October 23, 1996

"Let's pull over for lunch."
"As soon as I find some shade."

John's response struck me as funny. We were driving across planes of cactus, scrub brush and vast expanses of dirt and rock. Finding shade could take a while. But wait, an oasis, the awning of a Shell station. "Perfect, we'll take it." Just one week ago we were wearing our sweatshirts wondering if we'd seen the last of summer-like weather. But hot weather it seems is far from over here, it had been soaking into our windows for hours. I wonder if so much sun could turn the glass panes back to their former liquid state. We were slowly making the liquid transformation ourselves. I'm sure in a day or two we'll reacclimate, and, like the shepherds we've passed, be wearing wool coats and hats. For now though, "John, pass me a tub of water."

But heat wasn't the first thing that greeted us here. When we drove off the ferry it seemed like North Africa might actually be a damp, foggy endeavor. We pulled off into a thick cream soup enveloping the air. The taillights of the car in front of us vanished instantly without a trace. "So this is North Africa? Where is it?" Customs outside the Spanish territory of Melilla was cloaked in white too. A building appeared, then a body and then another. We were directed to stop, fill in embarkment cards and to see the guards inside the building at passport control. "What building? Where?"

There weren't any major hold-ups at customs. We were asked a few questions and the necessary immigration sticker was pasted to our window. Another guard check and we were on our way. All the other vans though weren't. They were being thoroughly searched; their entire contents spread out on the ground. By the looks of the mass confusion of things thrown into their trunks, it was no wonder.

Eventually the morning sun appeared, ate through the soupy air and Morocco spread in sandstone hills and valleys before our eyes. "Ah, so this is North Africa." After the city of Nador, the country opened up to us. Wide open plains and a trail of grey road threading far off into the hills. The roads here are excellent. We'd been told by a Spaniard at the ferry ticket office that they were "muy mal" (very bad) and typical North African roads. Well, they are like typical America roads as well. The first 120 km took us, just as you'd expect, about two and a half hours. The traffic was light most of the time and we had the road to ourselves. A few shepherds watched their flocks of goats; a few men worked to fix washed out bits of road; a few men on donkeys strolled by; that was all.

We saw our first Moroccan mud home near Saka. It was surrounded by a fence of cactus. No one was going to trespass in that yard. Cactus fences were everywhere after that. But the best fence was a line of tipped-up old car frames. I wonder which one swings open as the gate?

After lunch we pushed on to Taza. We were looking forward to visiting our first Moroccan town. It grew in front of us like a village of tiny matchboxes, all in cream. And then we were there, climbing the hill to the old town. We drove around the ancient wall that surrounded it, around the medina and then popped inside to take a look. For two dirham someone watched our van for us and we went off, looking nothing like the locals, to blend in and experience a real working Berber town. I suppose if we spoke better French (or any at all, really) we would have blended a bit better (and the backpack - we have to lose the backpack) but we managed to buy bread, fresh dates and vegetables and see a bit of the narrow-laned market without too many stares and fingers pointing in our direction. After that we did our best casual Moroccan stroll back to our van and headed off for the garbage dump.

Of course we hadn't really planned on visiting the town dump. Our navigational skills got us there though, drove us right though it - fascinating if you like that sort of thing. But the real road to the Jebel Tazzeka park was much nicer (didn't smell as much either) and we had an incredible drive winding up the Middle Atlas mountains, past olive pickers, to a picnic area where we parked for the night. We didn't realize how tired we were until we stopped. It hit us like lead bricks and I had just enough energy to stew up some smooth date jam to have with our crackers and tea before we collapsed. "Oh, how I pity you, web pages don't have taste buds."