Author: Christopher Preston

Day 5: From Fes to the Sahara

Our drive is though the Middle Atlas Mountains where the landscape changes from minute to minute.  There is always a new sight to see and Anthea takes the uncomfortable back seat so she can record the journey photographically on her Ipad, alternating between left and right windows depending on the view. The front seats are reserved for Ann and Willy, who suffer from travel sickness which is exacerbated by Hotoman’s macho cornering. We try to allow a double seat for Jennifer to stretch her legs so there is a limited number of options for the rest of us to rotate places.

We stop for coffee at Errachidia.  This green and lushly planted University town is also a popular skiing resort in the winter. The international University is jointly owned by the Kings of Morocco and Saudi Arabia.  Our journey continues with the land alternating between arid and green until we arrive at Kasbar Russani for lunch.

We are offered a set menu of salad, main and fruit for desert or single dishes. There’s something going on with certain members of the group who don’t want to have a set menu dumped on them, but most us go for it as it offers trout as a main.  It’s caught locally in rivers and lakes and likely to be fresh.  They cook it in foil and it’s quite delicious – one of the most memorable dishes, flavour wise, so far.

We now enter a most spectacular gorge with amazing geology. We can see the sedimentary layers of rick which have been pushed up and bent, some at 45 degrees and others almost flat.  This is fossil country and the once submerged layers are rich in marine life.  The rivers continue to attract vegetation along their banks but the remaining landscape is rocky and barren.  Pockets of soil host a few date palms until the bed of the river widens to an alluvial plane which is flooded with date palms, all laden with huge bunches of ripening fruit.

We stop for a photo opportunity and a retail opportunity presents it’s self in the form of a good-looking young man selling dates.  We buy some, feeling virtuous in a belief that we might be his only customers all day.  This, I think is unlikely as other date sellers materialise from nowhere as if in waiting and other vehicles are stopping for the same photo opportunity.  There are so many dates on the trees that we can’t imagine how they can all be harvested and sold or eaten.  We are following the Ziz river and the large town here is a military one.  People are offered a free house and double  their salary to come here.  Simo says that the government is trying to encourage people to inhabit the Sahara area to bring more stability. Hmm, I wonder.  There’s another coffee stop in a featureless suburban area on a busy road. The coffee is good though, which slightly makes up for the lack of ambience.  We arrive at our Hotel, Xaluca Maadid in Erfoud late, and are welcomed by singers and musicians.  Sue & Mary think we should respond with a Haka.  We begin but are drowned out by the band who start up again.

Although the hotel is modern, it is spectacular, made out of adobe (mud & straw). The rooms are inventively furnished and well appointed.  The wash basin is made from polished fossil rock, not very practical for putting toiletries on, but fun.

The floor is crazy paving and not level.  This is probably not OK if you are elderly and unsteady at walking – Jennifer finds it hazardous.  The swimming pool is about twenty metres long and I make a bee-line for it.  By this time it is dark and I plough up and down using the underwater lights at each end as a guide.  It’s difficult to gauge the ends so no tumble turn practise today.  Dinner is in a huge hall where a buffet is arranged.  There are lots of guests here after all.  The place had seemed deserted when we arrived and the rooms are so quiet.

Day 6: In the Sahara

Jennifer and I struggle with the Liptons tea bags at breakfast.  There are no teapots, only small cups, too small for the strength of the bags.  Cold milk has to be poured into a spare cup from the cereal table as there are no jugs.  The traditional tea here is mint, drunk without milk but with sugar.  Today, there are boiled eggs.  Hooray! I’ve a touch of the runs this morning, so after eating my banana, saved from dinner last night (bananas are not served at Breakfast for some reason) a hard boiled egg is just what’s needed.  Jennifer reveals that she has dihorrea and intends to stay in her room all day.

It’s to be a long day out and about and I’ve packed my hoddie for the desert later as it’s supposed to get cold at night.  Our first stop in town is to collect a local guide.  Here they wear blue jalabas and turbans.

They are from once nomadic people called Tuareg, otherwise known as blue men because the cheap blue dyes in their clothing used to stain their skin.  Our Blue Man guide takes us to a market.  It’s not a full market day, only a few desultory stalls are operating so it’s quite a disappointment. Normally, we are told, there is a huge area of date stalls.  Today only one is open for our benefit and as we bought dates yesterday, we’re not buying today.  There are only so many dates that one can eat at a time.  It’s never quite clear where we are going or what to expect but we stop at a large adobe wall in the middle of nowhere. I’ve given up consulting the tour itinerary as it often bears no relation to what we actually see.  Sijilmassa is the name of this Kasbah and through the gate is a huge empty area contained within the walls.

