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.

Meknes

Ah, Meknes. It brings back many memories to be here, some of them good and others a bit more tragic, but all bittersweet in their own way. This is the first city to which I traveled on my first trip to Morocco, after having arrived in Casablanca.



I have come here with Evan and Melanie, my friends from Chefchaouen, having decided the other night to travel with them to this city, rather than head on to Fez alone. I have been to both of these cities, and while Fez is certainly somewhat more magical, more internationally reknowned, and larger, Meknes has a certain "je ne sais quoi" that makes it unique.



Forgive the above "je ne sais quoi" -- it was tongue in cheek, or at least "tongue slightly off from center and nearing the cheek" -- and I have been speaking a lot of French, so it just seems right. Really, though, Meknes is a great town, an Imperial city like Fez and Marrakech, and it certainly is worth a visit. Besides, the somewhat less famous name translates to less tourists and more "real Morocco".

Things are certainly different from Chefchaouen, where anyonymity was an impossibility, and where tourism and the drug trade compete for the title of Most Important Industry. Here, I am once again in the land that I remember from my last visit to Morocco.



Wandering through the souqs (marketplaces), I watch welders at work, listen to the loud chanting sounds of the sellers, gaze at the seemingly infinite array of dried fruits and nuts. I had forgotten how crowded these places could get, the jostling of shoppers, the veiled heads of women bobbing as they dig through clothing for sale, the agnry words that pass between pedestrians when bumped in the crowd.

I had also forgotten the smell of a Moroccan city--something unnameable and unplaceable--a mix between terrible and glorious. The air is sweet, as the odors of baked goods, hashish, and the exhaust of small engines compete for prominence.

Recycled Spanish buses run down the streets, pulling into the center of the road to avoid horse drawn carriages and stopped cars. The cafes bulge, filled with men, and spill onto the sidewalk's chairs and tables. The men slap cards and juggle dice, yelling loudly on occasion, heartily laughing and questioning the luck of their companions. Other men sit quietly, mind befuddled and fogged with the smoke of their hashish and tobacco cigarettes, gently sipping tea and gazing at the passersby.



This is, however, an Imperial City, as I have said, and so the town rises above and around these characters. Imposing walls, palaces, fortresses and dungeons divide the city into pieces, each sliver with a different feeling.

Tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, I will head out to Volubulis, the Roman ruins that lie approximately twenty kilometers outside of the city. Until I have news from there, I bid you all adieu, and hope that you are all well.

Chefchaouen Video

Last Day in Chaouen

I believe that today is my final day here in this mountain town. I have taken walks, I have eaten breakfast in nearly all the main plaza's establishment, I have cooked a variety of meals with local goods. It is time to go.

There are some people here whom I do not wish to emulate, people that somehow find this a perfect town within which to waste away, numbed by hashish, and occasionally alcohol. This man Pablo, whom I have mentioned before, is an intelligent, interesting man with a wealth of stories matched by few. He regales with tales of the jungle and the desert, tells me of stealing cars in the sixties and seventies, and of forging checks in the same epoch. He has lived in Afghanistan, Iran, India, and Pakistan. And yet he is always smoking a joint, and pours his first glass of pastisse or whiskey at eleven a.m., shortly after rising from the bed.

There is a young American in the hotel as well, and I have never seen him leave the confines of the place. He wanders aimlessly through the short hallways, his short yet ungainly arms hanging at his side, smoke pouring from his mouth.

Needless to say, I do not see myself as one of these people, but being around them for too long can grate on a person.

Tomorrow I believe that I will head to Fez, though this plan is based on the possibly incorrect assumption that the Gods of the bus schedules will smile upon me. We shall see.

Taking it Slow

So I am taking in quite slow here, and I have not yet moved from Chefchaouen. Every day I go to sleep unsure of what to do the next day, and then I remain.

This town, if one stays too long within its official confines, is a difficult place. It is most definitely touristic, and can be hard to handle the constant pleas by restaurant owners to enter their establishment, the hassle of the dealers, the smallness of the place.

Every time that I leave town, however, I am reminded of the beauty of this town. And so I spend my time in the mountains, walking beneath the hot sun and stopping to gaze at the houses from afar.

