Adventures in Africa: Dakhla, Morocco (Western Sahara)

I landed in Dakhla late last night.

I needed the help of a couple young local guys to get picked up--somehow my guesthouse host, Phil, forgot about me.  I am not quite sure what happened, because Phil only speaks French, and our communication is very poor.  Anyway, he got me a few minutes after my new friends called him, and I was led into a lovely room with a view of the sea.

I had gotten sick in the Casablanca airport just before leaving, and was still suffering from a bad headache.  I think it was caffeine withdrawal, because I had failed to drink a coffee until late in the afternoon.  Then, foolishly, I had drank two, including one at almost 19:00, so I went to bed feeling pain from lack of caffeine, and had difficulty sleeping because of too much caffeine.  Go figure.  Moreover, it was extremely windy, so noisy, and on top of this I was stressed because of my plans today, and then it looked like Trump actually had a chance of winning the election as I turned in, so it was a fitful night (then it did not help to wake up and, sure enough, see Trump had won).

In any case, I woke up around 8:00 feeling lousy, but gave up sleeping.  I left my room and found the top floor of the Dar Rio Oro, where breakfast was served.

I had an unfortunately small appetite, and did not really enjoy what I did eat.  I did, however, manage to communicate well enough with Phil to confirm my plans (I think).  I suppose there could still be some confusion remaining, but I managed to leave this morning with Phil and his wife Fati's car.

It is a manual (Dacia Sandero), which I assumed it would be, and if you remember my trip in November 2015, when I ended up with a manual rental car in Europe, you will know I have a sketchy history with manual vehicles.  I was super nervous pulling out of the driveway (I even watched a how-to YouTube video first), but did it without a problem, and so far, after 200 kilometres of driving around, I am doing just fine (the Dakhla peninsula is almost pancake flat, so that helps).

The only issue is Phil told me I could not take the car off the peninsula, which I sort of suspected, but was hoping would not be the case.  Anyway, I wanted to explore the peninsula, so I was still able to do that.  The peninsula must be about 100 kilometres long, and maximum five or so wide.  The city of Dakhla is in the southeastern half, and the rest is mostly empty.  The west coast is the Atlantic and the east a large lagoon.

I wanted a chance to get comfortable with the car, so I immediately headed north out of the city, then west to the road along the Atlantic coast.  Here I had lots of space, little traffic, and incredible views.  There is an old lighthouse over here, and I had read of tourists climbing it.

Unfortunately, though, the compound was locked and I could not figure out another way inside.

I headed back north along the main highway (which runs along the lagoon) to check into my accommodation for tonight, a tent on the northern end of the peninsula at a kite surfing camp called Dakhla Spirit.

On the way to the camp I was stopped at a police/military checkpoint, which apparently are all along the highway in Western Sahara.  The man spoke some English and methodically asked for various documentation for the car and myself.  One by one I handed over my passport, driver's license, four or five or even six pieces of paper out of the glove compartment and, finally, the "triangle"--presumably the reflective fold-out sign must be an obligatory piece of equipment.  Eventually he handed it all back and waved me by.

At the camp I am on the northern end of the peninsula, where kite surfing, Dakhla's main tourist attraction, is especially prevalent.

It looks like an incredibly fun sport, but certainly a very elitist one.

Once I had checked in, I drove a bit further north, then turned back once the highway began heading east towards the main highway that runs north-south along the northwestern Africa coast.

By now I was getting hungry, so I drove south back towards Dakhla, stopping at oyster farms still many kilometres north of the city.

It was difficult to photograph the operations effectively, but below you can see the racks with mesh sack lying on them. 

These contain the oysters, and from watching it all I gather these sacks are moved around, in and out of the water, as well as to varying depths of water.  Whether this is on a rotation of some sort, or has to do with the age of the oysters, or what, I do not know.

I asked one of the workers if I could go in and look, and he gestured that I could, so I waded in to take a closer look.

One of these farms has a nice terrace set up to serve meals.

I sat down and ordered a tagine of mixed seafood.  The boy serving said the oysters are "malade," so he would not let me order just oysters.  I am not sure if he meant they are in fact sick or something else, but in any case, what he recommended I order was great.

