The downside to cheap lodging

Lodging on the cheap when you travel can sometimes be a bit dodgy—the people, the cleanliness, the bathrooms, etc.

Take the place I stayed last night: only a cold shower (okay, not all that unusual, but this one was little more than a steady drip, at least when any other faucet was open), only one toilet (and a Turkish one at that—but hey, I’m not exactly in North America or Western Europe), a room that stank (didn’t matter that the window was open—in fact, I’m inclined to think it was the bed that put forth the noxious odors), no power outlets… I feared for bed bugs, filth, and everything else unsanitary. Sometimes, when I travel, I wonder when I can possibly feel clean again. Not counting this place, I’m fairly certain I’ve run into some type of bed bugs twice already on this trip (and I haven't even gotten to NYC yet...). And this place looked worse than either one of those places…

But then I was sick, so maybe my outlook was a bit off. (I blame the sickness of the general state of poor sanitation in this country—my body isn’t used to this many germs.)

How the author ignored the sage advice of King Solomon and suffered for it

The authors of Proverbs give much sane advice about staying out of trouble. I greatly respect it, but I can’t say I always follow it.

Yesterday I made the mistake of walking past a restaurant while I was hungry (Solomon warned about watching past temptation)…

Bad sign #1: As I was coming up, a waiter rushed up to me and  thrusti one of the restaurant’s menus into my hands.

Mistake #1: I took it and started looking over it.

Bad sign #2: The waiter wouldn’t let me look at the menu in peace, but had to show me the food and talk to me, despite my half-hearted, non-commitment attitude, etc.

Mistake #2: I was still there.

Bad sign #3: He decided I wanted a salad (I hadn’t said that), so he had one prepared for me while he steered me to a table.

Mistake #3: I didn’t turn and run.

To confirm what I was getting, since I hadn’t ordered it, I asked him if it was a petit salad. He replied in the affirmative. It looked really good, I was hungry, and the menu said it was only five dirhams, so:

Mistake #4: I sat down to eat it.

He asked if I’d like soup. I told him I wanted to eat my salad first. He persisted. I put him off.

Bad sign #4: He got me soup anyway.

The salad was delicious. It was actually an assortment of potato salads, carrot salad, and rice. Very good. I asked the guy if the soup was soup, just to make sure where I stood in relation to the menu. He confirmed that it was soup, and:

Bad sign number #5: He moved the bowl of soup directly in front of me and picked up my bread, almost as if to feed me himself to prevent my asking any more stupid questions.

Mistake #5: I ate the soup. (On the menu, soup only cost 2.5 dirhams.)

At this point, I was ready to pay, but slightly apprehensive because of the plethora of warning signs I’d seen. (I also felt like people were looking at me like I was a sheep about to be fleeced.) I didn’t have the appropriate change, so I pulled out ten dirhams and handed them to the guy, expecting 2.5 dirhams back.

Then the fun began. He wanted to charge me sixteen, more than twice the menu price. I refused, grabbed the menu and showed him the prices. At that point, he tried to explain that my salad wasn’t a petit salad and grabbed a slightly smaller dish to show me. I reminded him that he had said it was a petit salad. The soup, he claimed, wasn’t regular soup, it was Hariri soup. I asked him to show me the distinction on the menu, because I saw only one listed. He insisted. I refused. The price he wanted to charge me for the soup was higher than I’d ever seen it in Morocco.

At this impasse, a guy sitting alongside the restaurant intervened, giving the waiter the money he was asking for, apparently amused by the whole business (as he should have been: we were only bickering over a dollar).

The waiter than applied to my sense of honor, letting someone else pay for the bill, but, suspecting that this guy might also be in on the game and convinced I was right, per the menu, I declined and left, frustrated and leaving without my change—all $0.30 of it.

I hope I did right. I always used to think it was better to be shamefully used than to risk misusing someone else, but my senses, and my mind told me I was right. And so I acted the way I did, but looking back, I wished I would have heeded the multiple warning signs and refused the food.

Now I’m extremely hesitant to eat at any restaurant here in Meknes—a shame, because it’s my last real chance to eat Moroccan food. So back to the street venders...

