39. On the road again ...

We took the long and winding road from wind fresh and ozone heavy Essaouria to Tiznit. We drove through cactus fields, and argan plantations, watching as the way unravelled into desert country, with the sea tantalising on the horizon between villages of yellow stone and mud turrets and boxy houses. Men riding donkeys sidesaddle weaved onto the road and donkey carts slowed us down.

Women in billowing colourful fabrics moved like clouds along the road, or ducked into dark, cool houses.  Fields of poppies, wheat, bananas and flowers sprinkled the hills. And the heat intensified.  And intensified.  And intensified.

Everybody lives on crusty bread

We stopped for tagine somewhere ... in a flyblown restaurant where the heat sucked us from the car and threw us into the airconditioning.  The ubiquitous orange juice has become my salvation - I drink it like water.  I'm not mad about the equally ubiquitous tagine which is a watery overcooked jumble of vegetables and sometimes lamb or chicken: I make mine thick and gravy-ish with added fruit but here it's a melange of homogenous vegetables, often accompanied by a swarm of insects.

Tea in Tarandout while buying Henna Cloth

The other ubiquitous dish is the Moroccan salad, which should be an appetiser but with its potatoes, corn, beetroot, cucumber, tomato, lettuce and a half can of tuna, is a full meal.

Moroccan Salad

Typical tajine

One of my admirers told me that I mustn't eat couscous if I want to stay the slender shape I am - like a coca cola bottle, he said, measuring my waist with his hands and giving my boob a quick glance with his palm as if by accident.  Moroccan woman are shaped like Twenty five litre Sidi Ali (water) bottles he told me earnestly.  Breakfast is foot high plates of sugary croissants, hard boiled eggs, jams and bushels of various breads.  And the mint tea.  Oh, the mint tea.  When I first travelled Morocco I fell for the mint tea and palm sized sugar cubes, but now, omitting the sugar, I'm in more control of my credit card ... and waistline.  It's so thick with sugar, you could stand a spoon upright.

We arrived in Tiznit fairly late, with arrangements to have dinner with an international bead dealer; an American woman and her sister (and their four cats) who work with the traders in Tiznit and sell for them.  Dinner was interesting - at their ancient home in the middle of the souk- tagine and sweetbreads and chunks of bread - but we were all so tired from the ride that we were almost falling asleep at the small round mosaic table, on our embroidered cushions.

Tiznit souk

Tiznit was mainly closed, as it was Friday.  A few desperate vendors harassed us and cajoled us and bullied us for purchases, but as with all places we've entered, places covered with dust and cobwebs, with sacks of silver and metals, and cabinets inches deep in jewellery, where you'd expect that the vendors wouldn't have a clue what they were selling, there must be some sort of hotline between cities which alerts when tourists - specially those bearing cameras - are on their way.

My most meaningful interaction was with a very very old man in a yellow turban who had some wonderful old beads in his pile of dust, frayed papers, old rags, dead flowers and fragments of carpet.  I spied them quickly, gave him my price, at which he threw up his hands and swore (I think) in Arabic. I called for Sarah to help with her French, but nothing would budge him. Politely, I told him that if he couldn't reduce his price (we are talking HUNDREDS of dollars - not dirhams -  for a SINGLE bead) I'd have to go.  He came down a bit.  I made moves to leave the shop.  Sarah had already told me that his price was good, considering the age of the bead which she estimated around the 1860's.

It was interesting and collectible because it had been strung with amber, and some of the amber had rubbed off on the edges of the bead. And there I was tucking into the amber with my nail to try to remove it, thinking it was dirt.  Politely again, I told him I had to go.  A little later, back in the care, there was a bit of a commotion in the car park and and old man with a yellow turban wheezed and limped up to me with a little paper bag of beads, and the negotiations continued in the car, through the window for ten minutes, while the driver, and Sarah, waited patiently. 

What's your last price, he asked. I replied - you have it.  He said, No! A little bit more. I said, no you have it. I did get those valuable beads for what I asked, and he got his money plus a shortbread biscuit. And I think I got some pretty amazing old beads. 

Last chance bead dealer in action

And the travelling bead is moving on again ....  this time, where I bought more venetian beads and some wonderful old rolled silver beads ...  I swopped the two venetians from Essaouria for an original old Kiffa and a Roman Bead.

A few more driving hours, eating oranges and figs in the car, drooling and drooping on each other's shoulders, fossicking in each other's silver bags, passing desert scrub and wonderful billowing fabrics and tantalising hills and more donkeys and we arrived at a repose in the desert;  oh, yea to the goddess of swimming pools, gorgeous rooms, rosemary hedges, white roses, lemon and orange trees and the smell of musk oil in my room. What a wonderful Dar in the desert.  

We swam, we dined by candlelight in the courtyard and we slept like the very happy and relaxed, and fed, dead.