Asilah

 June 21

Good Morning from Morocco! Here my day predictably starts with freshly squeezed orange juice. I drink both mine and Nic’s. It is delicious.

Our hotel, Riad d’Oasis d’Asilah came with our very own pet cat. 

This is Boobo. There are truly cats everywhere, but Boobo is a pretty special cat. First of all he lives in the Riad, so he is fat, happy, and very entitled. He wanted to sleep in our room on the first night and was pretty peeved that we shut the door. He did forgive me at breakfast when I shared my cheese with him. 

Our hotel was truly like a little oasis at the beach. They have beautiful trees hanging right over breakfast, and jasmine trees dotted along the paths.

This is Nic’s favorite flower. I have learned a lot about Nic on this trip. I learned his favorite flower. Who knew? It has been enlightening. 

Our hotel might have been my favorite part of Asilah. It was truly lovely, and so comfortable.

My goal for Asilah was to give Nic some time to rest in a quiet beach town. Today we slept late and then wandered down to the beach to look for seashells. Our hotel host told us to drive to a different beach, but neither of us were super committed to a day at the beach, and both of us wanted to avoid driving. We walked instead.

In hindsight, we probably should have driven. 

These are no Costa Rica beaches. And it really isn’t fair to compare them, but there is so much trash on the beach and in the water that it is hard to feel like you can walk in the sand without shoes. If that’s what the sand looks like, the water can only be worse. It was kind of a bummer, and not what I had hoped for when thinking of a beach resort in Africa. We did not see any shells or signs of life. We did find a lot of mosaic tiles though.

I posed in my Moroccan dress given to me by our new Moroccan friends. 

It was Friday, which is the Muslim Holy Day, so we were able to see them worship outside the Mosque. We were not allowed to visit any of the mosques, but we peeked into the few we were allowed to peek into. Muslims who are unclean (For example if their neighbor’s dog jumped on them - this explains why our neighbors would get so mad if our dogs approached them) must pray outside the temple until they have been cleansed. I can only imagine how many times our poor neighbors cursed us and our dogs as they prayed outside of the mosque. I do feel really bad now and wish they had just told us.

I snapped a shot of this taxi in the parking lot. This would be considered a ‘safe’ taxi as it has walls and a roof for its customers. Many we saw had no walls, no roof and entire families complete with sheep piled in zooming along at the speed of death.

But don’t forget there might also be a donkey and his cart on the road, so while speeding at the speed of death, please watch out for the dear donkeys and their cargo - which are often also entire families.

Nic is pretty run down at this point in our adventure. He does not want to admit it, nor does he want to slow down, but we spent the afternoon reading with our pet cat. Our hotel host told me I had to try the Moroccan bath, so she booked me one while Nic napped. If you know me, you know I LOVE BATHS. In my mind I was in an ancient room with spring fed tubs of baths. Naked women wandered from bath to bath soaking for hours while people rubbed my body with gentle oils and combed my hair. 

You can imagine how shocked I was to take off all my clothes and have a woman give me a shower with a really hard loofa. She scrubbed every square inch of me while telling in French, with disbelief, that I was a disaster. My skin was so dead she just had to pull piles of it off of me. I was pretty sure I would bleed. I also kept waiting for the bath and the scented oils and the naked women. It was just me and this lady with the loofa, and she was wearing all of her clothes while I was attacked. She made me sit on a hot rock and then lie on the hot rock and then roll over on the hot rock as she found parts of me that were dirty that I did not know I had. When she was done assaulting me, she told me to lie in a dark room while she massaged life back into me. Instead of relaxing, I laid there thinking that someone was surely robbing me and stealing our passports which I had so foolishly left in the room with my underwear.  

It is hard work to freak out when someone is rubbing your toes, but I did it. I was also really afraid she brought the loofa with her. After a nice, long massage, she told me to get BACK into the shower. I told her no. But she was insistent. We were showering again. And so we did. And that was the end of my Moroccan bath that was not actually a bath at all. I did not take any pictures because I was naked and afraid.

She then left me in street totally confused on how to get back through the Medina. Somehow I managed to get back. Nic told me he would have asked about me if I had not returned, which I did not feel was reassuring. 

Because it was Friday, we chose to eat in the hotel for dinner. It was our best food decision so far. The food was incredible. I learned that in Morocco on Fridays everyone eats couscous. I am not totally clear why, I think it has to do with praying and couscous being easier to make. All I know is that it is a thing.

So I had couscous. It was lovely. I have had A LOT of couscous and vegetable tagine, which I really like, but I am a little tired of it now.

Our cat ate dinner with us. He let us know we were allowed to sit on his couch if we fed him from our plates and pet him. So we did. Nic said I could bring him home. The owner of the hotel said I could not. So, I still do not have a cat from this vacation.

Nic ate a chicken pastille. He loved it. I also had pickled eggplant - it was incredible.

And dessert was the icing on the cake.

It was a nice way to wrap up Morocco. We ambled up to bed where I fell into the book I am devouring, “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese. It is wonderful. I highly recommend it.

Tomorrow we head back to Spain and then on to Portugal. I am thirsty…I hope there is some wine waiting for me…