Inshallah? Morocco!!! Part trois

Morocco, sounds sunny, it's in Africa, there's desserts, camels and cactuses. All the ingredients for hot, sunny weather, still people dress likes it's a harsh East coast January and they expect 6 feet of snow.

My fußball buddy in Imminwargh, Speedermaan! Hot weather but he was wearing his Spiderman sweater so I called him spiderman. English isn't his language at all so he pronounced it as Speedermaan and so Speedermaan it was. He passed our garage every day on his donkey on his way to the water source just around the corner. He is a little comedian passing us just laying on his donkey or sitting backwards and stopped at our place to play some fußball. Speedermaan is actually called Mohamed but then again every first son is called Mohamed so calling him Speedermaan made it more clear who I was talking to. 

Ok, the first couple days we had cold nights as expected close to the dessert and some horrible rainy days and even snow, especially on top of the mountains. Mainly we had hot sunny days, still people were walking around in thick ass down jackets, beanies and sometimes even rabbit fur collars on their hoodies....

This is how we travelled most of the time, everybody actually. Busses, trucks or even animal transport there was always room for you to tag along. Bus full? No next to the suitcase on the rooftop there was plenty of room, you wanna wait for the next bus.....next day??? 

Traditionally the men wear jelabba's which to me is nothing more than a rope without the ability to open because it simply has non besides the openings for the head and both arms. The jelabba, not easiest thing to do your daily busines in but it seems comfy? Then again the men still wear their regular clothing underneath the jelabba which I would get rid off if the jelabba would come into fashion. The jelabba covers the entire body so why bother wearing more than a jelabba? Freeballing, commando or whatever is the way to go wearing a jelabba, in my opinion.

Is it a jelabba, is it a rope, is it Yann or a real Berber? 

It's Yann in a jelabba wearing pants, no boxers! 

Another fashion item in Morocco is the scarf for men very comparable to the women's scarf (hoofddoek). The scarf is something I fully appreciate and the men have many different ways to wrap it around their head, maybe it's a pecking order thing, I don't know but it looks cool. To me the scarf had a "separate the boys from the men" vibe to it.

Scarf and boxers, that's how I roll.

The women's fashion in the Atlas mountains is a different cup of tea, they got the the scarfs, lots of colors going on and not thought through or mabe not to western poluted eyes like mine... Women also wear some sort of jelabba's but most of them rock the real rope as a real piece of clothing. In the kitchen of the hostel a lady was preparing our tajine in a red white striped rope... Women walking around town, getting water in their colorful ropes and carrying their babies on their back with a Mickey mouse beach towel. Nobody really cares or judges as long as it works that's all they need. In Imminwargh there is TV, internet and they get the latest news on whatever but they got a good thing going on here in town. They have a clean water source (tastes way better than Providence tap water) , goats for the tajine, mint for the tea, oranges for the C and donkeys for transporting whatever or themselves.

The Berbers/Amazighs don't seem to worry allot about shit, figuratively and literally speaking, I call it the "Inshallah" culture. Inshallah means something like: "If Allah wants it to happen, it will happen". To me "Inshallah" sounded more like "we'll see" or "who knows" and sometimes "don't fucking count on it". According to my buddy Yann the word "Inshallah" was pretty serious. Then again "Inshallah" never really sounded that comforting when asking for example, "so the bus will pick us up at 5 tomorrow?", "see you down the river with water and food?" or "next week the toilet is installed?". The answer was always "Inshallah" with a big colgate smile, not the whitening toothpaste though. No worries or Inshallah, they seem to enjoy live, drink sweet mint tea, eat delicious tajine, cruise around on a 0.8 HP donkey and play soccer!

Morocco prt deux

Oui oui!
Day whatever, allot of impressions, I didn't even try to keep a daily diary, speaking of diary. I had diaree for a day and no toilet, a dream combo of two very related things in western life. At this point I was very sick of camping without a fucking toilet in the middle of a small town...

http://www.berberraftingadventures.com/

Imagine four very hungry guys eating big tajine's, a tajine is a Berber dish consisting of meat/chicken, potatoes, veggies and you are using loafs of bread as eating utensils...scooping and digging out the tajine. So at one point these ingredients will have to leave our bodies and at that same point we have to leave these processed ingredients somewhere....

