Funky Cold Medina, Desert Scorpion, Road Block...Au Revoir Morocco!

It's been awhile, let me fill you in.  On New Year's day I became the unofficial project manager of the new wing of the Atlas Hotel.  I was in a single room in the existing hotel with shared bath and no heat, but since Jill was arriving I moved to a new room with two beds, private bath, TV and heat in the new part of the hotel that they were just finishing.  We were their first guests, unfortunately I didn't have a chance sit for the life size portrait they promised to hang in the courtyard in my honor.  I checked into our sparkling new room to find that the heat, hot water and TV didn't work and there wasn't a side table or trash can (the night before they hung the curtains, made the beds and scrubbed the place down).  I went to breakfast hoping some things would be resolved but when I returned it became clear that if I wasn't breathing down their necks these things weren't going to get fixed, so I stationed myself at the project managers desk (edge of the bed) and started assigning tasks.  As usual poor Abdullah did most of the work.  By the time Jill arrived around 8:00 pm most of the thing were done.  Unfortunately they thought they got the heat working but they didn't and we moved to a new room the next morning. That night we went to Gueliz and had the first civilized dinner I had since arriving in Marrakech.  All seemed great, the salad nicoise was delicious as was the omelette and then my fish course arrived, or is it lizard?  I gave it a miss and moved on to dessert.  After dinner we went back to the Djemma El Fna and Jill got her first look at the madness and the less than polite ass grabbing that the local men think they can get away with.  The next day we walked around the souk in serious evaluation mode so when we came back to Marrakech we would be ready to shop for what we didn't find in Fes.  At one point we tried to leave a courtyard in the middle of the souk three times and kept circling back to the same place.  By the third time I was joking saying "I know this is the Djemma El Fna, but if we end up back in that same square I'm going to cry"...we round the corner and guess where we are..the same square (ps, I didn't cry, I laughed my ass off).  Sunday we got the train to Fes, in theory seven hours but it ended up being nine.  Jill had made a reservation at a riad in Fes and had emailed them our arrival details before we left Marrakech so they could pick us up at the train station.  As we got closer Jill was emailing them from here phone to make sure they would be there when we arrived.  When they finally responded they told us that there must have been some miscommunication and that we didn't have a reservation.  Since it was 10:00 pm we did what any tired sensible women would do and checked into the Ibis Hotel (like a Holiday Inn, but a little nicer) right next to the train station.  You would have thought we checked into the Four Seasons, we were thrilled.  Crisp white duvet, hot shower, channel 2 with excellent/crap American movies and no sewage smell (oh ya, there was a little plumbing stench at the Atlas).  On the train we thought we were involved in an elaborate con of some sort with a police officer (wearing a track suit), a guy supposedly from the tourism office and a damsel in distress (with a pierced face) who missed her train connection in Casablanca.  They were an unlikely threesome who joined us in our 1st class cabin and all told slightly different variations of the same story, she cried and there was some mention of no money.  But being the heartless bitches that we are, we decided it was a scam and choose to ignore them.  The next morning we went to the medina in Fes which we had read was much better than Marrakech...well, if it is they must have hid all the good stuff that day.  We went to see the tanneries which were excellent and luckily it was a cool day so the pigeon shit that they use to cure the hides didn't reach its usual pungent fragrance that requires a piece of mint under you nose to help mask the smell.  In the afternoon it began to pour rain and the quaint cobblestones of the medina became a slippery wet death walkway so we hightailed it back to the Ibis and snuggled into our beds and watched crap movies on channel 2.  Being less than impressed with the offerings in Fes (the intellectual and spiritual capitol, maybe that's the problem) we decided to rent a car the next morning and set off on a road trip back to Marrakech.

Side bar -- Some of you are familiar with the Indian yes/no head bobble, well Morocco has the squinty eye/head tilt/smirk that for all purposes means no you can't have what you're asking for.  No they don't have a seat for you at dinner, no they don't have any rental cars available, etc.  So as soon as you're sure that what ever it is that you want isn't available you get it.  End of side bar.   