After I lunch I went back to the Atlantic to wade in there and walk a long the beach for a bit.  

The beach itself was nice, but there is lots of garbage further up the shore, and I guess it must have come in at high tide.  It is quite sad.  The water was much, much colder than I expected, so I did not stay at the beach long, instead continuing south to the end of the peninsula.  There is a fishing village down here, which was an incredible place.

I felt uncomfortable taking pictures here, and actually turned around as soon as I could because I realized quickly this is not a spot for tourists.  The houses are shacks pieced together of various things, a board here, a tarpaulin there, a piece of cardboard.  It seems the possessions that are of far greater value than the homes are tractors.  It was not obvious to me what the tractors are for, but it looked like there were at least as many tractors as houses.

From the fishing village, now much more confident with the car, I drove into Dakhla.

I stopped at the airport to get some cash, because I knew there was a bank machine there, and the parking was easy.

Then I wanted to find a postcard.  I actually was not optimistic about finding one in Dakhla, but eventually I went to the main hotel, the Sahara Regency, and asked at the front desk.  

I think they assumed I was a guest, because not only did they have postcards, but they gave me the one I picked out for free!

The first post office I stopped in turned out to be a Moroccan navy post office, much to my surprise.  One of the men who seemed especially confident in French told me where to go, and even offered to ride with me to show me where to go.

I politely declined the offer and found it without difficulty.  Interestingly, I have now been charged 25 (Fes),  15 (Casablanca), and 9 (Dakhla) dirham for postage to Canada.  I think Morocco might subsidize postage in Western Sahara, because apparently they subsidize lots of things, but I have no explanation for the other discrepancy.  The stamps state the amounts on them, too, so I know they are charging me the actual value.

Next I went to get gas.  The car had around 3/4 of a tank when I left the dar this morning, so I figured I would just fill it today, thereby saving the trouble of having to guess the amount of gas.  Also, this way I did not have to try to communicate a partial amount to the gas station attendant, and could just ask him to fill it.  I had read that gas is heavily subsidized in Western Sahara, so I was surprised to pay 250 dirham for about half a tank!  

Finally, I finished my afternoon in Dakhla with a lagoon-side coffee.

On the way back to camp for the night I passed a family herding camels.

Adventures in Africa: Casablanca, Morocco

When I first planned to come to Morocco, I figured I would visit the Sahara Desert from either Fes or Marrakech.  Now, instead, I am going to visit it in Dakhla, the only city in the southern portion of Western Sahara.  To get there, I will be flying from Casablanca, which is why I took the train here from Fes this morning.  The train ride was excellent, and for about half the trip I had my pod of four seats to myself.

My flight is later this evening, and I arrived at the Casa Voyageurs station just before 13:00, so I had the afternoon to explore the city.

People say there is only one thing to see in Casa, the Hassan II Mosque, one of the world's largest.  The last mosque tour of the day is at 14:00, so I had an hour.  I walked outside the train station and caught the tram to Place des Nations Unies.  The tram is pretty new and the city seems proud of it.  It is a slick system, especially when you consider it is in Africa.

Once at my stop I bought a shwarma for lunch, then caught a cab to the mosque.  As in Fes, the cabs are really cheap--so much so that I wonder why people bother with the tram!  My tram ticket was 7 dirham and my cab ride was 8, for more or less the same distance traveled.

The mosque is massive, with room for 25,000 inside (20,000 men; 5,000 women), and another 80,000 in the square around it.  

There are several tours a day in between prayer times, but the tour costs a surprising 120 dirham (i.e., more than my train ticket from Fes to Casablanca).  Anyway, I joined the 14:00 English tour and we were led inside.

We were shown the prayer hall (including the ladies galleries above the main floor).

A cool thing about the mosque is that it has a retractable roof, which they open when it is well attended so as to improve ventilation.  Today, however, there were only about twenty of us, so the roof stayed closed.

From the main floor we were led downstairs to the special-occasion ablutions hall.  Here 5,000 men can do their ablutions all at once.

Finally, we were shown the hammams, or baths.  The mosque has a Moroccan style hammam and a Turkish style hammam.

