A Bientot, James Claxton

There are over fifty countries in Africa and we know for a fact that one of them doesn't want us. But there's fifty more to choose from and a one week respite in Paris seems the perfect segue from Morocco to, ah, whichever country lets us in.

So all along the Seine, we fancied ourselves writers and artists in bookshops and cafes, strolling the sculpture gardens of Rodin's Hôtel Biron studios, browsing galleries, and partaking an afternoon carafe of wine to relieve the feet and bemuse embassy bureaucracies. In the evenings we spilled out over the flat with a bottle of wine, three expats, in league with dreams of travel and language. So good to see an old friend.

Several times a day, we climbed seven flights of stairs to a hall of small studio flats, rooftops overlooking rooftops. Years ago these were the servants quarters, accessed thru a door at the back of the inner courtyard. Today, it was our haven and we became excessively familiar with the creak of every winding step as the elevator was reserved for residents and only accessible thru the central courtyard of the main building and not our backdoor.

Much to our amusement, we discovered that if you left the flat, descended the seven flights, and went looking for a patisserie, a right instead of a left took you straight to the Pigalle district's signature landmark, the Moulin Rouge. It was an honest mistake, but suddenly, going for a pastry took on a whole new, wonderful red-light meaning. I offered to go on a croissant run at least once a day.

Au revoir, James Claxton. When I think of you, I will think stairs. Seven spiraling flights worth.

Slow and Silly

Chefchaouen's old medina is painted top to bottom in blue and white and rests on the slopes of the Rif mountains. If you hike thru them you'll find monkeys in the summit forest and a funny thin leaved plant tucked between the rows of tomatoes and peppers and as a result, the entire city is completely stoned.

Closer to Spain, the language pool increases by one and Darlene has intermixed her french and spanish with remarkable ease, "combien ça coûte for una habitación?" But one ubiquitous word rises above them all, "hashish?" No, non, la, emphatically no.

Not since Cuba have I experienced such vacant service. On the small caribean island, they were just bored and on the dole, paid regardless. In the Rifs, they're just, plain, stoned. Every menu, salad and tea is a long time in the coming. You can't change restaurants, it's everywhere. We even had to tally our own bill, they just couldn't remember what we ordered or the prices.

And in the evening, passing by the doors of all the pensions and hostals, are the giggles of tourists. But for all those Moms out there, worry not, we've seen Midnight Express and prefer to enjoy the long, slow meals for what they are.

WrightCode, Fes, Morocco

At four a.m. I awoke with a start. The call to prayer blared thru the tinny loudspeaker on the minaret by our rooftop accommodation and the light was on in our room. It was so bright I thought it was the sun. In the center of the room, Darlene was standing on the bed furious for a mosquito, “he got me five times!” Luckily, I drifted back to sleep.

That afternoon I got online to help launch a new website for Pixelface Graphics in Portland, Oregon and Darlene talked to Tess on a video conference over the internet. We are in the medina across from an old medersa where there was a seventeenth century clock powered entirely by the flow of water from pot to pot to turn the gears and advance time. The clockmaker passed years ago, as did his art. Today, an old man sits in the alley with a basket of hay half full of eggs as donkey carts pull crates of produce thru the one lane maze of streets.

New meets old on quite the canvas, this medieval city is intoxicating.

The Sahara

It was a local bus, it stopped everywhere. We approached the Sahara and the military presence increased in every town, inching our way toward Algeria. Finally, a taxi dropped us off in the middle of the desert, a ghost town. We were fifty kilometers from the border.

In a small garden courtyard, over a pot of tea, I negotiated hard, a camel for my girl, a night in the desert. A deal was struck and my guide and I walked alongside Darlene, regal on her camel. From high in the dunes, we could gaze over the black Sahara and into Algeria.

That night, after a fiery sunset, the moon rose over our camp, a valley in the dunes, a lone date palm, and a grumpy caravan of camels. Two cots pushed together, we slept in the open air, under a pile of wool blankets.

All quiet on the eastern front.

Outclimb the Goats

For this particular climb you go under the phone cables on the way up, but you lower down over the cables for clean rope management. Meanwhile the busses and tourists line up behind you for some blatant showmanship.

Gratuitous as that is, most of the Todra Gorge's crags are further upstream and much more peaceful, some climbing right out of the river-side gardens as local women harvest their crops. The goats will beat you up any climb, but they prefer a much more precarious route over the scree fields that seem foolish to me.

Another Week on the Beach

Kester forgot to mention two important things. One, Taghazoute is drier than Zion. And two, the surf doesn't really kick in until November.

Our apartment is excellent; a kitchen, a cat, and a balcony that, if you fell off at high tide, would land you in the ocean.

We found a liquor store in the hub city on an errand day. It requires a passport just to browse, but the wine is cheap and delicious and three bottles cost less than a tube of sunscreen.

The Saudi Royal family has a place about ten kilometers down the road. It's five times the size of this entire town, gated, and surrounded by military. They arrived with police escorts yesterday. We showed up relatively unannounced a few days before that.

Ramadan Saves You Money

The most noticeable difference in the souk this morning were the piles of severed goat heads, billies on one side, nannies on the other. In separate piles feet were bound together for...ah, soup? Muddly, bubbly red puddles in the street which even the dogs let alone. The meat will go toward a great feast at the mosques on Monday at the Eid ul Fitr, possibly the biggest Muslim holiday of the year.

When one month ends and another begins is not scientific, it's observation (or lack thereof) of a new moon. I'm told there are people “on it” in Fes and it is now only a matter of days until Ramadan is over. The new month, Shawwal, begins either Sunday or Monday, fingers are crossed all over Arabia for Sunday, but, alas, it is Monday. One more cranky afternoon.

Admist all the disruption and chaos of Ramadan, it does save you money. Though, ironically, a lot of muslims put on weight this month, so rich and indulgent are the post sundown meals.

The Groove is ON

Time no longer matters. There is day and then there is night.

We read and we sleep. There is feast and there is fast.

Our bus surfs the countryside, mosques and souks, oases and dunes, rock and trail. And the trails roll on forever and our pace has hit its groove.

Where Goats Climb Trees

From the twisted branches of the Argan tree hang a fruit irresistible to the industrious goat, whose gastronomic engine delights in the hard outer fruit before the terminal end deposits the inner pit to sun dry in the scorched fields. Later collected, these pits are pressed for their oils, delicious in their own right or mixed with honey and almond paste as a spread.

So very pleased to be in the land where goats climb trees.

Not Exactly Fluent

Parlez-vous francais? Non?! Well so much for all those books, tapes, and tutors.

Hmm, is that Arabic? Or Berber. And would it really matter? Naw, we are doing just fine.

Second Biggest

I love Islamic mosques for the peace and serenity of their design work, quite the polar opposite of the macabre suffering that bombards you in Christian imagery.

Here Darlene looks out through the gates of the second largest mosque in the world, Casablanca. Only Mecca in Saudi Arabia is larger.

Unsubscribe Me

If I don’t recognize it, haven’t used it, or remember why I bought it…I trashed it. I unsubscribed from everything. I didn’t even do a change of address, I simply cancelled everything and went paperless.

And at the zero hour, while the airport cab idled, Darlene cancelled my cell phone subscriptions with one powerful blow of her hammer, a tool she uses like a leatherman, an all-in-one which I bought her when her rock wore out.

To the airport. The international terminal, please.