past few days
did i say it was hot already?
today is closer to 120 and that feels warm to me.
you must forgive any blatant misspellings and punctuation errors as i am typing on a french keyboard which has several letter re arranged, which naturally makes typing quickly difficult.
We are now in Ouarzezate about 90Km north of the Sahara (thus explaining the heat) and plan on basing ourselves out of here for a few days. Essaouira and the music festival was pretty cool i spent most of my photographic time shooting at night and mostly of kids doing drugs during the festival. sadly very few are any good since they were obvioulsy hiding and it was dark and they were dancing. low light, movement and concealment does make taking crisp photos dificult.
the music was great but we were ready to leave. I did visit a Hammam (traditional bath house/steam room) which was an experience to be had but not had twice i think! a full description may cost you a few beers and some time. for those that know about my adventure in Sri Lanka this was much less traumatizing but equally as strange. if you have no idea what i am talking about that may be for a good reason.
if you get a chance to come to Morocco you should visit a Hammam but bring your own wash mit and mat or know my pain. its well worth the visit but preperation is key to your enjoyment.
we are now in Ouarzezate via a town called taroudant which we would not recommend to others based on our strange experiences there. each and everytime we left the hotel we were set upon by men who wanted no money only to practice their English but would lead us in circles through the souks to their stalls so that we could look at their herbs and spices. including my favorite herbal Viagra "125% better than real kind" and saffron for "moroccan prices not tourist prices becquse we are friends!"
three times we left to explore on our own three times we found friends. it can be nice to be led by a local but the town is very small and we simply wanted to wander.
the next day we drove up to a 12th century mosque and i photographed the guardian (for 8 bucks), the mosque was beautiful and he was very polite, he has been the guardian of the mosque (after his father) since 1977. i told him he has worked here since i was born and he corrected me by saying that everyday i hqve been alive he has spent in this mosque , which seemed to make it longer than 31 years suddenly. he does go home and do other things though, we know this since he told us he recently became a grandfather at the age of 49.
we continued driving hundreds of Km up and through the mountains towards Marrakesh where our map showed a road that cut across the valley to the road to Oaurzezate. few roads are marked in Morocco it seems until you are driving past your turn or so far ahead of your turn that you question which road is the one you planned on taking. our road prooved fairly ellusive until we spotted a tourist iformation center where we asked if we were on the road we hoped we were on. the kind man looked at our map and laughed while telling uis that the road shown on our map, the one we were looking for, did not exist. it was meant to, hell they even started to build it but that was in the 50s. they stopped building it equally as long ago.
one long conversation, one new map purchase and a U turn later we were on our way.
all told our days drive took us over 6 hours, 400 or so Km of driving we arrived.
the mountains and desert were unbelievably beautiful and well worth the driving time. I enjoyed driving the whole time despite Manous kind attempts to give me a rest. I did however heed her words when one especially gifted driver decided to pass me and the large truck in front of me on a blind curve in the mountains. i had been marvelling at this particular drivers skills as he screamed up behind me several times using both lanes seemingly paying no attention to the road, the ravine or the traffic, I named him Assbag.
Assbag made his move around us and was half a heartbeat from becoming a legend by mating with the front end of a VERY lqrge truck making the turn in front of us, he hit his breqks qnd sweerved into the narrow spot i creqted for him by hittign my breaks anticipating witnessing his death out my window. after nearly forcing us into to stone canyons walls I pointed out his folly with one finger and dscovered our horn doesnt work. Manou, although scared found the low mooing of our horn hilarous as we had named the car "La Vache" (the cow) before setting out.
assbag seems to understqnd my anger and responds by speeding off down the mountain road.
Manou convinces me that cqtching up to him and beating his head into his dashboard would not be a proper response.
about 30 minutes later i see him getting out of his car in a small village, i slow down, point and let him know that she is keeping him alive. good ol assbag is helping his wife and young son out of the car. genius nearly wasted his whole family and us to pass a truck.
Manou past the next few minutes reading from our guidebooks the warnigns concerning the poor quality of drivers and their seeming love of passing on blind curves in particular.
my apologies for the lack of attention in this blog but it is an addition none the less.
