taroudant

Monday, 7 February 2011

Cheese or balloon?

Of all the things we have bruoght out in luggage; automatic watering system; Barbara's huge malayan brass tray; gas barbecue (Moroccan customs were really alarmed by the lava rocks carried separate;y in my hand luggage); the bicycle; the one that didn't go to plan was the telescope as Thomsonfly decided to weigh our hand luggage and we had to pay £100 excess baggage. However having that for birthday 2009 and the extension to the upper terrace making a better viewing platform 2010 this year the birthday boy had the relatively modest gift of a webcam eyepiece. He has been playing with this and has some, in my view, rather good photos.

Moon from Taroudant 7.2.11.

Moon from Taroudant 7.2 11.

Jupiter fromTaroudant 7.2.11. You can see three moons.

visitors

We were on the upper terrace yesterday admiring the snow on the Atlas when a carload of french drew up. It turned out to be M Guy from whom we bought Dar Barbara with his wife and some younger relatives. We had them in as M Guy wanted to show off the house he had had built to his young friends who confided that he and Mme Guy were becoming somewhat nostalgic. I hope they were not too upset by the changes we made it is always sad to go back to a house you have pre viously lived in and find that the new owners have changed everything. In this case we had bought all their furniture too altho9ugh we've added some of our own and moved it qbout. The main change is to the garden in the courtyard which was over grown and we have cleared and planted in a more formal style withe the hedge and roses, and to the terrace. M Guy when we bought the house said he'd always meant to get round to doing something about the terrqce but I think they visited in the summer. We are at the house in the winter so the terrace is the place we use most and we had the extension room built doubling the size of the upper terrace and the staircase made to allow access. We can now see both the atlas and antiatlas from the upper terace and beloved takes his telescope up so more sky is avalable. Also we have banished the washing to a permanent line up there making the terrace friendlier and adding plants and seating. I think M guy approved ; he certainly seemed taken with the stair case.

Terrace Dar Barbara Taroudant

View of Atlas from upper yerrace Dar Barbara Taroudant

View of Atlas from upper terrace Dar Barbara Taroudant

Friday, 4 February 2011

Mint Tea

Mint tea is the national drink of Morocco. It is drunk before any serious business such as buying a carpet. The convention is that small talk is made until the third cup has been drunk when the matter in hand may be broached. Moroccans drink it all the time but unlike the chinese who carry flasks round with them mint tea is always made fresh and you can see young men scurrying around between shops and offices with trays of tea. The tea is brewed with chinese "gunpowder" tea and presented with a large bunch of mint and sugar. The mint is stripped of leaves which are torn and added to the brew together with humungous amounts of sugar. Often this is a hunk of sugar cone this being one of the few places still usung cone sugar complete with tongs just as our victorian for bears did. The whole is ceremonious poured from a height into the special tea glasses and then repoured into the pot and the process repeated several times until sufficiently mixed. It is of coarse a diabetic nightmare but don't be tempted into agreeing to tea without sugar as this is inherently a hot sherbet and as with sherbet is nothing without sugar. Moroccans drink tea several times a day and at the end of every meal. I assume its something like a regular dose of Red Bull to keep you going.

Thursday, 3 February 2011

cross my palm with silver

Jewellry is one of the most portable morrocan crafts. There is the huge berber jewellery, enamelling from Tiznit and bright yellow gold but the most affordable is that made from silver and semiprecious stones. The silver is not sterling and in the UK could only be sold as white metal but I find it very attractive and fortuitously our friend Moha Ouissa who looks after Dar Barbara when we are not here has a shop selling it at Afrika Arts in the Arab Souk. The jewelry is sold by weight and it is possible to haggle over the price per gram or the overall price or Moha will give you a fixed price if you prefer. The piece is weighed including the stones just as all vegetables are weighed together in the greengrocers. Expect to pay around 10 MAD per gram but obviously this varies with the price of silver, the quality of the craftwork and your haggling skills.

Tuesday, 1 February 2011

The Peace Palace

For its size Taroudant has a number of excellent upmarket hotels. The swankiest is the Gazelle D'Or situate a couple of kilometres outside town in an old hunting lodge with extensive grounds. It is reputedly the most expensive hotel in North Africa and its clientele is the like if Jacques Chirac, Francois Mitterand, Brad Pitt and our late lamented John Mortimer. It offers sybaratic luxury,security and seclusion and I have never set foot there. A newcomer is the Dar Zitaoune just outside the town walls but this side of the bridge. It is reputedly very comfortable with prices to match but you need a vehicle to visit the town proper.
The grand old lady is the Palais Salaam. Architecturally it is part of the Kasbah and was formerly the Pasha's Palace. It is the hotel we always stayed at with fabulous gardens with century old banana plants and hibiscus trees, and a grand water feature housing terrapins and aviaries of brightly colured parakeets and canaries.  The room were slightly shabby but with wonderful handpainted designs on the doors and ceilings. The public areas resplendent with antiques and wonderful old brass lamps.
About 18 months ago soon after we bought Dar Barbara the Palais changed hands. There were rumours of financial difficulties. We visited for the birthday boy's lunch and there were some changes. The old lamps of seemingly great antiquity and value have gone and been replaced by modern "traditional" fittings such as can be bought in any souk. The toilets at the swimming pool with the handpainted cubicle doors are no more and are converted to a doorless storeroom. New facilties have been built in an old outhouse which are shiny and modern and doubtless work much better but could belong to any restaurant from Marrakech to Moscow. On the positive side the hotel seemed more prosperous with a number of coaches in the car park and the lunch menu had been revamped to include some morrocan dishes. It would seem the Palais will survive competition into the 21C.
I may mourn the old brass lamps but it is one of the places you should stay on any trip if you are not in the Gazelle D'Or league. Other places may be done up or restored to dazzling effect but what you can't "quick fix" is a continuously tended 100yearold garden and the lamps whilst substitutes will still create a fairytale magic in the evening when you will truly believe that Scheherazade is round the next corner.