MOROCCO REVISITED PART I : MARRAKECH, TAROUDANT & TINWAINEN

The reason for the policeman photo is 6 years ago, I did photos with policeman in every country except Morocco, it’s forbidden. So I thought I would try again, yep-got it. Last time here I thought, Morocco was nice but I didn’t need to come back. This trip I was visiting my good biking friend Stanley, so a different experience, for sure! He bought a house about 5 years ago and invited me to visit.

The Moroccans are the best salesman (scammers), my first time I got lured into several typical Moroccan “tours.” Again this time, when I got to the Medina in Marrakesh, I couldn’t find my hostel. I finally asked a Moroccan for directions, he took me in a giant circle and then to my hostel. I saw several hostels signs, when I asked the hostel hosts about the signs? They said that the Moroccans removed some of the signs, so they can make a euro or 2 helping “find” your accommodation. I paid, they got me again!, they’re good.

I ate everyday a the Earth Cafe, nice n quiet and healthy. After all the meat in Spain, this was the break I needed. Their advertising was a local hangout too!

Since I’ve been to Marrakesh and didn’t want to carry souvenirs around for 3 1/2 weeks, I headed to Stanley’s place. It was an all day affair to get there, basically outside the middle of nowhere. I finally got the mini-bus to TINWAINEN. There was 22 people on the mini-bus, check out video below.

 

FIRST MINI BUS RIDE FROM TAROUDANT TO TINWAINEN . IN THE VIDEO I SAID 15 PEOPLE I LATER COUNTED 22 INCLUDING 5 KIDS.

I asked Stanley “is there was a cafe in town”, he said “no.” We took a walk around the village and there’s is a new cafe in town. Stanley had little to no food at his house, so I said let’s go out. The owner Leonard has a foosball table and a pool table, it’s the community center. I owned the pool table for awhile, till the kid came and beat me 3 times! plus the rematch!


FRESH CHICKEN IN THE RESTAURANT


COOKED IN THE “TRADITIONAL” TAJINE
I TRIED TO WIN SEVERAL TIMES, BUT NO LUCK. MAYBE I SHOULD PRAY TO ALLAH?

Leonards Cafe is the community center. It’s 5 cents a game. I gave $20 towards some games.

Being in Stanley’s village of “TINWAINEN” is interesting. It’s located at the end of the pavement. The town consist of “mud” walls that surround the perimeter of your property with your outdoors being on the inside courtyards. The walkways/roads are dirt, gravel and maybe some left over cement poured around. When I hear people complain about stuff (Slovenian’s do you here me?), you have no idea how good you have it.
There’s no garbage service here so people burn their plastic garbage. At times you could hardly breath. The first thing you see coming into town, is the garbage dump. Not everywhere is perfect and great, their are problems around the world.
Here’s some photos from around Tinwainen

Stanley is a great bike mechanic, so we did a road bike and a Mt. Bike trip. I rode the Fat tire bike. Stanley wanted to go to the next village, the bike was too tough to ride. But we did get see the the goats in the trees eating Argon tree leaves. Stanley wants to make his house and around Tinwainen a tourist destination. If you want an adventure this is it.

DOWNHILL ROAD RIDE
MT. BIKE RIDE WITH GOATS IN TREES EATING ARGAN LEAVES

When I go places I’m not just on vacation, I want to
“do something.” So we tried to get a garden up and running, so first we had to weed it. Stanley only stays here 4-ish months a year. It’s hot here in the summer & Climate Change is making it even hotter. You can see Climate Change refugees coming to the EU. That’s why people are migrating to America. Central American countries are experiencing droughts and can’t grow their food.
In Muslim countries beer is hard to find (nearly impossible) I bought one beer to bring back, I had to talk the hotel guy out of it, at first he said no. WTF. I saved that one beer for 4 days, worked then a nice cold one.

Where you pick up the mini-bus is Taroudant. I wanted to spend a day walking around town. But we spent part of the day looking for a bank machine that would take my card(s). The town was just the “right size”, you can get what you needed. I bought 2 kilos of clementines for 70 cents. Instead of a Taxi we took the horse carriage, about the same price. Except our horse didn’t want to run or walk. So the “driver” got out and pulled the horse down the street. Coming back to the village, we stopped for a few minutes. Saw this guys t-shirt wanted the photo and now Akerkaou & I are Facebook friends.

OUR PHOTOS FROM TAROUDANT

THE VIDEO OF THE HORSE THAT WOULDN’T RUN OR WALK.

Morocco was 3 weeks of adventure, I was thinking just a 2 part blog , not possible, Morocco will probably be 3 posts (sorry) too many (super) photos.
Thanks for reading and sharing
Jeff

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