anybody know anybody with couchspace in Edinburgh?
Just in case...I'm flying to London Aug 4, and then probably heading up to Scotland almost right away. I want to check out at least some of the Edinburgh Fringe festival which runs through August although I don't know exactly when I'll get there.
Updates on the crazy wedding I went to a couple of weeks ago will have to wait as I am suffering from the wickedest hangover this side of Spain. That's what you get for drinking Pernod all night with crazy French girls.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Monday, July 10, 2006
BONJOUR STYLO BONJOUR PHOTO BONJOUR DIRHAM BONJOUR BONBON
I was so happy that Phil wanted to go trekking because I don't think I would have done it otherwise.
We settled on spending a couple of days going out to./coming back from Jebel Toubkal, and then another three days walking between the towns of Imlil and Setti Fatma.
We decided to do it all without a guide which I think turned out to be a wise decision...at this time of the year the weather was great and we generally found that the paths were easy to find and navigate (aided by some maps and instructions in my Lonely Planet Morocco). Except for the thing with the trees on the second day where we accidentally went up into mountain goat territory and eventually found ourselves incapable of further progress and so had to climb down to the real path (amazing how the real path becomes more visible the further you are away from it sometimes). Well, Phil climbed down. I slid on my ass. A local dude came scampering across the loose rubble and supervised the end of this particular ordeal.
We were chased by terrifying children through a number of small villages. Children chanting
BONJOUR STYLO
BONJOUR DIRHAM
BONJOUR PHOTO
BONJOUR BONBON
as they chase at your heels, holding your hands.
In at least two different places we were followed for many many minutes and then even when they stopped following us they continued shouting hopefully yet plaintively, like we might, just might, turn around and deliver the goods
BONJOUR STYLO
BONJOUR DIRHAM
BONJOUR PHOTO
BONJOUR BONBON
for many many minutes more.
Oh how I want to kill the people who taught these kids these words.
In one place we were blockaded by women bearing large loads of prickly looking thistles on their back as they demanded chocolate.
One scary invisible crone shrieked something at us from a window when it looked like we were about to take the wrong path out of town.
One woman was bitterly disappointed when Phil did not give her his hat. I think she wanted his hat. I'm pretty sure we got the Evil Eye for that one.
That said it was always interesting and to be honest I would put up with a lot of shit to be able to walk through this:
Many more photos at Flickr
Finally thanks to Bénédicte and Phil for the Brumisateur, for a much needed dose of Normal (and also to Phil for not complaining about my slow uphill pace). Shukran!
We settled on spending a couple of days going out to./coming back from Jebel Toubkal, and then another three days walking between the towns of Imlil and Setti Fatma.
We decided to do it all without a guide which I think turned out to be a wise decision...at this time of the year the weather was great and we generally found that the paths were easy to find and navigate (aided by some maps and instructions in my Lonely Planet Morocco). Except for the thing with the trees on the second day where we accidentally went up into mountain goat territory and eventually found ourselves incapable of further progress and so had to climb down to the real path (amazing how the real path becomes more visible the further you are away from it sometimes). Well, Phil climbed down. I slid on my ass. A local dude came scampering across the loose rubble and supervised the end of this particular ordeal.
We were chased by terrifying children through a number of small villages. Children chanting
BONJOUR STYLO
BONJOUR DIRHAM
BONJOUR PHOTO
BONJOUR BONBON
as they chase at your heels, holding your hands.
In at least two different places we were followed for many many minutes and then even when they stopped following us they continued shouting hopefully yet plaintively, like we might, just might, turn around and deliver the goods
BONJOUR STYLO
BONJOUR DIRHAM
BONJOUR PHOTO
BONJOUR BONBON
for many many minutes more.
Oh how I want to kill the people who taught these kids these words.
In one place we were blockaded by women bearing large loads of prickly looking thistles on their back as they demanded chocolate.
One scary invisible crone shrieked something at us from a window when it looked like we were about to take the wrong path out of town.
One woman was bitterly disappointed when Phil did not give her his hat. I think she wanted his hat. I'm pretty sure we got the Evil Eye for that one.
That said it was always interesting and to be honest I would put up with a lot of shit to be able to walk through this:
Many more photos at Flickr
Finally thanks to Bénédicte and Phil for the Brumisateur, for a much needed dose of Normal (and also to Phil for not complaining about my slow uphill pace). Shukran!
how to baffle a mountain climber
How to baffle and confuse mountain climbers, as well as pudgy American Arabists:
- Spend a day hiking up to about 3200m altitude to a refuge just around the corner from the highest mountain in North Africa (Jebel Toubkal). Take your time. Enjoy the scenery.
