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There was only one realistic option open to me to get from Tunis, in Tunisia, to Casablanca, in Morocco; that was to fly. The borders with Algeria were closed to tourists so crossing by land was impossible and the sea option would of taken too long sailing back and forward between Europe. Before the civil war started in Algeria during the early 1990's it was possible to travel by train on the Trans Maghreb Express from Tunis to Casablanca via Algiers; this service has been suspended until further notice. In more peaceful times this would have been my chosen method of transport, but as things stood today I had to board a Tunis Air flight for the two and a half hour flight to Casablanca. Flying over Algeria the countryside looked no different to that of Tunisia and Morocco, you could see the villages and farms, the fields being cultivated. What you could not see was the war and the fear. It's strange how these invisible boundaries can create a no go area.
We landed at Casablanca's Mohammed V International Airport to rapturous applause from the other passengers. I still don't understand this practice, usually while flying on Developing World Airlines, of applauding after touching down on the runway. Did I miss an announcement from the pilot of some potential disaster we managed to avoid? The time was 10.15 so I didn't have to rush into the city to find a hotel for the night. I could take my time and relax. There was a direct rail link to the city about 30km to the northwest, which avoided having to haggle with any taxi drivers. My arrival in Casablanca was definitely one of the more hassle free arrivals I have experienced. The train took 35 minutes to reach the Casa-Port station. After my recent stays at of the youth hostels in Tunisia I thought I'd check out the youth hostel in the medina, especially as the budget hotels listed in my guidebook seemed very unappealing and were situated in the dodgy areas downtown. As soon as I stepped out of the Casa-Port station my backpack became a beacon for every hustler in town to offer their 'services'. I kindly refused and managed to shake most of them off walking along Boulevard des Almohades, the medina walls on one side and the port on the other. The youth hostel was well signposted and was just inside the second gate along this road about half a kilometre from the railway station in Place de l'Amiral Philibert, a compact shady square just inside the gate.
In 1830 Casablanca was no more than a village with a population under 1000 living in the medina. It was at this time that the French occupied neighbouring Algeria and European interest in Morocco increased. During the 1800's French and Spanish colonies were set up along the coast and European merchants began trading in Casablanca. The huge expansion of Casablanca into a major port and economic centre did not occur until 1912 after the declaration of the French protectorate. The country was divided in two with the Spanish sphere of influence to the north and the French to the south. Today Casablanca has a population of 3 million and is Morocco's largest city. The old medina is a tiny enclave surrounded by the port and the new city constructed largely by the French, featuring wide boulevards and 1930's architecture. This history gave the city a very European feel, which was also matched by the population; men wearing smart business suits and women wearing designer dresses. If it were not for the Hassan II mosque towering over the city you would be hard pressed to think that you were in a Muslim country. Every now and then though, you were reminded when an old man in traditional dress would shuffle past you in a crowd.
There's not an awful lot to do or see in the city, except visiting the Hassan II Mosque of course. During the afternoon I wandered through the rabbit warren of streets in the medina, where I was constantly pestered by hustlers trying to sell hashish and on to the new city. I had to send some emails after only finding one Internet café in Tunisia. I wasn't having much luck here either and finally ended up in the business suite at the Meridian hotel, with prices to match. I walked back along the port back past the medina to the Hassan II Mosque that sits on a headland jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean. The mosque is an impressive sight and so are the statistics. It is the second largest religious monument in the world, after Mecca; it can hold 25,000 worshippers inside the mosque, complete with a retractable roof, and another 80,000 in the esplanades surrounding it; it took 6000 craftsmen five years to build and cost about US$800 million; it has the tallest minaret in the world standing at 210m and was completed in 1993. Walking up to the mosque felt more like going to a large sports stadium with signs directing traffic to various underground car parks. The esplanade was very peaceful, away from the traffic, the ocean waves crashing against the rocks and families strolling around. I spent some time sitting on the sea wall watching life go by thinking of what to do tomorrow before returning to the hostel.
By the time I had returned to the hostel in the late afternoon quite a few other travellers had checked in. It seemed that half of us had just arrived in the country and the other half were on their way out. It was a good opportunity to get some on the road travel advice. In my conversations two towns kept cropping up as good places to visit, which were both popular with travellers. One was Essaouira, on the coast north of Agadir and the other was Chefchaounen in the Rif Mountains. The majority of people were only stopping in Casablanca for one night and Marrakesh seemed to be the most popular next destination. I too had decided that I would take the morning train to Marrakesh tomorrow and if there was something I had missed in Casablanca I would have time to see it when I returned to catch my flight back to Tunis after my trip around the country.
The next morning, after a noisy nights sleep in a dormitory room at the hostel, I walked back up the road to the station. To get to Marrakesh I would have to first take a local train to the main station in Casablanca, Casa-Voyageurs and pick up the Marrakesh Express there. I'm sorry but I would be lying if I said I was not humming that Crosby Stills Nash and Young song; it's funny how a train ride can be immortalised in song, now here I was doing that trip. On the platform at the Casa-Voyageurs station I bumped into Frank, from Denmark and a Japanese lad, whose name escapes me now, who were also at the hostel last night. We boarded the train and travelled together to Marrakesh a journey of about four hours. The train wound its way out through the suburbs of Casablanca; slum dwellings lined the side of the track in places. Even though these shacks were only made of corrugated iron some had a satellite dish stuck in a bucket of concrete on the roof. Poverty looked rife in these slums with little sanitation and these satellite dishes just looked so out of place. Once out of the city the train crossed the plains south of Casablanca. The scenery became monotonous after a while, just endless ploughed fields stretching as far as you could see to the rolling hills in the distance. I dozed off to the steady rhythm of the train rattling along the tracks.
The train pulled into the station at Marrakesh in the early afternoon. At first we were not sure whether this was Marrakesh or just a suburb as it looked as though we were a long way from the city centre. In fact the station is just to the west of the Ville Nouvelle and the medina is east of this new city. We decided to walk to the medina where we planned to stay, as outside the station it was a chaotic scene of people scrambling for taxis laden down with their luggage. It was a hot and sunny day, the walk to the medina was longer than we thought and we were soon regretting our decision not to fight for a taxi at the station. Navigation through the city was easy as the Ville Nouvelle was laid out in the traditional French style of wide long tree lined boulevards; at least we were not getting lost. We entered the medina surrounded by the old city walls through the Bab Larissa on Avenue Mohammed V. After walking nearly 4 km from the station we arrived at the Hotel Ali on Rue de Moulay Ismail opposite the Place de Foucald, a small leafy square. The main square of the medina the Place Djemaa el-Fna was just a couple of hundred metres to the north. Alongside the Place de Foucald was a horse and carriage stand, a popular form of transport around the city for mostly tourists, but locals alike. Towards the south of us the minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque towered over the old city. The Hotel Ali was busy and I think we were lucky to get a room for three that night. It must have been one of the most popular hotels in town; everyone was staying there from budget travellers like us to large tour groups. We split the cost of our triple room on the second floor and paid 40 Dirham each. This was excellent value for an en-suite room with our own balcony. The hotel was kept spotlessly clean and would definitely be my recommendation if you found yourself in Marrakesh.
