My First Hammam Experience

Today me, Sheila and Tiernan went to the hammam for the first time in Aourir, a neighbouring village. For those who don’t know what it is, it resembles one of those Turkish baths where you enter a tiled building containing of a set of rooms with different hot temperatures in it and buckets of water which you use to scrub yourself clean with several times. And trust me, even if you think you’re clean, you’ll get surprised at all the brownish water running off you when you rinse yourself. It was a great experience though and a bit strange to see all the naked/half naked Moroccan women showing everything with no shyness at all, compared to seeing them in public. When I came out of the hammam, I felt cleaner than I’ve done in years. It’s highly recommended to try it if you ever go to Morocco, but go to one of the local ones and not a touristy ones (that charge you 10 times the price) to get the full experience out of it.

Pain and Herbalism

I can’t seem to get rid of this damn tension/headache/toothache. During day I press my teeth together and at night I grind them, always walking up with an exploding skull. Thanks to it I’ve missed two assignments in school, but I hope I can redo them within the next week or so, but this headache/tension has to stop, so at the moment I have developed a new interest and hobby; herbalism. Morocco is full off unique herbs and plants with medical purposes and I’m striving to learn more about them, the process of becoming a certified herbalist. How cool would that be! I could travel the world just selling essential oils and organic teas in mine and Rachid’s stylistic future Wolksvagen. If anyone knows of an English speaking practicing herbalist in Morocco, please let me know, otherwise I have to take the course through correspondence and I don’t think that’s the way to learn about important practical stuff like that. Sheila is sharing some of her information and might be interested in joining me for a course if we can find one, which would be great.

As in many developing countries, herbalism is a very common way of treating illnesses and other troubles, so here I wouldn’t be a wierdo wannabe-wicca-witch who is into rituals and stuff. I’ve just learned to respect the power of what the nature has to bring us. It’s basically the same as ”modern medicine” anyways; all compiled of chemicals in different combinations to suit the needs of the customer. Some herbalistic medicines even seem to have a stronger and better affect than all the pills we put into our bodies these days.

Good news is that my darling baby brother Jimmy and his friend Elias is coming over on the 17th. Being a bit emotional at the moment my eyes start to tear when I think of seeing him again, although it’s hardly been five months since we met last. He’ll bring snus too. Then I finally might be able to quit smoking once and for all and not do the same mistake to start smoking when i quit snus, or I’ll simply make the mistake of continuing with snus. Hm…

Road Trip Day 6: Mirleft to Sidi Ifni and Home

We woke up early and took off to Sidi Ifni, a slightly larger town some 30 minutes south of Mirleft. The town was great; chilled out like the rest of the places we have visited during our little trip, but still full of soul and history. The town wasn't released from Spain until 1969 so a lot of the architecture and culture, even language, contains remains of the Spanish era. It's a cozy place to stroll around, especially the old Spanish part of town that provides something different for the eye than the common Moroccan architecture.

The town ends on the rocks that dives into the sea, giving a fantastic view of the big blue to the north and south. We had a small breakfast/lunch and then moved on to check the local souq out, but it contained nothing of interest. After about two hours we headed back to Mirleft and packed our stuff. We then got in the grande taxi and headed back to Agadir - a two hour scenic ending of our great first trip around Morocco.

Road Trip Day 5: Legzira to Mirleft

The day started out beautifully. The clouds and rain was gone and the view from the terrace just outside our room showed reddish stone arches against the turquoise water and the bright blue sky. Legzira is definitely something special; mostly hidden from the tourists, all quiet, the colours and so chilled out that I almost felt high walking the beach while the sun was warming my face (and waves were wetting my shoes). The tide was coming up so I never got to get to the place where I wanted to take some photos, but I got a couple of ok ones for memories sake anyways.

It was time to move on, so we strapped on our bags and went uphill (phew..!) to the road where we hopefully would catch a ride of some sort. It didn’t take long until a nice man stopped and gave us a lift to Mirleft. Once there we were once again approached by a money hunting local who showed us a studio for about half the price of what we would have payed in one of the budget hotels.

Mirleft has an atmosphere that is hard to compare with anything else I’ve experienced in Morocco so far. It’s off season and the place hasn’t been discovered by gold hunters and hotel chains yet so I think that for the first time I felt that I was in a village that were truly ”local”. There are apparently some expats living here and there were definitely some very nice and expensive villas down towards the beach, but the centre of the village, the eateries and the bar we went to was all authentic. I could stay here longer and just enjoy the village, but Taghazout is calling and tomorrow we’ll head back home. Maybe we’ll go for a short trip to Sidi Ifni before taking the bus/taxi to Agadir. Depends when we wake up I suppose. I’ll try my very best to hear the alarm without turning it off in the morning. I promise.