And that was where our tour ended.  Frankly, the mosque is overrated, because other than being freaking huge it is not all that special.  The tour, however, was what really made my visit disappointing, because it was full of propaganda about Islam and Morocco, etc. that really grew tiresome.  Moreover, our guide was a bit sleazy both in terms of asking for tips and interacting with women, so I was glad to be rid of him.  I most certainly did not tip him.

After the mosque I stayed in the square long enough to hear the 15:10 call to prayer, as well as view the Atlantic.

Then I caught a cab back to Place des Nations Unies.  This time the cabbies right by the mosque did not want to use the meter/wanted me to take a tour of the medina and such with them, so I had to walk a couple blocks for a reasonable guy.

Now I had a bit of a headache, and I realized I had not had a coffee yet today, so I went to a coffee shop for a glass and sat outside watching Casa's bustle go by.  Tourists might feel there is only one thing worth seeing in Casa (and I'm not so sure I would even suggest it is worth visiting), but the city itself seems interesting enough to me.  One thing I found intriguing while sitting with my coffee is that minibuses were parked nearby that have come up from Dakar, Senegal (more than 3,000 kilometres), so there were various parties of black Africans walking around shopping and such.  

After coffee I went over to the post office to buy stamps (I had seen postcards at the train station, so I figured I would get stamps here now).

Then I caught the tram again back to Casa Voyageurs.

I bought my postcards and addressed them in the square outside.

At 17:13 I caught the train to the airport, where I am now awaiting my flight to Dakhla.

Adventures in Africa: Fes, Morocco

I landed in Fes yesterday around 22:00.

My riad had arranged a taxi for me, and a nice man who spoke some English was waiting for me.  I have heard it is nearly impossible to find your way in the medina, especially at night and when you do not even know where you are going.

I checked in at the Riad Versus and this is my room:

This morning I was up at 8:00 and headed out to get some cash and try to get a sense for things.

Those pictures above were taken in the car-accessible part of the medina, so easy enough to navigate.  Once I started wandering in the alleys, however, it was a different story.  

I take great pride in my ability to navigate new places, and frequently find myself giving directions to other tourists (which happened, for example, in Monaco), but, sure enough, the medina had me beat quickly.  

I decided then I would join a medina walking tour I had been offered by the riad.  An Australian couple were already signed up, and I could join them and split the 200 dirhams (about $30) cost.  

I returned to the riad for breakfast (which was very nice, but not served until 9:30) in the courtyard.

Over breakfast I met an American tourist named Umesh who is on a two week, 18 country trip!  After this trip he will have been to 95 countries, including North Korea earlier this year.  

After eating Umesh and I went up to the riad's rooftop terrace to take in the morning view.

At 11:00 our tour guide Hamid came and the Australian couple and I headed out for three hours.  First the bad part: mostly the tour was an overpriced shopping trip.  Worse, it ended with an extremely overpriced lunch stop that in the end we simply refused to eat at.  Not surprisingly this seemed to upset Hamid, and he basically ditched us, putting us in a cab to send us back.  Cabs are super cheap, so this was not a big deal, but it was a poor way for the tour to end.

Despite that, I still found the tour worthwhile because a) I only have one day in Fes and there was no way I could have moved as fast and confidently through the medina without a guide; b) the shops were actually quite interesting, and I felt comfortable saying no to buying anything and simply accepting the demonstrations, samples, etc.; and c) I learned some interesting things from Hamid.

The medina itself is fascinating--apparently the largest car-free urban zone in the world.  The number of streets/alleys is something like 10,000, and most of the buildings are extremely old, some as old as a thousand years.

Since there are no cars, donkeys and mules continue to be an important mode of transporting goods, and we ran into many of them laden with all sorts of things, especially leather.  This one had just been unloaded.

As the focus of our tour was presumably getting Hamid commissions, we were mostly in commercial sections of the medina, but I had observed earlier that many of the alleys seem to be purely residential (which also means they may have tourist riads).  

We must have gone to five or even six shops, but the highlights were:

The Berber carpet/blanket weaving factory, where we watched a man weaving a blanket on a loom (the women, who make the carpets, do not seem to actually work in this location, nor, apparently, do they use this style of loom).  