 

In one corner is what might be a well.  It’s a tap supplying clean water to those who live here.  On the fourth side of this vast area is a grand gate and a higher wall.  Through this is a series of streets and alleyways of mud built houses in poor repair.  A few women are around and peer out of darkened doorways, often clutching their children.  We are not allowed to photograph people unless they agree and most of them don’t.  There are also wells inside and fetching water seems to be the only activity.

 

A Kasbah is a walled community and this was once an important seat of power.  Today the people are very poor and apparently the government is trying to re-house them.  As we make our way to the centre of this complex, suddenly we are in a more imposing and restored building, still made out of mud and straw adobe.  It’s the rulers’ palace and a protected heritage site.  This was on of the caravan stops in the trade routes where salt and spices were exchanged. Our guide shows us several large lumps of pink salt rocks much like the rock salt that we buy purporting to come from the Himalayas.  A series of corridors eventually lead to a central courtyard where on each side is a room for each of the ruler’s four wives.

It’s very bare and desolate and takes imagination to see it furnished with carpets and cushions.  There is a crumbling and dark hamam with the only mosaic floors to be seen in the building.  On the way out there’s a friendly young woman struggling to load a wheelbarrow with empty plastic water containers.

Mary decides to help, much to Simo’s disapproval and there is much hilarity as the containers keep falling off.  Eventually it is loaded and Mary pushes the light load along the street.  We part ways with the woman who will have to wheel the loaded barrow back from the water tap.  Mary and Sue are good at approaching the women and taking an interest in what they are doing they are both experienced tour leaders.

Earlier, we drove past what looked like a large house with carpets hanging from an upstairs balcony.  I thought they might be drying, but we return here and it turns out to be a craft centre.  There are several nomads’ tents woven from black goat hair and set up to demonstrate how these people lived.

 

The main guy is quite dark compared with Berbers and Arabs, but he and his staff all dressed in the Tuareg blue jalabas.

 

As we go inside the house there’s a sand storm brewing up, which Simo says will be over shortly.  The central room we are ushered into is yet another carpet show-room and fabulous examples are rolled out before our eyes.  It’s a well rehearsed performance and anything anyone admires is kept aside. Expressing an interest is almost as good as a commitment.  Ann decides there’s a design she likes and after some bargaining, buys a small carpet.

The centre is an Aladdin’s cave of craft stuff, which includes wooden chests, crazy furniture and chunky Berber silver jewellery.  Simo buys several rings for Anthea which are too large – it’s a gesture as no one else is buying.  It turns out we are having lunch here which was to have been in the nomad tent but it’s too windy so we sit in a  dreary side room on cushions on the floor and eat a sort of pie/burger and salads.  A beef stew had been placed between two rounds of bread dough and baked in a tagine dish.  Triangles are cut and passed around.  It’s fairly bland but the olives with a hint of chill are sensational.

We are off to the SaharaDesert but as we drive, the sand storm gets more dramatic and we can hardly see the road in front of us.  Seventeen Km from our 4×4 pick up point we turn back.  Liz is disappointed as she has been looking forward to riding on a camel.  I’m sorry to miss sunset in the Saharan sand dunes but have no burning desire to sit on a camel.  Some of the women have heard stories of tourists paying to get on the camels and then having to pay again to be taken back.  On the way back to the hotel, we stop at a fossil shop and processing factory.  The pushed up sedimentary layers are full of marine fossils such as trilobites.  Many have been exposed and painstakingly picked out of the rock.

Large chinks and slabs of the fossil rich rock are made into polished objects.  There’s a toilet bowl and cistern, hand basins, dinner plates, bowls, polished wall surfaces and even jewellery.

 

This place is a curiosity and I have no intention of buying anything to sit on a shelf and be dusted every now and then.  The bathroom ware is in poor taste and unfortunately the place reminds Willy of their garage full of her dead father’s stuff.  Even more unfortunately she articulates this feeling in Simo’s hearing.  He gets the wrong end of the stick and when we are all in the bus accused her of being culturally insensitive.  I’m thinking that trilobites that long ago might not have developed much in the way of culture but shouting breaks out and I have to tell them to stop as we’re all getting embarrassed.  There are some quiet apologies and explanations going on but they develop into more shouting and I have to intervene again.

