Gentle introduction to West Africa

Mid-January gloom in Eastern Canada accompanied by mix of heavy snowfalls and freezing rain is inspirational enough to change the ambience. A shift to a warmer climate would do the trick. Still, there are a number of options to consider – some spots are hot and humid with plethora of bugs others dry and windy with the creepy crawlies in winter slumber. The latter is always preferred and the next step is to concentrate on the exact location. The Caribbean has been over-explored, the Indian Ocean is far and jetlaggy not the mention the Pacific with its tyrannical distances. So, the problem has been practically solved – the Atlantic it is and its insect-void representative at this time of year, Cabo Verde, seems to be the perfect choice under the sun.
Getting there is not as strait forward as one would expect these jet-setting days. Cabo Verde is practically unknown archipelago despite its historical significance, relatively sparsely populated and off the radar of the American package sales people. There are no more than three options of flying to this part of the world and the best at the time of planning was the Air Canada route with their “low cost” version called Rouge. Despite its connotation of cramped “commonness” the flight was very empty with the central three rows devoid of customers. After gaining altitude the space was free for all and many “economy” customers had their trip in first class sleeping arrangement.
Once on the ground in Casablanca there was the usual dilemma popping up when confronted by a steep price of a taxi ride to downtown. People with more zest for thrift might want to investigate in advance the transport options. The taxi is by far the most convenient one but a price of approximately 30 Euros for a beaten up Mercedes vehicle opens up space for competition. The train is more complicated since it brings you to a station downtown and then comes the inescapable taxi ride but still, one might save up to two thirds of the price depending on how close the station is to the hotel. In some cases “Casaport” (one of the downtown stations) which is very close to the business district and old town could be even walking distance from the hotels that have been clustered around there.

Sheraton view of Casaport and the Atlantic

Casablanca’s old town is the typical maze of Arab classical urban architecture with narrow streets many shops lined up alongside and the odd mosque here and there all enclosed within mighty walls. Compared to Marrakesh though, the size and intensity of this old town are way down the scale so, as an introduction to life in Morocco it is perfect but at the same time it is not the most exciting example of such Magrebian-Arab-Mediterranean phenomena.
The general impression of Casablanca is of a huge city mostly built and run alongside foreign concepts of city life which provide not too much of the excitement that brings the encounter of new and unfamiliar culture.
Since this was just a stopover there was not much love lost before the next flight to the little-known archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean called Cabo Verde. It seems to avoid the limelight as if to mislead possible competitors in the maritime exploration. While Christopher Columbus was quite aware of its location and even used it for his third trip to the New World, modern-day regular folks from countries located on different continents still have no idea whether this is a town or a geographical feature of the coastline?!
Royal Air Maroc had the best connections to this island country and the best service possible especially considering the customers with their lack of discipline and numerous pieces of hand luggage. Another plus was their superb interactive trip map and of course the very decent food plus some exotic beer that was not advertized but provided happily without charge when on request.
The unfortunate aspect of this flight was its night-time nature. Considering the fact that it included a “technical stop” in Guinea – Bissau it would have been a feast for the senses of avid geographers to be able to watch the Sahara turn into the Sahel and then into the jungles of West Africa. What to do?! C’est la vie!
The Cabo Verde gateway as far as Air Maroc is concerned is the capital city of Praia. Due to the limited number of Caboverdian embassies it is impractical to force tourists to obtain visas abroad and hence they offer the service right there on the tarmac at the entry point. Unfortunately, the process takes time and considering the early morning hours it is not the best welcome one might clamour for. Once through the doors there is more unpleasant action in the shape of self-styled businessmen who very aggressively offer their porter service by depriving the visitors of their bags. After a couple of minutes it becomes obvious why they think they have a business to run. The parking where the pre-paid hotel car is located is on a steep hill up from the exit of the terminal. Well, it all gravitates around what their customers decide to pay them since the service and the price are not advertised in advance and the unwitting “client” could be rather angry about the expectations form the whole set-up as the businessmen themselves would be as well if not paid at all; in brief, consumer-be-aware type of situation.

