Hillsongs and Hijabs

Distance Traveled:   32,120 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR)

Time Difference: -10 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: Nothing specific atm.  I have been writing during the day with iTunes on shuffle and at night have been availing myself of the only English tv channel which is nonstop action movies.  I've gone from having seen about half a dozen in my entire life to doubling that, just in a few days.  I feel stupider for the experience.

Currently Inspired by: Space.  Seriously, get outside, somewhere quiet with nothing around or above you, and let your mind wander.  You might make some incredible discoveries!

Stacks:  Absolutely none, which is amazing when you hear what I've been up to.
Words written: 27,119.  I'm back baby!

Our Caravan

What is the first thing that pops into your head when someone mentions the Sahara Desert?  For me it’s miles upon miles of nothing but mountain-sized red sand dunes and David Attenborough rasping “the monitor lizard is a curious creature...”  How someone with such an annoying voice became a successful documentary narrator I’ll never know.  At any rate, the Sahara Desert is exactly like that (minus the voiceover).  For some reason when in it, you feel like you should speak softly.  It could be the lack of background noise, or perhaps the daunting scale of the place, or both.  It’s not until you’re away from civilisation that you realise how few and far between your moments of pure silence are, and I’m sure there is little silence quite like desert silence, anyway.  A perfect environment for my little thought experiment, and it was partially successful.  Unfortunately an irritating instance of human interference prevented me from seeing it through to its full potential, however, I am getting ahead of myself.  In order to start from the beginning, I need to actually get us TO the desert, no small task, and a narrative in itself.  So I shall take us back to last Saturday 7^th January, my last day and night in the Hotel Cecil near the Djemaa El Fna (old town, remember) before I left on the trek.  

I decided to head to the street food stalls for one last binge.  I have a particular penchant for the eggplant, they do it here in a way that I’ve never had it before and it is singularly addictive, and I know I shall miss it when I leave.  I miss it already and it’s only been a few days since I had it!  (For the ever-growing food album, click here).  As always I visited a few of the stalls and got one or two little things from each.  At the last place, I found the waiter to be overly familiar, putting his arm around me and his face too close to mine while we were talking, and it made me sigh.  I know I said previously that I wasn’t getting any hassle, but it took me a few days to realise that I was, in fact, getting hassled, just not in the way that I was expecting.  How it happens here is that the men stand too close to you when they talk to you, and in fact even striking up conversation with you in the street is not something they would ever do to a Moroccan woman (and no Moroccan woman would tolerate or encourage it).  Some of the really rude ones will attempt to hold your hand while they’re speaking with you, or guide you with their hand on your back, or in extreme cases put their arm around your shoulder.  Now, you might think “that’s not so bad”, some people might even consider it friendly.  Well it isn’t.  It’s a sign of serious disrespect. The ones that will do that are the ones that think western women are all whores and easy lays, and they are touching you in a way they wouldn’t DREAM of doing to a woman they respected.  It really sets my teeth on edge, because it’s disrespectful and also because I absolutely hate being touched by strangers for any reason anyway.  It’s interesting because I had mentally prepared myself for the worst, and some people might think that this kind of thing is better than being spit on or called a whore, but I actually don’t think so, it’s more underhanded, sleazier, and with the friendly face on it, its more difficult to get out of and therefore more intimidating.  If you say to them “don’t”, or move away from them, they pull this hurt, innocent act like “what? I didn’t do anything, no obligation, oh come on miss” and even though you know it’s an act, you still feel bad!   And if course you only ever deal with men, because women don’t really work here, something I’ve only recently noticed.

So the Sunday morning my paperwork directed me to wait at the local post office at 7am for the desert trip pickup.  Everything is so dodgy here.  A guy in an unmarked van had my name, picked me up and took me for a drive, saying he was going to drop me off at the bus.  Then we ended up outside the post office again.  I was like “what?” and he said “oh sorry I got a phone call saying that we are actually meeting here.”  Then he wanted the remainder of the cash for the trip, as I’d only paid a deposit, and even though he seemed like a nice and legitimate enough guy, I didn’t feel comfortable with that.  But he was like “if you don’t pay the rest, you can’t go I’m sorry” and eventually, after much humming and hawing, I decided to trust my instincts and give it to him.  This was fine.  Then we drove up to near where the entrance to my hotel was, and I got on another bus (so I could have just walked out the front of my hotel).  There was this bunch of five guys and a girl who had previously tried to get on the first bus and they first driver had told them they weren’t with us, and now they were grabbed by the second driver and put on the bus with me.  They were staying in my hotel, doing the same trip, and had been told to meet out the front.  So disorganised.  Anyway, we finally all got on our way.  They were a lovely bunch, all the guys were from NSW Central Coast and the girl was from Costa Rica and was dating one of the guys.  We got along well, and I was relieved.  You never know how these group things are going to work out.