There was a terrace on the roof with panoramic views across the city. The city appeared to be surrounded by mountains on three sides The High Atlas Mountains stretching away to the east, the peaks already capped with snow. To the north you could look down on the Place Djemaa el-Fna, the square famous for its nighttime food stalls and traditional entertainment. The square was relatively quiet compared to the evening, the juice sellers around the edge of the square were doing a brisk business and the snake charmers were doing their best to scare the tourists. Most of the activity was along the north side of the square, where a steady stream of people, both locals and tourists were making their way into and out of the labyrinth of streets in the souqs. The old buildings in the medina and the old city walls were all ochre coloured giving Marrakesh a distinctive look. The city had a distinctive African feel to it, very different to the more cosmopolitan European Casablanca I had left that morning.
The Almoravid sultan Youssef bin Tachfin founded Marrakesh in 1062 AD. It was the Muslim Spanish craftsmen who built the first urbane buildings in an Andalusian style. In 1147 the city was destroyed when captured by the Almohads. The Andalusian craftsmen again rebuilt the city that became the capital of the Almohad Empire until its collapse in 1269. The new rulers, the Merenids moved the capital north to Fes and Marrakesh went into decline. It was not until the 16th century that Marrakesh again became the capital, this time of the Saadian Empire. During the intervening period the Portuguese tried to capture the city in 1515. The Alawites succeeded the Saadians and the capital was again moved north, this time to Meknes. Modern day Marrakesh is largely the result of the building work carried out by the French during the protectorate period, when the Ville Nouvelle was constructed to the west of the medina and the medina itself was restored. Tourism has been the key to modern day Marrakesh's prosperity; the city is now the fourth largest in Morocco with a population of 1.5 million and is on everyone's list of cities to visit while in Morocco. The city is positioned at a crossroads connecting the north with the south and the coastal plains to the deserts past the High Atlas Mountains. It is also an important trading centre for merchants from the plains and from further away in the High Atlas Mountains and the Sahara desert.
I went for a stroll that afternoon into the bustling souqs, dodging the snake charmers and their cobras in the Place Djemaa el-Fna. It could be easy to get lost in the teeming souqs, which were mostly covered blocking out the sun and your only hope of successful navigation. At first every street looked the same, crowds of energetic consumers haggling with persistent shopkeepers. Down these streets men on bicycles or mopeds would weave their way through the crowds travelling no faster than those on foot. Every now and then the flow of traffic would grind to a halt, as a cart laden down with goods would make its slow progress through the souq. At prominent positions along the streets and at junctions the cities less fortunate residents, mostly the old and disabled, would quietly stand begging. After walking for about an hour or so, probably mostly in circles, I began to get my bearings. I identified the main streets running roughly north, south and the smaller side streets leading off these. The side streets could be recognised from the goods they were selling. One street would be full of fabric shops, another pottery and another brassware. I eventually emerged out of the souqs at what I thought would be Place Djemaa el-Fna but found myself in a street somewhere to the west. Taking my bearings from the tall minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque in the distance I walked back to the Hotel Ali to meet up with Frank and the Japanese traveller.
That evening the three of us went to the Place Djemaa el-Fna to eat out at one of the food-stalls. Since my walk around the medina that afternoon the square had been transformed. Bright kerosene lamps hung from the orange juice stalls around the perimeter and row upon row of food-stalls had been set up covering almost half the square. Smoke from all the cooking drifted lazily across the square in the warm evening breeze. The square had really come alive now the sun had set. Entertainers had set up their pitches; these included acrobats, fire-eaters, storytellers and musicians; each attracting a jostling crowd around them fighting to get a view of the action. After one act finished the crowd would quickly migrate to the next entertainer setting up. The snake charmers were still there doing a brisk business scaring more tourists who were arriving by the busload all evening. We walked around the food-stalls to see what was cooking. Some of the stalls didn't look that appetizing with a large pot boiling animal heads, others with a mountain of snails on offer to the more adventurous diner. Others just served soups but the majority had a wide menu serving freshly grilled meats, couscous, salads, bread and chips. The salads and meats were prominently displayed around the stalls lit up by the bright lamps hanging above.
Every stall we passed the owner would shout at us to come over and sit down. One of his workers would run out with a laminated menu that had seen better days, shouting items off the menu and their respective prices. We eventually succumbed and sat down to a meal of grilled meat, sausages, salad and bread. The guys working on this stall were totally mad and watching them trying to attract business from passers by was entertainment in itself. We sat there ordering more dishes until we had eaten our full. When we had finished our meal a beggar would politely tap our shoulder and then look at the scraps left on our plates. He would take these scraps around the back of the stall to finish them off. Other young girls would come past and scrape your leftovers into a carrier bag and walk off. No food was ever wasted and everyone in the city, from those with money to those with nothing, never went hungry. We decided that a cup of fresh mint tea would finish off the evening nicely and headed to the popular Argana café to the north of the square. They had a large tiered terrace on the roof overlooking the square. Eventually we found a seat and the mint tea was delivered. Below us we could watch the tumultuous activity in the square continue through the fog of smoke illuminated by hundreds of kerosene lamps and lights powered by portable generators.
I spent another day in the city, it was the definitely the kind of city where you found yourself just wanting to immerse yourself in the activity and the drama of every day life. Frank left that morning on a tour of the Kasbahs to the east of the mountains arranged at the hotel, as he was only in the country for a week. The next day I planned to go to Essaouira and the Japanese traveller was going to take the train back to Tangiers to catch the ferry to Spain.
I made an early start from the Hotel Ali and walked to the bus station that was just outside the city walls near the Bab Doukkala to catch a bus to Essaouira. The journey should of taken about 3 1/2 hours but I'm sure it was longer as it was a local bus and stopped at every town and village along the way. The scenery was again monotonous, much like the train journey from Casablanca the other day, endless fields and olive groves stretching across the plains. As we neared Essaouira we descended from the plains down to the Atlantic coast.
The bus station is in a dusty lot northeast of the old city. I walked down to the Hotel Smara on Rue de la Skala only to find it fully booked; it's the most popular budget hotel in town overlooking the city walls out to the ocean. I finally settled on the Hotel Beau Rivage just around the corner on Place Prince Moulay Hassan. The hotel was a pleasant enough place to stay and the square outside was relaxed, lined with pavement cafes and shady trees.
Essaouira is a small, rather laid back town in stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of Marrakesh. The old city is surrounded by impressive fortifications built in a mixture of Berber, French and Portuguese styles, waves from the Atlantic swell crashed against them sending a spray over the old town. To the south of the town is a small but busy harbour. The docks were a hive of activity, fish being unloaded, nets repaired and traditional wooden boats built. Fish stalls, grilling the locally caught fish, where set up along the road leading to the harbour. The smell of the fish cooking on the charcoal grills was quite appetizing. The beach stretches away to the south of the town in a large arc. Where the town ends the sand dunes take over. This beach is very popular with surfers and you could see why as the giant waves smashed into the beach. It would have been impossible to swim in conditions like this, so the sea was left to the surfers to ride the waves.
