Ya ya ya, I know, been a week, or 1.5, since I updated, but as every1 should know by now, I've been extreeemely "busy" at "work"....im actually laughing as I type this, but take it for what it is, okay? Working this 9-5 position here has really taught me something, though many will think this is a horrible lesson, and berate me for not having a work ethic, but this 9-5 office setting doesn't cut it for me. I can never see myself doing this, and will avoid it at all costs. Thank god I can live without having to do this, at least for now. Back to Morocco:
This past weekend was undoubtedly one of my greatest experiences..ever.
-It started on Friday afternoon:
Me, and my 3 co-workers left work early, at 11:30am, and hurried back to the main AIESEC apartment in Hassan, Rabat, about a 30min bus ride. Carrying all of our bags for the weekend, we ran up into the apartment, to find our friends waiting for us. The plan was that our Moroccan AIESEC friend Ben was going to drive his car, with 5 other people in it, and that he was going to get a rental car and have someone else drive it with him. Our destination= Chechaowen, a remote mountain village in the Reef Mountain range, known for, obviously, Reeeeefer, duh. There was some big music festival that we were all going to. So as we get situated in the apartment in Hassan, inquiring about what our driving situation was going to be, Ben asks all of us if any1 can drive stick. I look around and dont see any1 responding, then I ask him why his Moroccan friend can't drive it. He replies that he doesn't like driving through the mountains, and that it would be better if one of us could, one of us who doesn't possess a Moroccan, or Int'l Drivers License...
So, realizing that know1 really wants to drive the 5-6 hour treck, through the windy, dangerous mountain roads, on a rental Fiat stick shift car, I eagerly volunteer. "Can you drive stick?" Ben asks me. I respond, well, I've never owned a stick-shift car, but I've driven it on occassions, and that I would be fine, through the mountainous roads on sketchy roads, without a driver's license, or a clue where I was going. And the adventure begins...!
In my car, there are four other people, 3 crammed into the back (small white fiat), and one in the front. We gather together some CDs, and depart for Chechaowen. I am trailing behind Ben, for I have no idea where I'm going.
I got off to a good start, never stalling the car and embarassing myself in front of every1, though I may have done it at later times, dont remember....we fill up for gas, and we're off!
The initial road we took was very rural, and not in the greatest shape, but that didn't keep us from driving as fast as we could, excited to arrive in the beautiful Chechaowen, relax, music, hash (for some), and amazing scenery. About an hour and a half after we left Rabat, I'm still close behind Ben on a small, 2 lane rural road, with no other cars in site, only things we pass are men on tracters/donkeys/horses. Often times, it is a whole family riding together on a single donkey, carrying several bags.
Then, all of a sudden, I hear a small pop, and my left back tire begins making this horrible thumping sound, as if it work in extreme agony, much like the agony displayed on the face of the donkey that carries an entire family, uphill, barefoot, bothways. I immediately know that it's a fkng flat, and start honking (the horn failed, and sounded more like the noise the donkey makes as it struggles to support an entire family), and flashing my brights @ Ben's car. I pull over to the side of the road, and I happen to stop at an intersection with an even smaller, rural road, where a tractor, a donkey, and another tractor stand are, this one, carrying a massive cart full of fresh watermellon. I get out of the car, drawing the attention of the locals, and examine the back left wheel, to make sure its flat...
Sure enough that piece of @#$*(@*$ mother *@#&&@# c0#@Kfkuck*(@#*(@9 ...sigh*
Keep in mind: middle of nowhere=no gas stations, no tow-truck service, naada.
Ben turns his car around and pulls up to me. I immediately pop the trunk and get the spare tire and jack out. It took us about 5min to figure out how to use the jack, then we get the car up, and 5more min later, we get the flat tire off. Now comes the shitty part: as we try to jimmy the spare tire onto place, we soon realize that the spare tire included in the car failed to fit the car that we rented...
