Keith Hernandez would do it

Anyone interested in picking me up at Dulles International Airport on Thursday night? Iberia Flight 6187 from Madrid arrives at 725 pm (allow me some time to clear Customs). I do not have my mobile so email me or show up at baggage claim

(ok i know this is a long shot but you can't blame me for trying)

moroccan bars

unlike many muslim nations, alcohol is legal in morocco, and relatively widely available. however, the bars are an exclusively male preserve (with one exception i will explain shortly)

i got to casablanca this morning, splurged on a decent hotel room (splurged means i spent 18 dollars a night instead of 12), and head off to see the Hassan II mosque. a towering creation built at the edge of this sea, it dominates the skyline from most angles of casa. interestingly, it is a modern construction, the brainchild of the prior king, and it was only completed in 1996. young, perhaps, but that makes it no less impressive. (i remember what a hungarian once told me when comparing prague to budapest - 'yes, prague's buildings are much older but all that really means is that they are coated in many more layers of dirt.') uniquely, it is one of the only two mosques in morocco that allow non-muslims inside (for a generous fee). after a look through the mosque, i walked back towards my hotel, finding a patisserie for some baked goods and sought out a place to enjoy a café noire with my pastries.

what i did not realize was that this cafeé was also a bar. after finishing my coffee on the outside patio, i was cajoled into having a beer with a couple of older moroccans - we will call the guy that invited me to drink with them Manny (he was wearing a pirated Red Sox cap but he had no idea what that meant). we will call the other guy i was sitting with M'hamed, because that was this burly, former soldier's actual name. after sitting down inside the very smoky bar, i quickly realized 1 - these guys were very drunk, 2 - it was not even 5 o'clock, 3 - these guys weren't just drunk but general degenerates as well. well i had a few laughs with them; so i agreed to buy a round of beers (i sort of knew i was being hussled but i was having a laugh and 4 beers isn't very expensive in morocco). why four? for my two friends and their lady friend, one of the guy's 'sisters,' a woman who was undoubtedly a prostitute.

well i am watching the africa cup and these guys cannot even remember if i am american or dutch or israeli. manny wants to drink wine, of course on me, but my genrosity extended to one round, thank you very much. fortunately, the waiter was tres honnete and was making distinct eye contact/affirmation en francais before adding any drinks to my tab. eventually manny disappears, as does his 'sister' although to be honest i am not totally sure they were related events. anyway, some of the guys from a neighboring table came over to visit, which m'hamid tired of quickly and sent them away _ in arabic but i knew he was not being nice, at all. 'let's go' he said to me in one of the 10 phrases of english he knew. i told him i needed to pay my tab (no surprises) and then he gave me a moraccan good bye embrace ('you are friend') and i walked out the front door.

i got outside, looked behind me, and i really was not sure whether m'hamid expected me to wait for him. like a character in a spy movie, i removed my distinctive colored cap, took off my bright blue fleece and jumped into a crowed, melting away from this degenerate gin joint and its related troubles...

el jadida

well the 6 ayem bus was a little painful this morning - and yikes it was cold both in the air and on the bus - but i have made to my second to last destination, the lovely seaside ville of el jadida. more portugese towers and walls to climb, more aged cannons pointed at enemies forgotten from nations long since back at home

beneath the walled ramparts lies the moist, mysterious portugese cistern



a walk outside the city walls produced perhaps my last berber pancake, and a café with 35 cent double espresso. then a later walk along the beach, a bit chilly as the sun hid too often behind mild cloud cover. back into town for a delicious baguette in the town's markets (how i will miss the french baked goods here!) to finish the afternoon.

alas, tomorrow i leave for casablanca, the last stop of the voyage

slow down

i got up this morning with ambitious plans to see the rest of safi in the ayem then head north to el jadida. but then morocco got in my way

i went to every counter at the gare routière: nice bus? coplete. chicken bus? complete. other chicken buses? complete. shared taxi - about 50 bucks. well, pas de problème - safi has me for another day.

i had a nice chat with the taxi driver back fron the bus station - turns out that his brothers live in arlington, va! went for a walk along the fishing port, where i had another nice talk with the policeman at the gate. the french is *finally* coming along OK (albeit with a lot of mistakes!).

safi is a lovely little village, perched on the sea with 18th century portugese defenses - walls, cannons, turrets with a bustling pottery trade along with a busy sea port of sardine boats and trading barges. industrial-touristic - sort of like cleveland

anyway i have seen everything that there is in safi so today i get another day to watch morocco go by, whick is ok by me

the little things

i think today was a day at the right speed to catch the details of this place.

