Greetings dear readers and adventure followers, it's your intrepid Irishman at the keyboard again. Since I last logged on, a great event happened. My good friends, Ian and Arlene, have had a baby daughter, named Rebecca. I believe both baby and mother are doing fine and I'm only sorry guys, that I'm not there to give you my best wishes in person. Let's just hope that "little" Rebecca inherits her mother's powerful right upper-cut, and not her father's footballing skills! In any case, while my pals in Turin have been busy procreating, I have had an adventurous time. My emotions have swung from deep despair to exhuberant highs. In the "Lonely Planet" it is written that Morocco is "A land of incredible colour, frenetic activity and endless variety". This is very true. They also state that "For many, the encounters with the locals form the most enduring memories of their travels". This also bears truth, but not always in a positive sense. Suffice to say that life on the road is anything but dull and predictable.

It was with some relief that I crammed into a grand taxi with five other Moroccan passengers and the driver, and left Fès behind. Though it meant parting company with Wayne and Sandra and setting off on my own again, I needed to get away from the city and wind down somewhere relaxing. So for 25 dirhams (2.5 Euro) I was taken an hour or so south to the little Berber town of Azrou nestled in the Middle Atlas mountains. I slept for most of the journey, though at one point when I woke from my slumber and looked out the car window at the approaching hills, I was amazed to see how much one of them resembled Howth Head, in north east Dublin. One of the positive aspects about life on the road and homesickness is that memories from home return stronger and sharper than they would otherwise do. So there I was crushed between two aging Moroccans talking over me in Arabic, looking towards the hilly Moorish horizon, and all I could picture was the Dublin coastline between the Bailey Lighthouse of Howth and Dun Laoghaire harbour. Somehow it's comforting to know that no matter how far away you travel, you always carry a bit of home with you on the road, and that such memories and images can pop up when you least expect it.

No sooner had I booked into the Hotel des Cedrès for 75 dirhams than I met a really decent chap, Mohamed Kallal. Mohamed is an official mountain guide, not like the shady characters in Fes, and has worked with "Canal +" of France making films about the Cedar Forests of the Middle Atlas. It was upon meeting Mohamed that I noticed the Moroccan habit of touching the centre of one's chest after shaking hands (always with the right hand of course). It believe that it symbolises that you are now closer to their heart. In any case, it's a very good custom, especially when it is sincerely meant. I agreed to join him and a middle-aged Belgian couple, Johann and Anna, from Ghent in Flanders, the next morning for a day of hill walking. The following day saw more brilliant sunshine, and after the usual light breakfast of freshly squeezed orange juice, Moroccan bread and mint tea, we set off towards the forest. While ascending the cliffs to a heighth of 1,912 metres, the four of us spent the day bird watching, stopping to smell the fragrance of the Cedar trees and certain wild herbs and taking photos of the animals of the forest: mountain goats, sheep, donkeys, dogs, wild boar and best of all, the Barbary monkeys. These very shy creatures had to be gradually coaxed with large handfuls of orange peels, wallnuts and peanuts to come anywhere near us. I did eventually succeed in getting the largest male to steal an offering from my outstretched hand, but any attempt to feed the baby monkeys met with failure. Eating in the Barbary monkey comunity is performed on a strictly hierarchical basis and any attempt by the smaller fellows to collect our tasty morsels from the forest floor, met with an angry reaction from the dominant monkeys. The shyness of these creatures is perfectly understandable, given the unfortunate persistence by some people to trap these monkeys and sell them as pets to westerners with more money than brains. These animals should only be seen in their natural environment, where they can interact as they would normally, rather than perform tricks like some circus act for the benefit of ignorant humans.

The countryside of the middle Atlas was peace itself. What little snow there was, remained hidden from the unrelenting sunshine in the crevaces of the larger basalt rocks, rich with semi-precious minerals and multi-coloured clays. The locals are very worried about this year's unseasonally high temperatures and every Friday at the local mosque, the Imam prays for rain. It's quite ironic that several thousand kilmetres due north in Ireland, we spent most of the year praying for the showers to cease. By the afternoon I was pretty exhausted and blisters had developped on both my little toes. After a well earned siesta, Johann, Anna and myself went around to Mohamed's house for kouskous with pumpkin, courgettes and parsnips, which his mother had prepared. Though the Belgians left the following morning, I decided to stay an extra day in Azrou and to learn more from Mohamed about the region and Morocco in general. The next morning we visited a bustling market in Ain Leuh where, in a Berber tent, I ate grilled fish and freshly baked bread and drank "thè à l'absente", a potent version of mint tea, which is apparently illegal in Europe. The market was heaving with people dying wool, selling live chickens, making pottery, shoe-horsing donkeys, mixing spices and herbal remedies and arguing over the prices of different items of clothing. The village was pretty much empty of any other Europeans, so I got a feeling of authenticity, somewhat absent from the souks of Fes. At one moment I got chatted up by two gorgeous girls. Thankfully, Mohamed pointed out that they were in fact prostitues and that if I took them up on their offer of joining them for a mint tea or "whiskey Berber", I would have grave diffuculties in extracating myslef from the situation. So I made my apologies and beat a hasty retreat.