It was when we were on the bus that our driver, Mohammed (no I’m not kidding.  Ahmet, Mohammed, Hassan or Khalid are I think the only four names I have heard here.  Inventive!) told us that we’d be arriving at our hotel around 5pm that day, and we’d be making many stops for photos, food and village visits along the way. The trek was advertised to me as a three day, two night Sahara desert trip, and I didn’t realise that it would take so long to get there.  Nor did the others in the bus, after we discussed it.  This is another problem here.  From what is advertised to what you get, there is a severe decline in quality / quantity / services.  They either exaggerate the benefits, hide costs, add compulsory extras or simply lie, to get you to purchase the item or tour, or whatever it is.  The hotel in which I am currently staying lied online not only about its location (it stated it was in the Medina, and it’s a twenty minute walk) but also about having wifi in the rooms (public areas only).  As location and in-room wifi are my major, non-negotiable requirements, this means that I would not have chosen this hotel had they not misrepresented themselves.  I spoke with management about it, and there was no apology, no offer of a discount, merely a lackadaisical shrug of the shoulders and a “I’ll get the tech to look at it”.  Ugh.  Needless to say, this hotel will be getting an EXTREMELY poor online review from me, and I’ll be speaking with the service I used to book who are usually more scrupulous in their attention to detail.  This is not the end of it, but until I check out I’d like to keep the relationship amicable on the surface.  I don’t trust anyone here.

One of the many beautiful views

The drive to the desert is worthy of its own excursion, really.  I don’t where else in the world you get to see geography like this, in one country.  Some of the guys were saying “this bit is like Peru” and others, later “this reminds me of Arizona”, but it was ever-changing and each section seemed to give way only to another more beautiful view.  It was all of it in fact, like nothing I’d ever seen.  Even though the drive took all day I never tired of gazing out of the window, or getting out for photographs.  On the first day we negotiated the Atlas mountains, from the lower red ones dotted with green, past the highest peak at 4200 feet, which was barren rock and blanketed in snow.  Really, there is so much of this place that is, I imagine for fairly practical reasons, untouched.  No wonder they films so many movies here!  The landscape is truly incredible.  It has to be seen in full 3D, with the entire breathtaking scope laid out in front of you, but I really tried to catch some of the more beautiful bits in my photos.

Location was the only good thing

That evening we arrived at our “hotel”, nestled on a mountainside.  It wasn’t a hotel, in fact, it was a hostel and the guy at the front tried to stick me in a room with a bunch of others.  I absolutely refused, and he gave me a room of my own.  His vengeance came no doubt in the form of the quality of the room he gave me.  Not only was it the coldest room I have ever been in my life (the Atlas mountains are unforgivably cold and windy) but it had no heating, and the window didn’t seal.  The problems didn’t end there.  I shall now quote from the notes I scribbled whilst sitting in the hellhole, shivering and counting the seconds until dinner.

The curtain

“Some of you may recall me telling you about the worst hostel in the world, which I encountered in Amsterdam with my girlfriend Esther about four years ago.  I am writing this on the bed of a hotel in Morocco, which makes that place look like the Surfers Paradise Marriott.  Of all the shitty shitholes I have seen in my day, this is the shitholiest shithole of them all.  Upon walking in, one is immediately greeted by the sad and torn piece of material that passes for a curtain.  I suspect it is the mildew on it that is keeping it in one piece.  Next, the nostrils are assailed by an unmistakeable stench. Bill Bryson once wrote about a smelly hotel room “I suspect the previous occupant had not so much suffered from incontinence, as rejoiced in it”.  I believe he was staying here.  If hell actually has frozen over, as in “hell will freeze over before I return to this establishment”, then it’s possible we have stumbled into it. It’s easily around zero degrees, and my improperly sealed window, ancient and meagre blanket and filthy stone floor are doing little to mitigate the cold.  What’s that you say?  Have a nice hot shower?  Gladly, as soon as I find some kind of plastic glove with which to peel back the filthiest shower curtain in the world.

Bathroom

The nasty foam mattress (NB: actually it was two narrow mattresses shoved together, which proceeded to separate during the night and deposit me lovingly onto the stone floor), permanently indented by the thousands who have lain on it, shivering and miserable before me, is “covered” in a flimsy old sheet that has several tears in it.  I feel the sheet is attempting to mock the ceiling, whose haphazard paint job is also coming down in large mouldy chunks.  To nicely cap off the joys of this room, the previous occupant (and cleaners, if there are any) left me a thoughtful gift in the slimy soap tray.  As this is now the second time this is happened, please remind me to double check, next time I am booking a room, that I have not accidentally specified “Room With A Pube” in the special requirements box without realising it.”

As you can imagine, I wasn’t in the greatest mood when I wrote that, in fact I was nearly crying at the prospect of having to stay in that place.  However there are two philosophies that have served me well whilst travelling.  The first is that the best experiences are usually hard won, and the second is that there are very few problems that you encounter along the way that can’t be fixed, or at least greatly improved, by giving yourself an attitude adjustment.  With this in mind, I played Angry Birds, smashed the hell out of some pigs, stuck on a fake smile and started to feel excited about the next day.  Dinner was fun and we all got to know each other a bit better, and some people from the other buses who were also staying there.

