File under: you just never know

Road Trip from Marrakesh

A long journey and a strange destination

I was in Marrakesh once. It’s hard to explain what I was doing there. I thought I was accompanying a friend who wanted to buy a house. But she didn’t go. I went alone. At the time I wasn’t precisely sure where Marrakesh was.

About a week into my adventure, I found myself with a group of new friends. We jumped in Abdel’s beat-up car and we headed out of town, headed for the Atlas Mountains. We drove on increasingly marginal roads, farther it seemed from the map. In an hour the altitude increased.

We passed kids selling cherries on the side of the road and we purchased some. In two hours we were somewhere in wild Morocco. And then we got to the end of the road. It had been washed out by a river and that signaled the end of the ride. So we got out of the car and forded the stream for a small village. We walked between the buildings and back to another bend in the river, where a waterfall emptied ahead of us. We balanced on a thin set of boards to cross the river and landed at the foot of the waterfall. The mist was cool on a hot day. A group decision was made.

We began to climb the boulders along side the waterfall. It wasn’t a hard climb, but it was slow.

We climbed for about twenty minutes. We’d look over shoulders periodically to note the improving view.

And finally, we pulled ourselves up at the top of the waterfall.

There was a landing here.

And a few tables and chairs. Seemed odd. We felt so remote. But here were chairs. And we looked around some more.

And then we saw a kid… who had a Coke stand here.

And he sold us some Cokes.

And we sat at the table by the waterfall and enjoyed our cold drinks. Abdel smoked a cigarette.

I guess that kid sits up there all day waiting for people to find their way to the top of the waterfall.