WHAT IN THE FKUUUCUKINGGGG!!!?@!>$*))!*#$*@&$*(@#&($*@#*($*(@#$*(
15 MORE MINUTES OF TRYING TO JAM THE GOOD FOR NOTHING SPARE TIRE ONTO THE CAR, STILL NO LUCK. We go to bens car, and get his spare tire out, however he drives an SUV, so I allready knew this was a longshot. We try to put it on, it looks as if it will fit actually, to my suprise, the tire is the right size, the rim is proportional to the rim of the flat, but as we put it up and try to push it on, we notice that the rim is lacking two screw holes that are needed in order to fit onto the two screws sticking out from the car. Shiiiaaaattt...
Okay, so now, we fk around with it for 15more minutes...
In my view, we have two option:
-remove the two screws sticking out from the break pad, which will allow us to Bens spare tire onto my rental car. However, this requires a wrench, which none of our cars have.
-drill holes into the spare tire to make room for the screws.
15more minutes of walking in circles and conversing with the 5 local guys, who were now all standing around our car, all trying to give us their opinion on how to fix it, we finally ask them if they knew of any local mechanic shops. They tell us of one about 3 km down the road. So 5 more min of standing around, then me and Ben get into his car, leave the other 9 people standing their, eating their watermellon (which by the way, looked reaaaally good), and we take off for the "mechanic guy" downt he road.
We arrive at some dusty buildings lining the side of the road. The corner of one building, next to an archaic windmill, lies a "garage", or, in better words, a 10ft by 10 ft room, with tires and tools and god knows what else, laying all over the place. Inside rests a man, roughly in his 60s I'd say, and a small boy, about 10, presumabley his son? Ben and I get out, and bring with us the two tires, and explain to him the situation. Long story short, after about 40min of explaining to him, and him working on the tire, he eventually is able to remove the rim from my flat tire, and put on it a new rubber tred, and rubber air tube, though none of them were actually new. He gives us the old rubber tube, which holds the air to the tire, and I examine it...how fkng suprising, that the piece I was holding was riddled with repair marks, and additional rubber patches, covering previously popped tires. In other words, that tire has broke several times, and they continue to repair the same one, with rubber patches. This leaves me to believe that the other 3 tires on my rental car may be in the same shape as this one...wutever, nothing i can do...
So 15min later, we take the "new" tire, and drive back to our stranded group. We put the new tire on, and 15more min later, we're on the rooooad again.
(skip ahead an hour)
Still in the road, but now this time, the road isn't straight. It has drastic changes in elevation, up and down the mountain, sharp, blind curves, scatterd with pot holes, slow moving tractors, pedestrians walking on the side of the road, and the occasional goat that wonders into the street. Keep in mind, im trying to follow Ben, who drives fast and passes every car he comes to. Several close calls with headon collisions happened, as I would play Russian roulette when passing a slow-moving car around a sharp curve/steep incline. And the lack of guardrails on the side made it veeery interesting, knowing any wrong move, and I send the five of us in my car plummetting 100 feet down a mountain.... Thankfully, every time I pulled the trigger in Russian roulette, the chamber was empty, or I just missed my head, either way, we made it to Chechaowen in one piece (us humans at least, the Fiat wasn't doing so well).
We parked the cars and checked into our hostel. We eventually make are way into the "Medina", the market place where everything is, and we find a nice restuarant to sit down at. We eat some really good Moroccan food, and get tea afterwards. Our plan for the first night was to find some alchohol, drink it, then head to the concert. We ask our friend, Aneer, if he knows where we can buy any (he is an AIESECER from Rabat, who came in Bens car, and goes to Chechaowen every few months to relax). He walks accross the street and talks to some guys, who talks to some other guys, yaaadda yadda, we end up getting lead about 10 min down windy, narrow alleys, by some 10 year old kid?! wtfff, me and my friend I was walking there with were looking at each other wondering why some little kid was taking us to get alchohol, very odd we though, but wutever, we ended up at some "restuarant" down the street, whose selection, on this night, was limited to Heineken only, 20 dirham a pop (about $2.10). So we stock up, head back to the hotel, go up onto the roof, which gave us a magnificant view of the stars, and city skyline, and mountains all around us, and we proceeded to hang out and drink our beer. The time came, and we headed down for a 10 min walk to the concert stage. The show was good, we danced, hung out, talked to people, then headed back.
