Weekend Away
August 5, 2024 Instagram posts
Current situation: trying to disassociate as people fuss about seats on this bus. A woman didn't want to give up the seat her kid was sitting in that she hadn't paid for . I already had to use a roachy hole in the ground toilet that cost me 2 cents and got told that the sound of the bells on my backpack will attract jinn, so I had to muffle them in a sweater. My destination is a Senagalese restaurant in a tourist town up the coast. Let the vacay begin.
Update: had to put on my earphones and listen to Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman because a kid started throwing up.
Update #2 the vomiting continues and this is a 4 hour bus ride
#letmeout #publictransitsucks#hiringaprivatetaxitogethome
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I have bells wired to my smaller backpack as an alarm in case someone tries to snatch it if I’m not alert. B told me that in Islam, bells aren’t liked because they call Jinn, spirits that cause mischief or harm. That would be an interesting explanation for why the kids spewed so much. (Yes, there were TWO kids barfing, but since I didn’t dare turn around, I didn’t know that!). The reality is that the road there is extremely windy and that’s what did it. Eventually we arrived and I had a wonderful time with B in Essaouira, Morocco. It’s the silver capitol of the country, and there are jewelry stores with Berber and Tuareg styles on every street. I burned a hole in my retina looking at and buying earrings and had to take a break and focus on linens instead. I purchased a pashmina shawl, a Turkish towel and a beautiful multicolored wool coat that will last me for the next few centuries. B is an excellent tour guide and planned our day session in the Medina perfectly.
We stayed at the Riad Tazamout in the Jewish section of town. The lobby was dingy, but the welcome was warm, and we were served sweet hot tea on the rooftop deck after checking in. The reviews of the place said that it smelled musty and that was true. It’s because the inner stairwell has an enclosed roof rather than an open one to allow airflow. Our shower curtain was disgustingly moldy, but the manager had it changed and the bathroom recleaned as soon as we pointed it out. We skipped the breakfast that is part of the deal in favor of eating out. I think we were possessed by Hobbits because B had restaurants picked out already for 1st Breakfast, 2nd Breakfast, Elevensies, Lunch, 1st Dinner and Second Dinner. During our 1.5 days in Essaouira we ate Senegalese mafe and thiebeyapp,gelato, pastries from Pumpkin, fried fish burgers, freshly fried cinnamon sugar donuts, and preserved lemon and chicken tagline.
The colors of spices, linen, and food were gorgeous. I spent a lot of time photographing cats and doors,which are the most amazing blue. Tuareg men in turbans beckoned from shop fronts, offering “caravan prices” for jewelry, bookmarks and clothing. Vendors selling hats, herbs, socks and fish lined the streets. The pile of squid splayed across the table reminded me of operations I’d seen on The Good Doctor, and cats crouched nearby guy selling pink shrimp. We bought freshly ground almond butter and a green pigment for dyeing B’s dress, watched older women massaging argan seed to extract the oil, and got serenaded by musicians while we had dinner.
We then caught the bus to AlJadida, a beach town up the coast. I prayed that everyone had a dose of Dramamine before boarding, and luck was with us. Just to make sure that the Jinn weren’t gonna hassle us, I wrapped the bells in a sweater to muffle the sound. We stayed at Hotel Iris, right across the street from the beach. If we craned our necks sideways we could see it from our room. Check-in was a nightmare, as the reviews had stated, but the room itself was pleasant although sloppily painted. I was pleased to see a glass door separating the shower from the toilet area, but the whole shower could do with a deep cleaning of the grout. I worked in a hotel at one time, so I know what excellent hotel standards should be. Unfortunately, the one I worked in which charged $100 a night in 1988 was not excellent. Shower curtains were grubby, and the decorations were so ugly that I stole them and threw them away. What gaul to charge someone so much money and have them share the room with a green and yellow specked pitcher and wash basin that came from the 5 and 10 store. That place was so bad that I called it the Cheese Hotel, because it was so cheesey. But I digress…
When I am loving my food, I hum. I was practically bursting into song over the lamb and fig tagine I had our first night there. Delectable, tender meat was perfectly paired with sweet fruit and caramalized onions. I ate 2 loaves of bread by myself, sopping up the juices without shame. Next day we sat on the beach for awhile, which was lovely. It’s very clean, the water is shallow a long way out, and there are loads of families there. Later we walked to the Portuguese fort city, which has not been developed as Essaouira’s Medina has. Peeking into the dungeon where enslaved people were held gave me the shivers, and I was glad to leave there.
Next day we caught a shared taxi to Marrakech, I was medina-ed out so we went to visit Yves St Laurent’s garden. The vivid blue of the walls, the textures and structures of the xeriscaping and the sounds of running water were both simultaneously soothing and stimulating. The tall palm trees and bamboo sheltered us from the heat on that 101 degree afternoon while we strolled the cement paths. Afterwards we caught a taxi to a Senegalese restaurant which had no food ready despite it being 2pm, so we ate a simple tagine nearby before our 3 hour taxi ride back to the main hub in a nearby town. By then, I was pretty exhausted and rather than wait for a shared taxi to fill up with passengers, I used the power of the mighty Dirham (80 cents to a dollar) and booked us a private one that delivered us to our door. It was a fantastic trip, the perfect finale to my flawless few weeks visiting B.