When we got into the bus in the morning, Mohammed advised us that actually we would not be arriving to the desert til about 4pm that day.  So we were now on the second day of our three day “desert trek” and we weren’t going to get to the desert until the end of it.  How were we going to get any time in the Sahara and get back by the next day?  We asked and it turns out, we were just riding the camels for an hour or so to the camp that night, having dinner, going to bed, getting up at dawn and riding the camels back, and then driving for about 12 hours back to Marrakech, on a slightly more direct route and without any but the most necessary stops.  So our grand desert adventure consisted of almost three full days of driving, and approximately 12 hours in the desert, 8 of which were spent asleep (or trying to sleep.  Another bad night).  Do you see what I mean about the way things are advertised here?  Anyway, there was nothing we could do about it, so we just did our best to suck up as much from the surrounds and the drive as we possibly could, and determined to appreciate every second that we actually got to spend in the actual Sahara. 

I called him Percy

Having said all of that, once we got there it was totally worth it, and I would do it again.  I had a similar experience riding a camel through the desert as I did riding an elephant through the jungle, in that I sat there going “I’m riding a camel through the Sahara” over and over.  And to be technically correct, they were Dromedary Camels (one hump).  These are the main type in the Sahara.  I don’t think I’ve been as excited or nervous as I was when our caravan walked right along the edge of a giant sand “bowl”, almost like walking right along the edge of a mountain and looking down at a close to sheer drop of easily twenty metres.  I imagined tumbling down into it.  How the hell would you get out?  Sand is tough to climb, as we were all to discover later.  

The sun went down not long after we got to camp, turning everything around us into dark red fire and casting some absolutely terrific shadows.  We sat on cushions in the tent and had probably the best tagine I’ve had since I got here, and after dinner most (at the time I thought all) of the camp decided to go for a walk, so I decided to take the opportunity to sit alone in the darkness and silence on a nearby dune, and send my thoughts out into the air and see what happened!  Much faster than I expected, I had a couple of revelations, one major and one minor (neither of which belong on these pages) and I was keen to continue, when I was interrupted by one of the Berber desert guides, who sat and started a fire and began pointing out the constellations.  I was annoyed, but remained polite, he seemed like a nice friendly young man and I stupidly credited him with the best intentions.  However he kept finding excuses to sit closer to me and even though I was becoming more and more standoffish he eventually lunged at me, which I evaded.  I gave him a stern reproach, and he was very embarrassed and kept apologising, but unfortunately it was too late.  He had ruined my peace and quiet, and now I was tense and keenly awaiting the return of the others, which didn’t happen for another hour or so, the longest of my life.  After that things got fun again, we all sat in a big circle (there was another group there too, probably around thirty of us in total) and chatted and laughed until bedtime.  I had been given a tent to myself, but I swapped with the couple from my bus and slept in with the four guys, because I still didn’t entirely trust the situation.

I have never been so cold.  One of the liabilities of there being so much of nothing in the desert is that there is nothing to trap the heat, and sand which gets burning hot during the day turns to ice in an extremely short period of time.  Not used to roughing it and slightly manic from my lack of sleep the night before, I tossed and turned uncomfortably for most of the night, hurting from the hard ground and trying to stay warm, despite the ten million blankets.  It’s like my head just wouldn’t accept that my body was warm, is the best way I can describe it.  At around 6am and in the pitch dark, they woke us up, we packed, jumped on our camels and rode back, only stopping to watch the sunrise, and then did the 12 hour drive back to Marrakech, stinky and sandy.  And still... I need to repeat, it was worth it, and I’d do it again.  So that should give you an indication of how amazing that place is.

To see the photos of everything I have described, click here.

I’ve been kind of holed up since I got back.  I have an apartment with a kitchenette so I did a grocery shop and have been cooking food which seems like a fun novelty, and is saving me some money.  Morocco is not cheap.  The accommodation is, compared to Australia, and you can get some good bargains at the markets if you are here to shop, but transport and food, my main purchases, are fairly equivalent in most places, unless you spend ages hunting a bargain, which you can do in any country.  I have really done everything I wanted to do in this city, so I have been staying in and writing which, you can see, has been good for the book’s progress.  I think I will stay longer at places rather than hopping around so much, in order to get some writing in as well as sightseeing.  Frankly I prefer staying in here anyway, because I am so so so so so sick of being stared at by the men here.  I have bought a large, thick, full length robe with a hood (hijab).  I wear long pants and long sleeves, hair back, robe over the top with hood up, sunglasses, fake wedding ring, no makeup, and they still just stare and stare wherever I go.  It’s starting to fill me with rage, so I think it’s best I spend some good time indoors!  At least it’s good for my writing.

Tomorrow I'm off south-west to a coastal town called Agadir, which I can't think of without singing "Agadoo-doo-doo, push pineapple, shake the tree". And now I have shared the pain with you.  Have an awesome day!

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N