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Feb. 17
Today is our thirteenth wedding anniversary. Eve and I are going to take the car and go off by ourselves. We went to one of the local shops to buy cheese, bread, figs, some wine, and a bar of Pardo chocolate. We're going somewhere to have a picnic. While chatting with the shop keeper we mentioned we were from Canada. Hearing this excited him. He said "I love Canada", then he pointed out a little Canadian flag pin he wore on his smock. He said "everyone here loves Canadians", but he thought we were Americans; as did everyone probably. Americans didn't seem to be very well thought of in Morocco in 1975. The store guy ended up giving us a few small things for free, which was a bit surprising based on our previous experience with Moroccans so far; with the exception of Stephen, Amon and now this guy. We went back to the tent and got out the sticky back Canada flag decals that were on the backpack when we bought it. The reason we removed them in the first place was a traveler told us displaying a flag makes you a target. It may have been one of the Montreal guys, not sure. Anyhow, Eve put one on her bag, I put the other on the sleeve of my jean jacket. When you think about it for just a second, if you're a white person in Morocco you're always going to be a target, flag or no flag. We packed our stuff for the picnic and headed north into the High Atlas foothills. This would give us an opportunity to see a bit of the scenery we missed coming to Agadir on the night drive. As we drove along the main road we saw several little communities scattered about. We drove into one of the towns along the way, we just went for a quick walk about and checked out their Medina. Not to be confused with the Marrakesh Medina, this was more like a collective of neighborhood yard sales merged together to give the appearance of a small scale Medina, or a flea market. The vendors in these small towns were more inclined to just let you take your time looking at their wares; but if in a few minutes you haven't decided on a purchase they would start on you, but we were okay with that. We were now use to doing business the Moroccan way. We walked around a few villages and saw some really beautiful gardens adorned with flowering plants and shrubs in a variety of colors, many types of cactus and hanging plants. As gardens go, they were pretty cool, any plant lover would be impressed. We continued up into the hills, but not too far. Along the way we took a very narrow side road for a short distance. It was more of a beaten path or a bike trail than a road, barely wide enough for our little car. We drove as far as we had to in order to be away from any kind of activity, we just wanted some privacy. We found a spot to pull off to have our picnic. We sat on the side of a small rolling hill with our blanket and basket under a cluster of blossoming almond trees. This was a beautiful spot, hills all around us, the High Atlas mountains in front of us, quiet, private, peaceful and romantic. All you could hear were a few birds and the breeze. We talked and laughed a great deal while we ate our picnic lunch, smoked some hash, and drank wine, and of course did what couples do when they get some alone time. We were happy to have had the day to ourselves. It was now getting late in the day. The sun was already getting close to the mountain tops. Night closes in quickly up here, and the amount of time between dusk and dark is very short. We stayed just until the sun got to the mountain top, took a picture and started heading back. It wasn't too late when got back to camp so we all went to the bar for some beers to celebrate our anniversary. I was very careful with the beers this time. After a couple of drinks Eve and I went back to our tent. We had a great day, no danger, no impending doom, just a fun day. Now it's time to get some sleep. Tomorrow we're all heading south to the Atlantic coastal town of Aglou. Page #10 Page links 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 |
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one of the many small villages that dot the foothills
road scenery on the way to the foothills
beautiful garden
cactus garden in hotel plaza
foothill sunset
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