a little background of transport in the developing world is probably helpful here. in many countries there are, very broadly tzo kinds of buses: regular buses taken by the middle class and tourists, and what are sometimes called 'chicken buses.'* regular buses are, in every experience i have had, nicer than a greyhound, fairly comfortable, clean, newish, safe and reliable. chicken buses, are, well none of those things. they are old. not climate controlled. stop for anyone who wants to get on. dirt cheap. the people often smell.

so i work up in essaouira and was a fixin to move on up the coast. got some early morning pics of the city then showed up at the bus station and tried to buy a ticket on the nice bus - sold out. it had been awhile but i wanted to move, so i found the ticket on the next chicken bus. it left in over 90 minutes so i went to a small cafe behing the bus station for mint tea, crossing over a Deadwood like mud pudde in the midde of the street. after sitting down outside for tea, i really began to notice the malodorous quality of the street: excrement, both human and animal; rotten food; and the warm heat of the sun brough forth an air from that detif street sewer that was beyond foul. i kept the tea under my nose as long as i could while trying to study french but was chased back to the bus station to await my bus

the man who sold me the ticket was very kind, and when the bus pulled in he escorted me over to it as old moroccans got off and scrambled for les baggages. he even told me the correct price for baggage handling as they tried to overcharge me. i scapered onto the chicken bus, plopping onto a seat to get out of the way of an old woman, the back of my pants catching on the sharp metal bar that was once an qrm rest, ripping a large whole. away we pulled, still collecting passangers for the long, slow local trip to safi, jumping on after running to catch the bus. again this scene repeated itself, folks getting off and on beside the road in small towns and sometimes in places with no town at all.

eventually i arrived here in safi, a small sardine-packaging town/fishing village with old portugese fortifications and sea side charm. after a brief qrgument with the first innkeeper i found over the lack of an entry stamp in my passport (ignorance of the law appears to be common in every country), i found my lodging and had a look about the town. later, i continued to follow the africa cup at a local watering whole followed by a nights dinner of lamb meatballs in a pita with hot sauce and a fresh fried donut.

and off to bed

*My friend, commonly known as the french assasin, taught me this term as this is what they are called in guatemala. oddly enough, i am told the locals call them chicken buses and not bus a la pollo or anything like that. i believe the origin of the term is because people ride these buses to bring chickens to market for sale

it's always better at holiday

a final night investigating the food stalls in central marrakech was fun, but the fun was moistly completed the prior night with steamed snails in broth (tastes sort of like a mushroom) and mystery vegetable soup with dates on the side. off early this morning on a coastal bound bus to essauoira (ess-a-WEAR-uh) -- that is a picture in the upper left hand corner of the blog. found a nice centrally located simple hotel in the heart of the city then went for a jog on the beach. overcast and cool but not cold and a very pleasant run (although the blisters on my toes from running barefoot will not be so good tomorrow!)

the thing i think i like most about morocco is sitting in a café watching the world go by. i just do not do that often enough in the States

anyway loyal readers - i am making a post card call

send me your address if you want some love in your mailbox!

how jason got his groove back

it is funny how at the beginning of every trip to the developing world i am all freaked out; seriously, what a pansy

i have finally found the way in a combination of french and english to tell every tout, would-be-tour guide and shopkeeper no/non/la with a smile yet still get the point across that I mean no. and i have even used to leaarn this damn french keyboard pretty well. morocco is now a totally awesome place for me. yay

marrakech is a pretty amiusing place all-in-all. if fes is like a visit to a monestary-come-city, marrakesh is a living, breathing carnival. yes everyone is on the takr but so what the whole thing is a hoot.

although today i daytripped it out to a nearby valley qnd met a nice aus/kiwi couple and an englishman (with a mc and a canuck we'd cover most of the english speaking world). not any amazing sights per say but a lovely small waterfall, a pleasant day hike, some nice conversation and plenty of mint tea makes for a relaxing day. a holiday from my holiday even

tomorrow i leave in the ayem for the atlantic seaboard. enough with all this lamb, jason is in the mood to gorge on the creatures of the sea!

the boy

while hiking in the atlas mountains with a berber guide i came upon a young lady in a berber hut with a donkey. after an exchange of pleasantries we were invited into the home for mint tea. while drinking the tea the girl told us a story of a boy who once loved a girl very much. he visited her often and brought her gifts and wanted to marry her. but her wicked mother thought the boy was not good enough to marry the girl that he loved. after awhile the mother wanted to be rid of the boy because she knew her daughter loved him and wanted to marry him. this wicked mother knew much about herbs and plants so she prepared a mix of foul smelling powder and one day as the boy was leaving from a visit to the daughter she threw the powder in his face and made a chant and he turned into a donkey. the boy was very upset because he knew from the chant that he could only become a boy again if he agreed to never marry the girl. so the boy went back to his family to work as a donkey because he could never make this promise.

