The Plan that Louise eluded to from last night

Just on a side note there is not really much to tell regarding Lilian, Esther and yours truly sitting, ready and waiting to pounce on the guides that were accompanying the idiots….. I mean adventurous souls that were riding around Morocco by push bike.  Still the guides that were with them would certainly have their uses.

Louise as she said went to bed early leaving Lillian, Esther and I to plan where we would be going next.  Now that is not really all that hard since we only have really a couple of more days before the car is due at Avis in Essaouira, we can not take the car on unsealed roads and we do not want to travel through Marrakesh since that will be where we are going after and we have all been up North to Fes etc.  In reality that kind of whittles away the options to one.  A little further South.  So we chose Taroudannt. 

The only problem being which way to get there.  Now we could go back the way we came the day before travelling through Ouarzazate again before heading down or we could go a different road entirely bypassing Ouarzazate and seeing at least a different part of the country side.  The only problem we had is that our map indicated that the road was unsealed but some digging from Esther revealed that the road should have been sealed or at least in was supposedly near completion towards the end of 2004.

Still we needed confirmation since we did not really want to start out on the road and then have to back track.  I went down to the receptionist at the hotel and asked her.  Now my efforts were hampered by the fact that she does not speak English and I do not speak Arabic, Berber or French but with hand signs and map pointing she ‘told’ me the road was sealed and the exit for it was just down the road. 

We were not 100% happy though because sometimes when people do not understand you they kind of say anything just to get rid of you.  Lets face it hand signs are great for pointing at various things but complex conversations are a little harder.  So the three of us hatched our plan and decided that Lilian would ask someone or at least attempt to ask and we would see if we got the same answer.  Now the guides of the group were still down in the dining room so we figured since it was their business to drive in their support vehicles beside those insane, um, adventurous types on the push bikes they should know the roads.

At fist we wandered off down stairs but the guides had moved and were now surrounded by members of their group.  Lillian had second thoughts of approaching them.  We milled for a bit, just a little bit obvious I think before one of us, not sure who came up with the plan.  So upstairs we trouped again in retreat before sitting down in the central lounge area outside the rooms.  The plan was simple.  The guides had to go to bed some time.  After all they must have been tired.  Wouldn’t you be if you had to watch those mad western types ride push bikes all over the country side all day?  We decided to wait for them and pounce on them when they came up and tried to get to bed.

Simple.  It worked too.  They were very helpful spoke English, among a multitude of other languages and confirmed that the road was sealed and that it was a good drive and would be nice for us to see rather than going over the road we had been over that day.  We thanked them.  Nice people.  Even if the people they are guiding are quite mad.

Agdz to Taroudannt

So this morning after a drive around Agdz to find breakfast and coffee, I didn’t really care about breakfast I just wanted the coffee, we ended up getting bread, gee that really is a suprise for the others.  The coffee situation was looking a little bleak until we pulled into the services station and a nice man at the cafe attached to it made me a coffee.  Now the day was looking brighter already.

So off we went and the road was nice and sealed just as promised and sealed all the way.  The scenery was also good to drive through winding through the mountains and the road while not that wide was better than the day before.

I took over at one point and did some driving, spent quite a bit of time with that whole trying to wind down the window instead of changing the gears thing that Louise has noted.  Driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road is just, well, wrong.  Lillian was a great help chiming in with her ‘stay right look left’ advice.

Louise took the driving back over at our aborted efforts to stop for lunch.  Not that there was not food available but it was all Tanjines and we were all getting a little tanjined out for one thing and Louise and I decided we did not want to stop that long.  Tanjines are very tasty, do not get me wrong but they take awhile to cook and when you have them on a daily basis for lunch and dinner you start to want something else to eat.

We arrived in Taroudannt with out much problem.  There was one oppss moment but Lilian and Esther did not notice since they were napping.  I think we can absolve Louise and blame Lilian since she fell asleep on duty and forgot to mutter her mantra ‘stay right, look left’ and Esther the back up was also sleeping.  So you see don’t you it was so not our fault.  Thankfully there were no on coming cars, or maybe not since it would have effectively pointed out the problem sooner.

Anyway after checking into accommodation Louise decided to have a rest and the rest of us went for a walk around Taroudannt since we would be leaving the next morning.  A guide at the hotel tried to con us into accepting his services telling us all about how bad it all was and how much we would be hassled.  We all indicated we would be fine.  He tried to sound all authoritative saying ‘Maybe, maybe not, you will be fine if you take me the children and men will not hassle you.’  Now we just walked off and I’m pleased to report that we did not get hassled at all by children or the men.  The only one who hassled us was that man at the hotel!

Taroudannt was lovely.  The wall was quite well preserved and unlike the other Medinas the streets were quite wide and a lot of the buildings looked fairly new.

After looking around we headed back for what has become custom over the last few days.  Bottle of wine and some snacks to pass the time until dinner.  This time we stood on the balcony over looking the garden.  We talked about the trip tomorrow and kind of had it settled then went for dinner.  This time we had a change from Tanjine.  Steak with potatoes and pepper sauce.  Good food and a good evening.

Thankfully the bar at the hotel closed about 2300 hours and the hotel was finally quiet.