The bus ride was a surreal experience and would turn out to be the most interesting part of the short weekend for me. Mike, Kelsi, Henry and caught the bus leaving Rabat at 10 on Saturday night. These buses are a dirtier, older version of the tour buses we have been traveling around the country in our group for the past 3 months. They make constant stops in order to try and maintain a full passenger load, as to increase profit for the bus driver and decrease happiness of the customer. The most interesting of these frequent stops occurred at the base of the Tiz’n Tichca, the highest mountain road pass in Morocco. It was about 4 in the morning and I had only been able to daze off and on into lucid dreams of snow, Erica, thanksgiving at home and other comforting thoughts. To announce stops they abruptly switch the cabin lights on….brutal. I stumbled off the bus to three shops lit up in what was otherwise a surrounding darkness and freezing air of the high Moroccan mountains. Smoke was billowing up from two barbecues stationed in front of two butcher shops ready for hungry customers from the bus. I have the remaining image when looking into one of the shops of this solitary face in a sea of products surrounding it.
I drifted in and out of sleep over the next couple hours awakening to sunset over the now desert landscape. We arrived in Tinehir around 10 or 11 on Sunday, and quickly jumped in a grand taxi that drove us up into the gorge. The beginning of the gorge is beautiful with a long green palmary spilling out of the mouth of it, but as you drive further into it, and the walls become more spectacular, it becomes increasingly apparent that this is a very touristy destination. Hotels and small guesthouses are everywhere and there are a number of tourists walking along what is now a paved road bottom of the gorge. We decided to spend the night in a spectacularly placed hotel in the narrowest section of the gorge under a HUGE overhanging wall. Although exhausted, we managed to walk up a bit and sit on some warm rocks further down the gorge where it opens back up.
We were all very impressed with the physical beauty of this place, but we all agreed the infrastructure and people marred the experience. It is kind of disappointing to end the description at that, but that’s the impression I left with. We crashed really early that night and slept in. We woke up, packed and decided to start hiking down the road in hopes we would hitch a ride back to Tinehir. 4 or 5 km later we got picked up. Nobody wanted to pick us up. It was strange. Perhaps we smelled kind of funky from the bus ride the night before.
Back in Tinehir, we passed the time by talking with a local man who was nice enough to show us around without trying to get us to pay him. I had decided I needed to get back to Rabat to be able to start some work, so my plan was to leave the others on the 5 o’clock bus. I spent the remainder of my time shopping and bargaining, at one point being called a “Berber” because my price was to low. I think it’s the Moroccan form of the “Jew” insult. Little did he know…haha. I found that pretty funny for some reason: maybe it reminded me of high school and how my friends would react to me not ever wanting to spend money, I don’t know.
The bus ride back was long and uneventful, but when I finally got off the bus at 5:20 the next morning, I had a pretty unique experience. I walked through the medina virtually alone. It was eerie to a point where it hard to describe. Having lived in this city for the past three months and never seeing the streets empty left me under the impression of never really feeling alone. For the first time, I was alone. It was dark, and I didn’t have my key to my house. Being me, I didn’t want to wake up my family, so I decided to wander around as much as I could until I either got mugged or couldn’t stand anymore. I walked around, found some comfortable stairwells to take little naps in. Around 5:45 the call to prayer started and awaked the medina for a moment. It was amazing to just sit in the dark stairwell with a little light coming in from the street and listen to the prayer erupt around me. It finally died, and I moved on fearing the man of the house would come back from prayer and leave for prayer. The only things that were open where the mosques. I discovered new ones i never new existed, especially on the main drag where I am normally only used to seeing barber shops and street venders. At 6:30 I decided to ring my bell, my dad got mad at me for not ringing it sooner thinking I was crazy to wander the streets alone. I disagreed, but didnt say anything.
random facts:
-28 hours in a bus
-24 hours at the gorge
-stupid idea?
-it was cool to see people climbing in the gorge
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