D
today is closer to 120 and that feels warm to me.
you must forgive any blatant misspellings and punctuation errors as i am typing on a french keyboard which has several letter re arranged, which naturally makes typing quickly difficult.
We are now in Ouarzezate about 90Km north of the Sahara (thus explaining the heat) and plan on basing ourselves out of here for a few days. Essaouira and the music festival was pretty cool i spent most of my photographic time shooting at night and mostly of kids doing drugs during the festival. sadly very few are any good since they were obvioulsy hiding and it was dark and they were dancing. low light, movement and concealment does make taking crisp photos dificult.
the music was great but we were ready to leave. I did visit a Hammam (traditional bath house/steam room) which was an experience to be had but not had twice i think! a full description may cost you a few beers and some time. for those that know about my adventure in Sri Lanka this was much less traumatizing but equally as strange. if you have no idea what i am talking about that may be for a good reason.
if you get a chance to come to Morocco you should visit a Hammam but bring your own wash mit and mat or know my pain. its well worth the visit but preperation is key to your enjoyment.
we are now in Ouarzezate via a town called taroudant which we would not recommend to others based on our strange experiences there. each and everytime we left the hotel we were set upon by men who wanted no money only to practice their English but would lead us in circles through the souks to their stalls so that we could look at their herbs and spices. including my favorite herbal Viagra "125% better than real kind" and saffron for "moroccan prices not tourist prices becquse we are friends!"
three times we left to explore on our own three times we found friends. it can be nice to be led by a local but the town is very small and we simply wanted to wander.
the next day we drove up to a 12th century mosque and i photographed the guardian (for 8 bucks), the mosque was beautiful and he was very polite, he has been the guardian of the mosque (after his father) since 1977. i told him he has worked here since i was born and he corrected me by saying that everyday i hqve been alive he has spent in this mosque , which seemed to make it longer than 31 years suddenly. he does go home and do other things though, we know this since he told us he recently became a grandfather at the age of 49.
we continued driving hundreds of Km up and through the mountains towards Marrakesh where our map showed a road that cut across the valley to the road to Oaurzezate. few roads are marked in Morocco it seems until you are driving past your turn or so far ahead of your turn that you question which road is the one you planned on taking. our road prooved fairly ellusive until we spotted a tourist iformation center where we asked if we were on the road we hoped we were on. the kind man looked at our map and laughed while telling uis that the road shown on our map, the one we were looking for, did not exist. it was meant to, hell they even started to build it but that was in the 50s. they stopped building it equally as long ago.
one long conversation, one new map purchase and a U turn later we were on our way.
all told our days drive took us over 6 hours, 400 or so Km of driving we arrived.
the mountains and desert were unbelievably beautiful and well worth the driving time. I enjoyed driving the whole time despite Manous kind attempts to give me a rest. I did however heed her words when one especially gifted driver decided to pass me and the large truck in front of me on a blind curve in the mountains. i had been marvelling at this particular drivers skills as he screamed up behind me several times using both lanes seemingly paying no attention to the road, the ravine or the traffic, I named him Assbag.
Assbag made his move around us and was half a heartbeat from becoming a legend by mating with the front end of a VERY lqrge truck making the turn in front of us, he hit his breqks qnd sweerved into the narrow spot i creqted for him by hittign my breaks anticipating witnessing his death out my window. after nearly forcing us into to stone canyons walls I pointed out his folly with one finger and dscovered our horn doesnt work. Manou, although scared found the low mooing of our horn hilarous as we had named the car "La Vache" (the cow) before setting out.
assbag seems to understqnd my anger and responds by speeding off down the mountain road.
Manou convinces me that cqtching up to him and beating his head into his dashboard would not be a proper response.
about 30 minutes later i see him getting out of his car in a small village, i slow down, point and let him know that she is keeping him alive. good ol assbag is helping his wife and young son out of the car. genius nearly wasted his whole family and us to pass a truck.
Manou past the next few minutes reading from our guidebooks the warnigns concerning the poor quality of drivers and their seeming love of passing on blind curves in particular.
my apologies for the lack of attention in this blog but it is an addition none the less.
D
posted by davidlang at 5:02 AM
3 comments