Nothing happened too fast in this town and I was soon caught under its spell spending a couple of hours sitting outside a café drinking a pot of mint tea while watching life go by. Along the narrow back streets artisans worked away in tiny workshops carving thuya wood, an occupation that seemed to sum up this town. In the evening I strolled along the walls as the sun began to set out to sea; the fishing boats making their way back to port, surfing on the swell. How they managed to sail their boats through the swell and into the narrow harbour entrance was beyond me. I watched in fascination at their skill; any inexperienced skipper would of surely dashed their boat against the rocks. By the time the sun had sunk into the sea, the walls were lined with people watching this daily spectacle.
There was a small group of Australians staying at the same hotel as myself. I joined them that evening as they had managed to find a restaurant that served beer. I would have never found it on my own; it was one of the smartest restaurants in town, but would also serve you just beer at prices, that when compared with back home, were quite reasonable. It was the type of restaurant that was out of my budget for this trip.
The Australians had just come down from the High Atlas Mountains where they had been trekking. This would be my next destination as I traversed the mountain range into the Sahara desert to the east. The news was that there had been a flash flood in the valley below Imlil, the village at the end of the road and a natural base for trekking further into the mountains. This flood had washed out the road and apparently left a number of tourists, who had travelled in their own vehicles, stranded in Imlil. The Australians had managed to leave on foot and picked up transport further down the valley below the washout that had now become the terminus for all traffic up into the mountains.
The next day I walked along the beach to find a secluded spot in the sand dunes to spend a quiet day relaxing. Again in the evening we went back to the bar for a few beers and then spent the rest of the night sitting on the hotel roof chatting. It was the following morning that I first noticed that something was not quite right. There was a sharp pain in the front of my head and I was no longer feeling one hundred percent. I had decided the night before that I would today make my way up to the mountains via Marrakesh to do some trekking. I put my sudden feelings of impending illness down to the beer last night, even though I knew I hadn't drunk that much. I packed my backpack and by 09.00 was walking through the medina to the bus station.
After four hours travelling on a hot and dusty bus I was back at the bus station in Marrakesh, still feeling under the weather. I continued my journey up to Imlil in the mountains. I walked through the old city to Bab er-Rob, a gate in the city walls to the south of Place Djemaa el-Fna. Just outside the gate was a large parking lot where the grand taxis and mini-busses departed for the southern destinations. I needed to find a grand taxi to Asni, a town on the highway south to Agadir, from where I could find local transport to take me the approximately 15km to Imlil in the heart of the mountains. It didn't take long to find a taxi to Asni; the parking lot was busy mostly with people returning home from shopping in the markets. I squeezed into the back seat of a taxi and was soon on my way again. At this point I was still unsure whether the road to Imlil had been repaired and was quite prepared to finish my journey on foot.
Asni is a small roadside village. I only stopped long enough to arrange transport up the valley to Imlil. I found the man who operated the 'bus service' up the valley, or rather he found me. He was not going to leave for about half an hour, so I found a café to sit down and relax with a pot of mint tea. Asni is at an altitude of 1165m and already I could appreciate the cooler mountain climate than that of the coastal plains. Health wise I was feeling poorer, the pounding in my head had increased and I was definitely feeling weak and wobbly. The tea though was refreshing after a long day sitting in cramped taxis and uncomfortable busses. Presently an old battered Ford Transit minibus rattled up the dirt road to where I was sitting; transport had arrived. There were two other German travellers in the minibus with the other locals returning home to their villages. We did a short tour around Asni picking up some other passengers before turning left and up the valley. We left Asni behind in a cloud of smoke as the old transit spluttered its way back up the mountains. The tarred road soon disappeared as we wound our way along the banks of the Mizane River. The two Germans sat in the back of the minibus; they had obviously just bought a drum in Marrakesh, which they played and sung along to missing the odd beat as we hit a rut in the track. The imposing peaks of the High Atlas and Mount Toubkal loomed ahead of us, their snow-capped summits disappearing into the cloud.
The journey was slow, but the scenery was breath taking, forests covered the valley sides, the river cascaded over rocks and boulders and small villages clung to the slopes. Further up the valley we could see signs of damage that the flash flood had caused the previous week. Chunks of the track had disappeared into the river, which we had to carefully negotiate. Large earth moving equipment was parked up for the day alongside the river. We eventually reached the washout about a kilometre from Imlil, which had left the town cut off. A new track had been bulldozed across the bed of the river which we carefully traversed scraping the bottom of the minibus in places.
I had finally arrived in Imlil, the end of the road. To travel any further from here you had the choice of either walking or riding a donkey. Stepping out of the minibus the silence was deafening after spending the last 45 minutes listening to the engine of the transit straining to get us up to almost 1700m. The village clings to the banks of the Mizane River and the sides of the valley. During a flood in 1995 the Café Soleil by the village square (and car-park) had been washed away, today it has been rebuilt. There are a number of cheap hotels along the main track through the village, I checked into the Hotel el-Aine. In the early evening dusk I walked back up to the Café Soleil to find something to eat. There was not much left on the menu, omelette, salad and the last portion of chips for the day. I was not too concerned as I had now lost my appetite and only picked at my food when it eventually arrived. There were a handful of other travellers in the village; either just returned from a trek in the mountains or preparing to trek up Mount Toubkal. Unfortunately for them the half way shelter to Mount Toubkal at 3200m was closed for renovation so anyone attempting to get to the summit would have to spend a night camped on the side of the mountain. Heavy snow had now fallen on the summit and guides were advising to take crampons to make the final ascent. The way I now felt I knew I wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. Back at the hotel I could not control my shivering. The mountains were far cooler than the plains but the fever I now had seemed to make things far worse. I retired to my room early hoping to wake up healthier the next morning. I was still trying to kid myself that the symptoms I was suffering from had been exaggerated by the sudden change in climate and altitude.
I spent an uncomfortable night in my room, wrapped up in my sleeping bag with a blanket thrown over. One moment I would wake up sweating in the heat of the fever, the next moment I would wake frozen by the night air which had a way of creeping in through the gaps around the window and door. The paracetamol I had taken before I went to bed was having little affect on the battle now taking place in my body. I was a wreck by the time I found the strength to stir the following morning. It was about 11.00 when I woke from my night of fevered dreams and hallucinations. At least Imlil was a peaceful place to be ill in. The air was unpolluted and the village was quiet except for the odd vehicle making its way back down the mountain or a temperamental donkey making a fuss about carrying another load. Three days past before I felt I had enough energy to make it out of the mountains and back to Marrakesh to find a doctor. During this time the weather had closed in and on my first day laid up at the Hotel el-Aine a storm broke out, the thunder rumbled around the mountain peaks and the rain fell in torrential downpours for most of the day. The following day the cloud lifted for a while revealing the heavily snow-covered slopes high above the village. During this time I hardly ate anything, I did not have the stamina or the appetite to walk the short distance to a café.
On the morning of day four I drugged myself up with paracetamol and walked up to the village square to wait for a van to go back down the valley to Asni. Psychologically I felt better as I was doing something positive in getting back to civilisation, but physically I was no better, although the splitting headaches had now eased. The German couple, that were in the minibus on the way up from Asni, appeared in the square. They had just got back from a three-day trek in the mountains and were now also heading back to Marrakesh. We all crammed into the dilapidated transit for the slow journey back down the river valley. I counted 40 people in or on the transit. Is this a record? The German couple (who had now stopped drumming and singing) and myself shared a taxi from Asni back to Marrakesh with some other locals, so we did not have to wait long for the taxi to fill up before we left.
