Morocco page 8

Got up early to start the new day. Noticed that Amon's tent was gone. Amon has left the building, he's off to the next community to sell his 'Double Zero' happy cough.

Went for another shower this morning; I'm loving these regular showers man. Going for breakfast now.
I think Eve and Aileen were going to do some more laundry. While the girls were busy us guys went for a walk down to the beach.

I'm not totally sure but I think it was right about this time that 'Ron the Inconspicuous' had left the collective, he's on his way to somewhere in Europe; they probably won't even notice that he's there. Take care Ron.

We were just strolling along the beach, very few people around. We noticed a couple of guys a fair distance away walking toward us, but they didn't look like locals.
When they got close enough to see their faces, Mel and Al's faces lit right up.
You're not going to believe this man, these guys were from Brantford; and I'm not shitting you either, this is for real.
One guy's name is Bruce, but I don't remember the other guys name.

These guys were all high school buddies, they all went to Pauline Johnson together, I couldn't believe it man. Holy shit, you travel 6000 miles away to a North African country, the last thing you expect to see are friends from high school; this was an absolute mind blower.

mind blower, awesome, blown away; these are terms that will be repeated many time throughout the story of our adventure...there just didn't seem to be any other way for me to describe many of the things that we saw or did, or things that happened to us

We all hung out for quite awhile talking about places where we had all been and what we had seen.
Bruce was a volunteer coach for kids football back home, and through the course of conversation with him we came to the realization that he was Chris and Ron's coach.
How's that for a total connection.
In the grand scheme of things, believe it or not, it would appear that everyone is connected to everyone in some manner.

This all seemed to be too unbelievable man, [this is the stuff of Twilight Zone] what are the odds of this kind of thing ever happening? I was completely blown away, we all were.
We all chatted and laughed for quite awhile about how far out and bizarre this encounter was; it was incredible. But now everyone has to get going.
We shook hands and "see ya later man"; and we all went on our way.
I could hardly wait to tell Eve about this encounter...and yeah, she was blown away as well.

The girls were finished the laundry when we got back to the camp so we all went back to the beach to spend the afternoon. It was hot and about 80F.
The waves were huge and really noisy. We had a killer day, lots of fun, also got a bit of sunburn.
Once we had all the fun and sun we could handle for the day, we all left the beach and went back to camp and hit the bar.

It was air conditioned and the beer was cold, we hung out there for quite awhile.
I had maybe three beers over a couple of hours, but I was getting way too good a buzz for these few beers, I felt drunk, really! on just a few beers? yeah, I couldn't believe it.
I looked around on the label and found the the alcohol content, 12%, no wonder I felt drunk; I was drunk, even their vinegar has 6% alcohol.
Got some food into me and went back to the tent for some sleep. Hope I don't have a headache in the morning.

It's morning, no headache, but I'll have to be careful with the beers from now on.

We've been in Agadir for almost a week now. The beach and bar have been great but we needed something new. We decided to rent a car for three or four days, so off to the rental agency we go.

In Marrakesh we didn't really need a car to see or do things, we were living in the middle of everything to do.
Here in Agadir in 1975, it's not a big town; and very limited as to what we were able to do for entertainment.
Our only entertainment choices were the beach and the bar; the Kasbah mount was not about entertainment but it was the only additional point of interest for us.

Now we're going to have wheels, we can go wherever we want, and there's a lot we want to see and do.
We rented a Renault 4, this is a little car, but with a bit of a squeeze it was just big enough for us and our gear.
Where to go first. It was decided we would drive south to Tiznit, a small walled town about 80 km away.
So for a reason that I can't recall, Al decided to stay in Agadir and not join the rest of us on the drive; maybe he just needed a homebody day.

Heading south out of town the terrain began to change, it had begun to take on more of a desert look, very little greenery, lots of sand dunes and hot.
We saw quite a few very small communities way off of the road each consisting of up to six or seven dwellings.
This seemed to be the beginning of where urban development has almost come to an complete halt.

We could see Tiznit off in the distance, it was completely closed in behind a ten foot high defensive wall with just a few out buildings several hundred feet away.
We drove through what was once a gated archway into the town. Very cool looking town but not so very old [1880].
Went to the Medina, checked out some of the stalls and shops looking at small souvenir items. Hung out for awhile, had a bite to eat, smoked a bit of hash, than decided to head out and drive east toward the Anti Atlas mountains.

And now for another historical fact. This is about the people who live in the Anti Atlas range.
The communities in this range have had the least amount of development of any kind in the entire country.

During our tour through the country we encountered communities in some areas where life has changed very little in the last five hundred to a thousand years, or more.

