other puns sprang to mind: festering sore, for example. don´t get me wrong, it´s a beautiful city, or at least i thought so when i arrived yesterday morning at dawn, sleep deprived from the night bus. there was no-one up yet except me and the swallows who nest in the old city walls, this being the south they fly to, and wheel around in manic arcs all morning until they wilt and crawl somewhere stony and cool, much as i have done. it´s not so much the heat that´s wilting me, though forty odd is also how old i feel after a half hour walk in that temperature; it´s more the endless harrassment.
ca va? hola? hey chica, mademoiselle! francais, espanol, english? hey lady! come here! venga! ici! and that´s the nice ones. i should be getting used to it but instead it´s shredding my nerves to the extent that i walk with clenched fists and a ready gob of spit for the offensive ones, which doesnt do much for the attempt to disguise myself as a quiet little person who should be accorded a degree of human dignity.
but where was i? casablanca was fun despite the fact that it´s ugly as all hell. i went to rick´s bar and listened to bad jazz and pretended i was bogey over a gin and tonic. i slipped away on a very humorous little bus from the 12th century to essouiera on the middlish south coast. on the way i saw my first camels tethered to things in the increasingly sandy fields. desert country! lots of men in turbans tried to get me to go on treks down to the sahara but i decided i couldnt be bothered which was lucky as i also couldnt afford it. so marrakech.
first a note on the buses, because i have to share with you my favourite salesman. when the bus stops for more than ten seconds a host of people get on and try to sell you things - trinkets, shoes, egg sandwiches, prayers that you will arrive at your destination, that sort of thing - and on the way to essouiera this kid of about fifteen got on with a tape deck and made a little speech, and then started playing his tape of religious berber chanting, and sang along so appalingly that i´m sure the people who bought his tapes only did it out of pity. anyway, marrakech.
everything you have heard about this city is true, only it´s also not true. it is big and magical and annoying and crazy and manic and ther are snake charmers and monkey spruikers and odd medicinal lizards and endless approaches from guides and salesmen. they won´t abduct your children and it´s not dangerous. it is also a lovely terracotta red, exactly the same colour my old house at london street was painted, i seem to remember we called it ´slumlord special´ cause it was allegedly the cheapest in the shop.
i happened upon a very nice riad (oldschool guesthouse with moorish courtyard) which had just opened so they accepted my tiny money on the assumption i would tell my more financially blessed friends, whoever they are, that it was the best thing since sliced lizard.
that kind of didnt work out for them cause a) see facetious remark about rich friends and b) the young dogsbody took it upon himself to make a very clumsy pass at me to which i objected, resulting in the poor ignorant lad being sent back to the mountains from whence he came for to ponder his sins. due to the incredible breeding rate of this country (everyone marries their cousin at 16) there is an oversupply of poor ignorant lads from the mountains, so they wont have any trouble finding a replacement, but they all seem to be afflicted with the same degree of complete and baffling ignorance about how to treat women. lucky for moroccan ladies, they can spend the rest of their lives ordering the bastards around, but bad luck for me.
other than that it was an oasis and my hosts were lovely and very good cooks so i enjoyed my stay, but not having much money in marrakech means that your main form of entertainment, ie buying stuff, is kinda ruled out. so i came here on the night bus. men annoyed me. i didn´t buy any tapes.
and here i am, staying in a cheap shitty hotel again like i deserve. a toothless ex hippy brought me there. there are lots of ex hippies in this country. i guess it was the place to be in the 70s when cat stevens converted and hendrix hung out doing whatever he did in his spare time, practice i imagine (of course there is still a lot of hash around but i dont smoke, reason number two for coming to morocco also ruled out)
are you getting the general idea? I AM SICK OF MOROCCO. i never want to see another quaint windy little medina in my life. i just want to go and lie on an overdeveloped beach again and be ignored by the spanish people. at least their abuse of foreigners manifests as tolerable indifference. how i yearn to be ignored. please. just for five minutes. i´ll even sing to allah if i must.
ca va? hola? hey chica, mademoiselle! francais, espanol, english? hey lady! come here! venga! ici! and that´s the nice ones. i should be getting used to it but instead it´s shredding my nerves to the extent that i walk with clenched fists and a ready gob of spit for the offensive ones, which doesnt do much for the attempt to disguise myself as a quiet little person who should be accorded a degree of human dignity.
but where was i? casablanca was fun despite the fact that it´s ugly as all hell. i went to rick´s bar and listened to bad jazz and pretended i was bogey over a gin and tonic. i slipped away on a very humorous little bus from the 12th century to essouiera on the middlish south coast. on the way i saw my first camels tethered to things in the increasingly sandy fields. desert country! lots of men in turbans tried to get me to go on treks down to the sahara but i decided i couldnt be bothered which was lucky as i also couldnt afford it. so marrakech.
first a note on the buses, because i have to share with you my favourite salesman. when the bus stops for more than ten seconds a host of people get on and try to sell you things - trinkets, shoes, egg sandwiches, prayers that you will arrive at your destination, that sort of thing - and on the way to essouiera this kid of about fifteen got on with a tape deck and made a little speech, and then started playing his tape of religious berber chanting, and sang along so appalingly that i´m sure the people who bought his tapes only did it out of pity. anyway, marrakech.
everything you have heard about this city is true, only it´s also not true. it is big and magical and annoying and crazy and manic and ther are snake charmers and monkey spruikers and odd medicinal lizards and endless approaches from guides and salesmen. they won´t abduct your children and it´s not dangerous. it is also a lovely terracotta red, exactly the same colour my old house at london street was painted, i seem to remember we called it ´slumlord special´ cause it was allegedly the cheapest in the shop.
i happened upon a very nice riad (oldschool guesthouse with moorish courtyard) which had just opened so they accepted my tiny money on the assumption i would tell my more financially blessed friends, whoever they are, that it was the best thing since sliced lizard.
that kind of didnt work out for them cause a) see facetious remark about rich friends and b) the young dogsbody took it upon himself to make a very clumsy pass at me to which i objected, resulting in the poor ignorant lad being sent back to the mountains from whence he came for to ponder his sins. due to the incredible breeding rate of this country (everyone marries their cousin at 16) there is an oversupply of poor ignorant lads from the mountains, so they wont have any trouble finding a replacement, but they all seem to be afflicted with the same degree of complete and baffling ignorance about how to treat women. lucky for moroccan ladies, they can spend the rest of their lives ordering the bastards around, but bad luck for me.
other than that it was an oasis and my hosts were lovely and very good cooks so i enjoyed my stay, but not having much money in marrakech means that your main form of entertainment, ie buying stuff, is kinda ruled out. so i came here on the night bus. men annoyed me. i didn´t buy any tapes.
and here i am, staying in a cheap shitty hotel again like i deserve. a toothless ex hippy brought me there. there are lots of ex hippies in this country. i guess it was the place to be in the 70s when cat stevens converted and hendrix hung out doing whatever he did in his spare time, practice i imagine (of course there is still a lot of hash around but i dont smoke, reason number two for coming to morocco also ruled out)
are you getting the general idea? I AM SICK OF MOROCCO. i never want to see another quaint windy little medina in my life. i just want to go and lie on an overdeveloped beach again and be ignored by the spanish people. at least their abuse of foreigners manifests as tolerable indifference. how i yearn to be ignored. please. just for five minutes. i´ll even sing to allah if i must.
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