It was a relief to be back in the warmth of Marrakesh. During my time resting up in the mountains I was wearing a t-shirt, fleece and waterproof jacket and still felt the cold. Now I was back to wearing a t-shirt again without freezing. Accommodation in the city was a nightmare; the Hotel Ali was full and so were the next three hotels I tried. All I wanted was to lie down and rest and finally found myself booking into a cheap hotel, I think it was the Hotel Africa or Sahara or something like that, at the end of an alleyway in the old city. I was too tired that afternoon to do anything except rest. I managed to get out in the evening to a small café for my first meal in a long time. I regretted my choice of hotel by the following morning and went off in search of something more comfortable to be ill in. The weather had turned for the worst and it was raining steadily from a heavy overcast sky. After spending an hour room hunting I found a single room in a fairly modest establishment for a reasonable price. That was my first job of the day completed; the next was to find an English-speaking doctor to find a cure to this mystery fever I was still suffering from. The receptionist at the hotel gave me directions to find Dr Arrad who had a surgery just around the corner.
I arrived at the surgery to find Dr Arrad out to lunch. While waiting for him to return a nurse got busy taking my temperature and making an initial diagnosis. Dr Arrad arrived up the stairs while I sat huddled in the waiting room shivering again. He told me I was suffering from a high fever and gave me a prescription for some antibiotics and painkillers, which I could pick up from the pharmacy along the street. I thanked him and asked how much I owed, but he refused to take any money and wished me a speedy recovery instead. I walked slowly to the pharmacy to pick up my drugs and then returned to my hotel room for the rest of the day.
The next few days began to follow the same routine. The antibiotics began to work fairly quickly, but I was still feeling very weak. It took another four days for me to recover enough to once again start travelling. These days followed a similar routine, mostly arranged around eating. In the morning I would wander down to Place Djemaa el-Fna for a glass (or two) of freshly squeezed orange juice, always from the same stall where the owner recognized me every time with a big smile and hearty handshake. At lunchtime I would go to a café, next door to the pharmacy, for a kebab and in the evening a meal, usually at the buffet at the Hotel Ali. In between I would either listen to the World Service on my short-wave radio or read a book. One morning I bought an old copy of the Independent and read every article in the paper from front to back page. Sometimes I would spend these hours reading in my room at the hotel, but as I was getting better and the weather was once again improving I would wander off to one of the many parks and gardens in and around the city walls and spend the afternoon lying on a bench under a shady palm tree.
After seven days holed up in a hotel room I finally felt fit enough to resume my travels. It seemed like an age since I was on the road. I booked myself on to a bus the next day to Ouarzazate on the other side of the High Atlas Mountains and recommenced my journey to the desert. The trip through the High Atlas had been one of my travel dreams for many years now. I'd always wanted to see how the geography of the country changed as you travelled from the coast across the fertile coastal plains, through the mountains and onwards into the desert. It had always fascinated me how the landscape could change so dramatically in such a relatively short distance.
Now here I was, recovered from a rather nasty fever, hitting the road again feeling as though I was starting a whole new adventure, speeding towards the mountain peaks in the back of a bus. It was a beautiful sunny day, the sky was clear and you could see for miles. The driver was not hanging around and we were soon winding our way through the foothills and into the mountains. The lower valleys were green, trees clinging to the slopes and the rivers in full flow after the recent rain. Along the road evidence of the heavy rainfall during the last week was clearly visible, with washouts covering the road and bulldozers still working to clear the mud and gravel away. The bus stopped about halfway along the road through the mountains for a lunch break. Stepping out of the bus it was pleasantly cool and the air was fresh. I sat in the garden of a small café and enjoyed a pot of mint tea while a local man tried to sell me some crystals he had found while trekking. I wasn't in the market for crystals today, much to the disappointment of the local man, so I offered him and a couple off his friends a pot of tea. We sat under a tree, a vista of mountain peaks surrounding us, trying to make conversation while sipping our tea. The peace was finally broken by a blast of the buses horn. The other passengers began to wander back to the bus and I quickly finished my tea and climbed back on board.
We now travelled through the heart of the mountain range. The mountain slopes were barren and rocky, the peaks covered in snow. The road became very narrow, steep and twisty. This, though, did not manage to impede the progress of our ex-racing car driver. He managed to fling the bus around the hairpin bends. Our one moment of almost disaster occurred when we came around a hairpin bend, on the wrong side of the road and met a bus coming the other way. Both buses managed to stop in time, which was lucky as there was no verge to escape on to, only cliffs. Once through the mountain range it was downhill all the way to Ouarzazate, with speeds to match.
The bus pulled into a dusty yard off the main road through town, just past the centre of town. I had arrived in one piece at my destination. I walked back up the road to the Hotel Royal, one of the cheapest hotels in town. Despite that, for a cheap hotel, it was very nice. I had a single room at the back of the building for about half the price I was paying for single rooms in Marrakesh. I sat on the roof as the sun began to dip towards the mountains, now to my west. There was not much activity along the main street of the town; in fact it was rather quiet.
Ouarzazate does not have a long and colourful history. The French created the town in 1928 as a garrison and administrative centre. Before then the only thing here was the Glaoui Kasbah of Taourirt at the eastern end of the modern town. Today, with a population of 30,000 it is a tourist boomtown and is marketed as a base to explore the kasbahs, desert and gorges of the surrounding area. There are plenty of tourist class hotels and regular flights to and from Paris from the local airport. Once the sun had sunk behind the mountains I went downstairs to the reception. The owner and his son were very friendly. They were watching football on the television with some other locals, so I sat down and joined them. The national team were playing. I can't now remember who they were playing and in what competition. All I do remember was that they lost, much to the disappointment of everyone at the hotel.
After the last ball had been kicked and interest in the TV began to wane, a group of travellers arrived at the hotel reception. There were six of them, four North Americans and two Japanese. The first thing to strike me as odd was the Japanese girl who had a camcorder. As they checked in she busied herself videoing everything from every possible angle. As the group lugged their backpacks up the stairs she stood in the reception filming them as they went before retreating upstairs as well. Once they had disappeared out of sight the football crowd and I looked at each other; what was that all about? I've heard of the Japanese being keen on their cameras and videos, but this girl was taking this interest to a whole new level. About half an hour or so later the group came back downstairs to the reception to complete the hotel register. I joined them that evening for dinner, partly because I had been in seclusion over the last week with my fever and partly I was intrigued as to what was going on here.
Over dinner at a local restaurant just down the road from the hotel I was introduced to everyone. The four North Americans were Canadians; Trevor, Jana, Angela and Scott and the Japanese couple, Emi and Yoshi. Emi and Yoshi were making a TV programme for a Japanese cable company; it was beginning to make sense. They were making an educational/travel programme teaching English. The gist of the programme was to go travelling and meet English-speaking people. They had met up with the Canadians in Tangiers yesterday evening after crossing from Spain on the ferry. They had travelled on the overnight train to Marrakesh from where Yoshi had hired a 4WD and today driven across the mountains much in the style of my bus driver. Apparently talking into a video camera while trying to steer around the hairpin bends had left the other passengers nerves slightly frayed. Yoshi was the front man of the show, Emi the producer. It was a rather surreal dinner being interviewed while eating tajine and drinking mint tea, definitely not your ordinary evening out with a group of travellers.