We picked up the car and headed for our first stop Efroud.  It took a little longer than anticipated because we were on a secondary road that was the exact same color on the map as the primary road so we ended up arriving in Er Rachidia just after dark and decided to stay there.  I have to give Jill all the credit, she drove the entire way, excellent work!  We checked into what the guide book said was the "smartest" hotel in town.  Webster's please note, smartest = skank pit.  It was one of those faded floral bedspread, dirty carpet skank holes.  But there is a bright side.  After a couple beers in the bar to try to numb our senses enough to ignore the horror which was our room, we met the guy who works in or owns the gift store in the lobby of the hotel who told us his brother Mohammed is a guide in Efroud and could take us to the Sahara Desert in Merzouga right near the Algerian border which is where we were heading.  He wrote down his brothers name and the name of the hotel where he worked in case we wanted to hire him.  We ya ya'ed him and went to bed, ditched him in the morning and hit the road for Erfoud.  Once we arrived in Erfoud we thought we had missed the signs for Merzouga so we pulled over to get our bearings.  Two kids (boys of course, there are no women anywhere and the few who are out are covered) came to try to "help" us, I think they wanted to be our guides.  As I was telling Jill to just roll up the window to shut them up we heard a friendly voice saying it was Mohammed and that his brother told him to watch for two white women, one American, one English, that we might want a guide.  We unknowingly had pulled over right in front of the hotel where Mohammed worked.  We figured it was fate, so for 150dh he hopped in the car and we headed for the desert.  Thank Allah we did.  We would have never found what we were looking for and if we even  got close I'm sure we would have turned back because you had to drive across less than optimal surfaces and through sand to reach the desert.  As we approached the desert Mohammed asked Jill if he could drive and once he was behind the wheel the "Desert Scorpion" became a whole new vehicle.  Jill inquired about the safety of this type of rental car in these off-road conditions.  That's when Mohammed proceeded to tell us that this was the absolute best car to have in the desert and they call it the "Desert Scorpion" for that reason.  He gunned it!  We raced through the sand and sped over rocks like professional nomads (sans camel).  The desert was excellent.  We stopped for tea and crepes at this really great kasbah with a beautiful swimming pool right on the deserts edge and I was tempted to just park the Desert Scorpion and check in forever (the hot guy in the desert gear and turban didn't hurt).  We went back to Erfoud, had lunch with Mohammed and then hit the road, destination Boulemane and the Dades Gorges.  We arrived just before sunset and checked into the hotel where I sent my last brief post.  The place was perched on top of a hill in the Dades Gorge and the scenery was beautiful. When we arrived we asked if they had beer but since it's a Muslim country most small places don't serve alcohol and they of course didn't.  We had dinner, I slipped away to the bathroom and by the time I was back the owner was offering us what was supposed to be whiskey and ended up being neat gin with a lime twist (so much for a dry hotel).  Jill wasn't feeling great so she passed on the cocktails but I of course accepted, it would be rude to decline wouldn't it?  They kept asking us if we wanted beer because we had asked earlier and now the owner was around who apparently owned a store and bar in town.  We graciously declined, the gin was enough, and then moments later a hotel employee was gone and had reappeared with beer.  So I tucked myself behind the front desk of the hotel with a couple beers and some neat gin while poor Jill was left  sitting around the fire chatting with the only other guest (a female French artist), the owner and his Moroccan driver friend who fancied Jill and was rubbing her leg telling her "it was good to be free, no?"  The three of them got wasted and Jill managed to sneak away to where I was and we snuck up the stairs to bed.  The next morning we headed to Ait Benhaddou to see the gorgeous kasbah.  We spent the night and got up bright and early Friday morning for the bone chilling ride over the Tizi n'Tichka pass and our return to Marrakech.  I failed to mentioned that Jill had previously got a speeding ticket when she had meticulously paid attention to and abided by the speed limits in every town except this one instance where she didn't see the sign telling her to decrease to 60km/hour and was going 81 (clocked by radar).  Anyway, we are just outside of town when suddenly we are getting flagged over, we knew she wasn't speeding because we were stuck behind a huge truck.  Well guess what...Road Block!  It had snowed overnight in the mountains and the pass was closed.  This was Friday and we both had flights out Saturday night so we went to Ouarzazate and spent a painfully boring day rearranging our flights to leave from there and drop the car in Ouarzarate instead of Marrakech.  We killed time by loitering in the lobby of the Le Meridien hotel drinking tea and watching a Rae Dawn Chong and Antonio Sabato, Jr. movie without sound and making up vulgar dialog.  We finally flew out of Ouarzarate at 8:45 pm.  The flight was routed through Casablanca (totally out of the way) and since I was going to fly there the next day to leave for Egypt I just stayed and Jill went on to Marrakech for her flight home the next day.  So much for all that Marrakech souk shoppping I had planned.  I landed in Casablanca and took the train from the airport to the Casa Voyageurs train station and checked into my good old friend the Ibis Hotel.  I had to check out of the hotel at noon so I killed time buying my train ticket, sipping coffee in male dominated cafes and reading in the Ibis bar until I caught the 8:00 pm train to the airport for my flight at 11:45 pm.  I arrived in Cairo at 6:30 am and after a couple phone calls was picked up by the late taxi driver from my hostel.  I checked into a room for four people because mine wasn't ready yet and slept till 2:30.  Talk about a skank pit (different than the last).  They don't even provide toilet paper, so I'm off to buy some after my posting.  I would have changed hotels but Roni arrives at 3:00 am and is meeting me there, maybe we'll change tomorrow or just suck it up for one more night before taking the 9 hour bus to Siwa.  More then.  I'll post pics when I get to a faster computer.  Peace out...Jan