- Hang out at the refuge, talk about how you're not really all that interested in climbing to the tops of mountains just for the sake of it.
- While everyone else at the refuge leaves at 5 a.m. to do the ascent, sleep in until 8 a.m. and enjoy a leisurely breakfast outdoors. Watch people hobble back to the refuge after their ascents.
- Turn around and hike back down without climbing the mountain at all.
It is hilarious. Trust me.
- Spend a day hiking up to about 3200m altitude to a refuge just around the corner from the highest mountain in North Africa (Jebel Toubkal). Take your time. Enjoy the scenery.
- Hang out at the refuge, talk about how you're not really all that interested in climbing to the tops of mountains just for the sake of it.
- While everyone else at the refuge leaves at 5 a.m. to do the ascent, sleep in until 8 a.m. and enjoy a leisurely breakfast outdoors. Watch people hobble back to the refuge after their ascents.
- Turn around and hike back down without climbing the mountain at all.
It is hilarious. Trust me.
Mustaph/fas of the world ain't nothing but trouble.
turns out that Mustapha, after "borrowing" 100 dirhams (about 15 dollars) from me on the day I left - because he "really really needed to go back to the desert right away to work and he couldn't find his brother etc etc" which was such obvious bullshit I originally said "no way" but then felt bad in case, just in case, he was telling the truth...it's only $15 I told myself - stayed in Essaouira for the ramainder of the festival.
I was not amused to run into him on the streets of Marrakech shortly after Phil left. I've decided that he's (Mustapha, not Phil) quite definitely profoundly stupid, but it's a cunning sort of stupid if you know what I mean.
Mustapha seemed to have fogotten the lie he told me and greeted me like my best buddy, followed me around Jemaa el Fna for about an hour while I mostly ignored him, tried to find out where I was staying, promised to return my money...whatever. He did look a little worried when he found out I was going to be going back to Essaouira. I gave him the slip and haven't seen him since.
Back in Essaouira I discovered that Mustapha had told numerous people that I was his girlfriend of 5 years (oh HELL no, that would be like doing it with a retarded monkey and if you have ever seen Mustapha dance then you know what I mean), had tried to rip Adil off, had stayed for the entire festival, blah blah blah. One day when hanging out with Benedicte and Phil and Mohammed, Mohammed had done some shopping for Benedicte to try to get a good price for her, as opposed to the ripoff tourist price. Mohammed told me the other day that Mustapha expressed shock and surprise that Mohammed had been honest with Benedicte about the price he had paid for the items..."why don't you make some profit for yourself?".
I have now had a series of paranoid revelations such as:
- if Hassan stole the money then he and Mustapha probably split it, or it was Mustapha himself who really stole it when we were in the desert
- the thing with the police in Ouarzazate may have been fake
- one time at the Gnawa Festival I was in the crowd with Mustapha, someone grabbed my ass really quickly and immediately Mustapha collared a little kid that had been walking past and started yelling at him in Arabic. The kid looked really really confused...I now think it was Mustapha who grabbed my ass and then blamed it on someone else to create a situation where he was my "protector". Although I did get groped a couple other times that night when Mustapha was nowhere to be found.
One very frustrating thing is that people are often very very willing to pass on negative information about other acquaintances, but only after waiting for a while. Like Mohammed only telling me the thing about the shopping yesterday. Like Adil only telling me about being Mustapha's 'girlfriend' after I returned to Essaouira. They could have told me this weeks ago.
The worst example of this relates to NEWMustafa, yes yet another one, who I met on my first day back in Essaouira (Canada Day in fact) while I was waiting in a cafe, he seemed cool, not creepy, and after spending a week with Phil (where I discovered that travelling in Morocco with a big white guy is infinitely different than travelling here alone or with other women or with Moroccan men) I think I was just more open to trusting people.
So I met up with him and one of his friends the next day and we went to their riad and they made me a really tasty vegetarian tagine and salads and soup...the meal was great and everything was fine even though NewMustafa seemed disappointed that I didn't want to
a) drink beer
b) smoke hash
c) have a massage
d) dance
like a good tourist girl.
A couple of days later I'm talking to Adil (who runs my hotel) and he says "You know that Mustafa you were with the other day. Watch out. He is in trouble with the police for drugging some Chinese girls, they went to the police. I saw his photo at the station."
Okay, barring questions about why Adil was at the police station and why, if NewMustafa is a sex offender, is he also running a hotel...OH MY GOD! WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS RIGHT AWAY?
