Berbari Asilah

... make you trip balls hard and heat exhaustion doesnt exactly help stabilise your mind. Also, whenever you need water or food you have to detour into a village where there is one shop which is basically a small hole in a random wall. These shops sell the most random things which are usually stacked in some kind of illogical pile. Then when you finally find something to buy it takes the shop keep about 5 minutes to make up his mind about a a good rip off price (which is still ...

... begging or selling. Some people have even worse scams set up. For example (and there are many similar things) we met a seemingly nice person on the street who invited us to have breakfast (at 7pm due to ramadan). We were a bit suspect and politely rejected his invitation. We later found out that they try to charge you after you have eaten with them. Also, we have heard stories of people inviting you back to their house and taking ...

... direction of Rabat using a map about 15cm by 15cm. After accidently ending up on a motorway we were quickly stopped by police. I thought they would just say get off at the next junction. No. That certainly wasnt the case. They said there was a road that runs parallel a mile or two away across a massive field and through a small village. My concern at the time was that a huge barbed wire fence sepperated the motorway we were on and the field we needed ...

... french or spanish. I'll stick with the spanish for now seeing that my french is but a few phrases. I will be traveling Morocco here for the next 3 weeks by myself, however my friend Michelle from Madrid will be joining me for xmas and new years and a bit of traveling around morocco. Should be a good time! Prices are very cheap, food is awesome, culture different from any other country I've visited thus far. Time to go wander around the city!

... in the wet camel blankets we used on Camel Trek II in M'Hammad. ******* camels. Damn you Grumpy Bum Burp-A-Lot and No Nostrils Dinosaur Breath. Jamel and Aziz have made sure we will never forget them. We had the knowledge that there is a train network that runs from Casablanca up the Atlantic Sea coast to Asilah. However, since we have recently reached the self-given status of extreme hardcore independent backpackers after our Camel ...

... es chamou-me e abriu-me um melão que partilhou comigo. Não conseguimos entender-nos para além da troca de nomes e paises, mas ele fez-me comer melão até que transbordasse pelos olhos, até que eu tivesse de dizer « não aguento mais ». Entretanto os vendedores das barracas vizinhas vieram todos cumprimentar e ver o « freak », iam rindo da minha cara, poucos deles sequer arranhavam no francês, mas eu estava muito à vontade, de estômago cheio. Acabei por passar la a noite ...

... chicken, but the decision to drive on and find a more gentle port of entry was almost immediate. So the story goes that I drove the 40-odd Ks to Asilah, a little town on the Atlantic coast on the road to Rabat. I'm now chilling in my bedroom at the Hotel Marhaba, right in front of the Medina's gates, half listening to the hubbub in the streets below and the local muezzin's call to prayer. Oh, and yes, I'm also ...

... a top grade on my exam, Inshallah". As I learned, though, while living and working in Egypt, "Inshallah" is not just a way of attributing events to God's will but an overall attitude towards life in places where life does not hold the same certainties it does for those of us in the affluent West. This more accepting attitude towards life contrasts with the western take charge way of thinking and can be either relaxing ...

... s stop is Larache, another small town not far from Asilah. there are some Roman ruins a few kilometers out of town which we should be checking out later. in the mean time, lunch and a visit to the internet cafe to do some work. We found a fairly nice hotel set in grounds full of gardens and a swimming pool, and a half-dozen roving peacocks whose call sounds a like like a very loud meow...

... the writer would just write such and such happened Thursday (no on). I thought that the spelling and grammar could have been improved upon. I had two weighty meals today at lunchtime and at dinnertime. For lunch I had the same salad and Spanish omelette, at the same restaurant. Curiously, the price had gone up overnight from 30 Dirhams to 35 Dirhams. I gave the guy 30 and he seemed to accept it ...