The Journal
May 16
Went to the get-acquainted party for Siafu. Frankly, I was a bit disappointed at the
people I met, but then I hate such cocktail parties for the most part
anyhow. A few interesting people there,
but the age of the group was younger than I expected.
May 21
Got up fairly early today, ate one of the world’s biggest
breakfasts, packed. Finished my letter
to Buzz; went to American Express and found give pieces of mail there for
me. At the airport, I weighed in 3 kils
under. The flight was pleasant. Met Brigitte from Switzerland, we ended up
sharing a tent together. Brenda and I
discussed the male crop, came to no certain conclusions.
May 22.
Woke up at 5:30, slept again for 2 hours. My first sleeping bag night was not so
terribly uncomfortable. Took a snap shot
of our first camp breakfast – which contained BEANS as a main constituent. Sunbathed, too two swims, had a nice
discussion with some of the local young boys on the beach. All the others clustered together for
protection to avoid the kids, but they are harmless and usually kind of
charming. One of them showed me how to
get the gooky oil from the beach off my feet, for which I was grateful. Walked into Asilah for a look and a
meal. Felt the effects of my first
sunburn then. Had a very tasty fried
sole and salad for 7 dinar (app $1.75).
Tried to read, nap. Talked with a
few people, got into a bit of discussion with Alan from New Guinea when he maintained
that the blacks there have no intelligence.
Supper was good, considereing that our food is still in customs bond
warehouse and we have to use leftovers from Siafa’s last trip. Finished “Lost Cities” after supper, caught
up with my diary, talked to Marsha from Pittsburgh.
May 23
Our stay in Asilah already seems endless, and we have been
here less than 48 hours. It is, I think,
the anxiety of waiting to go, the uncertainties of details, the feeling of
nerves starting to show a bit.
We had a 3 hour briefing session this morning, given by a
leader from the expedition that just came north. He talked about border behavior; problems of
packing up and breaking camp; “Gollies”, as he calls the blacks, and
Gollysmashers, various implements used to fend off or chastise potential
thieves; learning how to use the fire
extinguishers and how the last trip had 6 fires in one day in the Sahara due to
direct sunlight on electrical connections.
He urged an adoption of the “all the time in the world”
attitude that he says is prevalent in Africa, and to expect the unexpected and
the illogical because he says, “This is Africa”. Best way to gain one’s way with officials is
not to stamp and storm around but just to accept their verdicts with
complacency.
I learned that we are issued one roll of toilet paper for
the entire trip; sounds a bit scanty to me.
After lunch, I helped with checking passports for
appropriate visas, inoculations, etc.
Lot of fun involved in this job, since it gave me a chance to look at
ages, where everyone has traveled, and so forth. A bit of a division occurred in camp with the
expedition into town of 2/3 of us for a meal, night club, etc. A few people feel it strongly, I
suspect; a few are on very strict
budgets. Although I have had two days of
nice lunches, I think I will stop. Not
so much for economy but to shrink my stomach and lose some weight. The boy-girl sweepstakes is proceeding apace;
no real pairings yet, but everybody is watching. Some very anxiously. Brenda gave me some basic economics
instruction tonight; we worked through the first two chapters of Samuelson.
May 24
Brigitte got up early this morning to go to Rabat for
necessary visas. After breakfast, since
the day was so grey, I hopped aboard one of the trucks and took advantage of
the fact that one of our drivers was going to the dentist in Tangiers. Marsha, Carol, Mary, Mary and Reid also went
along for the ride. Since the first
available dentist appointment was 4:30, we decided to stay in town. This was my first real acquaintance with
Tangiers, and perhaps I bum-rapped it due to the quick drive through the town
that David and I gave it last year.
Had a nice tour through the town; went into the medina to do
some shopping, got lots of good (I hope) photos. Of course, we were followed around by scads
of young boys proclaiming our loveliness, who we expected were mainly following
us nagging for tour-guide privileges and dirhams, but who seemed to be out just
to cop a feel more than anything else.
They got quite a kick out of dashing up to us, putting their hands on
our rears, and dashing away giggling.
The medina was smallish but interesting, particularly the display of olives and other
vegetables. At one end of the medina was
a scenic overlook onto the bay. Saw an
older Arab woman bend over, place a one-year old baby on her back; the baby automatically went into a crouching
position, and the woman wrapped a towel around it and walked off. Didn’t have enough time to photograph this
marvelously coordinated sequence.
Walked back into town and had a glass of mint tea at a café
looking out onto Place de la France.
Back to camp; I opted to ride in the cab of the old Bedford
army truck and tried talking, or rather shouting, to the driver, Phil. At the end of the ride I was almost deaf from
the din. Good thing we had a full lunch,
since supper consisted of inedible stew with a healthy heaping of curry. After supper a bunch of us trotted off to
Camp Africa – we females went along purely in self defense, after the fellows
said the girls down there were panting and we proclaimed that the fellows
should take care of their own. Brenda
and I proceeded to tie one on and get pretty outrageous.
May 25
Our briefing today covered some fascinating topics and
observations.
- Move slowly in the desert, don’t exert yourself if you are feeling at all ill.
- We will be able to do our washing in the desert only every 10-14 days; we are allocated ½ inch of water in a basin for a complete daily body wash.
- Moroccan laws on foreign national using drugs have toughened considerably. The penalty is now a 35 year jail term, no long just deportation.
- The Black Power movement, spearheaded by Mobutu, is closing down Africa rapidly, and affects immediately where we can take photos, etc.
- In Zaire we will be searched, and anything the guards take a fancy to, they will confiscate. Last voyage north, it was a plastic clothesline.