Back to the rooftop for some more hanging out/drinking, played some UNO, I got last place two games in a row out of 4 people, and lost the bet, and had to go run around dancin in the street (note: streets of morocco are diiiirrrrtyyy btw) BAREFOOT. Bedtime.
Day 2: Saturday
Woke up like 10:30, 11 ish, got breakfast, met up with the 2nd group of people, who left Rabat at THREE AM (thats why I went early, didnt wanna leave @ 3am), who just arrived, and hung out. We went down throughout the medina, exploring, shopping, hanging out. We had to switch hostels cuz there were like 25-30 of us by now, so some stayed in the old one, some went to a new one close by. The hostel I stayed at for the first night's name was Hotel Boston; the 1st day i was there, some crazy looking old moroccan guy (literally, he may of been crazy), started talking to us about the hotel. This guy claimed to be the owner, saying he lived in Boston 13 years ago, (but his english sucked), and wanted to know if we wanted any hash. I replied that I dont smoke, and that my friend next to me, who's from Amsterdam, would prob want some, lol.... but we instantly walked away as he was telling us that he was the man to come to... Later that evening we were walking down the hallway to our room to go to bed, and he opened some door and was standing there in his boxers, with an insaaaane look on his face, then he started laughing for some reason, and we kept walking... obv he wasnt the owner, god knows what his story was...
So anyways, back to day 2. We hung out in the scorching heat for hours, then eventually, at around 4pm, we decided we wanted to go try to see the hash fields. In order to do so, we needed to drive through a mountain pass, for the fields lay beyond the mountains. We crammed 6 people into the rented Fiat, and 8 into Ben's SUV. I let my friend Lynn drive the Fiat, cuz he's bigger then me, and it made more sense. We started off from the medina, and immediately began climbing in elevation. We made it upon a hill overlooking the city, and turned onto a stone road. This road was made soley out of stones, not pebbles, not gravel, not dirt, STONES.... we continued to push the Fiat to the max, following ben up this steeeeep, and i mean STEEEAP mountain road, winding like crazy. We ended up passing a huge hurd of goat that were standing in the road and on the sides, picking at, and eating, a flaming pile of trash (yes, that IS what we saw). We continued up the road, steeper and higher, higher higher. We drove for about 45min up this mountain, and eventually, on a narrow, 1 lane incline, a land rover started coming towards us. We all stopped and got out of the car. The driver of the landrover, some french dude, informed us that the road is impassable, for if he couldnt do it, I dont think our lil Fiat could! So we turned around, and headed back, but the trip itself up this road was nuts, and naturally, in my opinion, the best part.
We returned to our hostels, changed/showered, and then headed to dinner. Same routine as last night: dinner, then go pick up alcohol, then back to hotel for some pre-gaming. We spent a few hours on the rooftop (this time the restaurant had a wider selection of booze, ie: heineken and fine moroccan wine, as well as we had a bigger group, meaning the rooftop party was awsome). Following this we split up, some of us walked to the concert, and some around the medina. It was still early, and the main concert show didnt start till around 9ish. I dont remember how, but I ended up talking with two Moroccan guys, Chechaowen locals, late 40s-mid 50s, for about an hour and a half. I think it started when I drunkenly walked up to one and asked for a lighter, in which case he pulled one out, went to light my cigerette, and then reached in and stole it outa my mouth?! He did it in a playful/joking manner, so I laughed and asked for it back... Note: I really was not too sober at this point, so I was naturally very talkative and friendly (not that I'm different sober, well, the talkative party ya, nevermind). So I was alone, sitting down at this cafe with these two middle aged men, talking about I dont even remember. I do remember enjoying the conversation a great deal, and that they were very nice and funny. One of them was a georgraphy teacher in HS, the other, an "engineer", but that term is thrown around soooo fkng loosely here, I swear, it doenst mean anything. Anyways, we got up from our table, and headed towards the music stage. I really wanted to meet up with my group, cuz I fig'd watching the concert with two middle aged Moroccan men woulda been weird, and thankfully, dunno how, but after walking about 5min, a big group of my fellow AIESECers appeared behind me. I introduced them to my new Moroccan friends, and we headed together to the stage. However, the two moroccans broke off, and went home I think, I guess they were just gonna walk me to the stage, I dunno..wutever, so we're off to the concert... Main act: The Gipsy Kings, a famous Spanish group. The show was great, lots of dancing, saw some absolutely craazy moroccan teen guys dancing like they were on X, one of them had no shirt on, and was literally going crazy, never stopping/slowing down, for like 2 hours, he looked like he had a constant streem of water flowing over his head as if there was a shower head over him, disguistingly drenched...he was dancing/spinning around with our friend Katy...ppoooor poor katy, lol.
