Monday 14th June 2010
Not such a lazy morning, we wanted to be up and out early to get on the internet before getting our bus at 10.30am. The internet place wasn't open and so we decided to go and wait at the bus station. It was hectic! While the rest of the city was only just waking up and putting out stalls, getting coffee and breakfast the station was buzzing; people shouting out different destinations, rushing to get to the right stand, selling cigarettes and of course people relaxing and doing nothing but smoking and drinking coffee.
I got a coffee, praying it would wake up my bowels and make them function (no such joy), and wrote in my diary putting my first impressions of Morocco down on paper. I am hoping that with time and practice I will be able to quickly and succinctly write down the days events, catching what is important and leaving out the mundane, I think it will take a lot more time and practice for it to be better!
Eventually we were hustled onto an old bus and after a little wait we left the station and started on the four hour trip which turned out to be a journey of more than six hours. It was a beautiful route; after departing Fez and all its cultivated fields (it's the bread basket of Morocco) we traveled through the Rif mountains, the area of the biggest production of marijuana in the world (now there's a claim to fame). As in the Atlas mountains, the road followed the edge of the mountains, twisting and turning offering up the most stunning vistas and stomach churning views of the steep drops down. About half an hour before reaching our destination, Al Hoceima, the road turned to reveal the Mediterranean sea. We were still high up in the mountains surrounded by green peaks and valleys with the deep blue sea stretching out far in the distance, the sky, overcast and gloomy in Fez, was now the brightest of blues reflecting the sea, beautiful.
Arriving in town we headed in the direction of the cheap hotels which are generally grouped together. This time there were no people waiting for tourists to unload from the bus, in fact I haven't seen any other foreigners round here (which makes quite a change), to take them to cheap rooms or hotels. The search for a cheap place to stay took quite a while and we visited quite a few cheap options, thinking that we had a place to stay on the terrace of one before the mad old kitten loving owner told us that unless we paid double what we had been told we should go (the poor old sod was definitely missing a few marbles and wouldn't listen at all to our bargaining). So we left the hotel ready pay more to someone who was nice rather than less to someone who wasn't and in doing so ended up back at one of the hotels we visited earlier. After a bit of hard bargaining in Spanish we ended up in a small room next to the outside toilet with a squeaky bed on springs so knackered that unless you perched on the edge it was impossible to avoid rolling into the middle.
Dinner was in a cheap local restaurant and meat free. After several days of meat sandwiches my bowel movements have pretty much stopped completely (I am writing this entry on the 15th while on my third coffee hoping and waiting for something to happen so that I can lose some of this weight). We had chickpeas, some kind of creamed bean or chickpea soup/sauce, salad and rice, then went back to our noisy little room to watch 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus' before falling asleep down in the middle of the bed.
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