The afternoon was spent high up in Ifrane, a village built by the French in the 1930s, which is used as a base for skiing holidays in the Middle Atlas. The architecture is typically European, and while walking around the quiet streets of Ifrane, one wonders whether one is actually in Morocco at all. Mohamed and I chatted at length about all the issues listed in the "Lonely Planet" as topics never to be raised in conversation with locals: religion, Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, the Moroccan Royal Family, Israel and Palestine. But seriously, what's the point of travelling abroad if you are not interested in learning about the honest views and opinions of the local population.

A few hours later, I was getting the skin scrubbed off me in a "hammam" or public bath house, which are very popular in Morocco. I also paid a guy 25 dirhams for a massage and he streched muscles I did not even know I had. I left the hamman in shreds and sweating buckets, but I did feel like I'd been given a new layer of skin and I'd recommend that anyone visiting this country, should try a hammam at least once. We took in some traditional music in the evening and a few beers (Flag Speciale de Fes) at 15 drihams a bottle. Drinking alcohol does happen in Morocco, but not in very obvious public view. But I feel like my body is slowly getting unused to beer (a shocking thing for an Irishman to say, I know), so the fact that it is not overly easy to come buy, is not as big a drawback as I had first feared it would be. I bid farewell and "shukran jazilan" to Mohamed and was tucked up in my hotel by midnight as I'd a long day ahead of me the next morning.

The eight hour bus ride cross country from Azrou south to Arfoud presented me with my first true inkling as to what travelling overland by public transport actually means. I came very close to wanting to pack it all in and head back to Europe. I could handle the heat and the bumpiness in the crowded bus, and I'm even slowly getting used to being the only white guy around, but the constant attention of the "faux guides", who hopped aboard at every town and proceeded to sit beside me and haraung me to buy a desert trip to an oasis, finally got very tedious indeed. At times I just raised the volume of my discman and drifted away to the sounds of Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and Christy Moore. Those three lads helped me to keep my sanity and my sang froid. I eventually gave in to the best offer I'd heard all day from a persisent guys with dreadlocks, called Hebdo. For 250 dirhams (too much money, I know) he would drive me in a 4x4 Land Rover for the one hour plus trip over the harsh dry scrubland from Arfoud to the desert outpost of Merzouga and give me a tour of the region and the famous dunes of the Erg Chebbi. In the end I was just glad to get to his hotel, the "Auberge de Tombouctou", near the desert village of Merzouga, in one piece. And I did get to witness the setting of the red sun en route as well. The hotel itself was lovely and at 50 dirhams per night, I was paying only 40% of what the other guests were being charged, so I didn't feel (yet) like I had been set up. I rose very early the next morning to witness the dawn and the following passage is what I wrote in my diary:

"It's now just gone 7am and dawn was at precisely 06h54. The last time I saw the sun rise was last summer from the "Superga" in Turin with Andy and Katerina, after a drunken binge in the "murazzi". This was a very different affair. The sun rises and sets very quickly in Africa, even in the north of the continent. First the host of stars which littered the clear night sky begin to disappear as the heavens turn from pitch black to light azure. In the east, an orange-yellow glow appears. Just before the sun emerges above horizon, a bright yellow line runs along the crest of the dunes, similar to the coronna one witnesses during an eclipse. Then the first direct rays cast their long shadows over the sand and very quickly it becomes difficult to pass more than a fleeting glance at the eastern horizon due to the intense brilliance of the sun. The temperature begins to rise as the chill of the nightime desert air abates, but the only sound to be heard is the odd cockrell welcoming the new day in customary fashion and the chirping of little birds as they stir in their nests. Otherwise there is total silence. The camels continue chewing their hay, uninterested in the whole spectacle, and bar a few hardy tourists, people remain in their beds. There's something at once beautiful, yet unnerving about the quiet of the Sahara. I wish I was not alone here to witness it, but I suppose company would only serve to break the eerie silence."

