The People You Meet

I enjoy traveling alone. One of the biggest reasons is that I like meeting people – especially the type of people that find themselves wandering around solo like me. When you are on your own, you tend not just to meet folks, but end up traveling together and having an opportunity to get to know each other.  

The group pictured above is a perfect example of the fun folks one tends to run into traveling alone. From left to right:

Aaron and I met in Chefchaouen, a beautiful little town in the Rif Mountains. I proposed a hike up in the mountains, and he was the only person daft enough to want to spend a day climbing a mountain when then temperature was well over 35C. We got along well and decided to stick together as we travelled south through Fes and down to Marrakesh.

AnneLise was staying at the hostel where I found myself on my first night in Morocco. She was working at a local charity for a month, and so we swapped contact info to meet up when I came back to Marrakesh in a week.

Aziz was had an extra room in his apartment, which AnneLise had rented out for a month shortly after I met her. As the local guy, he knew where to rent motorbikes, and was able to point us in the right direction for a fun day out from Marrakesh.

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A Good Price and a Prickly Pear

I love bargaining. I'm not always the best at it, but I love the very idea that a quick wit and a smile can help you get a better price on something. Plus, if you bargain well and have a fun time of it, you are more likely to pick up some fun perks on the side.

While I was walking from the Roman ruins of Volubilis to a place where I knew I could catch a cheap taxi, an empty taxi passed me headed to pick up some tourists at the ruins. I flagged the driver down and started haggling out a price. Normally a single place in the 6 seat (well 4 seat, but they put 6 people in it) taxi would cot me 10 dh (1 Euro). It was getting late in the day and I got a price for the whole cab of 30 dh (half price, woo!) after pointing out that I would likely be his last fare of the day, and it was better to head back to town than sit around for another hour while the last tourists drifted out of the ruins.

About 15 minutes of cruising past olive plantations and sprawling cacti groves, the driver saw a guy on the side of the road with some packages to be taken to town. Since I had technically paid for the whole cab he asked if it was ok if he stopped. I said sure, so long as he also picked up a couple of the freshly picked cactus fruit that I had seen sitting in baskets by the side of the road.

Growing up in New Mexico I was familiar with prickly pears, little fruit that were significantly more trouble than they were worth since removing the thorns from them inevitably meant removing some from your hand as well. The fruit he gave looked similar to those, but was an order of magnitude bigger. The driver called it a Fig Berber, and I highly recommend picking a couple up if you are ever in Morocco. Assuming you don't get them included in your taxi ride, they should cost about 1/2 dh.

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You Must Remember This

In Casablanca I was reminded that while I love a good adventure, sometimes it’s really nice to enjoy a couple hours in a 5 star tourist trap.

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Mint Tea

I arrived in Marrakesh Friday after staying up all night to catch a flight that was designed to be inconvenient: 6 am out of Luton, London's worst and most distant airport.

First up was finding a place to stay. As soon as i had dropped my bag I headed off walking to the market. Along the way, a guy with a cool hat and goofy smile struck up a conversation, and invited me to have tea with him. I smelled a con or a salesman, but figured I'd play along for a while and ended up drinking mint tea in his shop (phew, salesman). It's quite a pleasant way to finnese a customer, so after a couple of rounds of tea I did my part and haggled for a good price on a cheap trinket.

Sadly Abdule professed that he didn't do photos so I don't have a shot of the smile and hat, but I did get a good first impression of Morocco. Shows that sometimes it's worth just playing along.
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