Up at 6:30 and out to jog on the beach. It looked clean and nice from the hotel window, but actually quite dirty … plastic, trash, old shoes, dead birds and the occasional dead rat. Despite all that, there were 5-6 futbol games in process, teams of young boys/men … shirts v skins. I left the loose sand and got on a paved walkway. Back at the hotel, we 4 walked down the winding spiral stairs, out onto the street and into the cool sunny weather. Hiked several blocks to the bus terminal, bought tickets to Rabat (capital city) for the 4.5 hour trip. Bought cheese, flat corn bread, drinkable yogurt, espresso coffee. More scam artists when we arrived at the Rabat bus station; eg, four passengers cannot be in the same cab. We walked 1 block away and all 4 got into 1 cab to the charming Rabat Youth Hostel, which Hannah had found on-line for 50 Durham/night each (I never really figured it out, but I think that 50 DH = about 5 Euros = about $7.50). The exterior of the hostel was white, flat roof, Moroccan type. The interior had decorative tile lined walls and floor, an open court yard, 12 bunk beds/room, males and females separated and cold showers. We were checked in by a pleasant, English speaking, 30 year old Moroccan woman in a head-scarf. After dropping our bags on our bunks, we convened in the court yard and were invited to join in a lunch of chicken and vegetable couscous, eaten from a communal dish, followed by a kefir drink, all in celebration of some Muslim holiday. What a treat!
The invitation was extended by a 30 year old Libyan man named Abobaker. He described himself as the son of a wealthy farmer, currently working on a master’s degree in international law. We were soon joined by another young English speaking Libyan man named Nuri, who described himself as the son of a high level Libyan government official. He had traveled world-wide for 10 years, doing some kind of low-level, advance PR duties. They befriended us (might have had something to do with my 3 beautiful, young, female companions?) and all 6 went on a few hour tour of the Kasbah des Oudaias, a huge walled city palace/city and bazaar of 100’s of stalls with every imaginable thing for sale: modern clothing, shoes, electronics, traditional crafts (Hannah became a Muslim princess with her purchase of a head-scarf), jewelry (I bought a nice silver ‘Hand of Fatima’ good luck charm), raw meat, vegetables, grains and many things I could not identify. Nuri took us to a restaurant that served traditional i food . We had couscous and veggies and chicken hot dish, served in a thick red pointed dish, called a tajine. I did not realize it at the time, but this food took hours of slow cooking to make in the traditional tajine. We had fun and Nuri ‘smuggled’ in some canned Moroccan “Speciale” beer. Since alcohol is not encouraged in a Muslim country, we were asked to wrap each can in newspaper! Hannah and I showed the others how to fold origami cranes and boxes. Jess had her hair in dreds and saw 3 young men with dreds at a table near us and joined them for a while. As we left I got 500 DH from an ATM. I had coveted 2 Moroccan futbol jerseys I saw in the bazaar. Now that I had cash, Nuri volunteered to go back and get them. He was a remarkably nice young man, who seemed to delight in making sure that we enjoyed our time in Morocco. Back at the hostel, Nuri made some traditional, hot, sweet Moroccan mint tea (lots of suspended mint leaves). We all enjoyed that and some hashish was smoked. Abobacker brought out a photo album containing pictures of his family and the farm. He also said he had been in a men’s choir back home and then sang/chanted some ‘evening prayer’ sounding song for several minutes. It was hauntingly beautiful. I checked out at 24:00.