That night the town was quiet, much like many other small Moroccan towns. You could wander up the main road without much danger from passing traffic. Back at the hotel the Canadians and I sat down to discuss our plans, which seemed to get more complicated the more we discussed them. I was fairly flexible, I just wanted to explore this side of the mountains and get out to the Sahara desert.
The following day Yoshi and Emi were going to Ait Benhaddou, one of the most famous kasbahs in the whole Atlas region; we were welcome to join them. From there they were going back to Marrakesh and the Canadians and myself had decided to head out to the desert. We planned to get to Merzouga, as it seemed the most remote of the accessible desert towns.
The next morning we left our luggage at the hotel and jumped into the 4WD for the 32km trip to Ait Benhaddou. We turned off the main road and drove down an increasingly narrow road through a parched dry landscape. The signposting was not that good and we soon found we were driving down a rough track across broken bridges through small villages hidden in the hills. Eventually, as the road became rougher and rougher, we stopped and turned back the way we had come. The Kasbah was a popular sight to visit and it was unlikely that it would be down a road like this. We retraced out steps back across the broken bridge and took a turning to the right. Ten minutes later we found our destination. The Kasbah was an oasis in the surrounding hard rocky desert. Palm trees grew along the course of the Ounila wadi, which was still in flood from the recent rains in the mountains. The buildings in the village were made of mud bricks and were all a uniform ochre colour. The Kasbah was perched on a hill overlooking the village and wadi. We walked down to the wadi where a group of enterprising villagers operated a crossing service with their mules and camels. For the payment of a few dirhams we hopped on the back of a beast and were led to the other side.
Finding the entrance to the Kasbah was our next challenge. There's never a kid offering his services as a guide when you really need one. On our search around the walls we met some other tourists on a similar quest. Eventually we found the main gate, the souvenir stalls gave the game away. We walked in and worked our way up to the top of the Kasbah. The whole place was peaceful and unexpectedly hassle-free. I was expecting it to be a bit of a tourist trap and was pleasantly surprised as we wandered about. The views from the top were spectacular. Below us you could look down on the traditional mud buildings, the Ounila wadi a silver streak reflecting the bright sunlight as it crossed the rocky desert. On the banks of the wadi grew palm trees and the village was surrounded by small green fields. In one vista you had the two extremes of the desert and the river and the clash of the traditional and the new as power lines marched over the hill feeding the mud brick houses with electricity.
The Kasbah and the village are very well preserved considering the nature of their construction. This conservation has been partly due to the many films that had been shot here, including Lawrence of Arabia, Jesus of Nazareth and about eighteen others. On our way back across the wadi Yoshi was recognised by another couple of Japanese tourists who had seen his television show. It seemed that he had a cult following back home. We returned to the 4WD and Yoshi dropped us off back on the main road. We said our farewells for the camera and then said good-bye and Yoshi, Emi and the video camera disappeared back down the road to Marrakesh.
We were left standing by the side of the road in this town, which only owed its existence to the junction to Ait Benhaddou, the dust still hanging in the air from Yoshi and Emi's departure. Wherever there is civilisation there is a taxi and soon a driver approached us, appearing out of nowhere. He must have thought it was his birthday, five passengers turning up out of nowhere in this small insignificant town. Soon we were back at the Hotel Royal in Ouarzazate to collect our backpacks.
Time was drifting by and it was now the middle of the afternoon. It was unlikely that we would get anywhere near Merzouga today. Travelling in a group of five had one main advantage; we never had to wait long for a grand taxi to depart. When we walked into the taxi station at the western end of town we found a taxi and didn't have to wait long for one more passenger, before we were on our way again.
The road followed the Oued Dades, which formed a shallow valley between the High Atlas Mountains towering over us to the west and the lower Jebel Sarhro, a range of rocky volcanic hills to the east. We drove at speed through Skoura and Boumaine du Dades, past the Dades gorge. The tarred road was becoming ever narrower until it was only wide enough for one and a half vehicles. The journey became a game of chicken, careering towards the on coming traffic and only at the last minute pulling over on to the rough verge of the road, kicking up stones and a cloud of dust in our wake. By dusk we arrived in Tinerhir, which today would be journeys end. Tinerhir is a small town, two main streets with the bus station at one end and the taxi station at the other and a park between the two streets fenced off from the public by a wall and white railings. As we stepped out of the taxi and realised that we would be going no further this evening we went in search for a suitable hotel for the night. After walking down to the bus station and down a couple of side streets we decided on staying at the Hotel L'Oasis on the main street, Avenue Mohammed V. It was now dark and the place looked pleasant enough from the road with a restaurant downstairs and a patio. The price was reasonable enough too, and we were led through a door at the back of the hotel to what I can only describe as a prison block.
We consoled ourselves by saying we were only staying for a night and tomorrow morning we would be back on the road. One night here would not break us. The rooms, or should I say cells, stretched down a concrete corridor. Each room was uniform with just one small window, which looked back out on to the corridor rather than the outside world.
It was a great hotel to leave early in the morning. Negotiating for a taxi to take us to Rissani, the town at the end of the road on the edge of the Sahara Desert, was more problematic than we at first imagined. Little did we know then that this would be the easiest part of the journey. It seemed to be a problem for the taxi drivers to go to Rissani. They claimed if they went there they would have to come back with an empty taxi, as they would not be able to find any passengers in Rissani. Whether this was because no one from Rissani ever came to Tinerhir or because of some complicated licensing system for the taxis that prevented a taxi from Tinerhir picking up passengers in Rissani, I could not work out. We stood at the taxi station huddled in a group; the drivers leaned against a car running their little cartel. I would go and approach the drivers to negotiate a fare for the five of us and then walk back to our little group to report on their offer. This continued for some time walking back and forth between the two groups trying to hammer out a deal which would suit all of us. Unfortunately this was a small town and there was solidarity amongst the drivers. They knew that we had no option but to pay what they asked for if we wanted to get to Rissani quickly. I was in the opinion that we were in a strong negotiating position as there were five of us. Eventually I had to resign to the fact that faced with these drivers, no one would ever be in a strong position.
In the end we settled for a fare almost twice what we expected to pay; the logic behind this was that we had to pay for the empty taxi to return to Tinerhir. Okay, I admit it, we were ripped off; it happens.