Later in the morning I was taken by foot around Merzouga by Hebdo and I was introduced to some of his friends. We ate tajine and oranges and drank mint tea in his house, but I never got the relaxed feeling I had with Mohamed in Azrou. When his pal, Omar, gave me a tour of his shop (which just happened by coincidence to be next door) and spent great length explaining the intricacies of the symbols woven into a host of carpets that lay there, I finally realised that all the "hospitality" I had been shown was merely in order that they might sell me a carpet that I didn't really want and that I certainly didn't need. Claiming that you are backpacking is no deterrent, as they can ship the carpet to your country and they have ledgers and photos of a host of happy customers to prove this. Claiming you have no money either will not deter their willingness to make the sale as, though you are in the middle of nowhere, they accept all major credit cards! Conscious of the fact that I was over one hours drive from the nearest passable road, and not wanting to offend my new found "friends" I told them that I would sleep on it after a brief phone call home. I spent the afternoon wantering around the huge dunes, which constantly changed colour as the sun slowly sank in the sky, milling it over in my mind how I was going to escape the Sahara without paying a handsome ransom. In the desert, as well as sand, one also has a lot of time on one's side (cue classic tune by the "Rolling Stones"). But I was even too preoccupied to try the sand boarding, which a couple of locals were egging me on to do from the top of the largest dune of the Erg Chebbi. It's very sad when you can't relax in the desert, but everything here seems to have a price for the unsuspecting traveller. After passing a fitful night of broken sleep, my escape route presented itself in the strangest of forms.

Marc Aberson and Carmen Michael, from Durban and Sydney respectively, emerged from the dunes on two camels this Saturday morning and provided me with a welcome escape route from the attentions of the Merzouga carpet possee. Shagged off with their overpriced oasis experience, they were eager to leave the desert for the Todra Gorge, my next destination. So we teamed up together and in their rental car drove carefully over the dry desert scrubland back to Arfoud. Hebdo and the boys were not at all pleased by our sudden departure (without any carpets) and I must admit that it felt great to strike a small blow for tourists everywhere. We pretty much laughed all the way to Tinnehir and swapped stories of dodgy stomachs, fake guides and "Germafarians" (German rastafarians) and "Japunks" (Japanese punks), which we'd encountered on our travels. Then one of those "Christ, it's a bleedin' small world" moments happened. Carmen and Marc have been living in London for the past few years and Carmen has been working for Quantas. So I said "Oh, I have a cousin who worked for Quantas in Japan and Fiji and he's now in England". Whereupon she replied "I don't suppose your cousin is an Irish guy called David Thomas by any chance?" And thus we discovered that the my cousin, David, was the boss of this Aussie girl who I had just met in the sands of the Sahara. Twilight Zone stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

We lodged in the Hotel des Roches at the mouth of the Todra Gorge (80 dirhams for a single room) and during the course of the afternoon got quite intoxicated on local beer in a hotel in Tinnehir. Marc and Carmen gave me loads of advice on what to do in South Africa and in Oz, but Carmen, if you don't mind, I might give "sleazeball" and "troughman" a miss! Within a couple of hours, my soft Irish brogue had been completely corrupted by the Antipodeans and when feigning surperise, instead of saying "Really?" or "Is that right?", all I could manage was "Ah yih, mate?" Bloody colonials! Still, I hit the hay with a big smile on my face and dreamt of kangaroos and magic carpets.

The next day saw Marc in a very poor state. He picked up a travel virus earlier on in the week and it came back with a vengeance. So while he tried to keep down his breakfast, Carmen and I explored practically all 15kms of the Todra Gorge, which bears an uncanny resemblence to the Grand Canyon in the USA. In fact, a lot of the Moroccan landscape resembles the Nevada desert and I found myself occasionally double-checking for "Red Injuns" in the hills. I half expected Clint Eastwood or Indiana Jones to appear from behind one of the spectacular rock formations. Unfortunately, the river bed of the gorge was completely dry (probably due to the lack of rain), but watching the sheep and mountain goats weave their way through the palmeries with 30 metre cliff faces on both sides, made sure the senses were sufficiently stimulated.

