Fish. AND chips. Because morocco. [Guest post!]

From my house guest, with a few minor additions from me. Should have posted it 6 days ago when he wrote it!

And so, the second chapter of my visit to morocco begins with a long, slow train ride from rabat, location of chapter 1, to assilah, coastal town just south of tangier. there Beki and I strolled the streets of the medina, this one distinctive for both the white and blue painted walls of their Spanish heritage, as well as the annual ritual of inviting artists to paint murals on the blank facades, resulting in an outdoor gallery that lasts four seasons. Of course beki chose a lovely town to initiate me to morocco with, and the breeze is cool and intermittent from the ocean only feet away. We wander the alleys and discover sites seen for hundreds of years. the guys in the stores aren't pushy at all, so we can actually look at stuff without feeling like we're being interrogated, which is a plus.

Our second night in town, we find casa garcia, a Spanish seafood joint that wouldn't have looked out of place in Galveston, and had some Spanish omelette and filet of sole. Beki taught me how to properly debone a little fish, as it was served whole, and so now I know! she herself had learned in France or Tunisia, and so life's journey of learning continues. The appetizer for the meal was a version of fish and chips that would cause most pause, we think. It was chips, as in thinly sliced potato, with some kind of long sliced smelt or sardine draped over the top. Rather than the English fried cod and French fries of the same name, this one is literally - fish. And chips.

Second day we took a grand taxi ('grand' meaning in morocco - recycled mercedes Benz from the 70s) down the road to a beach south of town, including a kilometer of dirt 4x4 trail in said taxi. Well it was either that or the "four heel drive" donkey cart, which is a little slower and unupholstered. As well as not having doors, floor, or a roof. They are hard on their cars here, but do get their value out!. We travel via a street market. Imagine a one lane country road with shade trees along one side. Add people strolling thick among impromptu shops of goods strewn on blankets and sold from the backs of vans, including full furniture sets, hardware, and clothing - groups huddled around particularly interesting deals, mothers with children in tow. Bicycles and wheelbarrows crisscrossing. This went on for a kilometer, at least. Cafes with grilled fish, open air meat, turkey, I think, dangling from a wire, flies abuzz. now Add two way thru traffic, like us, in the grand taxi, and the donkey carts, and motorcycles, mostly at a crawl. THAT was the Thursday street market in the country on the way to the beach.

The beach is lovely, straight, clean and empty on the Atlantic coast. It sits wedged into the feet of a hilly outcrop that is serenely free of any development not shaped like a grass hutch, though the sandy rutted road down the way could use some grading or drainage work to cut back on the washout sections. I'd not want to drive there in a rain for fear of accidentally parking upside down a hundred feet below. A half dozen little tent bodegas built out of, it looks like, whatever floated up on the beach today are set up for the post peak season straggling tourist crowd. And all silently fight for the thirty total gringos now wandering the surf. Paleys in sagging faded bathing suits who surely must go from one beach to another in their futile and yet seemingly ubiquitous attempt to become tan while also smoking cigarettes by scorning shade. Now plus two, minus the bit about cigarettes, shade, and tans. We picked a forward set of deck chairs situated under a canopy of rebar and hay for some serious relaxing closest to the water, but first need to be properly softened/beaten up by the brisk early fall surf. Heavy crashing Waves about chest and stomach high buffet us about after wading in to the knee deep chilly. Is there such a thing as a light wave when you are trying to stand in it?  Some waves catch us off guard (sneak up on us?) and we happily get knocked on our butts. One older gringo busies himself with pulling up a crab fishing line the locals have set, and gets in to an ongoing discussion, very animated, but sounding to us only like more waves crashing in the crisp September sun and surf.

We laze about and talk, and listen, and are busy doing not much at all. But we are happy and it is calm, but for the noisy earthmoving water. We Walk a bit and see the surf from a different angle then return to our gear, which has been helpfully moved out of reach from the slowly rising tide by our cabana man. A trio of camels employed as tourist photo backdrop can no longer nap head down in the sand, but must stand improbably in the surf runoff and also wait patiently for their blue turbaned minder to come lead them to higher land, lest they get wet. And who has ever heard of a wet camel? They might melt. The sun starts to move a little faster than us, finally, and it's time to eat a little tagine, the cumin heavy chicken stew, with dipping bread and a side of sliced vegetables before leaving. We take turns paying a dollar to hose off (beki suspects the guy who unlocked hers then proceeded to peep at her from the cubicle next door, but what do you do with no proof?) before getting back in the taxi for the climb out to town and the train station, our ride to meknes and chapter three.