It suddenly dawns on me that everyone on this tour has been recently bereaved.  Added to this, the trauma of the Christchurch earthquake has left, those who live there in a precarious mental state.  Although they might deny it, Simo and Athea must have been affected by the loss of their three businesses and having to start again.  All the Christchurch people have a negative attitude to possessions and any new acquisitions.  Many lost everything in the quake and are reluctant to re-encumber themselves in fear of loosing it all again in another one.  Jennifer, who lost her apartment, moved to Dunedin.  Much of her rescued stuff arrived in boxes all broken.  Someone spotted one of her painteings for sale on Trade Me and the seller was traced to an official involved in clearing houses in the Red Zone.  Quite a lot of her other possessions never turned p so presumably that official, now living in the UK, did quite well  from all the old ladies who lived in her block of flats. As I mentioned, Liz lost her brother, who was married to Anne and Sue lost her Mother very recently and hasn’t been able to go home for a funeral.  That just leaves Mary and me.  Our bereavements are now several years old.  It’s clearly a difficult group ad everyone had different tastes and needs.  Simo does not seem to be up to sorting some of the problems out, hence the title Simo’s surprise tour.

We return to the hotel having missed our desert adventure, but there’s time for a sleep, a swim and a gin & Tonic with Mary and Sue before dinner.

Day 3 an extra visit

Garry has requested a visit to one of the major Roman remains, Volubilis.  I think this excursion might be an attempt to calm the waters following the dispute about the hotel booking in Spain, it’s sort of on the way to Fes and now that we know we are on a history tour, it seems appropriate.  Volubilis was begun 120 BC and is very extensive with 15 hectars yet to be excavated. We pick up an English speaking guide who describes himself as the last Roman.  We have arrived in the middle of the day and like mad dogs and hardy kiwis, walk through the once crowded streets of a huge metropolis in sweltering heat.   Lavish mosaics in wealthy houses (now faded by the sun) exist alongside modest terraces of one or two rooms demonstrating that the rich and poor lived together.

The aquifer still runs under the main street, bisecting the city, which was destroyed by a large earthquake and only a few of the buildings have been partly restored.

The heat continues to be blistering and I’m glad of my hat and sun-block.  I offer some to the others and Jennifer does her nose as she’s left her hat in the minibus.  We escape to the shade of a café and eat our picnic lunch, which Simo had purchased for us on the way out of Chefchouen. It’s made up of bread, cheese, olives, fruit and pomegranates which are not quite ripe.  There’s too much food and we leave loads for the café people.

Today, the drive from Chefchouen passes through the most fertile agricultural area.  Olive groves predominate to start with, sweeping up the valley sides.  We pass small fields of corn and a newly planted patch of cabbages in preparation for the winter and as the valley widens to undulating arable lands, we can see where the wheat has long been harvested. The earth is covered with dried grain stalks.  Some fields have been ploughed already and these black strips create a two toned patchwork over the land.  This area must be so green in the spring.  There is no commentary from the tour leader at this point so I decide that this is one of Morocco’s granaries.

It’s five thirty by the time we get to Fes and the driver has some difficulty finding the Hotel.  He asks some motor cycle police who escort us.  It’s up a small road and the minibus is too large.  A small van comes down and collects our luggage and we walk up unpromising alleyways to find the most glorious Riad Norma.

This is not the Riad in the itinerary and there is no explanation, but all is well as the owner, Monique is a welcoming Frenchwoman who might be in her sixties or seventies.  She used to be a hostess for Air France and several times had the opera Singer Maria Callas on her flights.  Monique is an opera fan and she’s named her Riad after Callas’ most famous role.  I’m allocated the room ‘Maria’ which turns out to be Monique’s private guest room up a separate staircase and next to her quarters.  There’s a pool which looks cool and inviting, so I make a beeline, desperate to get some serious exercise.  It’s long enough for two or three strokes and a tumble turn at each end, so that’s what I do to for twenty or thirty minutes.  I feel good afterwards having got my heart rate up for the first time in three days.

