At the Terraces d'Alhambra. Looking over part of the Djamaa with the minaret of the Koutoubia mosque in the distance.
The bus to Gatwick airport was delayed by half an hour because it wouldn't start. I was looking forward to this short vacation. My Morocco jaunt was originally for 20 days via the environmentally friendly romantic route - Eurostar train to Paris, nightsleeper to Madrid, inter-regional train to Andalucia, ferry from Algeciras to Tangiers, south to Marrakech by overnight train, then up to the High Atlas trailhead of Imlil by public transport. However my schedule got fucked up, and the French gave me a truncated visa, so I was flying straight to Marrakech, carbon neutrality be damned.
It was 3am and chilly and I hadn't slept the night before. An engineer was called, he came and opened the back panel, flicked a switch and the coach roared to life. We're not allowed to do it ourselves muttered the driver. Very silly - all these strict adherence to job descriptions. Thankfully, traffic was light and the driver made up for lost time by running on the fast lane. He is after all a 'driver'.
The check-in lady has never seen a Flipinoy passport. I congratulated her. That's the most desirable passport in the world I beamed. She said she would check 'upstairs' to verify my visa requirements. She came back from 'upstairs' and said that the 'upstairs' people concurred.
There was a long security check queue. Deep inside, I wished that flights to the USA had their own airport because their current restrictions are plain ridiculous. At the handbag x-ray point my satchel was selected for a 'random' search. Security was polite and asked if he could swab the lining of my bag. As if I would say no to police! No worries I said and he swabbed my bag with a brush before inserting it into a portable chemical detector. I wasn't the least bit worried if flashing lights suddenly went off and the sirens wailed. It's the same bag I ocassionally bring to my lab. I was disappointed that everything went without incident and got my precious Sagada Weaving satchel back. Are you sure? Do it again. You must have at least detected the traces of hallucinogenic Chocnut in my bag!
I think this 'no liquid' security precaution is a big conspiracy hatched by duty free shops. Few minutes inside the tax free zone and both hands were carrying stuff I knew I didn't have to buy then and there - Clean and Clear Deep Pore Exfoliating Pads, Radox Morning Burst shower gel for extra-sensitive skin, supposedly long-life alkaline batteries, Nivea spf 45 sun cream, roll-on deodorant, bottled water.....Things far cheaper in Maroc. They lure you inside the stores with scantily clad salesgirls handing out free shots of liquor and soon my Mastercard gets more swipes than my ass after taking a rejuvenating dump.
I had a McDonald's breakfast meal and lost my new lightweight fleece jacket in the process. It took me 2 minutes to realise I was cold and when I rushed back to the table where I knew I had left it, my jacket was gone. I looked around for fellow Flipinoys. Damn you Salisi gang! Hanggang dito ba naman! I calmed down and rationalized that it must have been destroyed in a controlled explosion by airport security. Left luggage will be destroyed the public address system broadcasted every two seconds.
The plane circled Menara airport for n times before the pilot broke his long silence and announced that Marrakech has no working radar and we were going to land by protocol. I think this meant waiting for a guy from the tarmac looking at the sky with binoculars to say that we had a 50% chance of survival. You don't expect him to see planes coming from behind him do you?
I rushed to get my bag quickly after clearing immigration hoping to catch the number 11 bus heading to the centre of Marrakech. ( Like in NAIA, the officials stamped my passport in the frigging centre of page 32 thereby making it useless for other entry stamps/visas. A Flipinoy passport is anorexic. It needs to gobble up all those visas but yet it's so thin that you need to save all the blank pages. And here was mine with a small illegible 1 inch square stamp on page 32. Incidentally, we are perhaps the only country in the world who stamp the passports of and require landing cards from our own citizens! Bakeeet? Why? Apay??? If I had my way, I want the pages of my passport blank like Raul Gonzalez' and Mike Defensor's brains.)
