Morrocco

About this blog

So it turns out I'm allergic to an entire country.

I could never have known this as my swollen throat tried in vain to order a glass of eau to wash down the jus de trois fruits I had so adventurously ordered. Just two sips and my tonsils had begin to swell, my breathing panicked.

But that was just bad luck.

Or actually, having just translated the trois fruits, a bad choice. Avocado: my one food allergy. Still, three minutes struggling to breathe happened to beat the previous hour of arguing with crackhead-cum-tourguides, seeing off attempted-hustles, and avoiding staring at the mutilations of beggers in the Medina, as was my experience in Tangier, at the very north of this country that was to be my home for the next week.

Nor even would I have waged hard-earned dhiram after sneezing my way through my first afternoon in the hot and dusty, orange streets of Marrakesh that my English-branded human body could be so tortured by a country. Fine: smoggy summer afternoons in London always have me reaching for the snot-roll; throw in a few donkeys and horses roaming the streets - actually, a lot of four-legged transport - and I'm bound to sneeze so much my head begins to ache, my eyes stream rivers, and my throat becomes so sore I can barely say "Non merci, parles vous Esperanto?" to yet another forceful "tour guide".

Out of the city, Las Chicas Mexicanas Hambre (the Hungry Mexican Girls) and I hiked the rocky shrubbery and steep rubbled paths of the fertile Ourika valley, the hot midday sun burning my insect-bitten skin as we approached the respite of the stunning 12 foot waterfalls and more importantly, shade. Sunburn turning me drowsy, I gulped from my bottle of water and cooled down in the refreshing pools at the foot of the falls, careful not to let any more of the little bastards spend enough time on my body that they could go away with a blood sample of me. (I am not talking about Las Chicas Mexicanas Hambre here, although they were particularly hambre! No, it seems Morroccan insects are a particularly racist bunch, heard to squeak "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman" at regular intervals, just before attack).

My left nostril, still in severe pain from the traditional hayfever "cure" I had sniffed in a Marrakech pharmacy, was at least no longer leaking out here in the Atlas Mountains. The last bit of rock before the three and a half million square-miles of Sahara desert stretching into Africa on the other side, this was my sanctuary from the particles of the city irritating my every open orifice. Still, the nostril really hurt. What the hell was that stuff? And why have at least ten Morroccans tried to get me to sniff their on-sale spices? Can't they see I'm struggling just with the Moroccan air?

Yet, at the point in which this week of memories merged to form a kaleidoscope of technicolour confusion, at the peak of the delightful few hours in which my body did it's very best to evacuate the food and water I had consumed in the UNESCO heritage city of Fes, that I realised I am probably not made to live in Morocco.

If I wanted to be dramatic about it, which I do, I would go so far as to say that I am allergic to Morocco. Fortunately, the cure is a simple one: To never go back!

Read on to hear about each place I visited ...