Day 4 The Medina

I wake and open the curtains to find the figure of an elderly woman hunched on a low chair in the courtyard outside my bedroom.  It is Monique doing her makeup in the early morning light.  I carry on with my daily exercises and greet her before going downstairs to sit in the garden.  Monique has no husband or family and has, by sheer will power, rescued this Riad from a neglected ruin to it’s present elegance.  Paying homage to local tradition she has given it extra flair and simplicity.  She began it eleven years ago and two years to do the restoration, fighting to get her own way with workman, craftsmen and male orientated bureaucracy.  It has been difficult being both a woman and a foreigner.  She’s insisted that her staff speak French and Mustapha, who seems to be her right hand helper has a degree in English Linguistics but can’t leave his illiterate parents who sacrificed everything for his education.

Breakfast is set on a long table in the garden. There’s melon balls and yoghurt; crepes and folded parcels with honey and jam or goat’s cheese and olives; toast and tea of café au lait, all served on exquisite blue and white crockery.

Our guide for the day is Mohamed. He’s done a degree, is fluent in English and also speaks Spanish, French as well as Arabic.  He wears a Jalaba which he says he’s had specially made, having bought the material separately.  His outfit includes the white baggy pants which ‘provide air conditioning’.  This routine is possibly standard for tour guides as Ahmed from Chefchouen had the same patter.  In this climate, underwear and trousers (particularly tight ones) cause overheating so than many modern Moroccan men can be seen constantly adjusting themselves.  Mohamed’s outfit is completed by a pair of traditional yellow leather shoes.  He claims to have two wives – a situation he does not recommend.  ‘One is best – or three.  While two of them are fighting you could be with number Three.’  Four wives, he imagines would be a nightmare.  It’s all light hearted misogyny and I manage to fake a polite laugh.

Our first stop is the King’s palace (only used when he is in town). The front is a modern set of seven brass doors with a rather ugly mosaic façade.  Apparently no one knew who the last King had as a wife, as she or they were never seen.  The new King has married a commoner and she has the status of a princess and is visible to the people.  We drive through the old Jewish quarter with the balconies facing out on the street.  Arab houses have their balconies facing inwards onto a courtyard.  Mohamed says that in Islam, what people are like on the inside is more important and that western beauty is external and hence superficial. He goes on to say that in England what a house looks like outside is more important than it’s interior.  I can’t help thinking that he hasn’t seen any English Interiors, but don’t say anything.  When Ferdinand and Isabella threw out all the Sephardi Jews along with the Moors, this is where they mostly came.

We drive over the valley to a castle on the hill to get a panoramic overview of the Medina (the area of the walled city).  It’s vast and inaccessible to motor vehicles.  But before we can do that, there’s the first retail opportunity in the guise of a visit to a ceramic factory.

We see Tagine dishes being thrown on a foot driven potter’s wheel, then a row of artists hand painting them.  A large section of the factory is devoted to the cutting and placing of tiles for mosaics.  Tables, fountains, columns and walls are all assembled here.  The exit is, as always, through the shop and I buy a few small pieces for gifts.  Now it’s into the Medina on foot, down narrow passageways which can only accommodate one person.  These widen out to allow stalls of salads, fruit and vegetables.  Each type of merchandise is found in the same area.  In the fish zone, the stalls stink and are infested with flies.  A cat sleeps unconcerned that they are clustered on one fish blood stained hind leg.  The stalls of nuts and dried fruit, followed by a camel meat stall which leads into an area of tinsmiths beating out gaudy plates, large trays and huge jugs in gold-like and silver-like tin.  There’s a section of knife grinders, endless jewelry stalls and jalaba makers.  The kitchest of all are the wedding shops which make white satin covered couches and sedan chairs for bridal couples to sit or ride in.  We stop in a carpet co-operative, ostensibly to see the historic building, but it is a sales pitch.  I express an interest in kilms and with Mary and Sue, am whisked to another room.  They are all too large, the wrong colours and too expensive.  Eventually, by feigning indifference I manage to beat them down to half price for a small blue one made from wool and agave silk.  A bid deal is made of how I’ve ruined them but they loose no time in getting my credit card processed. They pack up the kilm and swear to deliver it to the Riad but I’m wondering if that will really happen.  Next it’s off to a weaving co-operative where the women in the group buy sparkly scarves and finally the leather factory where we are each given a bunch of fresh mint to hold against our noses against the revolting smell. We look down on vats in a vast courtyard below.  There’s a white section where the skins are cured in a solution of pigeon droppings.  Here the hair is scraped off before moving on to the variously coloured vats of dye.  Sue almost buys a leather jacket, but they are not right and too expensive.  Liz does well with a burgundy bag and a lime green jacket, though there won’t be many opportunities to wear it in sub tropical Queensland.  I suggest it will be a good excuse to holiday in cooler climates.  I have to leave because of the smell and immediately get accosted by a man selling brightly coloured leather wallets.  I say no and he goes away.  Gradually the others join me and the man returns to try his luck with them.  Some of the women are curious, but the moment you express even the slightest interest in what’s for sale, the sales pitch becomes more urgent and it’s difficult to disengage.

