Thursday 30th April, left home on the 2.15 pm bus. On the bus looked at my shoes which were scuffed, with laces that were frayed at the ends-that was something I could have fixed at home if I'd been observant enough. An afternoon in Belfast where there is nothing much that I have to do and the only activity I can do is shop. But what do I need? The best buy was the reduced price pan loaf, sandwich filler, and two packets of radishes. It is not always the case that the healthier shopping is cheaper shopping, but in this instance it is. Browsing the Oxfam bookshop I bought as travel reading 'Bowie, Bolan, and The Brooklyn Boy'-Tony Visconti, Published in 2008, it won't cover the last two Bowie albums, about which I would like to know more about than the rest of Bowie's work, but never mind.
7.30 pm at the Aircoach stop, The bus left on time and was surprisingly comfortable, the lighting was subdued which was good. The coach was by no means full, though there was some faffing about from some customers who did not know whether to get on or not. Dipping into the Tony Visconti book, I was surprised at him producing Manfred Mann in the 1960's. Slept a little, well closed my eyes to what was around me, on the coach.
In the airport for 9.15 pm, I like airports at night, they are quiet spaces and I can use quiet even if I'd like darkness as well when I can't have it. I had plenty of time to dip in the new book, make my Tesco loaf sandwiches and dip into my garlic leaf salad and my cheesy pasta with the well travelled plastic fork. The economy is still downsizing here, More franchise shops are leaving the airport, MacDonald's is the latest to go, does that mean the airport is going upmarket? I still want W.H. Smiths to return to Arrivals as well as there being at least three branches of it in Departures.
To sleep for gone 11 in a place on my own in a quiet corner of the airport.
Friday May 1st Awake at 4 am, Well half awake, first thing was to have an early breakfast of sandwiches, steal a few of the bags they leave for passengers to put liquids in, and get rid of the last of the soured milk from about my person before approaching fast track security with my luggage tightly packed and my passport and boarding pass in my hand. 'You are a bit early' they said as they let me through.
Had a caffeine pill to be more awake. It is less I might sleep more that I won't be alert when I would be better being more alert, The point was proved when after what seemed like a long wait, there was movement at the check out desk which spread around the seats as the staff checked our documents. 'Have you filled in your Passenger Locator Form?' I was asked and for a moment I thought I had not, until I went through all the pieces of paper and there the right piece of paper was-in front of me and the steward who had asked me. That it did not look like the EU version of my memory was what threw me into doubt.
The plane came in and taxied up to it's parking spot late, we were late boarding and late lifting off by about 25 mins, I was at the rear of the plane at the window seat that I usually get. Next to me were two elderly ladies, ahead of me and behind were families with some quite vocal children. The plane was bunged, full, with maybe one seat left unoccupied. I don't remember seeing the safety drill. I slept through it, and slept through quite a lot more of the activity around me as well. Many might say that sleeping in airports etc is an odd routine, but it balances out well when through sleep on the flight I can ignore what other passengers are doing around me.
Surprisingly, we arrived on time. I left by the rear of the plane, earlier than many. As we spilled out onto the tarmac, into the bright sun, the first thing that happened was that the passenger locator forms were collected from us by a female Ryanair member of staff. Then we queued to get into the airport, and passport control. There were one queue with maybe eight booths in a semi circle, each with a uniformed gentleman in them. One by one we approached the uniforms in the booths and were 'processed', I could not remember the name of the hotel I was going to stay at when I was asked. I resorted to being as literal as possible, and said that the name of the hotel was on the form that I had just handed over. Having grudgingly said that my passport photo did look like me I was let through.
There was Anthony, in arrivals, looking thin and excited to see me. His first comment was 'What is in the extra bag?' my reply was 'The coat you said I did not need to bring', as if to say 'You were right; I don't need it'. But the reason I wore it in Belfast, and packed it, was for the several pockets in the jacket that closed securely or had zips in them. Those pockets helped me feel that I was less likely to lose anything. They worked; I lost nothing though I had to check what was in what pocket to find it all.
The first contact with normality was a policeman in the airport car park who wanted to fine Anthony 400 Dirhams for leaving his car windows down and his car unlocked. Anthony got chatting with the policeman and claimed to be elderly, poor sighted, and generally lacking, whilst showing a certain wit about being that way. His charm worked; no fine was asked for or paid. The space around the car park was landscaped with huge palms and giant cacti, all o them eight foot or higher tall. It looked incredible.
Away from the airport car park was the first of many signs of the poverty of Morocco, the ribbon development left half finished of a few houses and a shop every few miles, each settlement with a flash of colour in the one shop there coming from the goods on open display, where the goods with the colour are the items that don't sell. The people, or what I could see of them as we drove past, seemed either defeated or quiet because of the heat. We could not tell whether they were defeated or sun shy as we passed at speed. The first stop was for a drink of water and to take photos of a photogenic looking dead olive tree.
