When I left Morocco in March 2012, I had the feeling that I would be back. Many things are out of our hands (well, almost all of them, as our fake democratic politicians enjoy to show us daily in Spain or the evil selection panels of the universities show me by delaying my future). Fortunately, despite the raw crisis, a girl can still ask for a present for Christmas, and what better than going back home?
Overland (and sea) tour: Madrid-Fez-Azrou
Thus, I took my big red bag (which, as the owner, is multi-task and works for carrying the laptop as well as the field equipment and the lunch when following macaques), and filled up with warm clothes and cold meat and both went together to the bus station the night of the 26 December.
While I took a seat as the only non-Moroccan person in the bus, my father looked stressed outside while my mother looked at me angryling with the typical mother eyes that say something like "If you die, I kill you!!"...
During the night the bus crossed half of the Iberian peninsula, while the children cried, the fire alarm ringed and my sleeping pills did little effect. But, finally, before dawn, we reachead Algeciras.
After a brief explanation of the driver of what we were supposed to do to take the ferry, I dropped of the bus drowsy and followed the herd. More than an hour of confusion later, without anybody telling us clearly when we were supposed to take the ferry, we did, just when the sun was rising. Once in the ship, I tried to fill the papers I had to in order to get the stamp on the passport, not without, again, lot of confussion, since most people in charge in the ferry didn't speak Spanish and little English (and my French is still in stand by, let's see if I fix that!).
Some more than two hours later we reached Tanger, landed and get into the bus again. I breath relaxed, sure that the trickiest part had passed...though I was kind of worried when the policeman came into the bus and I was the only person he addressed... Shortly after starting the way we stopped again to change buses; some went to Casablanca, some to Marrakesh and me to Fez. Luckily, everybody spoke Spanish and explained me what was going on when they saw my lost-WTF-face.
We made a technical stop close to Larache to have lunch. After getting to know so many services areas in South Africa, full of fast food stuff, it was refreshing to go back to the hole-in-the-ground toilets and a simple stall serving tajine.
Hours passed, as well as Ksbar el-Kebir and many towns that reminded me somehow to Azrou. Many Moroccan towns reminds me to teenagers; there are parts very developed and parts that are not, but all of the coexist together in the same street/individual !!Aaah...sweet sixteens. Finally, at night I reached Fez...one hour before I expected.
After texting the French, I waited inside the station while a couple of guys were telling me how wonderful was Fez and if I wanted to marry one of them (it's was a joke, of course, but even tired as I was, I was able to say something kind of ingenious "sorry, I don't like husbands").
And then the French and the English came. Marjane and drive to Azrou, just to go to bed to see the Green Group next day. Home, sweet home.
Macaquing once again
Next morning, the Boss, the French and me went to follow the Green Group. The Boss dropped us at the end of Texas and only few seconds later he appeared silently and lonely, as the great macaque he is..."George!! You missed me, I knew it!"Then I started to follow him to collect his urine; but then the French came with the first sample of the day and while we were preparing it, ninja-George dissapeared misteriously (he was on the top of an isolated tree! how did he do it?).
The day passed relaxed, with the group moving very little and me greeting to all my dear macaques but Lewis, who didn't show up. I was very glad to see Anna and Rebeca again, and well, the whole group. To see the juvelines, such as Dakota, who now starts to have a reazonable swelling was a little shocking, but I'm happy that they are all fine... Well, probably Artemis doesn't agree, he has a new scar on his mouth.
As usual, the middle of the day was dedicates to grooming and resting in the top of the trees; and there is when I realize that those are my favourite christmas trees, huge cedars with macaques as ornements.
As the good macaques they are, they wanted to remind me their old habits. One of the most common, stick to Murphy's laws. So, after hours in which each of us were following patiently our respective monkeys, even when they were resting on the top of the cedars, they decided to pee almost all at once creating a little chaos and making us miss a couple of samples...but I know that it was because they needed an excuse to make us come the day after...
So, next day, the French, the English, and the new member, the
Iranian-Californian, stayed with the turist group and the Boss and me
went to collect the last samples of the Green group...in which we failed
miserably! But we have extenuating circumstances. The Green group decided to stay around the fence which separates the road from the forest. So, for example, I was on the side of the road under Anna, while she asked for groomings or groomed herself. After half an
hour like that, she decided to move and I followed her; and then, she
jumped onto a tree on the other side of the fence just in front of me and pee while I tried to put the urine-stick underneath while saying "no, no, no" and only managing to hurt myself with the fence. Thanks Anna ¬¬' . Even if it wasn't too
productive, it was nice to see them there, playing and eating the young
cedars that some Moroccan workers were trying to plant. Unfortunately, we had to leave by midday. We had a wedding to attend to!
Moroccan Wedding
We were invited at the celebration party of the wedding of a relative of the owners of the house, girls one side, boys in the other. So, we the four female researchers went upstairs to see what was going on. We sat on the living room of the house, surrounded by the female friends and relatives of the bridge, who was sitted well dressed presiding the room from a fancy sofa. Nobody was very chatty, and people didn't stop to come over, until there weren't seats for all. Some live music, of women singing and playing the drums livened the long wait time until the lunch (well, it was almost at 16, so I'm not sure if it was lunch or dinner).Finally, when we were really starving, it came. We were seated in a table with old women, so we were quite concerned about the protocol, specially challenging for the French, which is left-handed and found even more difficult than us to eat politely with the right hand from the common plates. Chicken, beef...all quite tasty tajines well dressed with the typical round flatted bread.