All the way though these streets we have stood aside to let porters with barrows, empty or laden, to pass by.  Donkeys, mules and horses have to be similarly accommodated.

We’ve been able to peek at the entrance to a very old and famous teaching mosque (non believers are not allowed in). The old Madrassa (Koranic School) does allow us in to see the cells once used by scholars to live in.  In spite of all the retail opportunities (I hate shopping) it’s been a good day and far less hassle than the grand bazaar in Istanbul.  I ache too much to swim for more than fifteen minutes and sleep before evening meal.

We are off to a place that does dinner and entertainment with a promise of belly dancing – not high on my wish list – but I enter into the spirit of it.  The food is once again the usual salads and tagines.  There’s a fabulous band up on the stage, all elderly and pumping out traditional music which is infectious if a bit loud for conversation.  I take the opportunity to find out a bit more about Simo, his travels and how he came to end up in New Zealand.  Women and cooking is the short answer.

The first belly dancer is pretty, dark, voluptuous and doesn’t show her belly.  There’s only so much you can do with gyrating hips so she spends most of her time getting men out of the audience to have a go and be humiliated.  People seem to love this sort of thing and there are a couple of tables who are all over fifty and most over sixty-five who are whooping it up, clapping and waving their arms about.  Next on is a very strange looking woman in a blond wig made of straw, a yellow skirt held up with a huge bulky black and white cummerbund/belt arrangement. She doesn’t do much to begin with but when she gets her hips going the belt goes crazy.  She gets a very tall blond Italian woman up who almost upstages her.  Next up, it’s a magician who is very amusing and although he does all the tricks I’ve seen before with scarves and a dove, he still entertains.  Lastly there’s a belly dancer/fire eater who does have a bare midriff.  Her hips don’t move so well and I’m bored.  The older men in the audience, however, are having a great time.  Suddenly it’s time to go as we have a long drive ahead tomorrow.

The BlueCity

The others are woken by the first call to prayer around six am.  As my windows face the courtyard, I sleep through it but am still up early enough to go onto the roof and write before breakfast.  It’s a tranquil place with pot plants, and a view of blue houses clinging to the hills above.  Anne is up there checking her emails on her cumbersome Mackbook pro.  There’s a lavish breakfast in the Riad; bananas, melon, dates, apples and peaches. Cornbread is provided for the two gluten free diets on the tour, it is delicious with apricot jam spread on it.  In addition to ordinary Moroccan bread there are deep fried doughy rings, pastries, teas and coffee.  Mary asks if she can get up early in the morning to watch the women make the bread.  The answer is no and in our briefing meeting hastily called after breakfast, there’s a lecture on how this is not a cookery tour at all, but a history and culture experience.  We ought to have understood that from the phrase ‘saviours’ of morocco in the blurb.  Well, I always understood that ‘savours’ refers to taste, but perhaps we’re being metaphorical here.  Garry brings up his complaint to the travel firm about the sub standard hotel in southern Spain which was a casino with buffet meals of low standard food and where they had to spend two days of free time with nothing interesting to see or do in the area.  Simo makes some excuse but as it’s not my business and as I’m determined to enjoy Morocco, I take little interest. It all seems inappropriate and embarrassing.

We’re on a walking tour through the blue streets this morning and our guide is the elderly and erudite Ahmed, who is apparently world famous.  He wears his traditional garments, voluminous pants, a shift and outer tunic or Jalaba.  He lifts the layers to demonstrate claiming that they work as ‘air conditioning’.  His outfit is completed with a red Fez and yellow pointed leather slippers.  He claims to be face-book friends with Obama and Prince Charles and is full of wit and wisdom but not much information.  We walk though the old part of this blue-painted town.