Essaouira: camels and boats—maybe not heaven, but not a bad place

Essaouira is a small seaside city on the edges of the Atlantic, highly influence by fishing, tourism, and a fluxing artist community. They say that the Carthaginians under Hanno visited the area. And if that wasn’t reason enough to visit…

Wide, sandy beaches stretch along the cost, smoothed by gentle surf off the Atlantic. Unfortunately, even in June, the water remains somewhat chilly. These beaches offer unusual dangers and attractions: besides windsailing, it’s possible to ride a horse, ATV, or camel along the beach, a picturesque way to break up the monotony of a day at the beach; unfortunately, horses and camels litter the beach in a manner that can be unpleasant for the unshod pedestrian.

One of the particular charms of the city, however, is the port. Located in the midst of old fortifications, a small port, used mainly for fishing, holds hundreds of small fishing trawlers and boats. Locals bustle about, repairing nets, stocking ships, and cutting and preparing fish. A burgeoning seafood market spreads along the harbor. Fish gleam in the light, even at night their scales showing brilliant silver in the artificial port lights. Overhead seagulls soar and swoop, fighting over cast off fish bits. And the stench… well, it isn’t exactly aromatic.

Essaouira also has artistic pretensions—with an annual music festival at the end of June and, apparently, something of an artistic community. Neither of which I can evaluate, but the quality of the woodwork—highly elaborate and decorative—was the best I’ve seen outside of southern Germany.

But all things considered, there were boats and camels in the same city. Hard to top that combination.  

Additional Photos

Sevilla

Plaza de Espana

Spain is comprised of many very distinct regions, possessing varying degrees of cultural and political autonomy. Some areas, like Barcelona, seem more European than Spanish; in fact, if you spoke to a Barcelonian, he’d probably inform you that he was Catalonian, not Spanish. That would also hold true for the Basques. 

Alcazar

Sevilla, however, is as Spanish as it comes—or at least pretty close: the Moorish influence, flamenco dancing, Catholic processions, bull fights, etc. Here you will find the dark-haired, dark-skinned Spaniards. Here Magellan set sail on his epic voyage to circumnavigate the globe. Here the wealth of the new world passed into Europe. And here, in the Cathedral (one of the largest, if not the largest in Europe), lies the body of Christopher Columbus, and, unfortunately, he is dead.*

El Cid

Sevilla is a city of gardens, churches, and culture; a city of bells and traditions; a city of beauty.


 

Additional Pictures from Sevilla

*Read Mark Twain. That's all I have to say.

Madrid and my first bullfight (where I decided that I do not want to be a matador when I grow up)

Due to time and budgetary constraints, I made a mistake and skipped the Escorial—it’s a bit of a trip from Madrid—in order to see something of the city.

Additional Photos from the Bullfight

For those mostly interested in history and architecture, Madrid is hardly a top European destination. Madrid is a city of the present, not the past. The Madrid Cathedral is a massive, modern church that roughly combines traditional European and questionable modern elements. The royal palace is a European palace, but hardly exceptional or worth the entrance fee—but perhaps I’m hard to impress.

That aside, however, I must admit that Madrid Park impressed me: the shady paths, fantastic tree formations, and stately fountains and monuments were a pleasant change of pace from the bustling streets. The Madridianites seemed to agree.  I came across one group (one-hundred plus) retirees out performing some type of callisthenic exercises and later in the evening, the park was thronged with runners.

The best and worst part of Madrid, however, was the bull fights. There is something graceful, but barbaric about the ‘sport’—a mixture between a butcher shop and a ballet.

The performance began with a parade of matadors, toreros, picadors, and banderillos marching into the arena. Due to the gentlemen in front of me wanting to stand, I saw little of it. Ah well.

A few seats down, an old man kept up a constant jabber at such a volume that, well, when the old lady in front of him turned around and let loose at him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that his noise level was unacceptable, I could have kissed her. At least, for the moment, she was the best friend I had in Spain.

But then began the festivities:

A bull was released into the arena. First one toreros and then another would walk a few feet out into the arena, flutter his cape to attract the bull, and the then run precipitously back to the safety of a wooden barrier as soon as the bull headed his way. After a few repetitions of these rapid retreats, the matador took the ring, distinguishing himself by not running away from the bull—at least most of the time.