I get paranoid again and notice how NewMustafa had made certain dishes that he wouldn't eat because they were too 'acidic', how he never drank alcohol but kept offering it to me, etc.
At this point in the story I would like to day "Please calm down, Mom and Dad, I'm fine, I have not been drugged and/or ravished by anyone and it's going to stay that way."
So I avoided NewMustafa for a couple days, when I did run into him didn't accept any invitations to dinner, or to smoke, and he got really weird about how I was being uptight, liked to be alone too much, didn't like to party enough, not like the other tourist girls, I should be here to have a good time since I'm on vacation. I think now he has decided I'm not worth it and I don't think I will be receiving any more invitations to dinner thank god.
I don't know if that story about him is true but I do know that he is insecure and pushy and whiny and behaves like a child when he doesn't get what he wants. And that's enough.
I was not amused to run into him on the streets of Marrakech shortly after Phil left. I've decided that he's (Mustapha, not Phil) quite definitely profoundly stupid, but it's a cunning sort of stupid if you know what I mean.
Mustapha seemed to have fogotten the lie he told me and greeted me like my best buddy, followed me around Jemaa el Fna for about an hour while I mostly ignored him, tried to find out where I was staying, promised to return my money...whatever. He did look a little worried when he found out I was going to be going back to Essaouira. I gave him the slip and haven't seen him since.
Back in Essaouira I discovered that Mustapha had told numerous people that I was his girlfriend of 5 years (oh HELL no, that would be like doing it with a retarded monkey and if you have ever seen Mustapha dance then you know what I mean), had tried to rip Adil off, had stayed for the entire festival, blah blah blah. One day when hanging out with Benedicte and Phil and Mohammed, Mohammed had done some shopping for Benedicte to try to get a good price for her, as opposed to the ripoff tourist price. Mohammed told me the other day that Mustapha expressed shock and surprise that Mohammed had been honest with Benedicte about the price he had paid for the items..."why don't you make some profit for yourself?".
I have now had a series of paranoid revelations such as:
- if Hassan stole the money then he and Mustapha probably split it, or it was Mustapha himself who really stole it when we were in the desert
- the thing with the police in Ouarzazate may have been fake
- one time at the Gnawa Festival I was in the crowd with Mustapha, someone grabbed my ass really quickly and immediately Mustapha collared a little kid that had been walking past and started yelling at him in Arabic. The kid looked really really confused...I now think it was Mustapha who grabbed my ass and then blamed it on someone else to create a situation where he was my "protector". Although I did get groped a couple other times that night when Mustapha was nowhere to be found.
One very frustrating thing is that people are often very very willing to pass on negative information about other acquaintances, but only after waiting for a while. Like Mohammed only telling me the thing about the shopping yesterday. Like Adil only telling me about being Mustapha's 'girlfriend' after I returned to Essaouira. They could have told me this weeks ago.
The worst example of this relates to NEWMustafa, yes yet another one, who I met on my first day back in Essaouira (Canada Day in fact) while I was waiting in a cafe, he seemed cool, not creepy, and after spending a week with Phil (where I discovered that travelling in Morocco with a big white guy is infinitely different than travelling here alone or with other women or with Moroccan men) I think I was just more open to trusting people.
So I met up with him and one of his friends the next day and we went to their riad and they made me a really tasty vegetarian tagine and salads and soup...the meal was great and everything was fine even though NewMustafa seemed disappointed that I didn't want to
a) drink beer
b) smoke hash
c) have a massage
d) dance
like a good tourist girl.
A couple of days later I'm talking to Adil (who runs my hotel) and he says "You know that Mustafa you were with the other day. Watch out. He is in trouble with the police for drugging some Chinese girls, they went to the police. I saw his photo at the station."
Okay, barring questions about why Adil was at the police station and why, if NewMustafa is a sex offender, is he also running a hotel...OH MY GOD! WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS RIGHT AWAY?
I get paranoid again and notice how NewMustafa had made certain dishes that he wouldn't eat because they were too 'acidic', how he never drank alcohol but kept offering it to me, etc.
At this point in the story I would like to day "Please calm down, Mom and Dad, I'm fine, I have not been drugged and/or ravished by anyone and it's going to stay that way."
So I avoided NewMustafa for a couple days, when I did run into him didn't accept any invitations to dinner, or to smoke, and he got really weird about how I was being uptight, liked to be alone too much, didn't like to party enough, not like the other tourist girls, I should be here to have a good time since I'm on vacation. I think now he has decided I'm not worth it and I don't think I will be receiving any more invitations to dinner thank god.
