Before leaving Fes we had one more
purchase to make. Throughout our time in the city we walked down the
main shopping street more than a dozen times. One of the shops I had
passed on multiple occasions was a painting store that had a piece I
fancied. I had made an offer the night before but we were unable to
reach an agreement on a final price. In the morning I bit the bullet
and made the purchase.
Tim also got the piece he had been eyeing
You can see how excited the shop owner
is to be featured in these photos. I had my canvas rolled up and we hit the
road, headed for Merzouga. We were quickly reminded how vague traffic
signs and lines are, this was a one way street.
45 minutes into our drive we started to
see signs of snow. This was a bit unexpected due to the warmer
weather we had experienced in Fes.
The owner of the hostel in Fes had informed us
that there is a monkey forest on the way that we should stop at. We
did some research online and found 3 areas on the map where monkeys
could be spotted. The first point turned out to be a tourist trap
complete with a donkey ride, pay for doing nothing parking, and a mud
pit. We did not want to deal with any of this nonsense so we headed
towards the next stop on our map.
Not long after heading down the small
road we were turned around by a snow drift blocking the way. Sensing monkeys
may not happen we headed towards the last point to see if we could
salvage this detour. Sure enough there was a turn off with no
attendant and a clear path into the forest. After a short walk we
were surrounded by these little guys.
The forest was filled with the
strangest pine cones we had ever seen.
There was also a road side shop selling
fossils. They had a lot of really neat full specimens for sale with an almost nonexistent price tag. Tim picked up a few items.
Back on the road the snow really started to
pick up.
There were even ski rentals on the side
of the highway. You of course had to walk yourself up the hill, but it
was still a very intriguing proposition. You defiantly had to watch your speed or you would end up skiing into oncoming traffic. We ended up passing due to
the fact we were already very behind schedule and we would have the
opportunity to ski later on in our adventure. It was at this time we
were both starving and decided to grab lunch.
We were in the middle of the mountains
so our only options were stops in small one street towns along the
way. We settled on a small cafe in the middle of nowhere. They did
not speak English but we were able to point our way to a meal. We
wound up with two sandwiches made with the Frisbee like bread that is
so popular around here. The only ingredient was meat and we were fine
with that.
The snow started to let up and we were back in Utah once again.
There were a number of other road side shops along the way but we didn't find anything particularly interesting other than more fossils.
Then we hit the boring stretch.
As quickly as the scenery had changed
to snowy wonderland we found ourselves inside a valley the likes of
which we have never seen. To the left mountainous desert and to the
right a forest of palm trees in this middle of this very arid region.
At one point the palms were sprinkled with what resembled aspen trees
nearing autumn as they were bright yellow.
Our journey was nearing its end and
only a single town lay between us and Merzouga. As we approached it the
local university had just let out for the day and literally thousands
of students on bikes flooded the streets. The one mile journey
through the town took around 45 minutes as we dodged not only the sea
of bikes but oncoming traffic. In Morocco a vehicles' primary weapon
of navigation through crowded streets is to constantly honk ones horn
to ward away pedestrians and other cars. Unfortunately our budget car
came without a horn. We quickly found ourselves at the mercy of the
tour-de-morocco. Wave after wave of bikes cut in front of us without
any regard for their own well being. It was like a video game where
you not to kill the Arab children. The winner avoids a stoning.
We eventually arrived at the hostel to
once again find that we were the only patrons for the night. We were
seated and asked to fill out the required information for our stay.
As we sat there a staff member proceeded to try and sell us a
camel trek package. We told him we had already arranged one. He asked if we
could cancel it. After refusing multiple times he tried to pitch us a
4x4 tour. We cut him off and said we were not interested. He refused
to leave unless we let him talk about his joke of a 4x4 trip. Things
got a little tense as they seem quite annoyed that it is not enough
to just stay at their hostel and the we must purchase something else.
We had to get a little mean and he finally showed us to our room.
Douche.
Our room was pretty big but had some
immediate drawbacks. The main ones being an infestation of wolf
spiders, broken shower, sand in my bed, and a dried booger on Tim's
comforter. There was also no wi-fi in the room although it was
advertised as such. Too tired to find another place we decided to
grab dinner in the hotel. We should have stayed here:
We were offered no choices of meal and
served some Moroccan Campbell's soup for a first course. Next up was
a huge plate full of spaghetti. From the looks of it they cooked the
whole box. It was mediocre but in our starved state we devoured it and ordered some coffee
and tea. We received some tar and bitter piss instead. Then out of
nowhere came another course; a giant tagine of Kefta. This is a dish
we both like but we were full and it tasted horrible anyway. We had
not order a second entree and did not desire to pay for it. Another
staff member appeared to explain that it was all part of the same
single meal. We received the bill 200 dh bill and were quite upset.
This was by far the most expensive and worst tasting meal we have had
in Morocco to date.
We have some time tomorrow to kill
before our trek into the desert. We are going to try and buy a soccer ball. Then we will be off the grid.
