Overslept this morning! Jeff and I had breakfast at the Dar Nes and then headed out to retrieve yesterday’s purchases I inadvertently left at the rug shop. Walked through the market, we each bought a sfenj, a kind of Moroccan doughnut served warm, and to my utter delight, we found a tiny lamp shop selling the kind of lamps like the two I have at home. I fell in love with one especially after the shopkeeper explained the symbols on it represented happiness, infinity, freedom and abundance, pius two more I can’t remember at the moment. Later in the day Mustafa took us near Diabat, whose claim to fame is that Jimi Hendrix had spent a little over a week there in 1969. It is also where Shauna & Jeff had reserved a camel ride. Mustafa insisted that I ride, too, this was our conversation:
Mustafa: You no ride camel?
Franca I no ride camel.
Mustafa Why not?
Franca Because I’m afraid of heights
Mustafa It’s no high
Franca I don’t care how no high it is, I am not riding camel.
Mustafa ok but it’s no camel, it’s dromedary
I had almost the same conversation with Mohammad who lead Shauna and Jeff’s camels. He says you hold leash I say no, you hold leash, he says no scared, I say yes scared and I walked along at a safe distance from the camels as he lead them across the widest beach I have ever seen. It was breathtaking, the ocean, the beach, the sand dunes, the city skyline behind us and the intense blue sky. So gorgeous! Halfway, Mohammad says fatiguée? I say pas fatiguée, he points to the space behind Jeff on the camel…uh …dromedary and says et vous? I say pas moi. He hands me the leash and tells me to hold it for “just a second” and he walked away with the camera and took pictures of me holding the freaking leash. I couldn’t figure out how to say HURRY UP in French so, of course, he took his time. I think he enjoyed it. We walked all the way to Diabat on the beach talking about, among other things, the camels, Cappuccino, 45 years old and James, 7 years old. I really expected them to have more Arabic sounding names like Borat or Hussein. Diabat is a hippy/teenagers hangout of sorts, with a couple of bars and roads for quad bikes. Two rams butting heads in the middle of the street stopped traffic for a while, there is desert as far as the eye can see in every direction and they choose the middle of the only road that leads to Diabat for their little confrontation.
Mustapha took us to the sultan’s palace nearby, or what remains of it, and I took a few more photos as the sun was setting, and then my phone died.
15,267 steps today not sure how many that is in camel steps.
Another spectacular day in Paradise. Tomorrow we leave for Rabat.