Then, we retired the tables, and while the bridge changed for the third time of clothes, the women started to dance (Cultural shock: why do you make such an effort in dancing sexy without guys in front and without being drunk? lost in translation, I guess. We didn't dance much, except when asked to. Most of the time we were taking pictures and videos by the requests of the assistants.
After some Moroccan tea and tasty pastries, some more dance and the party was over. It was men turn, a party which, as the English told us, was quite more entertaining, as usual...
A Tajine for the fossil guys and New year's eve
The last day in the field was just to say goodbye to the monkeys and to thank the fossil guys with a Tajine. We went to the field relatively early (though not monkey time) and started to cut vegetables for the Tajine over one of the benches behind the stalls.
When everything was on the pot and heating, we went to see the monkeys. The poor tourist group did suffered some looses in my absence. The first was Milkyway, who died shortly after I left from a food poisoning (stop feeding the monkeys, you evil tourists!!). Apparently, Nutella then took over as dominant male, but in the mating season he had his testicles almost ripped off during a scream fight and he wasn't seen again. Galack seemed to be now the one rising...not very probable then that he decides to leave the group, even if he is on that age. Beside that, some of the infants died. Though one of the young females who breed for the first time, Vanilla (Tamara), kept hers. Unfortunately my beloved Tequila lost her new infant...I wonder if her daughter, Tabasco, had something to do, as attached as she is to her mother, competence wouldn't be something she likes...(kidding, of course, Tabasco wouldn't do that XD).
After some pictures, we joined the fossil guys in front of the museum for our tasty vegetarian tajine. Good last meal of the year.
Guacamole, Spanish cheese and cold meats, chips and white russians ran out quickly, and awesome chocolate cakes made by the Boss worked as the dessert. Then, some silly-funny games before making everybody to follow my Moroccan version of the Spanish tradition at midnight. Eating the 12 grapes watching the bells of La Puerta del Sol in Youtube from the last year. Dance and excursion to a club in Ifrane to dance a little more, before going back, almost straight to bed.
Last days
Of course, before we spent a marvellous day cleaning as crazies every single corner and piece of forniture with the help of the family. Then is when we discovered that the house was intelligently designed to be able to clean the floor in the Moroccan way, i.e. with a river of water that gets rid of all the dirt, and then flows smothly to a small sink strategically placed on the ground. We also enyojed a last meal with the family, which, as usual, was very nice.
The very last day in Azrou, we came back to the tourist site and watched the monkeys for a while before the Boss and the Iranian-Californian went back to Azrou and the English, the French and me walked to the Green group site. We had lunch in Texas and walked towards the Gorge. Unfortunately, the Green Group didn't show up. We walked through the Gorge and I told them about the huge Inter-group encounter
that the Green Group had with the Humpbacks when I was there with my old fellows the year before.
I wanted to take them through the way I did with my former colleages before they left. My memories were a little bit blurred, but at the end, it worked and we found our way to Azrou.
Back at home, I could check my email just to see that the to PhD I had apply for had rejected me...one was specially sensitive, with a nice graph that showed that, instead of moving from "application sent" to "interview" I was "drop out". Thanks. Anyway, one have to learn to say to the world "f&%ck you" when it deserves it and keep going, even if it hurts. If you are insistent enough you will end up winning...or at least you will die fighting, which still seems more romantic to me than dying defeated and surrended .
We had our last dinner together and played the mythical Jungle Speed before the Boss drove us to take the bus to Marrakesh. After some farewell hugs to the Boss, the four of us took seat at the bus and left Azrou behind.
Marrakesh
We reached the big city when it was still dark and we were waiting for a while having a coffee until the bus started to work. Then, we started our way seeking the bus stop...by doing so, we ended up in Djema-el Fna square, which was actually the place we were aiming for. We had breakfast in a nice cafe there and then looked for our hotels. The Iranian-Californian and I found ours and went inside to tried to sleep a while before visiting the city, but, again, was impossible to me.
One hour later, we went out and walked toward the square. Sadly, the first thing we saw were some juvenile macaques that were being exploited for the joy of the tourists. It came as a real shock, one was even an infant an was screaming and pulling the rope that he had around his neck. I blamed myself for not having at least some of the leaflets of the Moroccan Primate Conservation Foundation with me, at least to leave them around...
We walked around the zouk for a while, still sad for the little monkeys, before we joined the French and the English to have lunch. I had a "pastilla", apparently a typical dish from Marrakesh, quite tasty, sweet-salty pie of dove meat.
We had some tajine and then went to the hotel before going around the square to watch the different shows. It was great, the only problem was that if you stayed for a couple of seconds you were asked for money, and we had not many dirhams left..even if we tried unsuccessfully to find some beers (apparently is not possible in tne Medina despite all the tourist and it seems even unpolite to ask for it).
Next morning, we had a good breakfast in the hotel before taking the bus to the airport, where I said goodbye to the Iranian-Californian before and took my plane. By then I had had the new that I was having an interview next week for a position...I didn't know yet that I was going to had anotherone one day after that which would send me back to Africa a little more than a month later.