 

The area was originally a Jewish quarter but they have long gone leaving a great variety of people here with a range of skin colours.  The Berbers here seem to be pale and sometimes with blue eyes and blond hair contrasting with the darker Arabs.  Mary notes that it is a town with attitude, most embracing the oncoming tourist industry, though we are warned that some people don’t like being photographed, especially the women.  The walls of the houses here are all lime-washed and Ahmed tells us that they put indigo in it to create the blue shades.  He says that blue deters mosquitoes and the heat.  It is cool in these streets and there are indeed no mosquitoes around.  I wonder why more towns and cities aren’t painted blue. Winnipeg in the summer springs to mind. Chefchouen is on a steep hill with fast flowing streams, not ideal breading grounds for Mosquitoes who require stagnant pools of water to breed.

Ahmed points out that all no exit streets and alleyways have the path painted blue so you don’t waste your time going down them and having to turn back.  Jennifer comments that this is ideal for people who can’t read ‘No Exit’ signs.

 

Many of the doors are also painted blue, very reminiscent of Tunisia.  We pass artists’ studios which are predictably turning out blue paintings of the blue streets.  Brightly coloured fabrics and carpets are for sale, camel and goat hair jackets & Jalabas.  Some rooms have looms set up and weavers are working away.
Brightly cloured cotton harem pants are on sale, which Ahmed explains, allow the women to sit on a low stool with modesty.  There’s the occasional offer of a good price, but none of the usual pressure to buy, buy, buy.  I look longingly as some of the wall hangings, but there is no way I can fit anything else on the walls of my house in London.

The women here wear bright colours with matching head scarves and Jalabas.   Older Berber women typically wear a red and white striped wrap around their waist tied in a knot at the front.  There are women from the hills who wear strange shaped raffia hats with plaited woollen tassels in deep blue.  They’ve put on their traditional costume to come to town.  One woman stands out in a black Jalaba simply and elegantly decorated with a single diamante Yves Saint Laurent logo on the front and back with a circle of the smaller ones around the cuffs.  What style in the mountains.

We pass through the city gate and Ahmed tells us that there were two gates, one to enter using the right foot and another to leave using the left foot.  He doesn’t have an answer for people like me who are ‘left footed’.  Beyond is a stream which has been dammed and local people are washing their rugs and mats, spreading them out to dry in the emerging sunshine.

There is an outdoor laundry here and the Berber washer -women, wearing the red and white striped wraps, are hard at work pounding fabric in a series of wooden tubs fed by the stream but they ask not to be photographed.  The water is clear and clean looking and Ahmed tries to persuade us to drink it.  We’re all reluctant and will throw away the water bottles he’s filled later.  I have a close inspection and find the bottom of the stream and pond covered in litter; tin cans, plastic, a broken doll and the detritus of modern life.  There seems to be quite a problem with rubbish from plastic carrier bags which cover the landscape and cling to branches and rocks in the now dried riverbeds.

Ahmed says his goodbyes and suddenly without warning, we are collected up by our minibus and, departing from the schedule, taken over the Mountains to a village market place in a place called Tanakoub.  Simo says it’s only once a week and no tourists come here.  Everything is for sale; brightly coloured nylon ropes of different diameters, hard-wear, electrical, all kinds of pulses and grains. There is meat hanging and in unobtrusive piles in the gutter, freshly pulled animal skins can be bought to cure.  We walk through the market having difficulty keeping sight of each other. Simo is in a panic keeping us all together ‘for our safety’, so some of us help to keep an eye out for the others.  Mary and Sue are in heaven, investigating and photographing everything.  We are warned that these people don’t like to be photographed but Gary finds that the young men are happy to oblige and he’s developed a technique of holding his camera at waist level and shooting into the crowd, taking pot luck.  This is where you can buy all your vegetables and fruit for the week: Tomatoes, beans, cucumber and melons – the list is endless.  Halfway down there is a barber shaving a customer with a cutthroat razor and there is a litter of shiny dark black hair on the floor, he’s had a good day. On the way back through the crowds, I stop at a stall selling cashew and pistachio nuts. I indicate that I would like some of both and the Stall holder grabs a piece of newspaper, twirls it into a cone and fills it up.  I later pass it round the mini bus.  On our way here we had stopped at a butcher to buy lamb for lunch which Simo says he has designed.  Although he’s a chef, he doesn’t do any cooking on this tour.  We are retracing our route to Tanakoub, passing hillsides of olive trees, some planted – others grow wild.  There are drifts of cork trees with their scarred trunks from harvesting.  At this time of year, everything has dried off and the bare earth shows through.  Suddenly we turn off onto a track in the middle of nowhere, climb out of the minibus and walk one hundred meters to a delightful house, home of Hassan and his wife.

