Accountant Adventures: Traveling with Julie

Looking at the view

I spent yesterday(Friday) walking around Azrou, the town I’m currently staying in, looking for a bookstore that might carry a Lonely Planet(LP) type book of Morocco. I have the LP books for Europe and Africa, both which have Morocco in them, but they try to cover so many countries that they don’t have enough space to go in depth about Morocco. I walked around the town and met a man who owns a rug shop. We talked in English/French and I told him I am a student because it is easier than explaining that I am an accountant. He invited me into his store, normally I leave but he told me “I know you will not buy anything now, students are poor, but I will show you my wares and when someone asks you can tell them about my store” I went in and looked at his rugs, they were nice if you were in the market for Berber rugs. Then as I left he clasped me in his arms and held my cheek against his and kissed my cheek and then did the same to the other side. Another man’s beard doesn’t feel very nice on your face.

While walking around I walked to a meat market where there are a lot of dead animals laying around and hanging in the small shops. In the back of the market on the floor was a pile of cow feet. I took a picture of them because I’ve never seen a pile of cows feet, especially not on a floor in the middle of the walkway. A butcher came over and told me to bring my camera back out and then he took the cows feet and made a pair of them dance on the ground and then held them up for me to take a picture of him holding them.

I spoke with my neighbor at the hotel, we have a shared balcony, and we have talked everyday. He is in Azrou trying to kick his addiction to Alcohol and has not touched it since arriving 9 days earlier. He has been going on walks every morning as a way to change his attention to something more positive in his life. He invited me to go on a walk with him this morning. I agreed and we planned to meet this morning at 8:30am to head out.

Last night I went to the University where Julie goes to meet her and her friends and go to a house party. At the university males and females are not allowed to socialize at night so someone rents an apartment off campus and they all have a party there. I arrived at the University but was told that I would not be allowed in because I was not a student. I waited outside the gate and Julie came and met me and we went to the party. It was a fun time with lots of people from fancy schools like Yale and Princeton. Apparently Julie rolls with the smarties.

As a result of the partying I only got four hours of sleep and I wanted to cancel the hike with my neighbor, but I had already agreed and I was really looking forward to it despite the minimal amount of sleep. I met my neighbor downstairs and started our walk out of town and into the mountains. The trail leads up the mountain following a flow of water up to a spring. The man told me that he was not good with spatial memory and couldn’t help if we got lost. I assured him that I was good at it and there was nothing to worry about. While we were climbing up the mountain, it was a pretty strenuous climb, he warned me to watch out for thorn bushes. Not 30 seconds later he accidently caught a thorn branch and it flung at my face and gave me a small cut on my forehead. Luckily I was wearing my sunglasses or I might have gotten a thorn in the eye as well. He then looked at me and said “I told you to be careful”. We reached the spring and then decided to head further up the mountain. My neighbor hadn’t gone any further than the spring in previous days because he isn’t good spatially and was worried that he would not make it back to town alive. We walked for a while further and then decided to head back. I stepped on a branch that bounced up and sliced my leg open in two spots. I don’t normally do well with blood and I was starting to feel sick, so I took some deep mountain breaths and tried not to think about it. I lead us down first to a trail we had been on and then to a field just above the spring. I then allowed him to lead because we could almost see the spring and all we had to do was head down. Somehow he managed to head back up the mountain. I didn’t say anything for a few minutes because I wasn’t in a huge rush but finally he turned around and looked at me and said “I don’t think you know where we are going” I told him the direction we needed to go and we headed that way. We found the water again and were successful in getting back down the mountain. Once back in town he bought me a fruit that grows either on or near cactus, it is green and has lots of seeds inside. It was an okay fruit but I don’t really like seeds and there were a lot of them.

I packed up my stuff and checked out of the hotel. I went to Ifrane and met up with Julie so we could make a plan on where to head next. They didn’t want to let me in the gate again at the university. When I told them I was meeting a friend, they asked for his name. I tried to explain that she was a girl, not a him, and gave them her name but they kept referring to her as a him. They finally allowed me to enter but only after confiscating my passport, so they could be sure that I was not staying.

I had asked my neighbor earlier where we should go and he suggested a number of cities. Julie and I decided on one town, for no other reason than it was the closest and headed to grab some lunch. We got a plate of meat with olives and rice. They don’t tell you what kind of meat it is and looking at it you cannot tell either. We both just ate some and were ready to go but a waiter was impossible to find and it felt like we were there for two hours. In India it is most common for restaurants to be vegetarian and if they are non veg they don’t usually have a whole lot of choices. In Morocco you only get meat, everything is meat with sides of meat and meat for dessert (I might be exaggerating that last part a little).

We went to the Grande Taxi stand in Ifrane and were told that they don’t have taxi’s from there to Midelt but that we should go to Azrou and get one. In Azrou we were able to get a Grande taxi and piled into the back seat with two other people. Julie sat next to a Moroccan woman and spent the whole 1h 30min trip speaking Arabic with her. Julie says she doesn’t know much, but I was highly impressed with her abilities.

In Midelt we are about 300km from the desert and it seems that every man, woman and child knows someone who organizes trips to the desert and they all want us to hire them or a family member of theirs. We are interested but no one give prices and everyone wants to talk for a long time and show photos and letters from previous customers. I want to know the price first and then if it’s in my price range, get the details.

Out hotel in Midelt is run by a family who are very nice. We met the grandpa, who runs the place, and who I assume to be his granddaughter who was around 10 (I don’t actually know, I am terrible with ages, she was just as likely 2 years old). Our room was huge with three beds, a table, 4 chairs and a dresser. The owner served us delicious tea and tried talking with us. The problem is that he mixes in Arabic, French and other regional dialects together in the same sentence, most people here speak this way. After he would say a sentence Julie and I would look at each other and say the words we understand to each other in English to try and piece the sentences together.

We headed into town for dinner and found a carnival. The biggest attraction was the bumper cars. There isn’t a line or tickets, people just stand around the outside and when one session is over run onto the floor and try to secure a car. Then while the cars are going a man runs around the area grabbing 5 MAD from each car. Julie and I tried several times unsuccessfully to secure a car and decided that we would try one final time before moving on. A man next to us was able to secure a car for the next session and told us we could have it. I didn’t want to take his ride from him and so at the next change over we rushed out there and were able to get a car for ourselves. I don’t know if we didn’t have control of the forward and backward movement, we couldn’t figure it out, but we were definitely going in reverse more than any other people.

We don’t know where we are headed tomorrow, we are both so exhausted we will decide in the morning.