I waited for 20 minutes for a man to slowly replace cash into the ATM machine. He counted the bills by hand. Consequently, I missed the number 11 bus and had to play 'fleece the tourist' with the cab drivers. They wanted 250 dirhams for the 4km trip. I approached a bunch of equally harrassed backpackers. One of them was holding a Lonely Planet guidebook. I generally avoid travellers who use The Lonely Planet (as in ewwww) but it was a hot 37C and I wanted a quick getaway without the first newly minted dirhams on my pocket going to an overpriced 4km ride on a rusty Mercedes. We haggled and got the fare down to 80 dirhams which is 20 dirhams more than the correct fare written in bold letters on a notice board above the taxi rank. That price was 2 years ago complained the first cab driver even though the sign looked newly painted.
As the taxi sped towards the Medina, I missed Baguio where all cabs ran by the meter. I'm a competent haggler but I'm not used to haggling for taxi rides. As in Manila, it appears Moroccan cab drivers overstate the travel time and fares.
We arrived at the central square, Djamaa El Fna, and went into one of the cafes for a snack and just to get our bearings. Even at noon the snake charmers were already in the square quickly wrapping snakes around unsuspecting tourists. I wasn't worried about those lame snakes but I do have an irrational fear of cobras. And there were plenty of them slithering in the square.
It was Ramadan but the cafes were still serving food to non-Moslems and I guiltily drank a banana milkshake. Tempting as it was to order my first tagine, I vowed to limit my food intake during the day. I said goodbye to my new friends at Hotel Ali where I asked for directions on how to get to Imlil that very instant. A bellhop accompanied me all the way across busy and chaotic streets with no pedestrian crossing zones ( you had to make patintero with the cars and scooters), into a dodgy building, up a dark stairwell, to the offices of what turned out to be an 'adventure' company called Sahara Treks or something.
I plainly wasn't interested in joining an organised travel group (as in ewwwwww! Excuse me, I don't join tourist groups noh!) and came here mainly to hike up the moutains independently. I made excuses that I needed to decide overnight despite the hard sell. You will not get any transport to the mountains because it's Ramadan they said. I went out and walked around to get local info. It was only 2pm. I bumped into three Slovenian girls and got some tips. In another time and place, I would have loved to have accepted their invitation for a camel trek in the Sahara but I wasn't there to socialise.
After memorising a couple of French and Arabic opening phrases I asked locals how to get to the gare for grand taxis to Asni. It's about a kilometer outside the Medina's walls starting from a gate called Bab el-Rob. Why I opted to walk I don't know. I could have gotten a petit taxi or a caleche for 15 - 20 dirhams to the gare routiere. If the locals can do it, so can I.
It turns out that no local in his right mind was walking under the blistering noonday heat and those wisely in the shade looked at me in a puzzled what the fuck is he doing walking in this heat stare. It turns out that beyond the Bab el-Rob is the frigging desert. I didn't want to drink water openly because it was Ramadan. I followed the highway and a couple of rusty trucks stopped to offer me a ride. Salaam! Merci, merci. Shokran! I said. Thanks but no thanks. I was determined to walk. My body probably lost two litres of water when I got to the gare.
I was met by a tout who asked me where I was going. I should have ignored him but he was old and very genial so I told him I wanted to get to Imlil. He said there are no rides direct to Imlil (actually I was sure sure there was) and I had to get a ride on a taxi for Asni which just happens to be conveniently parked right in front of us. From Asni, another taxi to Imlil he said. Further down the ranks, there was another taxi waiting for passengers and I'm pretty certain that was the more convenient direct ride. For this 'sound advice' I had to tip the tout 10 dirhams.
Grand taxis are long distance taxis, invariably old Mercedes Benzes, which you share with 5 other passengers, three on the front including the driver, and four on the back. It was so hot I absentmindedly and noisily gulped water from my flask. As if on cue, everyone stopped and looked at me. Oops! Pardonne moi! It's Ramadan you fool! my brain belatedly screamed at me.
We could now leave said the driver and he opened the boot for me to load my backpack. As he flung the door open my nose was seized by the unmistakable smell of hashish! There were bricks upon bricks of the narcotic on one side of the boot! They were wrapped in plastic but there was no real effort to disguise them!
It's perhaps a testament to my warped sense of perspective that my first thought was Ooh, the dogs of Gatwick will have a field day with my bag when I ,....if I do, return before I started trying to compose a passable French sentence along the lines of Don't put my bag on top of the dope, si'l vous plait. Before I could mangle Balzac's language a man in a suit (in this heat!!) approached the driver to say exactly what I wanted to say but more along the lines of Don't put his bag on top of my dope.