Diogo Gomes and the Flag

Praia as a proud capital of a tiny nation has its variety of hotels. The most desired ones are more centrally located but the most expensive establishments are not necessarily right, front and center. Downtown is mostly an area called Plateau since it is located on a flat elevated surface (English equivalent would be Escarpment) from where sweeping views in all directions are to be enjoyed. The hotels are not along the edge of the escarpment though and this advantage is lost. On the contrary, they could be on busy streets with lots of bars and restaurants in the environs with the respective noise and some dubious characters to boot. The most expensive hotels are in an area called Prainha (presumably the little beach) in close proximity to several embassies and other high-ranking offices. They offer more international set-up that could be luxurious but not authentic enough. The best option in town might as well be a hotel in Fazenda, just five-minute walk from the Plateau action and at the same time right in the transport hub of the city pared with great service and all necessary amenities. Cesaria Hotel is the writer’s choice in this far-flung territory.
Praia is the modern capital but this was not the case all the time. The original settlement of the Portuguese who discovered this virgin island was a bit further up the shore in the mouth of a grand canyon hewn out of the rocks by what must have been or is from time to time a huge river. At the moment of the visit there was no single drop of water flowing towards the sea but the presence of a stone wall along the river bed cum soccer field tells the story of flash-flood sort of trouble at least once a while. This quaint little town has been identified as the tourist Mecca of this part of the island and some serious investment has been thrown in direction of its magnificent past restoring churches and the Main Square. The most obvious point of interest is the central pillar that has apparently seen quite a bit of suffering in the form of slave trade. Arguably though, the most significant remnant of the glorious past (of some) is the restored church that has been frequented by the two titans of European exploration of the world – Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus. Hey, if these two have been around it makes perfect sense for anybody infested with travel bugs to visit as well!

In the footsteps of the giants

The precious goodies below were attacked on several occasions which prompted the authorities to build a fortress on the hill top above; another must-see locale with superb views of the town and the canyon leading to it from the interior of the island while soaking into the restored atmosphere of a military garrison. The whole experience of Cidade Velha takes a day if stretched and it is worth every moment especially if visited with the help of local transport.

Fazenda throbbing with action

The caboverdian way of transporting people is a phenomenon that needs more than a paragraph to depict. The minivan aspect of it has this dizzying notion that moving from point A to point B is not a straight line, at least at the beginning. The drivers have helpers who shout all the time while the vehicle is circling around particular area. By definition it takes four “spins” before the van actually launches towards point B. The process resembles the Disney characters that are a bit suspended over the ground with their bodies motionless but their legs spinning on the spot before they disappear with great speed ahead into the distance. While the van circles the shouting driver and helper attract the attention of the unsuspecting customers and in some cases, when there are females to be picked up, they even disembark and go to convince them in close range of the necessity of boarding this particular vehicle. There was even a case when a local beauty decided to by some finger food for the trip and when she returned she was presented with a sandwich from the shouter – service that nobody else received!?

So, if point A is Praia and point B is Tarrafal at the other end of the Santiago Island the 70km distance is going to take approximately two hours. It might involve a change of vehicles in the second largest town on the island, Assomada, or not depending on the position of the stars. The first leg of the journey was packed as a result of the vigorous advertising - all seventeen seats were taken which is not bad considering the nasty curves up and down the mountain. Goods packed well travel well. After Assomada things calmed down, space opened up and the terrain flattened but to avoid boredom instilling into the minds of the foreigners one of the locals had a gas tank mounted in the van amongst the passengers for most of the remaining trip.

