Back on Home Ground. . .

Whenever I hear the word Kontiekie Toer, my throat seems to refrain from breathing, my heart starts pounding faster and I see visions of middle aged people with snowy white skin walking around in sandals and socks in the streets of some obscure little town and frowning at possibly everything they see around them, utterly bored and fed up. When those two words popped up, however, on the weekly cultural program of our language school, proposing a very exotic trip to Morocco, we gave each other one sly smile and decided it was an offer that we can not miss out on.
Off we treaded the next day to the Moroccan embassy, because even though we are from the same continent as our end destination, our South African passports mean squat. After a session of broken Spanish on our side and poor English on the lovely woman from the embassy’s side, we walked out about a half an hour later with two visas to visit the land of mint tea and hookah pipes. (Not even Germany delivers such good service!)
Obscure, some of the towns indeed were (we visited Chef Chuan and Tetuan in the lush green countryside of north Morocco), but certainly beautiful. And there was no need to walk around with a constant air of despair, our faces becoming one giant constipated balloon. The atmosphere, needless to say is vastly different; outer appearances are deceptive (one giant lucky packet!), so if the hotel sports a for star plaque and illustrious lobby, the rooms are likely to be crappy. So much was packed into those three days: we also visited Tanger, rode on camels, saw dancers and acrobats from the mountains and nearing cities perform, ate delicious spicy tagine and couscous, drank too much gunpowder tea with sugar and spent maybe a few too many dirhams (the currency used there; they do however also accept euro’s at a slightly elevated price per piece bought) and even experienced a first class disco in Tanger. The American music stopped at a certain point and a little live band started playing native music (the local girls then pull out all the stops and move their bodies serpent-like to the rhythm, wearing – against all odds – basically, um, nothing).
To attempt to sum up the experience, would be like asking to try and get the Spaniards to dislike soccer. Never going to happen. Nunca. Hopefully, these posted images will offer a taste of our sightings. . .