Up early Sunday morning to explore the town in the much more hospitable morning air we walked towards the park and old palace ruins. As we approached on of the tallest minarets in existence we discovered a guy butt-nekid in the public fountain taking his Sunday bath. People all around didn’t phase him one bit. We spent the morning exploring and avoiding speeding traffic, horse carriages, and donkeys. After a simple lunch we found ourselves far form the market place in a part of town where the locals only go. Somehow unbeknownst to me (I wasn’t leading) we ended up following a guy who was “on his way to work” and was kindly going to lead us too the leather tannery. “your lucky” he said “today is leather day and all the caravans are in town to sale and work their leather, just 5 minutes walk follow me.” As we followed him we began to split off main roads onto smaller side streets “just 2 more minutes.” The roads became more and more maze like and less inhabited. “Almost there” we came to a particularly dark alley that appeared empty “just around that corner he said, pointing down the alley! “5 minutes” we stopped, it didn’t look right. Tuomas said ‘I don’t like this” just around the corner pleaded the man who was supposedly on his way to work. Something was wrong, for such a big tannery full of people there was no one around, and why would a major commercial center be located around the corner of a dark alley and not on a big street that could handle camel traffic? And why was this guy lying about how close the tannery was and about being on his way to work? I felt, like my friends, that his work involved him and his friends “tanning our hides” around that corner! We quickly turned around and started walking away, he begged us to follow him, suddenly out of nowhere was another tall man, “go that way” he ordered pointing at the alley “you will love the tannery.” We started jogging back the way we came leaving the 2 stranger behind, somehow we found our way back to the main street the buzz of merchants motorbikes, and people filler our ears as we breathe d sigh of relieve. I wonder how many people have unwittingly followed that “kind” man to the tannery on his way to work?
After a midday nap in the safety of our rooms we walked to the old palace ruins to see some ancient tombs that supposedly house the descendants of the prophet Muhammad. The tombs were very richly decorated, but mostly uneventful. After getting our bags form the hotel and fighting it out with some cabbies we got to the train station, and set beside the tracks and emptied a flask into some cokes and gave a toast to that crazy and wonderful place.
Our night train back to Tanger was overbooked and hot and miserable. Our little compartment was crammed with 8 people and their bags! And the hallway was impassable. There were many shady and untrustworthy people lurking about so we appointed a night watch while others attempted to sleep. Also drew had an interesting conversation that would make a great SNL skit. He was talking to an Arab guy about tourists, while the Arab guy misunderstood him and was talking about terrorist! They were having 2 completely different conversations with each other that made for some hilarious moments!
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