The driver slammed the hood shut, my bag and the dope safely inside and out of sight. Shit! I'm going to be dumped in jail like that Claire Danes in Brokedown Palace. Hmmm. That sweet face. Claire Danes? I wouldn't mind sharing a jail cell with her, even if it's infested by cockroaches.*
Oh shit, the hallucinogen has taken effect already and all I ever did was get one, er......four really, deep wisps of that happy happy smell. My heart raced and was thinking of an excuse to get out. Oops I left my phone in my hotel room! or Sacre Bleu! I don't have cash! But then again, if dealers use public transport then surely their chances of getting caught are slim. Mmmmm Claire Danes, and me, alone, in a hot cell, mmmmmm.....
We all boarded the cab, two guys in front both immaculately dressed in double-breasted suits, and a third immaculately suited man between me and two ladies in burqas. On his lap lay another black bag whose contents I did not dare ask but secreted that happy happy smell (it could be just have been mint tea on his lap). The driver then passed an allen key so we could roll down the windows, the handles of which were missing. I thought that was hilarious. I asked one of the immaculately suited guys how long the trip to Asni was and he said 1 hour. The driver interjected No, 45 minutes despite the engine throwing a tuberculosis fit.
The road to Asni is well maintained and very straight although it didn't feel that way as the driver bone-jarringly overtook scooters/small cars/buses/ox-drawn carts one after the other. After 30 or so minutes we reached a checkpoint manned by the Royal Gendarmerie. As we slowed down I wanted to shout at one of the gendarmes Hey, we got dope in the hood! Fancy a spliff? Mmmmmm......me Claire Danes.......jail......hot.......mmmm Claire Danes......
It comically turned out that the gendarmes were merely looking for seatbelt law violators. As soon as we passed them, the driver took off his faux seatbelt and drove even more recklessly.
At Asni I said goodbye to my fellow passengers and took my bag from the hood in slow motion taking deep breaths. Mmmmmmm......me Claire Danes......jail.....hot.....mmmm Claire Danes.....
Asni is a one-mule town. That's not to say it's not vibrant. Were it not for Ramadan, I would have stayed an hour or two drinking mint tea with the locals while looking at the first peaks of the High Atlas range that loomed over the horizon.
I took another grand taxi for the short 17km ride to Imlil and this time I placed my bag just behind the back seat against the rear window. From Asni it was all uphill although at the beginning we were forced to drive slowly because in front of us was a car from the Auto Ecole (driving school). I have no doubt that this steep zigzag road cut on the side of the mountain with no barriers for protection should you drive over the edge is a good training ground for rally drivers. For when we passed the auto ecole vehicle our driver stepped on the gas pedal and left an impressive trail of dust and smoke. It was a very scary but smooth ride.
I arrived in Imlil at 4pm and was lucky to find a Berber guide who had a place where I could spend the night, have a decent dinner, and breakfast. I also asked if he could score me a map because I had no clue where I was and where I was going. It's very hard to get useful topographic maps of Morocco, even IN Morocco. The good ones are apparently embargoed in the capital Rabat and you have to get official permission and pay 'official' fees to get one. He said he didn't have any except for the ones mounted on the wall of the Berber Guides' Association hut. But he could get me one for 140 dirhams by the morning. I said no thanks. I wasn't going to pay that much for a map. I asked to look at the mounted maps and took a mental note. I said I'm going to wing it during my ascent of the Toubkal massif.
I thought the auberge was in the center of the village. Follow this boy, he will take you to my brother. The auberge was another 10 minute steep uphill walk. I was tired from the day's journey plus the effects of altitude started to kick in and I had a minor headache. And here was this young boy who barely broke a sweat as we kept going higher.
At the auberge I took a very cold shower quickly and thought that my headache was probably due to my grumbling stomach rather than the altitude. I was at 2100+ meters and that's just a mere 800 meters higher than my hometown of Baguio. (This is really bad logic. I blame it on the dope.) I had two hours before sunset and before I could eat so I decided to take a walk higher up the mountain behind the auberge just to acclimatise and to interact with the Berbers.