The shopkeeper and his assistant served us mint tea and displayed various carpets and blankets to us.  Most of the carpets and blankets are made of wool or cotton, but they also use agave cactus fibre, which I found pretty interesting.  I also learned that Berber carpets are distinct from Persian/Turkish carpets, at least partially because they are significantly thinner.

The jewelry store we stopped in took much too long, but I enjoyed photographing the displays for a bit.  

It was kind of nice to visit stores in this capacity, because I really did not feel bad about not buying anything in a store I had not come into on my own initiative, and the shopkeepers seemed to appreciate having their wares photographed.

The most interesting store was a traditional pharmacy.  

Here their most prominent product is argon, which is unique to Morocco.  

A lady sits on the floor and works with the argon by hand, breaking it open, smashing it, grinding it into oil.  

We were given samples of argon in both edible and cosmetic forms, as well as all sorts of other natural remedies, skin care products, and perfumes/deodorants.  I came out of there smelling quite extraordinary.  

The number one reason I was keen to come to Fes instead of just Marrakesh is that I had read about the leather tannery co-op.  This was also partly why I decided to do the tour, because I had lost confidence in my ability to find the tannery, and figured it would be easier to deal with the tipping/buying hassle if I had a guide.  Maybe there is a way to see the tannery without entering a shop, but I assume not.  In our case, the guide sent us with a shopkeeper up through several floors of leather goods to a rooftop terrace.  

Along the way, an elderly gentleman handed us sprigs of mint to hold to our nose, because the tannery smells awful.  

From the terrace we had an excellent view of the tannery down below.  

The shopkeeper gave us a lousy explanation of what was going on, but luckily I had read a little bit about it.  This website (http://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/06/the-mysterious-mima-mounds.html) gives a good overview, as well as pictures that are far better than mine!  I could have stayed up there half an hour at least watching the work, but the shopkeeper was in a hurry to try to sell us stuff, so we had to go after about ten minutes.  I took some video of the work as well:

Once our tour ended in the cab, I separated from the Australian couple and got a better-priced, three course lunch consisting of bread, olives, Moroccan soup with fresh lemon, a tangine of beef and vegetables, and dessert consisting of a large bunch of grapes, a banana, and two oranges! (I had to take the fruit to go).

Then I took a cab to the Gare de Fes to buy my train ticket to Casablanca for tomorrow morning.  Really I probably could have done this tomorrow, but cab rides are so cheap I figured I would go today so as to have a more relaxed morning.  While cheap, cabs are not as easy as I expected, because the cabbies do not seem to speak much French at all.  I had to go through two or three before finally finding one who understood where I wanted to go.  Granted, my French is dismal, but I figured I could be understood with "a la Gare de Fes" and "le train."  Later I met a Moroccan who told me the cabbies are "from the countryside" and only speak Arabic.  

Anyway, once I got there, I was extremely impressed by how clean and modern the station is.  There are automatic ticket vending machines, which no one seemed to want to use other than me, as there was a queue at the counter of over a dozen people.  That left me to choose between three or four identical machines and easily buy my ticket.  At 116 dirhams the trip to Casablanca (about four hours) is well under $20!  I guess I will find out what type of trip that buys me tomorrow.  

Back in the medina, I went for a haircut and straight-razor shave, then a coffee at a cafe.  These cafes are interesting to me, and I will have to remember to photograph one.  I have only seen men at them, and the coffee is always served with water on the side.  This is where I met the Moroccan who told me about the cabbies, because a young guy insisted on sitting with me and talking to me while I drank the coffee.  Ultimately he was a tout trying to sell me a desert tour, but I rejected that easily enough and we talked about some other things, like drug use in Fes (presumably he was also going to try to sell me drugs if I expressed interest).

After that I relaxed in the riad for awhile and then headed out to get some street food for dinner.  I bought a sandwich of grilled meat (very tasty, but may make me sick, I'm afraid, because it was ground beef and probably not adequately done) and a churro-like, donut-shaped pastry--all for less than $2.  It began to rain unexpectedly, so I hurried back, trying to duck under awnings along the way.