Anyways, it gets blurry from there, walked home maybe? went to bed? dont remember.
Day 3: Sunday
Wake up at 8-9am ish.
Breakfast
Shower
Pack, and check out of hotel by noon.
Get into Fiat/Ben's SUV/rented Bus for other group, and we head off to our destination: hiking toward the "Bridge of God".
We drove an hour into the mountains, and came to a stop. Parked our cars, and headed off.
Note: 1 of the Moroccan AIESECers had to remain for the entire time on the bus, because the previous day, his foot/lower leg got ran over by a taxi driver in a narrow alley, meaning he was casted up, with a fractured tibea? He told me that he was buying something from a local hole-in-the-wall kiask stand, and turned around, and got nailed. The taxi driver, however, to my suprise, immediately stopped, and helped him out, taking him to the hospital, waiting for him, paying for the medical bill, and then driving him back to the hostel. So he was now forced to wait in the bus while we all went camping. About 5 hours by himself :(
Okay, so we're off. We walk alongside a river, which really didn't have a path, so it was an absolute workout to traverse through the terrain. Thick brush, rocks, water, mountains, etc etc, you name it, this was, however, worth every drop of sweat. The river ran in between two mountains, and the river itself was beautiful; an aqua green color, clean smell, you can see to the bottom, etc. It was amaaazing.
We hiked about an hour down the river when we came upon a spot where we can swim, and eventually, cliff jump into the river. This was awwwsome. We immediately get into the water from the lowest point and swim around (not me though, I was busy scouting out the highest spot to jump from).
So we swam, jumped, swam and jumped for about an hour here, and then continued on up the river, making our way to the "Bridge of God". (dont worry, at this point, i had no fkng idea what this bridge was anyway, but i didnt care, this hike was where the fun was at). So we continue down, about another hour, then finally make it to the bridge. In front of us, we see the river run in between two vertical walls, very narrow. The mountains on both sides of us caim close, squeezing the river, and forming above the river, about 200-250 feet, the two mountains were conjoined by a natural formation, which served as a road. It was quite the view. At this location there were several other small groups of Moroccans, camping out. THere was even a hut selling sardine/tuna/or egg sandwhiches, and warm drinks. It was quite shocking, for at first I didnt see it, walked right past it, and made a joke to a friend that you can really make a killing here if u sold sandwhiches and drinks. He laughed and pointed up the river, showing me the stand which sold both sandwhiches and drinks. WTF i though?! I ran up to it and immediatley ordered some food, cuz I was the first one to arrive at the bridge with 2 other ppl, so we had to wait about 15min before anyone else arrived. So i ate my lunch, and then continued trecking down the river, past the bridge, just to see the other side.
One spot, directly under the bridge, where the two vertical walls squeezed the river, I was able to climb up the mountain, a completely vertical wall, ascending roughly 20 feet up, on slick but jagged rock, and then hung out up there for about 15min, and then jumped in. I went exploring some more, making the difficult treck farther into the wilderness.
Note: I was wearing, throughout this treck, the thinnest, shittiest flip-flop rubber piece of crap sandles you can imagine. Wet rubber plus slick rock=wtf was i thinking... Oops, o well, needless to say, i never actually fell down, my balance and use of hopping from boulder to boulder was sufficient enough to keep my standing up, or squatting, at all times. However, my feet took an absolute pounding, and now I have to hobble around for a few days untill the bruised bones of the bottom of my feet heel, in addition to a few deep cuts from when the sandles fell off while hopping around... I'll live.