Our first night we stayed at Aisha and Mohamed. Aisha made us this incredible tajine! Best welcome to town and the most friendly people, love Imminwargh.

Let me remind you, we were staying in a small town (Imminwargh), people are living everywhere, oh and wild dogs are not on a leash and therefore free to grab your lower leg. Long story short, pissing was easier, we marked our territory to let the wild dogs know who's the new boss in town!



The main reason for our stay in Imminwargh is the Ahansel river and to ride this baby with a raft! I can now sum up all these facts about low water, rapids, snow and rising water. To be honest I have no clue other then melting snow creates a river and the river cuts a beautiful canal through the land.

Our view if we stepped out of the garage where we stayed, never got bored with or without snow.

Born and raised in Alkmaar these these landscapes with wild rivers are pretty and pretty unreal... the nature is its own architect. The canyons and mountains seem to be build literally brick by brick, trees and bushes find a way of settling between and the goats are keeping the greens short at hardest reachable places, eat that Rob Verlinden (some Dutch TV gardener, nobody really knows).

Chardonnay, not so wild.

Crew, Yann ( the peanut colored guy), Fabiano (coffee bag hat) and James

Morocco prt 1

Yes yes and hi hi,
Yes yes I have been neglecting my blog for no reason really, except for the last 7 weeks.
Hi hi, I'm back. The last couple weeks I've been back home (Amsterdam), I visited Yann in Verchaix (France) and helped Yann in Imminwargh (Morrocco). So I intend to keep my blog up to date more regularly. Starting with some Morrocco stories in random order and this is part one.

Marokko or Morocco, a country I know because I lived in the Netherlands my entire life. Within the Netherlands there are many different cultures and the people from Morocco are one of them. Famous because of Ali B, Raymzter and YesR, dutch rappers with multiple hits! This is all I knew about Morocco besides the stereotype vision of a dessert with camel cruising and couscous eating people.
But now I've seen the real deal or dessert...? Rafting and trekking were the main events of the trip. The playground for these venues were the Atlas mountains and the Ahansel river, the home of the Amazighs better known as the Berbers. Imminwargh, untouched, no tarmac roads and not crowded with tourists except for us...
For about three weeks Yann (the Raft Boss), James (James), Fabiano (Sure, no problem) and me (dooley) cruised around the mountains and down the rivers with other tourists and acted like we knew. I knew I didn't but here I was, bonjour Morocco!!!

View from the rooftop at the hostel in the medina of Marakesh!

Day 1 started in the big city Marrakesh and was very interesting, we stayed in the centre of the Medina of Marrakesh. The medina is the oldest part of the city and surrounded by walls, probably to keep the tourists in.

Local chilling against wall, outside the medina

Before entering the medina we passed the new part which had allot of similarities to any other modern big city with big yellow M's, horrible popular coffee places and big fashion stores. The day in the medina was quick, fast, hasty and short but enough to experience the "old" Marrakesh vibe. Of course the whole thing was touristic, crowded and the locals wanna make money by selling crap in a very direct way. Driving skills in Marrakesh equals honking skills but this is alright because it's a way of communicating...in other words, fuck traffic rules! Within the walls the medina is a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys therefore the main transportation is with donkeys, mules, scooters, bikes and your feet. There are cars, it's not a car free environment but it keeps you on your toes and they will communicate with their horn.

Besides cars they move around the medina with at least 0.5 HorsePower!!!

One of the smelly touristic attractions within the walls were the leather tanneries, beh, the smell!!!

This picture cost me 10 bucks

In the end they want you to see the final process which was a shop where they sold leather bags, cushions and crap!!! A real must smell.
Yann showed me some nice little food shops and the best smoothie guy ever! I loved the narrow alleys in the medina and the locals cruising through it with their donkeys, oh and the sneaker shops with all the fake sneakers, wow unbelievable how fake it was, really??!!!