long, I questioned my existence as a smoker, only to see the most perfect sunrise in my life. A Nomad man around 70, leather-like skin and eyes so kind, you’d almost forget he barely had any teeth left, asked me for a cigarette. My french sucked but we laughed. 

After breakfast, we drove back to Marrakech and even tough we’ve made some friends along the ride, we were excited to rule over our vacation from now on. 

We picked up the rental car in the city and got right to a four hour drive. The Bluetooth didn’t connect but other than that, the drive itself had already been freeing. We stopped at a small house that sold coffee, rugs, necklaces, vases, keychains, mirrors and whatnot, only to find the sweetest non-english speaking lady who made us some scrambled eggs. The conversation was rough but she showed us her YouTube account where she would post cooking videos. (YT: amina regragia )

The girls ate and then we headed off to the coast, off to the city that now has a piece of my heart. Essaouira.

Again, dragging our luggage over the cobblestone, we arrived at the airbnb. A friendly neighbor saw us desperately looking for the entry and started screaming somebody’s name. A face appeared at the window on the first floor above us, all sleepy and nodding. A few moments later, the door opened and the owner showed us our place for the next two nights.

We didn’t stay long, only to freshen up and off we were to visit the Medina. Essaouira is small, so it took us about two minutes to arrive at the center. Being really worked up by the desert tour, the nightly prayers and the long drive, we sat down at the first smoothie  shop we saw and we met one of a kind: Jessica.

And 68 year old hippie with red curly hair and bleached streaks in the front, just like I had. Her nose piercing and tanned skin looked great together and don’t ask me how, but we ended up talking to her for about an hour. Two ex-husbands, Californian, somewhere between self employed and retired, this woman had been traveling Africa for the past eleven months and has only arrived in Essaouria a couple days before us. And there we sat, three young girls, drinking smoothies and clinging onto every word that Jessica uttered. She talked about her Hippie lifestyle, her travels, her past and her experiences with drugs and life. I was baffled. Each one of us made their own, deep connection with her and we were only about sixty minutes into our arrival on the coast. We said goodbye after exchanging numbers and booked a surf lesson for the next morning. 

The people in Essaouira were gentle, nice and welcoming. As opposed to Marrakech, where I felt a little trapped and pushed around, this little town really calmed me down in an instant. 

In the Evening, after bargaining some fruits from a vendor close to our place, we took Jessicas recommendation and visited Taros, a bar with live music, dozens of rooftop areas and, get this, real alcohol, which had been hard to find so far. We started drinking and dancing and ended up talking to so many new people, my head was spinning (maybe more so because I was on my third Martini).

I will not go into too many details, but I was really drunk and had the time of my life. 

The next morning, my shaky hand was reaching for the ibuprofen as we emerged from our beds to drive to the beach. 

Surfing lesson number one left me with a sprained ankle and half a toenail but I stood up on the board one and a half times, making me the slowest learner of our group. Still very proud though. The girls were naturals. Well, we all ate shit at some point but the moments I managed to keep my head above water, I saw them standing on the board quite a few times.

The second lesson was scheduled for the afternoon but we moved it up one day since the girls caught a really bad heatstroke. They napped for a few hours and in the meantime I went to the market and got all the veggies I could find to make a nice soup. 

After they felt better, we went to the Medina, back to our favorite smoothie shop, talked  to the owner (who was, I should mention, such a kind and genuine man. He helped us not to get ripped off by the vendors and always ran out to get more fruit for our juices)

The smoothie shop was the place to be. As we sat there, a guy from Taros, that I barely remembered, walked up to us and invited us for dinner to his place, which was a Riad he was managing.  After Tarek left, Jessica arrived with a friend she just met. 

We quickly decided to grab lunch together at Chez Omar. The kitchen was small, the staircase leading up to the rooftop was small, the rooftop itself was small but the food, oh god the food was everything you could ever wish for. I’ve always had the theory that the smaller and dubbed the place looked, the better the food. And I was right. Jessica told us more about her past and the way she managed to release all the anger and trauma that had built up inside her. She talked about dark times and downward spirals that had been haunting her in her twenties, glancing over at me quite often.

 Talking to her made us feel peaceful and reassured. 

[explorenadore]

Morocco pt. I - Marrakech and the desert

We arrived at Marrakech airport late at night. After a quick discussion with the taxi  driver, we were off to our little Riad. He dropped us off in the heart of Marrakesh and although it’s a city that only really wakes up at night, we found ourselves in a district that was more about small and empty corners than souks and people. After a little confusion and hyper awareness on my behalf, we opened the door to the Riad. The young man working the night shifts showed us to our room and we practically fell right onto our beds. It was around six in the morning when we were standing on the rooftop and brushing our teeth. Even tough we definitely did not catch a good nights sleep - kudos to the nightly prayers being shouted from the roofs at 4:49 am - the morning view over the city was astonishing. It gave me a chance to smell the city, feel its energy. 

We grabbed our luggage and google mapped our way towards the big square, where our bus driver would pick us up for a two day desert tour.

The ride was bumpy and rather uncomfortable, since we stopped every half hour at some sightseeing spots that were not always worthy of their names. On the contrary, the people joining us for the tour were intriguing. We met two girls, Caro and Maddy, late twenties, coworkers, travelers. Seated right next to me, tanned and experienced looking: The mid forties couple Heidi and Michael. Both escaped marriages that they couldn’t take anymore after they’ve met each other and fell in love on the spot. Took them a few years to manage a real relationship but now they’ve built a beautiful patchwork family that has lasted for eight years so far.

We arrived in the desert and after some struggles with the headscarf-wrapping technique, we were helped onto the camels for a ride to the oasis. Unfortunately, that ride made us realize that the tour wasn’t quite what we expected. It felt forced, far from an organic experience. 

The camels dropped us off and we stumbled up the dunes to see the  sunset. That was when we talked about the need to change our travel plans. We felt bad for having to use the camels for transportation and realized that the desert tour was more commercial than educational. Of course, we’re already doing the tour so we might as well finish it. Still, we decided to try and have a more conscious travel experience.

The sun went down and we went into the oasis, surrounded by high-end tents, carpets spread out over the sand and little pavilions where we were served tea. Finally, we got to talk to the workers there. Nomads, who grew up in the desert and then moved to the closest city (Zagora). They’d worked in the oasis on and off for a while and actually enjoyed it. They said that the best thing about the job is meeting so many new people and we not only believed them, but agreed vice versa.

After dinner, we sat around a big campfire and danced to traditional Berber music. Heidi and Michael joined and told us the story on how they met. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t any tears forming in the corner of my eyes. I realized that I am a romantic at heart (don’t tell anyone). Next to me, just as captured by their love story, was Semia. A single mom in her mid thirties that finally got to travel a bit after fourteen years of raising her son. She looked much younger than she was. Her tan skin and the fact that she could speak some Arabic, was fluent in German, English, Spanish and Italian suggested that she wasn’t originally from Switzerland. Her father is Tunisian and her mother French. 

We could hear the people singing in the distance when Linda and I ran up the dunes at around midnight, laughing and then falling onto the sand to watch the shooting stars pass us  by for a while. 

We ended up sitting at the campfire up until 2am, talking to two of the workers. We taught each other cuss words in our native languages and sang along to Akon, Bob Marley and even Justin Bieber.