This is where lunch is to be cooked.  Hassan says he has built the house himself.  He used to make a living installing solar panels in remote areas but now that the King’s programme of building hydroelectric dams is bringing electricity to these areas, he is out of a job.  They show us five rooms which, they tell us are for guests and there’s a dining area set up for our lunch.  In the seeming arid surroundings there is a vegetable garden some way off with tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, capsicums, chillies and herbs.

We go out to gather for the lunch.  By the house water melons and beans are growing.  We sit and wait under a pergola enjoying a small breeze until the food is ready.

Sue is helping to make the Kofta from minced lamb while cuts of meat which had been marinating are now grilling on a make-shift barbecue. We start with salads which are cold cooked dishes:  Aubergines, courgettes and, best off all, beans.  There’s bread to go with this and the barbecued meat follows.  We hardly have room for the Kofta which has had to wait its turn on the barbecue.  Fruit and mint tea as usual complete the meal.  This has been a delightful and unexpected excursion which wasn’t on the schedule.  Hopefully more surprises are in store.

We seem to get back to Chefchouen quite quickly and have time to ourselves before dinner at 8.30, this time in the Riad. At this rate I’m going to get fat.  It’s a mountain of green salad, olives and bread and yet more meat followed by Yoghurt with walnut and honey.  It’s time for a late night stroll in the square with Sue to buy postcards and then to find the tobacconist for stamps.  A young man tires to entice us to a bar for beer or wine – if only we’d known about that earlier, I’ve been longing for beer, but it’s too late to start drinking now.

A very long day

Savours of  Morocco – Simo’s surprise tour –…

Day 1: A very long day 23 Sept 13

I’m off to Morocco to join friends Mary and Sue on a ten day tour lead by a New Zealand/Moroccan chief called Simo.  In preparation, I’ve read Peta Matthias’ excellent book describing her tour with gastronomes and with plenty of delicious sounding recipes. The schedule, when it arrives doesn’t actually mention any cooking experiences, but I’m hopeful that these will happen at lunch times.

I have slept only fitfully to be ready for the taxi at three am. I always check the price before starting out – the office have quoted me £45 and texted the taxi driver £55.  We compromise.  At this hour of the morning it only takes 45 minutes to drive to terminal five and as the bag drop desk doesn’t open until four thirty, I could have had another half hour of non sleep in bed.  In the event our flight, the first out of Heathrow is delayed by ten people who haven’t turned up at the gate and their luggage must be off loaded.  There’s a short stop in Madrid and a change of plane.  There’s no indication of which terminal I’ve arrived at but there are signs saying T1,T2,T3, so by deduction I must be in T4 and don’t have to rush anywhere.  It’s only an hour’s flight to Tangier on a small plane – 4 seats across.  I’m travelling on my New Zealand passport and the immigration chap hasn’t come across one of these before and it is also brand new, un-besmirched by smudgy rubber stamps. He has to ask someone if I’m allowed in.  There is of course no problem.  I change money, put my luggage through the scanner, only because everyone else is and emerge to greet Mary Taylor (Phillip’s second cousin) and Sue Walke (from the Bali tour).  We have a large VW minibus (brand new) to ourselves.  The driver, Hotoman and local travel agent Anise are there to greet us.  We’re off to collect Simo (tour leader and chef) and the rest of the group who have been in Spain.  They are delayed on the Ferry, so we wait.  I buy a big bag of crisps as I‘ve only had a couple of croissants and a banana.  ‘Dos’ is the price quoted by the stall holder, as he holds up two fingers.  I don’t believe it’s two dirhams but offer a 5d coin.  No, that’s not right.  ‘

‘Parley vous Francais,’ I say.

‘No.’