By mid afternoon we were on the road again. Still feeling decidedly unwell, Marc was on the point of heading straight back to London as we sped past the Dadès Gorge, but the sheer distances to be covered and the quality of the road meant that instead we overnighted in a little place on the road to Marrakesh, 30 kms from Ourzazate, called Ait Benhaddou. And am I glad we did. We treated ourselves to one night in the Hotel Restaurant La Kasbah (180 dirhams for half-board after some haggling. The following morning, while a much recovered Marc busied himself celebrating Carmen's birthday, I explored the excellently presevred Kasbah of Ait Benhaddou. The reason this particular Kasbah or fort, is in such good condition, is because many films such as "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Jesus of Nazareth" were filmed here. And once I climbed up high in the labyrinth of ancient alleyways away from the busloads of underdressed and overfed western tourists, I got a splendid view over the whole countryside. I also bought a Berber knife, made of dromadary (sic) skin, from one of the merchants. The knack to haggling I've discovered, is that both you and the seller must feel good about the final agreed price. He wanted 475 dirhams for it. The cut throat!  I eventually parted with 235 (23.5 Euro). To be fair, he still probably made a handsome profit, no doubt, but I enjoyed the whole barganing process (it reminded me of that scene from Monty Python's hilarious "The Life of Brian") and finally I feel like I am coming to grips with the local merchants, guides and tourist profiteers. Not even Marc's jibes at me being "done" and being a "soft man" (cue dodgy northern Oirish accent) could put a downer on this particular transaction. Especially as it came from the hard Boer, who was later seduced into buying a tajine pot, two leather poofs and a suspect tebilat drum! Sorry mate, couldn't resist. And with that, the three of us were off again, swopping more travel stories about decapitated puppies and decapitated Springbok army moustaches (you kinda had to be there) heading north-west along winding roads, through the red rocky soil of the snow-topped High Atlas mountains, past tall pine trees and deep lush green valleys and an army of roadside semi-precious rock sellers all the way to the mighty Marrakesh.

After negotiating the hectic traffic of the Ville Nouvelle of Marrakesh, we arrived in the medina, which was far less polluted than the new town. But even if the fumes were not quite suffocating, the atmosphere of the place itself were almost intoxicating. As dusk began to fall we headed towards the Hotel CTM (94 dirhams a night), where we were staying, we began to take in the majesty of this fine city. From our hotel we had a view over the remarkable Place Djemaa el-Fna.  The scene there was remarkable. Water sellers, fire eaters, fruit juice stalls, story tellers, snake charmers, food stands, buskers, beggars, drummers, dancers, veiled women giving temporary henna tatoos (the Berber scorpion on my hand has yet to fade) and a huge amount of western tourists all mixed together in a hectic, heaving, smokey mass. As Carmen wryly said, "If you don't get laid here, Gav, you won't get laid in Morocco!" We ate very well (bread, kouskous, rice, chicken, fish, brochettes, aubergines, chips - you name it, we devoured it) in the central square and briefly headed to the new town for a beer. This was a mistake. The new town lacks all the magic of the medina. So we grabbed another "Petit Taxi" back to the centre of the action, and sat on the rooftop terrace of our hotel, sipping dodgy Scottish vodka Marc had got in Duty Free, and simply taking in the magic of the square below.

The guys decided to stay an extra day in Marrakesh, so we explored the medina extensively the following morning. Carmen and I have got the barganing "thang" down pat, but Marc's heart is just too big, and as a result he got more hassle from the souk sellers. Still, I suppose we did convince him not to spend 600 dirhams on a big drum from Mali, which he would have had trouble getting on the plane. In fact, Carmen drives such a hard bargain, that we have now Christened her "Fatima Berber, the scourge of medina marketeers the world over"! The medina in Marrakesh is an altogether more enjoyable experience that its equivalent in Fès. This is partly due to the fact that we are now less "green" than we were a fortnight ago, but it is also because in this historical Imperial city, they value their tourism too much to jepordise it by scaring visitors away. A few  afternoon bottles of Heineken in the Grand Hotel du Tazi were complemented by some voluptuous stares by a couple of Moorish maidens. But Carmen soon put paid to any notions Marc might of had, and given what had happened in Ain Leuh with the two Berber hookers, I also decided against trying my charms on the two ladies, lovely though they were. As the evening drew to a close, I said my farewells to Carmen and Marc, and promised to meet them in Sydney in September, when they will no doubt introduce me to any cute sisters, cousins or female friends they have: slappers (or "bush pigs", as Carmen cays they are called down under), excluded of course.

So here I am sitting in a cyber cafe, surfing for 20 dirhams an hour. I'm on my todd again, but I've had some great experiences in Morocco, both good and bad, and February is now behind me. Casablanca and a possible trip to the port of Essaouira on the Atlantic coast await. Photos of my first month on the road are winging their way to Europe and Pierre-Yves as I write, so don't forget to log on at a later date too see a few snap shots of this exotic land of Arabs and Berbers. Then on March 4, I'm off down to Dakar by plane. I must admit that I am somewhat preoccupied about arriving in the Senegalese capital as the second round of Presidential elections take place. I pray that the political situation does not suddenly explode as can easily happen in West Africa. I want to discover the vibrant Senegalese culture, but I have no desire to get caught up in wide scale rioting and looting. But "inch Allah" matters will not deteriorate and you'll be hearing from me soon. Till the next edition, keep sending the e-mails (in whatever language) and I'll try to reply when the chance arises. See ya.

Gav (1 March 2000)