Today I went out with Evan, an American that I have met here, only twenty years old, who has come with his French wife. They are a great couple, very adventurous, very earnest, and very fun, and have provided me with excellent companionship over the last few days. So Evan and I, later joined by some other tourists, walked farther into the mountains than I had the other day, until we reached the next small town. There we merely chatted with some locals, drank a cold soda, and headed back to town for some late lunch.

There are some very interesting people in the hotel...some strange types really...the type of people that have been living here for years, Spaniards that have retired here (to smoke pot and drink whiskey and live cheaply), Americans that have stopped here while traveling and "developed a hash problem", Brits that come through with intelligent yet annoying arguments for why Africa is "all messed up". It really is a bit of a cast of characters here, and, like the rest of the town, they can become too much to handle if one spends too much time with them. As it is, they are amusing and can only add to my experience here.

I would like to add to my description of some of these characters, particularly Pablo, the retired Spanish man. Briefly, this is a man that left home as a young man to travel to India, Afghanistan, etc, as a hippie of the time might do (he says that he did so in a stolen car, and described to me his "fancy" and complicated method of thievery). He ended up becoming a war correspondent (he was a photographer and spoke some Afghan languages at the time that the war with Russia broke out) and eventually retired very young after losing most of his sense of sight. This man is an enthralling storyteller and a tragic figure, and it is my hope to soon give his story more justice with a thorough telling. For now, however, I will leave it at this.

Below I will include some more pictures of the mountains taken today. We will see what happens tomorrow, if I decide to leave or stay once again. For now, I leave you, and hope that all are well.

Mountain Time

I had considered leaving Chaoen today--there is not all that much to see or do here. And yet, somehow the supposedly "laid back" charm of this place has a way of growing on me. Besides, I figure that after the non-stop two days of travel that I spent arriving here, I should really relax and remain immobile for at least a few days.

I headed into the mountains yesterday with some fellow travelers that I met in town. So Mathieu, Miranda and I walked up the hill leaving town, passing the crumbling mosque and the fields of grain, passing the herds of sheep and goats and the spring that serves as the source of the local irrigation, finally arriving at the fields of marijuana that my companions wished to see.

It was a long, hot walk, much longer than I had remembered from last year, and we were all relieved when we finally arrived at our destination. We were immediately approached by some local farmers that wished to sell us some of the local produce. I thanked them and politely refused, Mathieu happily purchase some of their wares.

The land is beautiful here--impressive mountains and awe-inspiring views, and the soil seems incredibly fertile given the location.

At night I shared a meal with my new friends, (seeing the sheep in the mountains had given me a real hankering for some lamb) and sipped tea until it grew late.

And then sleep, which is still a bit of an issue, as my body refuses to accept the time change. And today--tranquil--resting and hanging around the plaza, sipping tea...And then perhaps a stroll through the mountains once again.

Some pictures below.

Morocco

I have arrived in Morocco, after a long and arduous journey.

I woke up this morning at five a.m. -- the wonderful glories of jet lag -- and got out of bed immediately, completely aware of the fact that my body would let me sleep no more. By six-thirty I was on the road, in a taxi to the train station. There, I bought a ticket, and at seven fifteen got on a train to Algericas, where I arrived at noon. I then boarded a ferry and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. Arriving in Ceuta (also called Sebta--this a Spanish "colony" or outpost or territory, or whatever you like to call it, on the African continent), I took a bus to the Moroccan border, walked across by foot and took three taxis (collective taxi followed by solo taxi followed by collective taxi) to finally arrive in Chefchaoen.



As some may remember, I visited this town a little under a year ago (May 28th, 2006), and wrote about it on this blog.

Well, I have returned, and oddly enough (I am not sure if I am being facetious or not at the moment), nothing has changed. The fields still shimmer; the sun bouncing off the shining marijuana leaves that pack the landscape. The houses still glow, almost supernaturally, the light reflecting off of their strange blue-white paint. Scores of young men still offer me marijuana. I even recognize the damn guys at the cafes on the square. Unfortunately, this includes the little strange looking inbred type of fellow that always tries to get me to eat at his place.

Luckily, he does not seem to have recognized me, though two people have already used this familiar Moroccan trick as a means to get me to talk to them. One guy approached me on the street and said, "Hey friend, how are you? Do you remember me? From the square? Some time ago?"