Midway

Finally, Tarrafal and the Promised Beach have been reached without vomiting or loss of a limb and the adventure of finding a hotel for the next several days ensued. Thankfully, the place is compact and the options are weighed up fast. The standard price for this tourism-aspiring place was around 60 Euros including breakfast. Sometimes it was not very obvious that these establishments deserved this kind of money. Fortunately a couple of them were on the acceptable side despite some deficiencies but what is a place without some of those – unattractive heap of stones!
Here is the time to open a bracket in order to mention the Caboverdian peculiarities of ferry transport. This island nation is a proud owner of two types of ferries – slow and fast. The slow ones are definitely not recommended for tourists but the fast, why not? Except, their webpage casts some doubts over their ability to move on schedule and the reality on the ground proved it 100 percent. The best option was offered by the hotel Cesaria staff by cutting the paperwork and legwork related to the trip to zero. Trouble appeared on the horizon when the return ticket had turned into one-way ticket than in the last moment was adjusted to two-way ticket. The following day at the terminal there was no trace of the ferry, its representative or the sales agent. A crowd of disbelieving “white” wanna-be passengers was misinformed by the terminal guards who came to open the door for seemingly no reason since the next sailing was going to be at midnight to a different island. Considering some bitter experience in other budding tourism-tiger countries the decision was immediately to abandon any fancy thoughts of climbing the volcano on Fogo Island and stick to the current Santiago Island before the option of leaving it on the desired date has evaporated in the unforeseeable future.
This literary detour was needed to explain the excitement which a fellow managing a modest hotel in Tarrafal unwittingly provided. He offered very good price and the premises looked rather descent (except for the shared bathroom) each room having its one name (not just a number) with one of them most appropriately called: Fogo!
Third World as a term is not a malicious propaganda but an UNFORTUNATE REALITY. There is no need to judge just go with the flow and accept as is.
After several days of counting the waves, photo-shooting the cove or eating local dishes, accumulating an excess of vitamin D, going black and similar activities it is time to explore the tourism potential of the vicinity. One and only attraction lies approximately 20 min. on foot away from Tarrafal in the suburbs of the neighbouring town. It is an internment camp or concentration camp or whatever the politically-correct name of a prison is. It was devised during the tenure of some not-very-pleasant regime in Portugal in order to keep law and order in the metropolitan area and the overseas territories. It was populated mostly by unfortunate soles from Portugal who were delivered here to dig their own graves, sort of speak. Later on they were joined by fellow undesirables from Angora, Guinea- Bissau and the Cabo itself but in way smaller quantities. Nowadays the establishment is a museum of tyranny and offers a glimpse in somebody else’s misery that took place not so long time ago. Hopefully, the history does not repeat itself and the visitor has taken in the right moral of the story. As if to underpin the difference between past and present a couple of local boys attach themselves to the obvious foreigner and start their pitch. “Money” they say in perfect English (for a second there was a flash back to Vietnam where children were repeating the same refrain). Arguments about going to school or working for money were brushed aside as a nuisance. “Third World is not propaganda”: the best slogan of Tarrafal!

Daydreamers

Another revealing feature of this state of affairs was discovered while walking inland the dry water valley behind the luscious hotel property called appropriately Baia Verde. Agricultural land was being watered via a system of plastic pipes and success was visible - budding flora was everywhere. What was most unexpected was the presence of improvised dumping sites along the ridge of the cliffs above, where the downtown housing ended. Glacier tongues look-alikes of garbage were slowly but surely sliding down waiting for a flash flood, for example, to be relieved into the valley on top of the agricultural work of somebody else. Not a great advertisement of the local produce but we still clamour to eat locally nevertheless.

Time bomb

Some might say that this aspect of producing food makes it taste good. Look at the food “stalls” that expose raw flesh to road dust and gas fumes along the thoroughfares until it cures so it can be boiled afterwards for hours in the form of a Cachupa. It tastes great especially if the eater does not know many of the details of preparation and background of the ingredients!
For the people with more feeble constitution there is always a way out – sitting in air-conditioned environment in expensive hotel and eating international menu in the shape of a pizza. It still tastes great may be because the ingredients come from the same dump-threatened orchard in Tarrafal.
Cape Verde offers great surprise in the sense of being very African not only in terms of population. The archipelago is sitting some 500km off the African continent and the tendency is to believe that it is another world. Well, it is not since powerful trade winds blow in tonnes of sand and dust from the depths of the Sahara. Tarrafal offered days with sand storm blurring its famous rocky outcrop prompting Google research into the phenomenon and discovery of the fact that even Amazonia receives healthy portion of them!

Sand gloom

So, it maybe time to go “upstream” and reach for the source of the powerful wind. After another unfortunate overnight flight via Guinea-Bissau and the sleepy train ride from Casablanca, Marrakesh welcomes with its sunny skies and beautiful train station. There is no time for relishing this architectural gem too much since the newcomer is immediately attacked by wanna-be taxi drivers. What a nuisance some of them can be! The best trick is to go away from the station on foot for a while and try bargaining again. When pursued, success usually succumbs to the effort and this situation was not different. It is best to have the hotel’s phone number though because the driver might not know where the hotel is situated just like the visitor; this rings particularly true in the old town.
Depending on the money involved, hotels in Marrakesh can be very inspiring. Using the traditional architecture some establishments elaborate on the main theme of dwelling clustered around inner courtyard. This set-up is called “Riad” and confusing this term with a hotel might cause problems when asking taxi drivers or mere mortals for directions.