we finished our tea, gave the girl a few coins and said goodbye to the girl and walked away as the donkey said ¨besslama¨

my day

wow i was really lost for most of the day today

in marrakech

so i am done with the mountains and i am looking forward to the tourist-laden spectacle here in marrakech. not as cool as fez visuually but at least there is a bar scene. i can respect my muslin hosts but if they are selling it i am buying =P



do not miss the post below!

odds and ends

i have talked a little about amine. a young man in his mid 20s, he is single and studying to be a train engineer for the national railways of morocco. he is about 5 oot 6, and as i mentioned for most of the trip he is in the traditional brown jellaba (think ben kenobi) and yellow hat with black and brown stripes. he was on holiday so he also was sporting the need a shave look (i an sporting some totally saeet facial hair myself). the driver was abdul, about my age and build (with maybe a few more tajines added in), clean shaven and with a lot less english proficiency than amine. no jellaba for abdul - he owns only one to amine's 7. abdul is married. interestingly altough it was a lot more work abdul was slightly more curious of the two, but he was always a little nervous with the engligh (a little french sometmes helped; honestly but for amine we probably would have done better in french).

which leads to one observation - while people here SPEAK french, it really goes along way to speak some arabic. it makes sense because french means nothing to them culturally but its been a helpful think to learn the little bit i know

another interesting thing is the dress here. as a rule cities are more western and the rural areas less (although the younger men everywhere are pretty western, even under their jellalba)



also many men were these shoes/slippers moroccan adidas



men wear them in jellaba and without; i have seen a guy in western suit with these shoes (called babouches).

women, even in the moutains still rarely wear the full saudi-style veil; yet many women still cover their heads, but in rabat there were plenty dressed like any frenchwoman or female spaniard you would see on the street.

the sahara!

a berber pancake again for breakfast and we were off from the berber moutain enclave of midelt for points south. outside of town, the drive south revealed a horizon of snow packed moutains to the south and west, as the road winds up a brown, rocky plqin peppered with foot tall green brush. after the mountain pass, a flat, dusty plain emerged interrupted by a handful of identical berber market towns. eventually the road pulled along side, then above the ziz river valley. here the stark, barren landscape surrounds the lush greenery of farms and palm trees alongside the river. the kasbahs - both ancient, crumling ones and the occasional group of lively, thriving ones and the always present town mosque.



a few hours before sunset, we stopped for berber pizza, a kind of meat and vegetable pie, then transferred to 4 X 4 for the journey to the ksour at the foot of Erg Chebbi.



there i was introduced to my camel man, hamid, then whisked aboard the camel and was off for a night under the saharan sky, just me, hamid and camel. the mysterious shades and colours of the dunes mystified me as i slowly adjusted to the rythmic pattern atop the camel. just past sunset we arrived at a berber tent, where a half moon bright enough to cast a full shadow hung above the dunes we just crossed. hamid, speaking a smattering of spanish, arabic and french catered my meat tajine for dinner, and i slept under stars so many God alone could count, to borrow a local expression.

hamid awoke me early, and after a grueling climb on foot in the saharan sand, i watched the sun rise to again give color to the orange, peach, yellows and browns of the erg. after a short breakfast i was again on the camel, and a fez hours later back beside the erg, sore and very grateful for having spent the night in the sahara.

tonight, i shall sleep early for i plan to rise before dawn en route to the todra gorge.

brrr, its cold up here

up early in fez and back to the old city. fez is really amazing because as you walk through it it just seems like a crazy maze of interconnecting streets until you come upon an open door and inside these walls are these stunning mosques or elaborate riads. for breakfast amine and i had a bowl of bean soup topped with olive oil and garlic marinated in oil zith a hunk of crusty bed. we sat in a tiny room behing the storefront cook/propretor, all crowded on two sets of three cheap plastic stools on each side of a plastic table to eat on. the man next to me (only one thing on the menu here) told amine that he was 57 years old living in fez and had never seen a foreigner at this place. after breakfast we wandered the streets, visiting the leather tannery, the stables housing the old fex taxis (mules), and other assorted sights.