Because we were there during Ramadan our meal was going to be served at 9 pm, after sundown, so Anthony took me for a walk in the early evening. He knew I'd want to see what was in the town even if everything was closing or already shut because it was end of the day for trading. We went through dirt track streets which were colourful and packed on both sides of with shops of varying quality and riches. On the dirt tracks there was every form of transport, vans with goods in them for the shops, cars, lots of young men on motorcycles, more young men on electric bicycles and ordinary bicycles, lots of well covered women on bicycles, pedestrians, and most surprising to me horses and traps carrying goods and people. They were all moving with great precision around and in front of each other as if they were choreographed that way, and did the same movements daily. With the sight of carts and horses I half thought of the old Steptoe and Son joke about saving the horse shit for the roses. I had collected horse droppings left by passing horses at home, when the horse riding school met in public, for my peach coloured rose. But roses have not yet featured anywhere that I have seen, and horse riding schools seemed to be several worlds away.
At our hotel we were the only ones to eat. My headache wore off rapidly with the food, first course a vegetable soup, second course more vegetables, third course an aubergine dish/a spinach dish-very good, fourth course couscous vegetables and mutton with a spicy sauce, fifth and last course fruit salad with avocados in it-definitely a positive addition and something to try at home. serving it all took a leisurely two and half hours, between 9 and 11.30. Whilst we were eating the background music was saxophone versions of popular songs by Whitney Houston and the like, they were surprisingly good. Also as we ate huge flowers fell off the trees in the courtyard fell on the central table in front of us, adding drama to the scene. The hotel cat greeted us whilst we ate too. It had got up off it's chaise long, outside our room.
After Anthony invited me to sleep next to him in the double bed I was tired and yet unable to go to sleep beside him. I chose to sleep in one of the single beds, where fairly soon I slept much better. The last day had felt like nearer two days long than one, the time had worked out with it.
Saturday May 2nd awake at 8.30 am. Up for 9 to receive the full Moroccan breakfast eggs poached over a bed of tomatoes and onion, coffee, orange juice, fruit jam, flatbread, two sorts of pancakes, and butter. We were pleasantly stuffed, and hid some of the flatbread and egg in our bag, to have for lunch much later. This taking food away for later would become something we did at every breakfast. I am still not quite prepared for travel, I thought we were staying at this hotel another day but we went out to find a hole-in-the-wall bank from which to extract dirhams with which Anthony was going to pay the hotel bill. He packed and instructed me to pack and in the process I left my pyjamas behind, I had put them under a cover before breakfast and forget they were there after, when I came to pack. We were four hours on the road away from Taroudant before I realised where the pyjamas were. it was a small loss; I hope the hotel owner got the wear out of them, they were plain and a nice blue/grey colour.
We were on the road from 10 am to 4 pm, winding our way through the foothills of the Anti-Atlas mountains where as we drove we passed many small communities which consisted of a few people, more goats and sheep than people, and even people camping in the desert who often had motorbikes. The most notable thing was seeing so little rubbish at the side of the roads, because we went on roads that few people travelled on. For lunch we had the flat breads and the Berber eggs from breakfast and the radishes that I'd bought in Tesco's on the Thursday, in the shade of a tree. They tasted fine. The mountains were hallucinatory in their continuous vastness. When we discussed what colours the mountains were we disagreed. Anthony's glasses have a react-a-light tint on them and my glasses are plain. The colour palate for the mountains, were I to attempt to paint them, was green-grey, yellow-grey, and brown-grey with some black for where the sun created deep shadows.
We arrived in Tafraout not at all tired, because Anthony had driven slowly so that we were safe for other drivers whilst we took in the scenery which blew away any sense . Reality arrived with a bang when the first person in Tafraout to meet us was a tout, a driven young man who wanted to direct us to a hotel owned by one of his friends because he thought that was where we should stay. He took us to the hotel, and when we smiled and said 'No thanks' to owner of the hotel who understood that we'd been brought there, the tout zoomed off leaving us to guess which way was back into town and admire the huge rocks which are a feature of the local landscape.
We chose the Hotel Amis. The hotel was central to the town, the room had character, and it was close to the balcony from which we could watch the central crossroads through which all the traffic in the town had to pass, to go anywhere. Most important was the 'feel' of the hotel, which was friendly, like it's name. The minor downside of the room was that the light switching was odd, but easily adapted with. Settling in the room felt light, easy.
Our evening meal was a splendid spread consumed on a table on the balcony. Vegetable soup, dates, olives, and flat bread, beef tagine for me, vegetable tagine with added prunes and almonds for Anthony, and a light fruit salad to finish, which was more of an artwork with food than a course in itself. It was separate pieces of orange and banana soaked in honey artfully displayed on a black plate. Anthony encouraged me to try the beef tagine to have something different to him, and tasted a little of the beef, then said 'It tastes like dead animal'.
For the second time I heard the evening Muezzine, the Muslim call to prayer that is broadcast six times a day. The first time I heard it I thought it sounded like it was performed live and debated this with Anthony. The second time it sounds more like a recording and the melody in the announcement reminds me of some of the more 'bigging up' style announcements that wrestlers used to get from announcers in the ring gave as the wrestlers approached the ring with a slight 'electronic tone' added to it, to modernise it.
Latest reading; 'The Holy City' by Patrick McCabe who I listened to quite closely when he recently appeared on Radio 4 to promote his latest book. He claimed with some immodesty that he was not comfortable with the style of writing that he was self evidently thoroughly in control of. Anthony is reading 'H is for Hawk' - Helen MacDonald. He was pleased I had brought it with me, I had no expectations. What I knew most was that Radio 4 had guided both of us towards many good books over many decades.
Please find Day 3 of this diary here.
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