- We should always bargain, basically because inflation set in very rapidly if we don’t and if we pay more for the goods than the natives are accustomed to paying. A good rule is to divide a quoted price by 3.
- Actual barter can be done for cigarettes, which will get you 100 oranges in Zaire; aspirins, bottle with screw tops; and the pygmies will no longer accept plastic beads, they want hard cold cash. It’s so bad, our expedition leader quipped, that the huts will soon have American Express signs on them.
- Black market money changing: Siafu has established a network of contacts which they will use to change money for the passenger bank, but any one of us caught changing money on the black market will be expelled from the trip, because it upsets established systems and is so often a set-up by police.
- When buying food in local markets, we are to let the cooks go in first instead of rushing in ourselves to buy up our own lunch makings. And we should remember that the more people together in a group, the higher the quoted prices will be.
- In a market we are to buy according to what we see is available without completely wiping out the food supply, because what we see there is likely to be the entire output of produce for that area at that time. We are also warned not to clean out bakeries.
The rest of the briefing dealt with personal hygiene, and
various illnesses and insects: ulcerating sores, dysentery, malaria, ticks,
hookworm, scorpions, snakes, lice, fleas, schistosomiasis, crotch rot, foot-burns
from walking in the desert in sandals, dehydration, etc.
Following the afternoon briefing, we all packed the trucks,
loaded firewood, completely scrubbed the kitchen utensils, did washing,
etc. Brigitte returned from Rabat, minus
her necessary visas, as did everyone else who went to Rabat for that
purpose. Some will go back on
Monday. It seemed to be a huge hassle.
May 26
Up early today – 6:30 – since it is finally take-off
day. Breakfast was again pretty
miserable, with the wheatabix running out very quickly and only baked beans and
break were left. We had our first
complete packing session, which was lots of fun. Learned how to fold up the tents and pack the
trucks. It took a great long time this
first session, but I imagine we will at least half that.
I walked into town to get a head scarf in anticipation of a
blowy ride on the benches in the open back of the truck. Reid joined Brenda and I for lunch at the
Alcazar restaurant under the palms. Reid
tried to bargain for some macaroons with the vendors in the marketplace and had
an interest occurrence: he had agreed on
a price of 2 for 1 dirham, but when he gave the vendor the money, the fellow
shortchanged him and gave him change for 1 cookie for 1 dirham.
I was kind of pleased when a few of the little boys I met on
the beach remembered my name in town.
One of them even gave me a kiss on the hand goodbye.
In my attempt to learn economics from the used Samuelson
textbook I brought along, Brenda helped me get through population theory today.
We packed the truks and finally, we were off! Seemed that the guys separated into one truck
and the girls into another. We only
drove about 50 k and pulled aside into a forested area. Setting up camp for the first time was
fascinating. We pulled the tarps out
from the truck; practically everyone decided to sleep in the open under the
tarps instead of putting up tents.
Dinner was quite good and the wood made a fast fire. In the process of collecting wood for the
fire, I stumbled onto an area with beehives (I think, from the buzzing sound)
and also came across some interesting vegetables that look like things from the
Body Snatchers.
At camp meeting tonight we discussed our change in
route. This is necessitated by the fact
that we have no chance of getting to Algeria by the 31st May, when
several visas run out, so we must take a trip to Rabat into consideration. This puts Marrakesh back into the itinerary.
I rigged up a discreet washing place, much to the humor of
everyone else, but it worked. We had
some difficulty with a forestry official who wanted to know where we got the
wood from. A fact of this camping life
is that trundling off into the woods with the shit shovel is not much fun in
the dark; driver Roger suggested that we
have someone come along in the role of second shovel.
May 27.
Up at 5 to a call of “Rise and Shine”. By 6:30 we were on the road, albeit very
sleepy. I had a snooze courtesy of
John-the-lawyer’s shoulder and really felt kind of sad about a few things. I remembered being in Morocco about this time
last year, and very happy with David and very warm and comfortable, and before
I knew it, a tear slipped down my cheek.
I felt pretty foolish over this little bit of silent emotion, but I am
human after all and so it goes.
We stopped at a market to buy food for lunch – bread,
tomatoes, oranges. Then we made a petrol
stop in Quezzane where an amusing incident happened. Alan and I were kidding around and he gave me
a hug that ended in a smart slap on the rear, resulting in gales of glee from
the normally-accumulated crowd of little boys.
Later on, at the petrol station, I played my harmonica over the side of
the truck for the little kids, until one of them made an obscene gesture of
opening his fly. So much for my music
ability.,,
We arrived in Fes about 2:30 and were given a 3 hour break
to tour the city. Seems funny to be back
in this section of the city again, still
holding memories of my trip here with David a year ago. Brenda, Alan and I went on expedition, window
shopping, and we stopped at a sidewalk café for lemonade and some of that
really super glace that former French colonists know how to make. We sampled the French pastries. Back to the trucks and then to a campsite on
the either side of which are two foul-looking rivers. I talked to some folks who had just come
north from Jo’burg on an Encounter tour;
they all had had several bouts of dysentery; they were held up; one of their members was arrested to taking a
photo in Zaire; they had to bribe the border guards at CAR (Central African
Republic) to get camera equipment in; and a girl died by getting caught in the
powerful current of a waterfall area. Naturally all these things ran rumor
around the camp and were discussed at the nightly camp meeting, along with
other topics such as our guided tour to Fees tomorrow, our coming itinerary,
water rationing, etc. Barry the driver
kept referring to our guide as Gollie, and I find it fairly offensive after my
chat with our fellow traveler Richard yesterday. To top it off, I turned my ankle when I
missed a step on the ladder. Ouch!
