We stop long enough in Agadir to arrange for another week’s rental of the car, and head up the coast to Awrir, where we head east, into Paradise Valley. We’re on a mission to find to D’s old camping spot, where he and a group of hippies from all over the world – Canada, America, Australia, Europe – hung out for weeks at a time. He’s trying to remember the road, the villages, where he traveled so long ago. It’s a lovely valley, full of palms, and very quiet.
We are the only guests in a hotel with two swimming pools, both empty. Our hosts were most attentive. They made us a fabulous Moroccan tagine dish, served with great elan. I love the way Moroccans pour tea, as many Indian people do, holding the teapot much higher than the glass, so as to aerate the tea. I’m always amazed at how good their aim is; when I try it, more tea ends up on the table than in the glass. After dinner our hosts busy themselves with pumps and pipes trying to get us hot water for a shower. There is much clanging and banging, much shouting, the sound of running water, more shouting, and several knocks on our door to tell us it will be ‘just 20 minutes more.’ Finally, at 10 pm, success! Smiles all around. Shukran, merci, shukran. I am amazed at how much work they went to, and with such good cheer, to give a couple of tourists they will likely never see again, a hot shower. I am again taken by the generosity of these people.
The next morning, on our way back down the valley, D finds his old camping spot. It seems so much smaller to him now. Where once there were 15-20 vans, with all their colourful inhabitants and regalia, with the joyful camaraderie and ……now there is just one. They have barricaded the entrance with a trunk of palm to ensure their privacy. Although we get just a glimpse of D’s fabled, fabulous and not forgotten ‘Paradise Valley,’ it fulfills his desire to see it once again, and rekindles the memories of a time some 35 years ago, when a young man took to the road, with $1600 dollars in his pocket, and dreams of exploring foreign world. Dreams he made come true, and experiences that have been relived, often by campfires, with children, grandchildren and friends. When first I met him I called him my ‘Gypsy Prince.’ Small wonder that his all time hero is Sir Wilfred Thesiger, a British military officer who traveled and lived in some of the remotest areas of ‘Arabia’ in the mid-1940’s, crossing the ‘Empty Quarter’ of the Arabian Peninsula on foot and by camel, and living with the marsh Arabs of Iraq. Our copy of his book ‘Arabian Sands’ is well thumbed.
Although finding his old camping spot was somewhat bittersweet, there was a highlight of this little side-trip: a stop we made at a little tienda – just a shack by the side of the road – where a young man was selling rocks and fossils. After much haggling D bought a fossil. “This is my souvenir of the trip,” D said, holding it gently, almost reverently, in his hands. It meant so much more than it just being a ‘fossil.’ I buy a malachite camel (the Camel Queen cannot resist) and elephant. Nice enough, but not so imbued with memories.
For more on Sir Wilfred Thesiger, try starting with Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Thesiger
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