The rain and the river

The rain is constant, though not heavy. It blows in under the veranda, making the terracotta tiles slippery.

The wild wind pulses through the trees and over the roof. It creates a down-draft in the chimney and the smell of soot and stale smoke permeates the house.

The Lot is swollen and rages under the Castelmoron bridge, inundating the town beach.

The barrage, where EDF generates hydro-electricity, is releasing huge volumes of water.

Sluice gates upstream must be holding the deluge back, because the level has dropped dramatically outside our house. The boat is high and dry. Muddy banks and fallen trees are exposed. I reckon the Lot has fallen two feet, while downstream it has risen in a churning, frothing torrent.

boat is high and dry 

a detritus of mud and exposed branches

the boat ramp in autumn 

a raging torrent encroaches ...

the EDF barrage is releasing huge volumes

where the river beach once was

this was the  Lot at Castelmoron last winter

Essaouira pics

alleyways for artisanal products

hidden treasure

a thuya wood workshop

Moroccan spices ... note the Berber viagra!

a white-washed city by the sea

this photo sums up our Moroccan adventure

beach scene

Morocco ... part seven

Our little car swings down through the hills towards the coast, to Essaouira ... manifesting in the distance, growing large and taking form.

It is a white-washed city against a blue sea. I am concentrating on the road but succumbing to excitement.

We park at Bab Marrakech at the edge of the old town and hire an amallum* with a handcart to push our baggage 300 metres to the Riad Amana, a little hotel in a nondescript alleyway.

I love this town. I love its colour and romance, and the commerce that enlivens its streets.

I've loved this place since my first trip here with Ahmed 40 years ago. I was captivated by Essaouira then and I am re-experiencing it now.

Memories of our time together are revived by familiar landmarks, by the salty air and the mournful cry of seagulls wheeling over the ramparts of the boat harbour and the colourful fishing boats tied up there, by the smell of sardines cooking over charcoal, by the perfume of thuya wood jewellery boxes for sale in tiny shops, by the sight of cloistered women, mysterious and unapproachable under white sheets...

I am not sad, but joyful because I am here with my daughter and life is sweet, as sweet as a mint tea on a cafe terrace with a view of the sea and Mogador Island just off the coast.

* an idle old man who springs into action at the promise of reward..

Morocco ... part six

For the four days we spent walking around Marrakech's old city, young men on scooters were a scourge. They tore through the narrow streets of the medina like bats out of hell, whizzing past our shoulders, slicing a path through the crowd with a swashbuckling disregard for public safety.

Our Airbnb host Didier said there were seven scooter crashes in and around Marrakech every day.

To embark on the next leg of our journey, we brave the traffic along the Route des Remparts to drive south-west towards Essaouira.

Kamikaze scooters are everywhere, overtaking, undertaking, cutting in, weaving out, doing crazy, dangerous stuff.

An hour and a half later, the traffic is thin, with very few scooters, as we wind through desiccated hills towards the Atlantic coast.

We pull in to the Khmissa Argan. This is a hamlet of small buildings where Argan oil is produced and sold.

In a room resplendent with Berber carpets and cushions, a group of old women sits patiently hand-crushing the nuts and extracting the precious oil that is used in cosmetics and cooking.

The nuggety Argan tree, with its long, needle-sharp thorns and dusty-green leaves, populates the gullies and ravines of this arid landscape.

Argan oil is a huge domestic and export industry and an economic boon for this part of Morocco.

Goats climbing in the trees, deftly avoiding the thorns to gorge on the little green nut, has become something of an iconic Moroccan image.

a Moroccan industry dominated by women, both in production and distribution

providing valuable employment for village women

the Argan tree

photo courtesy Google images

The owl is calling

It is a still, cold night.

From outside, there is a calling, a beckoning. It sounds human and causes me to pause.

It is puzzling.

Then I know. It is the hoot of an owl, filtering into the house, louder than the crackling fire.

I turn off the lights, creep to the window, then open the front door.

The owl is not far away, maybe in the walnut tree twenty metres from the house, maybe further.

His triumphant call echoes down the river, piercing the silence of the night. It moves over the water across the flickering shafts of light, reflected from the town on the opposite bank.

The sound is haunting. Is he or she calling for or to a mate? I don't know. Its evocative cry brings Cliona from her bed.

We listen transfixed.

I know, in the darkness, his penetrating eyes see all.

Morocco ... part five

In 1982, as an academic requirement for my journalism degree, I wrote an article about Marrakech.

In it, I described the excitement of Jmaa El Fna, the famous square whose name reflects the past horrors of a cruel Sultan.

In more recent centuries, it evokes the romance of one of the world's most intriguing locations.

I got a good mark for that assignment, as my memory of the place was fresh from my time in Morocco.

Now, almost 40 years on, the same scenes unfolded before my daughter and me as we stood below the Cafe de France and took in the whirling, pulsating kaleidoscope.

But the enchantment was short-lived, as a procession of botherers, beggars and bling salesmen distracted us with their entreaties.

Tourism is, of course, the lifeblood of Marrakech, but it has corrupted the exoticism of the place.

For hundreds of years, camel caravans from Timbuktu manifested dream-like out of the desert and found their caravanserai within the walls of the city.

In Jmaa el Fna, travellers and merchants were entertained by dervish dancers, snake charmers, monkey-handlers, musicians, drummers and story-tellers.

After nightfall, they ate from bbq stalls around the perimeter of the square. Here, mouth-watering smells wafted from lamb brochettes on charcoal, fanned by half-lit figures in hooded djellabas.

These days it is tourists who stream in from all parts of the world, but the entertainment seems staged and purely commercial. On the fringes of the square, look-outs scan the crowd for those who dare raise their cameras without paying a fee.

They tell me the tourist trap that was Marrakech got so bad the King decreed "Enough!" and tourist police were installed in and around the square to curb excesses.

Jmaa el Fna is a sensory overload, but the show now seems all rather routine, which is a pity.

Djmaa el Fna street level

the bbq stalls herald nightfall

Morocco ... part four

Marrakech ... one of the most exotic locations in Africa.

Driving through the outskirts, with pink-stucco suburbs set amongst the soft green palms, the anticipation is strong, but the reality, when it hits, is stronger.

The medina's dusty, teeming streets are flooded with a tsunami of images and sound ... the amplified guttural calls to prayer, the crushing mass of people, the fetid nooks of rotting rubbish, the djellaba-hooded beggars squatting against stone walls, their dirty rags holding a few dirty coins ... scenes that could be from a thousand years ago, or a thousand and one nights.

This is the life of the people, the poor people, the haggling, hustling, hand to mouth existence that has not changed since the reign of sultans and the succession of post-colonial kings.

The veggie stalls, the butchers, the olive sellers, fruit carts, bread and pastry shops, the sellers of snails, the spice merchants, the purveyors of scented herbs, the hawkers of cheap women's clothes, the dimly lit restaurants and smoky kebab stalls, the cool Arabian riads off darkish alleyways, the hot tubs of hidden bathhouses. Movement, always movement, like blood through veins ...  people, donkey carts, manic mopeds, horn-sounding cars creeping like lizards over the cobblestones through an unyielding crowd.

It is intoxicating without grog, stupefying without hash. It takes my breath away, just like it did 40 years ago.

cool riads off shadowy alleys

secret places lie beyond ancient archways

olive stall

pink stucco and green palms

street market in the medina