Intricate Grandeur

Marrakesh’s old town is a dizzying experience for the foreigners; no coincidence it is high up on the tourist trail. What is most remarkable is the fact that despite the exposure to foreigners for long period of time it still clings on to its own culture. The most obvious aspect is the colouring of the buildings. Every wall here is of pink colour to such an extent that one might think this is it – La vie en Rose! In reality despite its roots in the rosy lime stone quarried around, many of the walls are made of grey cement bricks but are painted in the usual pink or its shades.

The raw material

The result

The locals (especially the ones populating the old town) are buzzing about in traditional garb or in combination of elements from both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar. Women are particularly fond of their long robes and head dress. Many have their faces totally covered with the eyes being the only body part exposed to men’s prying eyes. Some even have nets over the eye openings. This is no discouragement to other representatives of the better part of the world who would combine tight jeans with elaborate head scarves. One can even see three different versions of cultural/religious interpretations walking down the street hand in hand!
The local traffic reveals an example of cultural cohabitation with dangerous overtones. The city is full of moving vehicles of all sorts – busses, cars, motorbikes, donkey carts, people carts – you name it. To function well this heavy traffic needs rules. The authorities have chosen to copy the foreign rules and project them on the streets in the shape of horizontal and vertical signage just as in Europe. The problems arise when the locals who might or might not have gone through the driving course act upon their locally-devised rules. The drivers here seem to rely exclusively on their sound devices honking practically all the time. Probably the donkeys neigh on demand as well, who knows. The other trick is to play chicken incessantly. The result is that if some foreigner decides to follow the rules according to what they mean in his country the chances of unfortunate outcome are greater here than in his own country. Visitors left alone, it is not obvious why anybody would spend tonnes of money and serious effort to paint and signpost roads and then totally ignore the meaning of signage!? Maybe it is simply treated as a decoration.

Modes of transport

No honest account of Marrakesh would avoid responsibility by skirting the smells of the Medina. There is some law, probably unwritten, that the streets can be used as open-air latrines. Practically every corner is perfumed by urine and if inquisitive enough, one can find fecal matter too. One particular example was too ridiculous to be neglected. There are several palaces in the Medina and one of them was talked about in the literature as being interesting to approach due to the ritual of knocking at one of the doors where the visitor is told to proceed to the next door in order to be sent eventually off. Well, in the attempt to repeat the ritual at the first door instead of a guard there was a nice turd of particular colour and texture that made me forget about the rest of the ritual and leave without being ceremoniously sent away at the next gate. Notably things of this nature have not changed in Morocco for the last twenty years since my first visit when a distinct brown spot (untreated sewage) was hugging the coast of Tangier spoiling the wonderful view of the Straits of Gibraltar.
Speaking of excrements one cannot overlook the beautiful gardens surrounding the grandest mosque of Marrakesh – Koutoubia. Driven by necessity or sheer cultural ignorance of the detrimental effect of uncovered feces, some folks have turned this prime property into an outhouse. Most remarkably, the city-hired cleaners have raked the adjacent area very nicely but avoided the eyesores completely.

Downtown Turds

Neat and tidy

The old town has lots of trade going on just like in the old days. The most frequented by locals are the food shops since the Marrakesh populace apparently is not particularly interested in the wooden boxes going strong in the other establishments. The food in the Medina is super fresh and as if to advertise this unequivocally some of the owners have their live stock in alongside the back wall with some specimen at the front counter neighboring the final result – skinned poultry lined up for everybody to see. If there is patience and time one might witness the whole process from measuring the chicks alive to deboning them – what a grisly illustration of where food comes from!

Cycle of Life

The Medina is inundated with advertisements (just like the Internet) about exotic trips around Marrakesh. They include visits to the old Portuguese-influenced cities of the Atlantic coast or exploration of trans-mountain villages and camel rides into the Sahara. Reconnaissance showed that crossing over the Atlas Mountains might not be the best idea in winter. Fellow travellers had been stranded by unexpected amount of snowfall into the pass connecting the coastal plain to the Sahara. They were huddling in improvised shelter until the road was cleared from the record amount of snow so they could proceed to their Camel camp. Moreover, even imagining the crossing by having a glimpse at the mountains from the numerous rooftop-located eateries was impossible due to a haze blurring down everything on its path from the greatest desert on the planet via Marrakesh to Cabo Verde and beyond.

Marrakesh overview