About two hours later we arrived in Rissani, quickly renamed by us as Hell, the town at the end of the road. It was market day and the town was a chaotic mass of people. Before the taxi even reached a stop the hustlers were chasing us down the road shouting the infamous words, 'you want taxi Berber?' We stopped in a small parking lot along the main street. You could hardly move for the other taxis trying to depart and people milling around. I thought to myself; so the driver won't find anyone here going to Tinerhir. The realisation of the Tinerhir drivers hustle sunk home. We stepped out of the taxi to more shouts of, 'you want taxi Berber?' and before we knew what had happened we found ourselves sitting in a carpet shop waiting for this infamous taxi Berber. Half an hour later there was no sign of any taxi and we had managed to shrug off the hard sell on carpets; it's really quite easy when you have absolutely no intention of making a purchase. As the drinks arrived I'm afraid we declined and left. I wouldn't have trusted this man as far as I could throw him; the last thing we wanted to do was accept hospitality from a man we didn't trust and obviously had many other intentions than the simple task of arranging a taxi.
As we walked down the main street through the crowds we could hear his shouts in the distance, which we ignored. We had decided we would take control of this situation and arrange our own transport across the desert to Merzouga. How difficult could it be to arrange a taxi?
The answer was, very difficult. We talked to other drivers but no one seemed to want to leave for a couple of hours or so. We finally arranged to charter a taxi just for ourselves to go to Merzouga. We thought that we had finally solved our transport problems and loaded our luggage into the back of the van and climbed aboard. We drove slowly out of the square, winding our way through the crowds and made our way at a snails pace along the road. After five minutes it became apparent that we were taking a circular route through the town and ten minutes later we arrived back in the square, which we had just departed from. The driver turned off the engine, jumped out and walked away disappearing into the crowd without a word of explanation.
That was enough; we unloaded our luggage and sat down in the square almost resigning to our failure to escape out of this hellhole of a town. Another hustler, whom we had already tried negotiating with, found us sitting there looking rather forlorn. He told us that his taxi would be leaving in about half an hour and pointed to his transit van parked on the opposite side of the square. We agreed on a fare and sat and waited. We no longer had the energy or patience to deal with any more taxi touts. At nearly three o clock that afternoon we saw about half a dozen other passengers appear by the van with the driver and load up their luggage. We hiked across the square and once again loaded our bags into the back of the van. After being stuck in this town for almost three hours, we were finally on our way once again. We wound our way out of the square and back down the same road we had travelled on our earlier doomed expedition. This time we kept following the road and soon found ourselves travelling along a bumpy dirt road. We past low mud brick buildings at the edge of town surrounded by a few palm trees and fields enclosed by mud brick walls which had been badly eroded over time. The whole town had the feel of decay and neglect. Soon the dirt road ended and we continued travelling across a large flat, rocky desert plateau leaving a billowing cloud of dust behind us. The dust was choking and found its way through every crack, gap and hole in the van. In the far distance we could see the orange sand dunes of the Sahara spilling down onto this rugged plateau.
The trip of about 30km took the best part of an hour. I was quietly impressed with the driver's navigation skills at finding Merzouga out in this featureless desert. There were no landmarks or signposts out here, just a network of tyre tracks criss-crossing the desert in all directions.
Merzouga is a small place, just a collection of one-storey mud brick houses, all in uniform colour. To the west the desert plateau stretched in to the distance back towards Rissani and on the doorstep to the east the Sahara dunes; they were not dunes, they were hills. I have never seen sand dunes this size before, the highest ones must have been between 150 and 200m high. The town was quiet, no traffic, no crowds and no noise. Some children played in small groups along the road. The only vehicle moving was the van, which had just dropped us off, as it made its way out of town. Our backpacks were now covered in a fine layer of dust as we went in search of a guesthouse.
Our plan for the rest of the day was to find a guide and a camel each and trek out into the desert and spend the night sleeping out under the stars. A friendly hotel owner approached us and took us back to his hotel. After our experience of hustlers, touts and conmen in Rissani, we knew immediately that we could trust this man. Back at his hotel, which was arranged around a central courtyard, we sat down and discussed our camel requirements over a glass of mint tea. The itinerary and price were agreed over a further cup of mint tea and half an hour later we could hear our camels complaining in the yard to the front as they were saddled up. We left most of our luggage at the hotel and just loaded up what we needed for the night onto our camels.
In the late afternoon sunshine we mounted our camels and slowly plodded through the town led by our guide. Children standing in doorways waved as our camel-caravan past by. At the northern end of town we took a right turn and climbed up into the dunes leaving the last remnants of civilisation behind us. The hassles of the day at Tinerhir and Rissani became distant memories as we unwound to the rhythm of the desert. It was deeply relaxing meandering our way around and over the dunes. From the top of a dune, as far as you could see, dunes undulated off into the distance. Somewhere out here in this wilderness was the border with Algeria. As the sun edged lower and lower in the sky our shadows stretched out before us silhouetting us against the sand that almost glowed orange in the last golden rays of the setting sun.
It was dark by the time we arrived at a small oasis, which would be our home for the night. During the last half hour of our trek, after the sun had set, the sky turned a dark inky blue. One by one stars began to appear above us and along the horizon to the east. When we dismounted from our beasts you knew that you had been riding a camel for the last two hours. We walked, bandy legged, exploring the oasis by the light of the moon. It was small, with only about four palm trees and some rough ground covered in tussocks of dried grass, set at the base of a giant dune rising above us to the west.
Our guide unsaddled the camels and led them off into the desert for the night while we unrolled a blanket and made ourselves at home. That night our guide cooked us dinner and made us plenty of glasses of sweet mint tea and when his cousin joined us, sang traditional songs with a couple of drums for accompaniment. I lay on my back staring up at the sky watching the constellations slowly rotate, shooting stars leaving their trail across the black sky and satellites as they proceeded in their orbit around the planet. The night sky was a dazzling display of lights; the heavens were alive. It's not often these days that I get the opportunity to view the night sky unpolluted by the glow of man made light. Eventually we fell asleep on the desert floor to the sound of perfect silence.
I woke at about five thirty, the chill of the night air had nudged my consciousness. I stared out of my sleeping bag to the east where the horizon was beginning to get light and start to glow pink. Everyone else was still asleep scattered on the blankets around me. I went and climbed about half way up the giant sand dune and sat there overlooking our camp, watching the sunrise on the horizon far to the east. The desert was so peaceful and quiet; I could not even hear an insect buzzing. After all the noise and bustle of the towns and cities I had passed through, especially Rissani yesterday, this was the perfect tonic to unwind to. Our guide was the next one to wake up and he walked off into the desert to find our camels. As the first rays of sun lit up the surrounding dunes our five camels reappeared, led by our guide back to the oasis.
After a breakfast of bread and date jam, washed down with more mint tea, we loaded up our camels for the trek back to civilisation. Sitting back on a camel again suddenly stirred all the pains from yesterday evening, which had eased overnight. Arriving back in the dusty town of Merzouga I felt spiritually refreshed after my night in the desert and ready to face the day-to-day hassles of travelling. The first of these hassles would be our return to Rissani.
The five of us had decided to continue to travel together and today we were going to head for the Todra Gorge just outside Tinerhir. At mid-day a van came through Merzouga and we caught a lift back to Rissani. Rissani was no longer gripped by chaos; it was not market day. We had no problem finding a taxi to take us back to Tinerhir and managed to pass through this town within a quarter of an hour.