from there we were off south, which paradoxically made it very cold. as we entered the middle atlas mountains, apple orchards slowly gave way to evergreens, which then surrendered to enless spruce and snow covered ground. first stop was ifrane, a town in the mountains built by the french to look like a town in the alps. a very bougie place these days, ifrane is host to a very expensive college taught all in english by american teachers. a quick detour brought us to a forrest inhabited by barbary apes; a playful monkey found frollicking atop snow piles and begging for bread from stupid tourists. once we reached the middle atlas plateau, the snow gave way to cold, stony desert and the occasional berber town. eventually, the high atlas emeerge in shrouded white snowcover in contrast to the barren brown rocks in the foreground. here we spend the night; in a cold simple hotel at the foot of the atlas, waiting for day break and the comforting heat of the sahara.

a lot at once

ok so things have changed a lot since the last post (no french keyboards are still a pain).

while on the train from rabat to fes i met a moroccan guy named amine (pronounced like amen if no syllable were stressed). nice enough guy but of course at first i thought he was on the take. he was dressed like a typical 20 sonething european with sneqkers and jeans and pullover. turns out he is actually an apprentice to be a train engineer. anyway we chat on the way to fes and he is kind enough to show me a hotel in his neighborhood and take me to the hamman (turkish bath). let me tell you after a scrub down at the hamman there is not a single dead skin cell on the body (and a few less live ones). after the hamman we went to eat grilled meats in a half loaf of flat bread then off to bed.

at seven a m i meet amine outside my hotel as planned, and he is again in jeans and designer sneakers _ only now he is also in jellaba as well, much to my surprise. off we go to old fez, a mideivel city with labyrinthe strets small only enough for donkey and person. we get crepes with honey prepqred by an olod berber lady, then take our breakfast off to an upper room tea house. there, an old man uses an old fashioned bloer to heat the coals under the huge kettle, from where our tea will be dispensed (think one of those old style percolators that people used to use to make coffee at a big church function or some such thing). while waiting, i looked outside the open window to the street below, where a man made a pile of mint into small bundles for sale, and donkeys passed picking up the morning trash. eventually the tea came _ chinese gunpowder tea, with sugar chopped from a large block, fresh mint, and a mysetious mint like herb i cannot quite place. we enjoyed the tea and crepes, and were off to further explore the enpt early morning medina.

we went to an artisnal market run by the government, where the shopkeeper seemed to think that i was a man tres honnete because i worked for the government _ i never get that at home! i ordered a rug for home, then amine and i met his friend who drives a taxi and we were off to see the countryside. a trip to moulay idriss? the holiest city in morocco because it hosts the sultan who brought islam to the nation. then to the nearby roman ruins at volubilis. really amazing to walk the streets and see the floor tile mosaics of a place that predates christ. from there we stopped in meknes, then an afternoon trip to the once jewish city of sefrou (most of the once large jewish community of morocco has moved to israel or at least casablanca). from there we went to bhalil. there is a small, nice waterfall nearby, but the highlight is the people who live in caves! they hqve built outer rooms around the cave entrances, but i enjoyed tea with an old berber woman who lives with her family in a cave;

after the last stop, amine and i went to a ver nice riyad in old fez _ bono stays there, so they boast. had a meal of moroccan salads, chichen pastilla, a kind of moroccan pot pie, and a lemon and olives chicken tajine.

most importantly, i have hired a driver for the next week, and amine has the week off and is coming along. tomorrow i head south to the mountains, en route to the sahara!

have a great monday, peace be upon you

rusty

so i should not go this long without traveling as my skills get rusty, which i guess is ok but the scammers abound. rule number one, if approached in a place frequented by tourists and are approached, say _ in french even if he speaks english _ we walk, we chat; that is fine. but i buy nothing and go to no shops. a dude honestly told me to f-(k off today (in english) because i would not buy a tee shirt for 15 bucks or any drugs from him

rabat is nice enough, the chellah is interesting and it was nice to see the sea but i am ready to dive into fes. i have a train at three fifteen and i think i am going to slum it at the hostel because i am ready to talk to someone in english (or even french if they are patient) who does not want anything from me

i am getting used to the very sweet morrocan mint tea. i had moroccan food last night; a good lamb tajine and a better dish of moroccan aubergine

for those new to my blogs they are usually more intersting but this keyboard tries my patience

check with yous later

i am here

excusez-moi for the lower case and typos, this french keyboard is maddening. i arrived on time in casablanca, qnd got a train to the capital rabat, which is where i now am. walked through a city market, saw the mosque as fridqy prayers were letting out, and then realized that meant the best restaurants are closed tonight too. this is a totally lame post and the jet lqg is hitting me so ill try to check in again soon with something less sucky.

enjoy your weekend.