Day 25 - 27/05/10 - Part 1
End Location: Taelouet (Marrakesh, Morocco)
Days Mileage: 154
Total Mileage: 3272
Today has just battered my senses! Awesome in every sense of the word. I barely know where to begin. Perhaps the most astonishing day of my life; certainly this trip!
Woke early and had an excellent breakfast, feeling much better than yesterday. Decided to revisit the kasbah in the sunshine and daylight. As i crossed the stepping stones to the entrance I saw a line of young would-be guides gathered outside, including my lad from yesterday. As soon as he saw me he and al his mates turned their backs on me! Hilarious. That's what you get for pestering me to take a guide I didn't want.
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As I wandered the higgledy-piggledy town I was invited into one of the houses to have a look round and introduced to the owners daughter. Still time for that moroccan bride everyone has been joshing me about but I decided against bringing it up, even in jest!!
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Back on the bike and heading for another run down Kasbah atTamedakte. From the outside the crumbling mud walls were nothing special but inside ti was surprisingly nice with whitewashed walls and a tiled court with a fountain. Was watched by the owners young son from under an upturned washing basket but I got the biggest cheeky smile. Shortchanged my bike watcher as I had run out of dirham coins so I sent him off with £1 instead.
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On the road north I stopped for a drink and made the acquaintance of a French couple on Honda XR250s. They had hired the bikes and were having a great time but invited me to visit them when I got to the alps as they were from the French town of Gap which was on my route.
As I pulled back out onto the main road I had a suicidal fossil salesman who literally jump into front of the bike in an attempt to stop me to look at his fossils, resulting in a very near miss on a bend, leading to many curses on both sides.
Next stop was Telouet and as I parked in the surprisingly busy visitors car park I picked up an idiosyncratic guide who looked like a Jamaican hippy. His name was Jawad and he offered to let me decide what his tour was worth - in fact it was excellent and he was very knowledgeable and spoke good English.
The palace itself in fact dated only from 1942 and from the outside it looked very run down. Inside though it was still impressive enough to justify its palace status. It had been owned by the powerful El Glauoi family back in the colonial era but they had fallen out of favour after some kind of revolutionary activity and it had fallen into disrepair. Long overdue repairs were being made and hopefully it's faded glory would get a bit of a buff.
Back in the village I was introduced to all sorts of folks and I got invited to stay once the other tourists had gone back to their hotels in Marrakesh. There was a really nice vibe and I was tempted. However, it was starting to get late and I still had to traverse the Tizi-n-tichka pass to get to Marrakesh myself. In retrospect I should have stayed just for the experience but I was on a roll.