Imlil sits on a very fertile valley. The locals were busy loading the days' apple harvest from acres and acres of orchards onto mules. The valley was a natural amphitheatre and I could hear the laughter of happy children who had just gotten out of school. The air was clean and crisp.
I loved the view and sat on a rock overlooking the village till the sun disappeared behind the mountains.
After a very heavy dinner, I discussed with Hassan, the auberge gardien, my options. I wanted to go straight up the summit the following day. He laughed Nyahahaha, You wish! and said it was not possible without a mule to carry my backpack. I told him my pack was only 10kg even with water and I wanted to hike alone and that if I left early I could reach the top by early afternoon. He took down a wall mounted map and gave me a mathematics lecture. We are at 2000+ metres, that's 12km and 2100+ metres to the peak. That's too much to do in one day. (I was about to tell him that I could climb Luzon's highest peak Pulag, 2922m, in one day but then realised that the starting elevation for that climb was already 2000+ metres.)
So I decided to just take a leisurely walk the following day to the Toubkal refuge which was at 3200m. I was afterall on vacation and there was no need to rush. Besides, one should never argue with local knowledge. The Berbers have been here for centuries, they know the terrain, and if a Berber tells me I wouldn't make it, he is probably right.
I took my mint tea outside to watch the moon rise. It was so quiet and there was no light pollution. When was the last time I saw so many stars blinking at me?
Police Academy on Tour. The Tourist Police - firm but just....
One of the many Babs to the medina. (Bab means 'gate' in Berber)
Not even halfway to the gare.......my short short walk under the cool sun....This is the quickest tan in my entire life. I went from anemic brown to glorious kayumanggi brown by the time I reached the gare...
First class all the way baby. Another Mercedes sedan took me from Asni to Imlil. I didn't want to know what was in the car boot this time....
Imlil. French, Arabic, Berber, and English spoken here.....The 'safe word' is Zinedine Zidane. A truly great Berber.
Like me, Berbers don't like having their pictures taken as this sign warns. (Seriously, what's the point of posing for every picture like most people? I believe that only babies and pretty people deserve to have their pictures taken. Why ruin a beautiful photo with an ugly face?)
The fertile valley 2000 metres above sea level.
Kasbah du Toubkal at Imlil. Martin Scorcese shot the movie Kundun here. I was supposed to stay here but they were already fully booked for 2006 when I emailed them months ago! And all I wanted was to sleep out on the terrace. Even that was taken! I read that Hillary Clinton's niece also lives in Imlil.
One of the many mountain passes you can take to get to the Toubkal massif.
Gromit was suffering from minor altitude sickness so he went to bed early to recuperate....
...while His Royal Orangeness Karl Willem and I went up a small mountain.
Wreck of a car.....hmmmm, that's an auspicious sign of the tomorrow's hike......
My crappy wrist computer informs me that today I went from sea level to 2265 metres...I feel light headed already.
Sun sets behind the High Atlas peaks.
The moon rise....
Signing the official guest book....it's a shame that not a lot of Europe-based Flips come to Morocco. My first impression was that next to Spain, Maroc feels like home......
Me on the bed staring at the ceiling waiting for the muezzin to shout from the minaret that it was time to break Ramadan fast......
My dinner consisted of al-harira soup, fresh baked bread, a tagine of mutton, an apple picked from the orchard, and fresh mint tea. A picture of the current Alaouite King Mohammed VI hangs on the wall. That "V" upon closer inspection turns out to be skis. Yes, Dorothy, you can ski in the High Atlas during winter....
Essential Details: 5.70 Pinoy Pesos = 1 dirham; £1=16 dirhams
Return flight from London Gatwick to Marrakech Menara : £90, cheaper if you book early
Grand Taxi from airport to Djamaa Al Fna: 80 dirhams for four people
Grand Taxi from Gare Routiere to Asni (47km): 30 dirhams
Grand Taxi from Asni to Imlil (17km) : 15 dirhams
Auberge Lepiney: 130 dirhams (room, dinner, breakfast)
*Claire Danes complained that Manila slums were teeming with roaches and rats when she was shooting Brokedown Palace. Instead of acknowledging the problem and starting to solve it, the bright onion-skinned Manilenyos voted to declare her persona non grata. It must have been the rat shit poisoning from the food they served in Imperial Manila.