Toubkal (part 4)

My hotel was a small, clean establishment sandwiched between a cafe and the taxi station. Dar Imrouk had only about eight rooms, but it also had a rooftop with tables and chairs that allowed guests to relax and take in the views of the high alpine valley. I dropped my things in my room and took my book up to read while the sun allowed me the time. My room still held the lingering heat of the day and the cool mountain air made sitting outside pleasant and relaxing. The sun descended below the mountain tops for the night and I retired to my room to get some much earned sleep. Four o'clock in the morning the first call to prayer of the day sounded off, waking me from my sleep. I was rather annoyed and figured that the 4 am prayer at the Mosque must have been a loophole for a guaranteed ticket to paradise. Anyone showing up at that hour in the morning either knows what's up or has a sleeping condition. I fell back asleep and woke up to my alarm at seven. Someone yesterday told me that eight o'clock was the best time to catch a taxi to Marrakesh at the station. I had tea on the roof before walking down to the small lot where a couple of the white Mercedes had already begun to congregate. I sat until three men walked up and said they were going to Marrakesh. I hopped in with the group and we grabbed a taxi and loaded up our luggage. I was in the back between two of the men and the other sat up front with the driver. The man in front was a well-to-do looking middle aged Moroccan man whose head was going bald. To my left was a man about the same age with dark hair, a beard, and glasses. To my right was the oldest of the group whose black hair was speckled with gray and had bushy eyebrows to match his mustache. We talked about Toubkal since they had climbed it the day before. The older man was very talkative. He asked me about what I was doing in Morocco and we discussed the basics of where we were from. I found out that the man in the front and the older gentleman next to me were also going to Fes. The man next to me lived in Sefrou, a small mountain town outside of Fes, and the man in the front lived in the Nouvelle. Halfway to Marrakesh I tuned out and listened while the rest of the cab talked. They were a lively bunch and topics of conversation ranged from debate over which geographical landscapes were more grand, to talk about Toubkal, to arguments over pointless and random topics in general.
After our two hour ride we arrived at the train station and bought our tickets to Fes. Marrakesh is a much more modern city than Fes. Driving through, you can tell that tourism has taken hold of the popular European vacation spot. My train left at eleven and I had a little over an hour till I needed to be in the station ready to leave, so I decided to walk around the streets a little bit. As I walked out of the station and across the street I remembered passing a KFC not far from the station a couple days earlier. Like any good American, what did I do? I set off to find it of course. A ten minute walk into the center of the city put the smiling Colonel's face in view. I walked into the restaurant and asked an employee if they were open. It was only ten and he informed me that they didn't open till noon. Things get started later in Morocco and unfortunately it looked like I wouldn't be getting a taste of home. Even though the country cooked tastes of the Colonel wouldn't be gracing my taste buds today I still got amusement from finding a KFC in Morocco of all places. Disappointed I turned around and walked back to the station to wait for my train.
Eleven o'clock rolled around and my newest Moroccan friends and I boarded the train and found a compartment. The more I traveled with the pair, the more they reminded me of the two brothers from the movie "Secondhanad Lions". They had their quirks, which amused me, but they were nice and an amiable pair. The older man, Mohammed, was very insistent on teaching me Arabic and was keen on helping me learn as long as he was around. I also found out he was in the process learning Berber himself. He pulled out a piece of paper from his wallet with the Arabic and Berber alphabets on it. I had never seen the Berber language written, I had only heard it spoken. The letters resembled hieroglyphs and were written left to right. He showed me his name and my name in Berber. I don't remember exactly what it looked like but it included an upside-down 'V', a letter resembling a 'Q', and some circles and rectangular symbols. Mohammed told me his wife was Berber and he wanted to learn so that he could communicate with her in Arabic and Berber, the language of her family. After my short introduction to Berber and a quiz on Arabic pronunciation I decided to take a nap. A while later I was woken up by Mohammed tapping me on the arm. He told me that in order to learn Arabic I listen to him and Melameh talk. We conversed a little and Mohammed broke out the day's newspaper. We went through the headlines as I read and translated with Mohammed communicating the words I didn't know. I read about "kif", marijuana, in the Rift mountains, a dog that had attacked a girl in Casablanca, and the American presidential election. He told me that Obama was better than McCain and would win. He asked me what I thought about the race and who would win. I told him I didn't necessarily like either candidate. I explained that both wanted bigger government and that big government was bad. I wasn't at the point to debate policy, but he understood what I meant and seemed to agree. After learning to add and subtract our lesson was over and I decided to finish the book Mohammed had lent me to read on the trip. The book was called The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell by John Crawford. It is an easy read about a soldier's experiences in Iraq during the first year of the war. The viewpoint was a bit pessimistic about the Army, but overall it did a good a good job of relaying an infantryman's story on the ground from the day of the invasion till the year after. At around six o'clock in the evening our train rolled into Fes. The hot, crowded, eight hour ride was over.
Looking back, this trip was probably the most adventurous thing I have ever done. I took off solo, halfway across Morocco to climb the countries tallest peak. Armed with my knowledge of Arabic and less than ideally equipped I tackled the journey and it proved to be an exciting and enjoyable weekend. I really felt I had experienced the essence of Morocco on the trip through my interactions with a wide array of people and my witnessing of some of North Africa's most dramatic scenery.

~Andrew