I don't know if that story about him is true but I do know that he is insecure and pushy and whiny and behaves like a child when he doesn't get what he wants. And that's enough.
mimi and leila
i live in a pink and yellow and green riad (a small hotel in a traditional home) in Essaouira with Adil who runs the place, a variety of his brothers, other staff, various guests, and a small turtle named Mimi.
nobody can pronounce my name so they have christened me Leila.
one of the women who works at the riad has been really cool, she took me to the local hammam the other day where once again I scoured off several tablespoons worth of dead skin and is going to teach me how to make m'smma (this fantastic crepe).
in spite of my previous comments about the dorkiness of henna on tourists I have just been hennaed, for free courtesy of a friend of Adil's, and now have lovely temporary tattoos all over my hands.
i am learning some Arabic and might start taking lessons soon.
watched the World Cup final in an Italian bar filled with supporters for both teams. after the Italian victory I walked to the main square and passed the Essaouira Italian Victory Parade which consisted of about 7 very happy Italian people running around with a flag.
people keep feeding me tagine. delicious homemade tagine.
men keep trying to follow me home.
"just talking! I just want to talk! I'm not like the others!"
"i saw you at the cafe and wanted to talk to you"
there's also the classic "like my sister" line. When a dude tells me I'm like his sister is when the bullshit alarm goes off. Except Adil...I think he's actually all right, maybe a little overprotective but honest.
i can't remember the last time I washed my jeans. it may have been in Spain. that was in May. that was seven weeks ago. they look clean and they don't smell and that's the only thing that matters.
most days I get up, go out for breakfast (fresh orange juice, m'semma [the crepe] with loads of butter and honey, coffee or tea), get a newspaper, read a book. walk around, go to the patisserie to eat pastries and read, hang out at the cafe with Mohammed and Simo or at the riad with Adil and Amin or at the nearby organic vegetarian restaurant, La Triskalla (TOFU! For the first time in MONTHS!). Days go by fast when there's nothing to do but read and eat and speak broken french and smoke and drink tea. I can't believe it's already the 10th.
I am currently, right this very moment in fact, embroiled in an MSN conversation with Driss of Casablanca who I met in Essaouira during the festival through Phil and Mohammed and Benedicte - he has decided he "loves" me, although it's a "friendly love"...I am not sure what this means exactly, maybe he wrote it in french and then Babelfished it, but he really really wants me to come to Casablanca, to go see his cousin in Agadir...maybe if I can't go to Casa he will come to visit me here...sigh.
nobody can pronounce my name so they have christened me Leila.
one of the women who works at the riad has been really cool, she took me to the local hammam the other day where once again I scoured off several tablespoons worth of dead skin and is going to teach me how to make m'smma (this fantastic crepe).
in spite of my previous comments about the dorkiness of henna on tourists I have just been hennaed, for free courtesy of a friend of Adil's, and now have lovely temporary tattoos all over my hands.
i am learning some Arabic and might start taking lessons soon.
watched the World Cup final in an Italian bar filled with supporters for both teams. after the Italian victory I walked to the main square and passed the Essaouira Italian Victory Parade which consisted of about 7 very happy Italian people running around with a flag.
people keep feeding me tagine. delicious homemade tagine.
men keep trying to follow me home.
"just talking! I just want to talk! I'm not like the others!"
"i saw you at the cafe and wanted to talk to you"
there's also the classic "like my sister" line. When a dude tells me I'm like his sister is when the bullshit alarm goes off. Except Adil...I think he's actually all right, maybe a little overprotective but honest.
i can't remember the last time I washed my jeans. it may have been in Spain. that was in May. that was seven weeks ago. they look clean and they don't smell and that's the only thing that matters.
most days I get up, go out for breakfast (fresh orange juice, m'semma [the crepe] with loads of butter and honey, coffee or tea), get a newspaper, read a book. walk around, go to the patisserie to eat pastries and read, hang out at the cafe with Mohammed and Simo or at the riad with Adil and Amin or at the nearby organic vegetarian restaurant, La Triskalla (TOFU! For the first time in MONTHS!). Days go by fast when there's nothing to do but read and eat and speak broken french and smoke and drink tea. I can't believe it's already the 10th.
I am currently, right this very moment in fact, embroiled in an MSN conversation with Driss of Casablanca who I met in Essaouira during the festival through Phil and Mohammed and Benedicte - he has decided he "loves" me, although it's a "friendly love"...I am not sure what this means exactly, maybe he wrote it in french and then Babelfished it, but he really really wants me to come to Casablanca, to go see his cousin in Agadir...maybe if I can't go to Casa he will come to visit me here...sigh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)