He is thrown in to confusion when I offer a 100 D note and has to get change.  I wasn’t expecting Spanish to be spoken and to be buying things in Euros. To emphasise the point, a crowd of elderly Spanish day trippers are returning as it’s only a 35 minute journey across the straights.  There’s a rumour that the ferry has to wait for one to leave the port and make room but it turns out the it has been involved in the capture of illegal immigrants on an inflatable boat trying to get to Spain.  The Ferry encircles them, the boat is sinking and the people have to be rescued, arrested and some taken to hospital.  Apparently there is a steady stream of young people trying to get to Europe.  Italy has a similar problem further along the North African coast.

We introduce ourselves to our group, having made a pact to mix as much as possible and not stick together. There’s Jennifer, a red headed Scottish widow somewhere in her seventies.  She now lives in Dunedin having lost her Christchurch flat in the earthquake.  Then there is Anne who is travelling with her sister-in-law Liz.  Anne’s husband should have been on the tour, but he died suddenly and his sister took the place.  Garry is a retired credit controller travelling with his Dutch born wife Willy.  Willy has recently lost her Father following the Earthquake.  Simo comes from Casablanca twenty years ago and has had a successful restaurant in Christchurch.  He’s travelling with his second wife, Anthea and between them they lost three businesses in the Earthquake.  These are the characters we will be travelling with.

We drive through the streets of Tunis with Simo urging us to observe its prosperity.  The unasked question is then why are people trying to flee to Europe.  There’s lots of building and development going on and large red flags are everywhere to greet King Mohamed the 6^th.  He is rumoured to be visiting shortly.  He’s very progressive according to Simo and has made large, but gradual changes since the old King, who just kept a hold of all the money and didn’t invest.  Personally, I’m not sure how large and gradual can go together.  Mary asks how safe the country is which produces a passionate response that it is very safe. There is clearly a worry that the Arab Spring has made people nervous of travelling here.

We drive a short distance out of town to a village called Ifran for a very late lunch.  It’s quite similar to a Turkish Restaurant with grilled meats and salad all for about £3.50.  Mary, Sue & I are taking turns in buying lunch, ordering different dishes and sharing.  I’ve opted for the spicy lamb sausages which are delicious.  The other choices are Lamb Kebabs and thinly sliced chicken seasoned with turmeric, cumin and coriander leaf – also delicious.  There is a plate of salads made of cooled cooked vegetables – potato salad, beetroot, olives, turmeric rice, baked tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and hot chick peas.  We drive on to Tetouan, the ‘WhiteCity on a hill’.  It’s modern and unremarkable. We walk though a pedestrianised street with market stall holders displaying their wares on the pavement.  Modern electronic equipment including mobile phones, western clothes of all description arranged artistically on the ground.  We are being shown that Morocco is a modern up to date country.  We stop to look at a pastry shop and Simo buys a selection of amazing stuff which we all share later on the bus.

We travel through a valley of high ridged mountains.  In the gaps between the peaks there are spectacular clouds waiting to sweep over and down on the land. I doze intermittently in the bus starting awake to check on our progress and catch up on the conversation.  Simo tells us, prompted by my question, that the main economic earner in Morocco is phosphate mining followed by Agriculture.  Before the EU, Morocco supplied Europe with fruit and vege, but has had to find other markets.  They are for example the 5^th largest producer of olives.  Next most important is fishing and Tourism comes fifth.

It’s late by the time we get to Chefchouen, a blue city nestled on the side of a mountain.  We are staying in a 300 year-old riad, Cassa Hassan.  It’s all been lovingly restored and embellished with carved wooden lintels, painted wood ceilings and fabulous floor tiles.  Part of the charm is its rustic finish, but there is an eye for detail.  Rooms on two floors above look down onto a central courtyard with a bubbling fountain embellished by pots of spider plants.

 

I meet up with Sue and Mary for a pre dinner drink, but as we don’t have any tonic for the gin we make do with scotch and water.  Evening meal is at nine at a restaurant also owned by Hassan a few doors up the alleyway.  Tagine is of course on the menu – chicken or lamb with a range of salads and a Moroccan soup which I go for as we’ve been warned about green salads.  The soup is delicious, not unlike minestrone and my meat tagine with apricots and prunes is sweet and full of flavours.  Plain fruit salad just completes the meal with sweet mint tea.  It’s a relief to get into the terracotta shower and wash out the travel and sleep.