Road Trip Day 4: Tafraout to Legzira

A grand taxi took me sadly out of Tafraout and onwards to Tiznit, where Rachid was planning to buy some jewelries for his shop in Taghazout. It was raining when we got there and the medina didn’t look that appealing anymore, especially since we had to carry around our bags and everything. Rachid had started to catch a cold and I was tired and just wanted to get to a warm nice place to spend the night. But we were both fooled into following a man who promised a whole sale jewelry store, who took us through narrow streets, doorways in alleys until we had no idea where we were. Finally we reached a very hidden silver store (Rachid had told the man over and over again that he was not interested in silver), which of course had gorgeous jewelries, but nothing of interest to us except for a pair of earrings that I once owned and lost. At least I got that much from the tiresome journey through the medina in the rain.

Well back at the grande taxi station we decided to head out to Legzira, a beach south of Mirleft and just north of Sidi Ifnit. The taxi stopped in the middle of nowhere and we had to walk down a very muddy road down to the beach to reach Legzira. All I wanted was a nice place for the night where we could warm up, get our moods up and take a walk down the beach where the magnificent rock formations are for some nice photos. So, Rachid met a friend who gave us a room for 120DH, which is an ok price. But when we got there it was not what I had expected. Ok, I’m by no means a person of high standards and can sleep on a mattress on a floor amongst cokroaches if necessary, but for one night – just one night – I wanted a cool place with a little more luxury than a battered bed. Legzira is not blessed (or cursed, depending on how you see it) with electricity yet so the generators are only on for about 3 hours from about 7PM. Great. Now I was in an even pissier mood; muddy and with a headache and still frozen into my marrow.

After some childish moaning and crying we switched place to Beach Club, which cost us quite a lot more but was definitely more welcoming and cozier. Darkness was falling so we went for dinner and back to the room where Rachid fell asleep. Maybe he has some fever coming, bless him. Now I’m just waiting for the generator to pump it’s final heartbeat for the night, crawl under a bunch of blankets and listen to the waves outside my window. When I wake up I expect the sky to be clear blue, Rachid to be well and a lot of pictures taken. The plan is to check out Legzira properly, head to Sidi Ifni and perhaps make a stop in Mirleft on our way back home. If we like one of the places, we’ll probably spend another night away and head home to Taghazout the day after.

Despite of some disappointments (like the cold) the trip has been fantastic so far, but I have to admit that I miss the climate of dear old Taghazout where your blood doesn’t freeze as soon as you get out of bed. Hopefully it will be warmer tomorrow and I’ll have more interesting stuff to write about then.

Road Trip Day 3: Ameln Valley

How is it even possible to describe a place like the Ameln Valley? The answer; you can’t. There is no word worthy enough to describe this overwhelmingly beautiful landscape, with it’s fertile valleys and the rough mountains shining in gold in the sunlight. One of the formations on top of a mountain resembles a lion, and the local legend says that it’s there to wattch over the women while their men are away for business. Another man said that the lion had another purpose, which he wasn’t sure exactily what it was. But he was sure that there was something about it and that there were no coincidence that tourists and other people were drawn to the magic of this place.

We walked the valley for some time, admiring the ancient villages on the mountainside which there was no road access to. Amongst palms and almondtrees we lingered and soaked up the atmosphere that surely as the earth is spinning, was curing my soul from any bad thoughts. How wonderful it was! Ameln Valley… I had read about it, seen pictures of it, heard about it, but there’s no way on earth that I would expect the beauty of this place. It was simply magnificent, so despite the bitter cold that were freezing my marrow and bones that night, I slept like a baby, just to wake up to the day when it was time to leave Tafraout.

Road Trip Day 2: Tafraout

The day was spent checking out the town, which Rachid explained to be an authentic Berber village despite of the touristic influences. A stroll in any direction was a blessing for the eye. Golden rock formation and respectfully rough mountains surrounded the whole village. We took a stroll through the small souq and did some shopping. I found a nice pair of traditional Ameln Valley shoes which I’m very happy for.

Not knowing exactily where we were heading, we ended up in the ”old town”, which was more like the ”ancient town” and a wonderful sight with it’s still standing mud walls with magically decorated old doorways and wrought iron windows. We were all alone in this labyrinth of old times, ghosts and stories that would never again be told. I loved every part of it.

That night we bunkered up with two extra thick blankets and a bunch of candles to heat up our room a bit. We weren’t very successfull, but time went past and then it was time for another day.