Monkey Made of Drugs

Sitting in the Marrakesh airport, I decided to kick out a post here.

There were four of us: me, David, Gabi, and one of Gabi's acquaintances, Peter. It never ceases to surprise me how many people he knows. Peter was a giant man, pushing 6'5" from Holland. He made all his wealth in the states, but now rents his house and just travels.

After we landed, Gabi and Peter went through one line at customs; Dave and I went through another. Each official blazed through the disembarked passengers with unbelievable speed, as it took about 15 minutes to move three spots in line. Peter and Gabi beat us by several minutes, and as David reached the front, the officer asked for the address where we would be staying. We didn't have it, so we had to find Gabi outside the exit and get back in to tell him. If you've ever tried to go back into the secured part of an airport after leaving, you can begin to appreciate the difficulty involved here. The whole thing was an ordeal that shouldn't have mattered, let alone happened.

As we approached the curb outside the airport, the Gabi Oanţa bartering began. We found a bus outside that would take us pretty close to the hotel. It would cost us €3.50 each, summing to €14.00. Gabi started haggling with a taxi to do it for €12, but the guy would drop below €15, claiming that the bus was going to drop us a ten minute walk from the hotel. Gabi said the stop was 2 minutes away, the guy argued, and we ended up getting on the bus right as it pulled out.

The bus did drop off pretty close to the hotel, so we saved a couple of euros between the four of us. It really came down to a matter of gabi's pride rather than the actual cost of the trip.

Upon arriving at the hotel, we had to change rooms because ours smelled faintly of smoke. Quickly became apparent that exactly zero crap would be tolerated here. Gabi tore his way back down to the front desk and demand us another room but it would not be available until the following day. He responded by saying that we would change hotels and wanted a refund. After they heard this, the room suddenly vacated and cleaned itself, making it free for us to move in. The hotel was nice with the pool located within jumping distance from our second story window.

After dropping off our stuff, we decided to head over to the center of the old city. Peter offered to sit this one out and take a nap instead. Having only one key to the room, we told him we would be gone for an hour, locked him in, and went on our way. The older part of the city consisted mostly of narrow, cobblestone streets. Survival Marrakesh requires constant attention to traffic coming and going from streets, sidewalk, alleys, shops in doorways. Everybody and their mangy dog owns a little two stroke scooter with bike pedals. They use these to zip around the 1.6 million residence town, all the while missing you by no more than 5 inches. While walking around, and Gabi kept looking for a specific barber that he used when he was there before; David and I just looked in little shops. We encountered a man who made small, wooden necklaces with a manual lathe. He had a bow he use to spin the wood while he used a chisel to carve it. It being difficult to stabilze any sort of woodworking tools with one hand, he used his foot to hold it in place. It seemed to work well for him. We got a few and went on our way. Among other things, we saw a man hacking the horns off a goat's head. It was here that we learned that we arrived on day two of Morocco's three day Christmas-like festival. As we continued to explore the winding streets, we saw a fellow cleaning out a traditional brick oven they use to make bread. As one of his friends explained what he was doing, he walk inquired if we had enjoyed the local hash. We politely declined and left. Upon realizing we had been gone for well more than the promised hour, we returned to the room to find Peter awake and frustrated we had locked him in. He told us he wasn't feeling too well, so he slept a bit more and the rest of us fell asleep in turn before heading out for the night.

To be continued...