The higher up the mountains we went, the more primitive the ways became.
For some mountain dwellers, to own a steel wheelbarrow and a new shovel would make them the envy of their community.

More than 90% of the inhabitants are Chleuh Berbers [Berber is a 3000 year old Roman word loosely meaning barbarian]
This branch is said to have the purist of the Berber blood lines, and have purposely kept it that way for well over a thousand years by rarely ever intermixing with other tribal factions.
They're very friendly and communal.

Okay, we're on our way to the mountains. Along the way there are several little communities dotting the landscape. We can see the mountains 100 km away. But it won't take long to get there.

Driving into the foothills we came into a town called Tafraout. Not a big town but larger than most of the communities in the general area.

Quite a large number of tourists come to this town. The area didn't look to be suitable for any kind of real farming other than a few plots of land for small backyard size gardens, there didn't seem to be any real substantial way for the locals to make money, so they rely largely on the tourist trade, as a result the prices for goods in this Medina are a little bit high;
..... not unlike us.

We continued further up into the hills. The communities were now much smaller, more like family communes.
We stopped at a few just to have a look around. It was easy to see that a lot of things were quite different up here in the hills,

For example: we were advised that you don't go walking in the little grassy areas, particularly in the evening, that's where some of the local men go to have a shit, just like dogs.
Out on the streets, which is just hard packed dirt; we saw that it was not uncommon for a man hike up his djellaba a little and squat down and piss, it would trickle away and absorb into the ground, and no one gives it a second thought, this was perfectly normal behavior.

As we drove along the road we would see women in their long robes carrying baskets of whatever on their heads, when they saw us coming they would pull their veils over their faces and their hands up into their sleeves.

Although we had seen many women in Casablanca and Marrakesh wearing face veils [niqabs] this is the first time since coming to Morocco that we have encountered socially undeveloped communities to this degree, it was all very strange behavior to us.
However, looking at the behavior picture from their side of the coin, we were in fact the strange behavior in this picture.

Up to this point, all things considered, the main road has not been too bad, parts of it were somewhat paved, but very coarse pavement.

We decided to go further out of the foothills and into the mountains; okay, here we go.
The pavement has ended, the road has become what was probably the original hard pack caravan trail, also much narrower and a bit hazardous as well; the result of no infrastructure advancement.

We're now well out of the traditional tourist area. The further into the mountains we went the more treacherous the road became.
At times the road would wind around out onto the face of a mountain, which would expose you to the view of a valley, which would be just one of many that we'll get to see.

This valley we're approaching is going to be my first mountain valley experience. As we were slowly going through the turn the valley began to come into my view, I could feel the excitement rising within me.

WOW, I can't believe how huge this valley is; I'm absolutely thrilled, blown away, and having rushes.
It could have been miles long and miles wide, but it was impossible to judge distance because of it's immense size.
It looked like a few hundred feet almost straight down then rolling out into the valley below, which was another couple of hundred feet.
At the very least and by any measure this valley would be considered absolutely gigantic.

We could see a few very small settlements dotted throughout the lush green valley below, which also had a stream flowing through it.
It looked just like a landscape painting anyone might have hanging on their living room wall, it was breathtaking and absolutely beautiful.

I can't even begin to tell you from a real visual perspective just how vast this valley was. Looking it from our slightly angled vantage point, and being so high above it, you only had to turn your head several degrees to see it all.
It was so beautiful, so magnificent and awe inspiring; I forced my eyes open as wide as I possibly could to take it all in.
I had never seen anything before that was so majestic that it had the power to move me as much as it did, I was so thrilled beyond belief that it made the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand.

I was experiencing a feeling I had never felt before. Could I be having some kind of a spiritual experience, or at least a very powerful emotional moment, a sense of feeling there was something so much greater than ourselves, a scale so grand it was absolutely beyond what I could have imagined. What I was feeling was so real and genuine, yet at the same time seemed almost unbelievable and surreal.

This experience impacted me so much, that to this day it's still quite powerful within me. All I have to do is close my eyes and think about it for a moment and I'm there; and even forty years later thoughts of it can still make my arm hair stand; that's the degree to which it impacted me.

This experience has given me an incredibly wonderful "remember when" point in my life that will never be forgotten; it's always with me, and I'll always be grateful for that.

I've never had a feeling that I can ever remember that I thought was spiritual in nature.
If that's what all of these feeling I'm having are, then it certainly is my first time.

maybe there's more to the spiritual side of things then what I originally thought.
...or could it possibly be that all the feelings I'm having from this experience was just the biggest rush of my life?
don't know, and can't say; but I sure wish I knew

Page #8

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