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So I’ve been in Morocco for 6 months now and I had my first visitor! My friend Mark Patterson was in Europe traveling around and figured as long as he was in the area, why not stop by Morocco? We met 14 years ago in Wisconsin when we were in high school and we both ended up moving to Los Angeles. He’s a graphic designer there and surfs a lot so he came to visit and try out the surf spot, Taghazout. Unfortunately the swell wasn’t so good while he was here but he got to see Morocco from a local’s perspective. One of my friends named Mustapha met Mark as soon as he came from the airport and they were like instant boy-buddies. I swear it was a total bromance right from the start.
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| Friends for Life |
The first day we went to the market near my village. Every Wednesday it’s like a weekly farmer’s market and everyone brings the best of the best produce.
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| Wednesday Market |
It’s SO much more fun than the grocery store. You get to bargain with all of the “veggie guys” and they still use the old fashioned scales. Everything is sold by the kilo and they weigh it out with weights so you know it’s fair and accurate. No cash registers, no lines, no “Clean-up on Aisle 4” just a spectacular display of macrobiotic fruits and vegetables.
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| Juicy... |
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What's he doing? BEETS me!
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| Picking out some fresh garlic |
One of the perks is that they love to give samples—and of course I don’t object!
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| I'm holding this cute prickly pear |
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| Anybody want some peas? |
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| Spices! |
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| Cindy, Mark, and Mustapha sampling some flavored olives |
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| A slice of watermelon would BEE nice |
At the market I bought this really cool short wooden table. I’m currently painting it Moroccan-style to match my house and when I’m done with it, I’ll post a picture.
After stocking up on produce for the week, we came back to my house to cook. Mustapha showed Mark how to make tajine and we had a really good dinner. Cindy (the super rad American chick who’s staying with me for the moment), Mark and I were all repping Cali and there was only 1 Moroccan in the house. We totes took over! Hahaha!
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| Mark taking Cooking 101 from Mustapha |
The next day we brought Mark to the HUGE souk in Agadir and we met up with Omar, too. Mark wandered around, got lost, and we had to split up and go in teams to find him—nearly impossible but we managed to track him down. Cindy and I were “looking for him” and we accidentally fell into a café and had a cup of cappuccino. Whoops! Looks like he’s not in here!
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| Mission: Interrupted. |
After the souk, we went outside and Mustapha and Mark found Djembe drums at a flea market. Since there were no drumsticks, Mustapha grabbed a stick and an ear of corn and started rang-bang-boomin’ away!
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| "Iiiiiiiiiiii don't wanna work, I just wanna bang on the drum all day..." (with an ear of corn) |
We wandered over to the street food vendors and had some delicious kefta sandwiches…and Mark had is 100th Coke ZERO of the trip.
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| Taghazout village, right near my house. As relaxed as you can get. |
We also spent some time on the beach in Taghazout and just chilled out after a busy day. We packed about 2 weeks into a 3-day span but still felt relaxed and easy-breezy.
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| JUMP! |
So now Mark's back in La La Land and Cindy is in Morocco till she feels like leaving. Mustapha is probably banging on a drum somewhere and I'm just taking each day at a time. I'm so happy and I'm still chasing the light. Couldn't ask for anything more. Thanks, God. :)
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2 comments:
Are you sure those are onions? Looks like beets to me.
I don't know... BEETS me!
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