Back in Tinerhir the cartel of taxi drivers were still leaning up against a car fleecing more unsuspecting passengers. We stopped at a restaurant by the side of the taxi station for a very late lunch, before taking a taxi the 15km up the valley to the gorge. The valley floor was covered in palmeraies irrigated by the crystal clear river that flows through the gorge and onwards down the valley. Many small Berber villages were dotted amongst the palms, and ruined kasbahs clung to the rocky valley sides.
The road ended at the mouth of the gorge, the result of a fault line dividing the High Atlas Mountains from the Jebel Sarhro. The gorge was fairly narrow, maybe only about 20 m wide and the sides of the gorge rose vertically almost 300m above us. At the mouth of the gorge and just inside were a few hotels. We hiked up the gorge, crossing the river on a rather wobbly plank, to the furthest hotel and began to compare room prices amongst the handful of hotels. We settled on the cheapest back down at the end of the road. Once we had checked in the generator failed, plunging us into darkness. I went down to the reception to collect a handful of candles, while the proprietor lit kerosene lamps in the restaurant.
Again we found ourselves in a peaceful location. Our room at the hotel had a view looking up the gorge, the river flowing past us below, the sound of the water cascading over the rocks and boulders, echoing against the walls of the gorge. It was very dark, especially as the generator still had not been fixed. We walked over the road to another hotel and ate dinner at their restaurant before returning to our room to retire early, ready for an early start the following morning to hike through the gorge.
At 09.00 we began our hike up the gorge. Once through the narrowest part of the gorge, at the mouth, the river disappeared underground and the ground opened up allowing some small fields to be cultivated. We hiked all morning, following the gorge as it twisted and turned further into the mountains. The geology of the area was fascinating. All around us we could clearly see the strata of the rocks tilted at a forty-five degree angle, pointing upwards to the sky. The further up the gorge we ventured, the more barren it became. We reached a point where the gorge almost doubled back on its self in a giant u-turn. On the far side we had an easy climb up the forty-five degree slope to reach the top of the cliffs looking back down on the gorge. We rested here for almost an hour while Trevor went off to climb a nearby peak, all for a bet over a beer. We had decided that tomorrow, Friday, we would go back to Marrakesh and go out for a few beers in the evening. I knew one of the handful of hotels in town that served beer and the thought of a few cold beers was just too tempting; after all I had not had a beer since I was in Essaouira and the desert atmosphere was one thing that always brings on a thirst for a beer.
On our way back we were getting increasingly thirsty, our water supply was running dry. There was a Berber tent along the way where we stopped for a much-needed drink and stocked up with some more water. By 17.00 we finally arrived back at the hotel, exhausted. In order to make an early start to Marrakesh tomorrow we returned again, back to Tinerhir.
The taxi drivers at Tinerhir waved and said hello when they saw us back in town again. They were beginning to feel like old friends, our paths had crossed so many times now. We didn't stay at the Hotel L'Oasis; once was enough. I must mention that conditions at the Oasis have probably improved by now as they were in the middle of building a new hotel above the restaurant. Instead we checked into the Hotel Salam, on the opposite side of the park. The owner was very friendly and I managed to negotiate a large room on the roof at 25 dirhams each. We ate at the hotel and had the best tajine I found anywhere in Morocco. That evening I decided I liked Tinerhir. There's nothing special about the town, most people just pass through here on their way to the Todra gorge. It's the people that make this ordinary town an interesting place to stop; even our new friends, the taxi drivers. It was a small enough place where you could recognize people walking down the street and know which shop, hotel or restaurant they worked at or hung out at.
We booked ourselves on to the Friday morning CTM bus to Marrakesh. This bus would go direct to Marrakesh via Ouarzazate. Eventually the bus arrived and was mostly empty. We climbed aboard and began our day long bone rattling ride back through the mountains. Again we had another racing driver at the wheel of the bus. The suspension of the bus was very hard and we literally flew over every bump in the road. I had to hang on to the seat in front of me to stop myself flying around the bus. I began to brace myself every time we hit a bumpy stretch of road; this was not doing my coccyx bone much good.
Halfway through the mountains we again stopped at the same village for a late lunch break where I had stopped just over a week ago while on my way to Ouarzazate. I went back to the same café with the others and sat down in the garden and ordered a tajine. Across the road the guy who had tried to sell me some crystals before spotted me, walked across the street and greeted me like an old friend. He still had the same crystal and was now offering me a very special price. Unfortunately for him I was still not in the market for crystals or fossils. If he was selling something I wanted I would of bought it from him; he was a very amiable salesman. The bus was soon on its way again, the crystal seller waved as we drove past down the road.
Back in Marrakesh we had the same problem of finding accommodation for the night. The city was busy, again; I think Marrakesh is permanently busy with tourists and travellers. We started at the Hotel Ali, which we found to be full. We left our luggage there and Trevor and I went off around the old city to scout around for a clean, budget hotel. We found room at the Hotel de la Paix, which was just opposite the hotel I was staying at while I was recovering from my fever. We walked back to the Ali to pick up the other three and our luggage and returned to check in for the night. That evening we went along to a hotel at the bottom of Rue de Bab Agnaou to enjoy some cold beer, which we deserved after our desert adventures.
On Sunday our group split up. I was the first to leave and got up early in the morning to catch a train north to Meknes. Scott was taking the night train to Tangiers that evening and Trevor, Jana and Angela continued travelling together, heading north a few days later.
After travelling in a group for over a week it felt strange to once again be back on the road on my own. The train departed Marrakesh at about 09.15 and I began my journey to the north of the country travelling via Casablanca and Rabat before finally arriving in Meknes in the late afternoon. The train twisted and wound its way between the low undulating hills as it approached Meknes. I alighted at the El-Amir Abdelkader station in the new city and walked to the youth hostel, a couple of kilometres to the north west of the new city centre in the suburbs.
Meknes is built on the low hills. The new city sits atop of one hill and the old city sits on another hill to the west. The Oued Bou Fekrane flows through a valley that divides the city into two halves. The city was founded in the 10th century by the Berber tribe of the Meknassis and hence gave their name to the city. The city is surrounded by some of the best agricultural land in the country; the hills are covered in olive and citrus groves; the fields ploughed ready for cereal crops.
The youth hostel was almost empty. It was closed when I arrived, so I sat down outside to wait. When it finally opened in the evening I checked into a dormitory room. There was only one other guest staying in the dormitory; he looked to be a long term resident and had set up home around his bed. My main reason to stop at Meknes was to see the Roman ruins of Volubilis, about 33 km north of the city. I went for a walk into the old city that evening and stopped at a restaurant for a meal. While I was walking I finally felt overwhelmed being in another city. I had had enough of the crowds, the traffic, the pollution, the hustlers; I wanted to be out in the relative peace of the countryside. I returned to the hostel and planned to make a trip to Volubilis tomorrow morning.
The next morning life took a turn for the worse. I awoke to the sound of my stomach doing an impression of a washing machine. I was not best pleased, especially now that I had only a few days left in the country and no longer had time to sit out more illness. After a couple of trips to the toilet block I decided to pop some Imodium tablets to try and settle down this new bout of diarrhoea. At 11.00 I felt confident enough to make my trip to Volubilis and walked down to the old city and to the taxi station on the other side. I took a shared taxi to Moulay Idriss, on the way we had to make an emergency stop for one of the other passengers who vomited violently by the side of the road. I was glad I wasn't feeling quite that sick and that my stomach had calmed down since taking the Imodium tablets.