Sooooo, we hung out under the "bridge" for a while, then headed back. The way back proved muuch more diffucult then the way there, party from exhaustion, party because we weren't going in a big group, and were choosing very inefficient ways of treversing along the river, not really following previous paths. I tried to walk inside/swim in the river as much as I could, which was actually very fun, but lemme add: this was the coldest water I have ever been in, but it actually felt pretty good, because the sun was the hottest sun of ever been in, lol, so they neutralized one other, how nice.
We get back to our vehicles, change, putz around for another 30min (standard operating procedure here in morocco), and then depart, baccccck to Rabat.
Not more then 20 seconds after we started our voyage back to Rabat, the lead vehicle, the big bus, came up a hill on a very narrow road, and ended up making contact with a Taxi cab coming the other way. We didnt really see what happened, for our Fiat was in the back of the pack. But we saw the taxi driver furious, out of his fucking mind, screaming. Recipricating the yelling was Moustafa, the hired bus driver/friend/cool guy who lived in Brooklyn for 10 years, but returned to Morocco to tend for his sick mother. (He is the same driver that drove us to Assaorra a few weeks ago). Anyways, the two cars are now blocking this road. And the yelling gains the attention of Moroccans from every which direction. I see dozens of people jogging over to the top of this hill to see wut the fuss is all about. I get outa the car, and also go to see wtf is going on. I look at the Bus, no damage at all. Okay, maybe the taxi has something, i though... I look at the taxi, NOTHING. This moron was going absolutely craaazy, aggressively arguing, and getting semi-physical (note: getting physical in morocco doesnt involved fists, fights here are characterised by grabbing each others shirts/necks/palm to the face, and pushing each other. This is also the case throughout the Middle East, in my experiences. It has amazed me, I have seen the most heated arguments get physical, with two people trying to hurt each other, but NEVER have a ever seen a fist thrown. It makes me wonder; do they not throw it out of respect? Is it completely taboo to even consider punching someone? Or do they simply not know how to throw a punch? Either way, it makes me comfortable knowing that if things ever really got physical/bad between some1 i know/me, and some random person here, fists will obvioiisly trump a clenched hand on my shirt) Soo anyways, 15-20 min of mouth slobbering arguing, and its over. We alll get back into the cars, and take off..
We took the highway back, so we had to first drive an hour in the opposite direction to get to it. The highways have, in some spots, "checkpoints", in which police officers stand in the road and flag down random cars for questioning. Not having a moroccan, or international drivers license, I was praying this didn't happen to me. In our convoy, we had the large, 20 person private bus, followed by Ben's SUV, followed by me, driving the FIAT. As we pulled up to our first checkpoint, the bus got waved down and was forced to pull over. Ben followed lead, and pulled over as well, followed by me. The police officer came up to my car and mumbled something in arabic. I didnt hear what he said, cuz i still had the radio on, blasting 50 cent, or something liek that, and i replied to him "naa'm?", or whaaaat?! in arabic. He mumbled something again, this time louder, and I got the point. He asked me to turn the car off, oops, yea, i guess thats normal for a traffic stop in america, so i complied. He then asked me something else, dont remember what, and then asked me if I spoke Arabic. In the back seat sat our Moroccan AIESEC friend Kareem, who got out of the car and began to speak with the officer. I told him that I spoke Egyptian arabic, and that i couldnt understand Moroccan arabic too well. He didnt seem to care that I didn't have a license, he was more interested in the fact that i was a foreigner speaking to him. However, he, for some reason, thought I was Syrian, I think Kareem told him that. However, since I was speaking to him in Egyptian, the story didn't make to sense. I told him that I was american, and that I lived in Rabat, and that we were on vacation in Chechaowen. He was very nice, and asked what I think of Morocco. He also mentioned that he works in Rabat, but maybe I misunderstood him, considering that he was manning the police checkpoint in the middle of nowhere, 4 hours outside of Rabat..hmmm..whatever, I told him it was a pleasure to meet him, and we took off, following the rest of our convoy....
6 hours later, we arrive home. It's 1am, and I have "work" tomorrow at 9am, but since we were going to sleep in the Hassan apartment (do to a lack of a ride back to our apartment in Sale Al Jedeeda, we had to wake up early to catch a bus). Bottom line: trip was amaazing, cant wait to do something like that again.