Note the lovely use of ambiguity here--so nuanced, so refined...Some time ago....the square? Ahhh...The vagueness of the question honestly had me wondering for a minute if he was being serious..."Maybe he does remember me," I thought, and then I realized that he was full of shit.

Another guy approached me speaking Italian. "Ciao, tutto bene?" he asked me.

"Tutto," I responded, "grazie."
"Remember me?" he asked me, still in Italian.
"No," I told him, quite honestly.
"Maximiliano," he said, "you are Maximiliano."
"No, I am not Maximiliano," I told him.

For the rest of our conversation, which pretty much centered on him trying to sell me pot and me demurring, he called me Maximiliano.

An interesting side note: This region in which I find myself is known as the Rif, and is the biggest marijuana producer in the area. Apparently (I say this, because I can not remember the statistics), some huge portion of European marijuana comes from this very area. Anyway, some say that the once common, now totally passe, term "reefer", can be traced to these mountains and their title.

Back to now; as for future plans, I think that I will stay in this town for another night or two, spending my days walking through the fields of mild hallucinogens, before heading a bit south to Fez. From there, I plan to head West, through Meknes, Casablanca, and finally Rabat.

More to follow soon.

Granada

I have arrived in Granada, after suffering through a six hour flight. I was lucky (please note the facetious tone) to be seated next to a rather boring and strange lawyer from Virginia. This man had the incredible ability to not only talk non-stop, but to do so in the slowest, most Southern patrician voice that I have ever heard.

I also had the great luck to just miss (I watched it pull away, spouting fumes of defeat in my direction) the bus designated to bring my plane's passengers into the city centre, some miles away. The Granada airport, being a tiny little thing, did not have another flight arriving for over two hours. And so, unwilling and unable to pay the nearly thirty dollars for a cab to the city, I waited what turned out be nearly three hours.

But I am now here, tired but in high spirits, happy to be traveling yet missing home and those that remain there.

I hope that all are well. More soon.

Tomorrow I'm Gone

Tomorrow evening, 9:16 PM I head off again into the world beyond this country. By the morning of the 16th, I'll be in Southern Spain, and by the 17th I will once again be in Morocco.

It's tough to leave, now that I have so much to leave back in North Carolina, but it is exciting nonetheless, and if I'm going to go I've got to go with energy and enthusiasm.

Be sure to check back here, as I will be writing about my travels, posting videos and photos, and generally trying to share with all of my loved ones, friends, and strangers too this journey of mine.

Check out the links on the right hand side of this page to see posts from my previous trips to Morocco.

More soon.

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, we headed out to the NY Botanical Gardens, located near Fordham University in the Bronx. The whole family was in attendance, and we had a great time checking out the flowers and walking through the wooded, shady paths of the gardens. Some pictures follow below.

Time in NYC (photos)

The Return to Jerz

Well I'm back in New Jersey, after a two day trip from Asheville, North Carolina. I left around noon on Monday, and with the help of Larry Miller's "Spoiled Rotten America" (book on tape--a collection of sometimes comedic essays) and Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" (a wonderful novel by the author of "All the Pretty Horses", which while lamely titled, is one of the best novels in recent history), made it to West Virginia in style and with ease.





Arriving in West Virginia, I stayed with my Aunt Jean and Uncle Garry at their new house--a beautiful new structure that abuts a golf course in a rural area. Driving into their development, I passed turkey vultures flying and deer running. The whole scene was wonderful, and the nearby town of Hedgesville is, without a doubt, one of the quaintest, most "American Traditional" towns that I have ever seen.

We all shared a lovely meal and a couple of beers before relaxing on the couch and heading off to bed. Foolishly, I borrowed a book from my aunt to read before sleeping. Foolishly, I say, because the book contained so gripping a tale that I lay awake reading until late in the night.

The book was called "A Long Way Gone", by Ishmael Beah, and is the autobiographical tale of a boy that fought as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, and eventually escaped. It is harrowing, truly, and nearly impossible to recognize an accomplished drug-crazed killer in the smiling, Oberlin graduated face on the back cover. This young man fought for two years in the Sierra Leone army, from the age of twelve, in the midst of a confused and insane war. Reading of his guilt and following him through a period of rehabilitation was too amazing to interrupt until around two a.m. I woke in the morning to finish the book before leaving the house.