The ruins were about five kilometres further along the road from Moulay Idriss. I hitchhiked from here to the turning to the ruins and walked the last half kilometre or so, rejoicing at being out of the city and walking through the peace of the countryside.
Volubilis is one of the most impressive ruined cities in Morocco. This city was one of the most remote outposts of the Roman Empire, founded around 40 AD. The city sits on a large treeless plain. It is thought that it was the Romans who deforested this area in order to cultivate crops of wheat and olives. Even after the Romans left, the city remained inhabited until the 18th century, after which the marble from the city was robbed for the building of Moulay Ismail's palaces in Meknes.
Walking around the ruins there was evidence of the olive industry everywhere. In the remains of many buildings, lying in the jumble of masonry were olive presses. The channels craved into the stone presses and the collection vats were clearly visible. Some impressive buildings were still standing. These included the Triumphal Arch built in 217 AD in honour of Emperor Caracalla and to the south the Capitol and Basilica, which served as the law courts. The best monuments at this site are the buildings along the Decumanus Maximus, a road that stretches northeast up the slope from the Triumphal Arch to the Tangier Gate. Many of the houses here have fine mosaics still in situ, the most impressive being in the House of Venus. There are two mosaics here, the Abduction of Hylas by the Nymphs and Diana Bathing, which are the finest on this site and probably in Morocco.
The combination of my overnight bought of diarrhoea, the warm sunshine and a couple of hours walking around the site left me feeling exhausted. I found a quiet spot amongst the ruins and lay down and snoozed for an hour or so; I only woke when a tour group walked past the house I was sleeping in, breaking the peace and quiet. Once my head cleared and I remembered where I was, I decided it was time to make my way back to Meknes.
The last town I would visit on this trip before returning to Casablanca was Chefchaouen to the north in the Rif Mountains. The town was founded in 1471 by Moulay Ali ben Rachid, but it was the arrival of Muslim refugees from Spain that gave the town its distinctive appearance. They built whitewashed houses with doors and window frames painted in a light blue and roofs made of small hand tiles. The town feels more like a small mountain town in Spain rather than one in Morocco. The town sits on a side of a hill at the base of Jebel al-Qala'a, 1616m, and is surrounded by other peaks of the Rif Mountains.
After a good nights sleep at the hostel in Meknes, I caught a bus north to Chefchaouen. As the journey progressed I began to feel tired and by the time we were twisting our way through the valleys in the Rif Mountains a feeling of impending illness, again overcame me.
The bus station in Chefchaouen is at the edge of town at the bottom of a very steep hill. I hiked up this hill towards the medina and the Pension Mauritania, a hotel popular with travellers. In hindsight I think it was this steep climb that almost killed me. I arrived at the hotel and collapsed onto a couch in the lounge. Events beyond my control overtook me. I began to shiver uncontrollably, while breaking out into a sweat at the same time. All I could do was lie down and close my eyes, I no longer had the energy to move. The fever I was suffering from a couple of weeks ago in the High Atlas Mountains had returned, with a vengeance. What shocked me was the speed that these events had overtaken me. Five hours earlier I had walked to the bus station in Meknes feeling fine, now I could hardly stand up.
At last the owner had prepared a room for me and I struggled up two flights of stairs and crawled onto the bed and shut my eyes. I awoke in the early evening to the symptoms of an altogether more worrying problem. The diarrhoea had also returned, but this time it felt far more serious. One good bit of luck was that I still had a supply of antibiotics, which Dr Arrad had prescribed me. I took some and spent an uncomfortable night trying to sleep in between visits to the toilet, which were unfortunately on the floor below me.
By Wednesday morning I woke with the symptoms of the fever easing, the antibiotics were doing their job well. The diarrhoea had gained its own momentum, almost to the extent where life would have been easier to just permanently sit on the toilet. My next problem began to dawn on me. My flight out of Casablanca was on Friday morning. When I arrived at the bus station here I booked a ticket to Casablanca for Thursday morning, a journey of seven hours, but a journey I would have to make in order to catch my flight on Friday morning. I now had about thirty hours before I would be confined to a bus for seven hours. One way or another I had to get myself fit. I began to pop the Imodium tablets during the day, which was again spent lying in bed dreaming of better times. By the evening there was no improvement in my condition and I had also begun to hallucinate about food. It had been over 48 hours since my last meal in Meknes, which had been nothing to write home about.
As Wednesday evening turned into Wednesday night panic set in as I was still making my half hourly visits to the toilets. The bus was due to leave on Thursday morning at 07.00 and I would have to leave the hotel by 06.30 at the latest in order to walk down to the bus station. That night I woke at 05.00 for another visit to the toilet. When I got back to my room I popped yet more Imodium tablets in a last bid attempt to stop this flow and dozed again until my alarm clock began beeping at me at 06.00.
I slowly packed my luggage rather resigned to the fact that I would not be going anywhere today. After a quarter of an hour moving around my room, usually enough activity to induce a visit to the toilet, I still felt okay. When I say I felt okay I just mean that I didn't have the overwhelming urge to go to the toilet. I still felt like a wreck, extremely weak after not eating anything more than a couple of bananas and a few biscuits in the last 60 hours. At 06.30 I left the hotel and methodically walked through the quiet, dark streets to the bus station. I arrived still feeling relatively okay and now with the sudden realisation that I could make this seven hour bus journey.
Leaving Chefchaouen I felt upset that I hadn't seen anything more than the four walls of a hotel room. This was a town I was looking forward to exploring together with the surrounding mountains, but as sometimes happens while travelling on the road, other events beyond my control overtook my plans.
I had a seat at the front of the bus and didn't move until we had arrived back in Casablanca seven hours later. It was a short walk back to the medina and the youth hostel; I arrived exhausted and physically drained after the bus journey. It seemed like a long time ago that I had left this hostel and boarded a train to Marrakesh. I spent the rest of the day relaxing; I didn't have the energy to have a look at any other sites around the city. I was preparing myself for the next leg of my journey home, my flight back to Tunis tomorrow where I would spend the weekend before catching a flight back to London via Paris.
On Thursday evening I went to a local pharmacy to pick up some more drugs. The diarrhoea had stopped but my stomach was still churning away uncontrollably, especially after I ate. I tried to find a doctor in the medina but failed. The manager at the hostel was of no help and just pointed down the street. There were plenty of dentists but as far as I could see, no doctors. I had no energy to continue my fruitless search and returned to the hostel for the evening to get some rest before my flight tomorrow.
After my weekend in Tunis, staying in a fairly comfortable mid-range hotel, I caught an early morning flight back to Paris and on to London and back to winter. Once home, I had a couple of appointments to see my local doctor, as I still had not recovered fully from the bout of diarrhoea. The diagnosis was that I had suffered from dysentery. It took five weeks before my digestive system returned to normal. Over the next couple of months I heard from Trevor and Jana after they had returned to Canada. In Meknes Jana became very ill, suffering from dysentery too. I also heard of another traveller who was in Meknes at the end of 1999 and also suffered a similar fate. It appears that there was a problem with the water supply in the town.
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