Camel Meat and Rome

Last night I dined on dromedary in the local market area. This has been a dream of mine for a long time, ever since I saw the camel butcher standing in his shop one and half years ago. He stood there casually, hacking away at meat, as a butcher is wont to do, obviously unfazed by the camel head hanging from the wall of his shop. You can see a picture that I took of this man last year here.



Much to my surprise, the same man stood standing in the same spot, still selling the same product. Only this time, no camel head graced the shop wall. I guess that it really is not that big of a surprise that this man should still be running his business one and a half years after I first saw him. Still, I was rather surprised to see this man that for me had long existed merely as a photograph, no longer even a memory.

I purchased my meat for 15 dirhams, about one dollar and fifty cents, and headed over to another nearby establishment. The place was small, big enough to hold only one table, a small bench, and the space for a man and his grill. For the mere price of five dirhams, this man will cook any meat that you bring him and place it a delicious loaf of bread.



He quickly and expertly rolled my meat into small cylinders, wetting his hands and adding extra spices to the already spiced meat. He then placed it on a small handheld metal frame, which he placed over the coals and left to cook, turning on a small fan to ventilate the place and strengthen the flames.





The meat was delicious, and really quite similar in flavor to beef, perhaps a bit leaner. It was truly a delicious, juicy sandwich, and I enjoyed every bite of it. Leaving the place, I congratulated the man on his work, said goodbye to my fellow lovers of dromedary meatballs, and passed by the butcher shop to thank the purveyor of the raw materials of that fine sandwich.



UP EARLY TO HIT THE RUINS...

I had trouble falling asleep last night, thanks to the constant meowing of the stray cat that my friends, fellow travelers, and current roommates decided yesterday to adopt. The streets here are filled with cats, orphaned and otherwise, and Melanie is a sucker for their cute, malnourished little faces. Each time that she sees a cat, I know immediately, for her voice changes, becoming like that of a cartoon cat. Using this voice, she says things in French that I sometimes can't understand, but it doesn't really matter. I can imagine.

So, sometime after attempting to ignore the purring noises of this "petit mignon", pushing him off my bed when he dared to try and join me, and washing my hands over and over, I finally fell asleep.

Evan and I left the hotel early, as we had planned to visit Volubulis, the site of the ruins of an ancient Roman colony. We made it out there quite early, after catching a taxi to a nearby village and walking the rest of the way.

Along the way, we met a man at his little shop on the side of the road. He gave us tea, offered us his pipe, and showed us around his little shack. The man lived in the same building from which he ran his business selling souvenirs, in a room the size of a bedroom in a NY apartment.

He had a small bed, a television hooked up to a car battery, a radio, and a cardboard box of French books. Amazingly, in a country with high levels of illiteracy and little novelistic tradition, this man had read all of them. He proudly showed us his library while we sipped tea, and brought out two coins that appeared (very much) to be genuine Roman coins. I have no reason to doubt their veracity, as they were not for sale and appeared to be extremely old. But hey, I am no expert on such matters.



We left the man, thanking him for his hospitality, Evan wearing the new straw hat that he had purchased for twenty dirhams, and headed down the road. We reached the gates, paid the ten dirham fee, and went strolling through the ruins.



Amazingly, the ruins were nearly destroyed in the eighteenth century by the huge earthquake that affected Portugal (most of all), Spain, and Morocco. Luckily for the French protectorate officials of later years, a British historian had some time earlier sketched the entire site, and they were thus "easily" able to put certain stones back into the places where they had been before the quake. Presumably, therefore, the place looks just as it did at the end of the eighteenth century.



The place was beautiful, and while not quite as impressive as Rome or certain other spots, was really quite cool to see. The absence of huge crowds of tourists certainly added to the mystique of the environment, as well, and times it was possible to even think that I was alone, strolling the ruins solo.



Well, that is it for today. Tomorrow I will leave this place and begin my journey toward the South. I hope to be in Errachidia in a week to visit old friends, eat well, and relax a bit before heading out for some more traveling.

Thanks to everyone for the comments, and keep them coming. Also, feel free to email me at christophermbond@gmail.com with any comments, suggestions, or merely to say hello.

Be good.