the day of 43 cats

Did you know that one of the major tourist attrac­tions in Mar­rakech is the cats? I did­n’t either, but Avery quick­ly cor­rect­ed me on that point. Dur­ing our entire vis­it she was on a one-girl mis­sion to see, count and pet every cat in the city. I can assure that assid­u­ous hand-wash­ing was insist­ed on by her moth­er, but I have to admit I’m a suck­er for a cat, too. We saw 43 in one day, Avery wants me to tell you.

Sat­ur­day saw us all ful­ly bat­tery-ed up and ready for anoth­er adven­ture, or sev­er­al. Because he is, like Mary Pop­pins, prac­ti­cal­ly per­fect in every way, Vin­cent had arranged for us to have access to a swim­ming pool at a near­by riad, so after anoth­er divine break­fast under the blaz­ing sun and the ever-help­ful eye of Brigitte, we all gath­ered in the cen­ter court­yard to nego­ti­ate who was going where: Pam want­ed to go to the mar­ket, Boyd and Emmanuel want­ed to stay and soak up some sun, and Avery and I were adamant that if there was a pool, we were going swim­ming. As we dis­cussed all these pos­si­bil­i­ties, Vin­cent began danc­ing in the blinky sun­light to the Brazil­ian music that seemed to pour end­less­ly from the hotel stere­os. Now there are peo­ple who can dance and look divine­ly sexy and ele­gant, and that’s fine. But when he called over to me, “Kris­ten, come and dance with me,” I had to decline. “Three strikes against me, Vin­cent: I’m too Amer­i­can, I’m too white, and I’m sober.”

So Vin­cent, Pete, Mike, John and Avery and I head­ed through the labryn­thine paths of the Med­i­na behind a guide’s back and fol­lowed him to anoth­er small hotel, in the cen­ter court­yard of which was… the small­est and COLD­EST swim­ming pool we had ever encoun­tered. How did they GET it so cold!! Pete dashed in, then Mike crept in up to his knees, laugh­ing hys­ter­i­cal­ly, then Avery and I approached the water, then he said, “All you can do is just take the plunge,” and did so. “OHMIGOD!” So I ducked my head and just dived in. Yikes! Mike brave­ly averred, “After awhile, if you kick about, it gets bet­ter,” but truth be told, if you stayed in and kicked about, you sim­ply lost all feel­ing in your body and that made it seem bet­ter. After we felt we had shown suf­fi­cient chutz­pah, we all slith­ered out under the gaze of nice dry Vin­cent and John (was it a deri­sive gaze, or an admir­ing one? not sure) onto white mats and tow­els, and soaked up the sun com­ing from the open roof of the court­yard. “This is the life,” I said. “And I, who eats Ren­nies and Tums all day in Lon­don, have not had one scrap of indi-jag­gers since we got here. I think the bac­te­ria in the water of Moroc­co agrees with me.” Vin­cent said, “It’s called relaxation.”

Off again then to change and head out with what turned out to be our long-suf­fer­ing guide Abdul for a tour of some of the offi­cial sights. Poor guy. He was prob­a­bly a very good guide, but between Mike’s con­stant laugh­ter, Avery’s insis­tence on stop­ping to pet every kit­ten she saw, my obses­sion with the street food stalls, and Emmanuel’s “shiny object syn­drome,” it was like herd­ing cats to keep us togeth­er. At one point we got togeth­er with Jane and Peter at the gor­geous Palace Badii, home of the king, his four wives and 24 con­cu­bines (I briefly con­sid­ered explain­ing this all to Avery and then decid­ed to pre­serve a cow­ard­ly silence). Intri­cate paint­ed wood­en carv­ing that for some rea­son remind­ed me of the Russ­ian dachas we saw out­side Moscow, and del­i­cate stuc­co trac­ery, plus enor­mous­ly com­plex and rich mosa­ic tiles. It real­ly was worth the vis­it. From there we trailed around the Jew­ish quar­ter and the Kas­bah, elud­ing our guide at cru­cial moments when he doubt­less had the most impor­tant gem to share with us! I did feel sor­ry for him.

We were so fas­ci­nat­ed by fig trees, orange trees, bread ovens, patis­serie carts and lit­tle shops that to keep us on the straight and nar­row was nev­er going to hap­pen. But he served one impor­tant pur­pose besides edu­ca­tion (and we did learn a lot): we did­n’t get lost. Final­ly we end­ed up in the main pub­lic square and he was more than hap­py to leave us there, I think. We met up with every­one else at the souk and every­one accom­plished last-minute shop­ping goals: sun­glass­es for Avery, one more flow­ing robe for Pete, and then John head­ed off with Pam to seal the deal on our car­pets. We agreed to meet up out­side the car­pet pas­sage, and Avery and I set out to score some Moroc­can candy.

Sev­er­al kid­nap attempts lat­er (well, I’m exag­ger­at­ing), and final­ly tir­ing of the crowds, Mike, Avery and I way­laid our car­pet guide of the day before and con­vinced him to remove the poster from the door, undo the pad­locks, and lead us to John. “Keep hold of my hand, Avery!” Mike shout­ed. The cor­ri­dors and squares that had been emp­ty the day before were now crowd­ed with shroud­ed women sell­ing what appeared to be car-boot booty: used shoes, old fab­rics, chipped dish­es. It was a mad­house! “Make a right at the ostrich car­cass!” Avery yelled to me, strug­gling to keep up behind her. Com­plete­ly mad. Final­ly we reached John, who looked as though he had been dragged through the eye of a nee­dle. “Go on to the hotel, I’m almost fin­ished here,” he said through grit­ted teeth. “Bar­gain­ing going well?” I asked, then we left and caught a taxi to the hotel. It was near­ly time for the long-await­ed birth­day din­ner at the top restau­rant in Moroc­co, and we were… dirty.