On Tuesday, I continued my drive, again with the continued help of Cormac McCarthy, and stopped in Harrisburg, PA, for lunch with my good friend Dan (owner of the moniker "Jesus Dan", on account of his hair and beard-style in college). We lunched outdoors at a local diner in lovely downtown Harrisburg (no irony or sarcasm here, as I am a true defender of the coolness of PA's capitol).

I continued my drive, and finally made it into Jersey around four p.m. It was a nice change, celebrating my mother's family with the entire family. My brothers and parents are all in town, and we drove together to dine at Cucina Calandra, a local Italian restaurant owned by a local bread-magnate that has somehow amassed a huge and impressive fortune, and owns a number of restaurants, hotels, and bakeries.

The food was good, though I didn't really know how to take the restaurant's generosity with the Calandra bread. At the end of our meal, our Hungarian waiter Charlie, arrived at the table with our check and five loaves of Italian bread. Apparently, this is the custom at the place. We demurred, and only accepted two loaves. I only wish that Calandra were a Prosciutto ham distributor or a wine merchant or drug dealer.

But, alas, the man is in the bread industry, and so bread we got.

I'll be in Jersey and New York for about a week before heading off to Spain and North Africa. I hope that all are well, and please stay posted for new adventures on the other side of the ocean.

Departure Parties

The last few nights have been a whirlwind of excitement, goodbyes, and hi-jinx adventures. Preparations to leave have included packing, playing music, and barbecuing. Thursday's concert went really well--better than we had even hoped. The bar was packed tightly with people, and our final song, a cover of Gogol Bordello's "Start Wearing Purple" had the entire place out of their seats and dancing wildly.

Last night a gathering was staged at Ellen's house. A number of people showed up with wine, beer, tequila, meat and vegetables. The smoke puffed wildly, the air reeked of lighter fluid and then of delicious cooked animals. Bottles were uncorked and popped, the blender swung its blades wildly, crushing ice and mixing margaritas. People played Speed Scrabble and some ridiculous game from the 80's called "Heart-Throb." I dressed up some pink fuzzy boots and then topped the outfit off with a pink robe.

My room is now cleaned, my bag lies on my bed waiting to be filled with the clothing for the next few months. The clock is ticking.

Recent Work

I've been working on CD's for tomorrow night's show--just a little something to hand out to the crowd and get our name out there. We've made the decision to forgo labels, and, seeing as this is a free CD, spray paint on our logo and call it a day (or a night at this point, as it is 10:40 and I am handcuffed to my computer's CD burner). The CD's will feature four songs (the same four songs that can be found and downloaded on our MySpace Page, www.myspace.com/siriusb07.



I've also got some better photographs of the t-shirts that we recently made, using a silkscreen printing method. They've come out really well, I'm very happy with the quality and the sharpness of the lines.

Music for Rich People

Well, I can't believe it.

People want to pay me and my roommate Xavi to play music for them. We've been hired for a gig tomorrow evening. We will be well paid to play music in other languages for a bunch of developers and real estate agents. I still don't really understand how or why exactly these people want us to play, but I'm not complaining.

They won't be complaining either, as long as they don't understand any Spanish. Some of the songs that I'll be singing (very normal, traditional songs), such as La Cucaracha, have such wonderful lines as:

The mule that I mounted
Is now mounted by my friend
But I don't care
Because I mounted her first



Or, as another example, take this verse from the same song:

The baker went to mass
And finding nothing for which to pray
Asked the Virgin Mary
For marijuana to smoke

All of this means that I have suddenly stepped over the threshold that divides "guy that plays guitar in his room" and "guy that plays the same stupid songs but gets paid to do so by rich people."

Amazing.

We've also got another gig tomorrow night, with Sirius.B, at a bar called "The New French Bar". I'm not sure if there ever was an "Old French Bar" or not. Our bassist, Bruce, has come back into town, so we are finally a full band once again.

And my time here in Asheville comes to an end. Well, not an end, but there will be a brief hiatus before the Asheville saga continues. I leave next week for New York/New Jersey to see family and friends, before heading back out across the Atlantic for different climes. By the 16th or 17th of May I will be in Morocco, where I plan to stay until the beginning of July. At that point, I head back to Spain for work until the beginning of August.

More to come soon, all of a much different nature, as I head back out on the road.