After a few desultory passes of the bull at the matador, neatly sidestepped by the said matador, the trumpets sounded and the picadors entered the arena on heavily padded horses. The idea was to incite the bull to charge the picador and use the bull’s own strength to drive the picador’s lance deep into the bull. This accomplished, the bull would be lured away again, so the feat could be replicated. Sometimes the bull, getting carried away, stuck to his attack. Once he even toppled the horse (it took approximately ten minutes to get the horse on his feet again).

After the second lancing, the trumpets blew again, and the picadors retired from the ring, and the matador resumed his games with the bull, taunting the bull to charge his cape. Sometimes the bull seemed reluctant, but the matador’s annoying antics proved superior to the bull’s utmost self-control. Once, the bull even flipped over his own horns, turning a complete summersault to the amusement of the audience.  After twenty passes or so, the matador would step aside and let the next round of mutilators, the banderilleros, take the ring. After performing a series of stretches to impress the bull, or the audience (I’m not really sure which), they charged the bull and jammed sharp banderillas, barbed sticks, into the tormented beast.

With the bull worn out and now bleeding profusely, the matador resumed the ring, cut a few more capers to the delight of the audience—which puzzled me, because the bull by this time is far gone—called for his killing sword and eventually plunged it into the bull. When the bull didn’t die instantaneously, which rarely happens, it seems, the matador’s understudies come running out to pester the bull until he topples over due to blood loss.

The matador then bows and plumes himself upon a job well done, the crowd goes berserk, and the bull is dragged from the ring. Finis.

Well, not really, because in the intermission before the next fight, you buy your beer, eat your sandwiches*, etc., until the next bull is released into the arena. Then it begins all over again.

*The really loud guy brought two bags of sandwiches and delighted in offering them to the crowd and then tossing them to whoever volunteered to take one. He was a character. He seemed a local fixture, living and breathing to attend these pretty butcherings.

Ait Behaddou & Atlas Studios.

Ait Behaddou

Truth be told, there isn’t much to see or do at Ait Benhaddou, but I went anyway. The old city sits on a hill high above the neighboring river valley. Palm trees, following the arc of the river, grow along the foot of the hill, providing an unusual dose of green in this arid, brown land. Ait Benhaddou is nestled in these surroundings—tall, mud-brick walls rising sharply up the hill, culminating with a picturesque granary at the summit. 

I was a great place to wander around, even if for only a couple hours.

As a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the location of several films (most notably Gladiator), the place attracts a fair number of tourists, but not so many as to make it unpleasant.
Neighboring Ouarzazate hosts Atlas Studios (Ben Hur, etc.) and CLA Studios (Kingdom of Heaven, Game of Thrones). It was also a filming location for Lawrence of Arabia.


Ait Behaddou

I visited Atlas Studios, allured by the idea of seeing where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed: Sadly, there was nothing left of the old set, but walking through the crumbing ruins of old film sets, I was able to observe something of the small, plaster recreations used to create the massive and beautiful palaces and cities that litter our movies. Strange, so little can be manipulated by a camera to create massive cities and palaces…

Ben Hur's Hur's from the movie Ben Hur

PS—the song lyrics have only a tenuous connection to anything, but I like the song and this place is dry and parched. I’m pretty sure I drank at least four liters yesterday, but still felt thirsty most of the day.

Additional Photos

The Thieving Restaurants of Ouarzazate

Ouarzazate is small city in the southeast of Morocco, known as a gateway to the desert and as the filming location of numerous movies. It’s also known as a quieter, calmer city.

Unfortunately, however, one thing that most tourist guides fail to mention is the billing practices at the local restaurants.

During my time here, I ate at two restaurants and each time I was charged considerably more than the menu price. The first time, it surprised me, and I paid and tried to forget. (Hasn’t worked.)

The second time, I questioned the waiter; he returned most of the overcharged money, but with a somewhat surly attitude. 

Sheesh, they were already making a good profit off of me…

On the bright side, however, the olives were excellent.