Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Travelling Hopefully - Palace Edition

 Leaving the desert behind us we returned to the edge of the desert and reunited ourselves with our minibus which didn’t look overly pleased to see us.  Once we had crammed ourselves in every available space we turned our backs on the desert and headed north-west I think.  We were aiming for the coast although we wouldn’t reach that until the next day.

The big excitement for the day was the possibility of seeing goats in trees.  Argan trees grow here and so do goats.  Apparently the latter can’t resist the temptation to scramble all over the former.  Our guide told us to keep an eye out for tree dwelling goats just in case they decided to do their party trick by the side of the road.

About ten minutes later excited cries announced that the local goats were being accommodating.  The minibus juddered to a halt and there was the human equivalent of a volcanic eruption as we poured out the side like lava down Vesuvius and charged madly at the goats which being perched in trees were not well placed for a speedy getaway.

Photos were taken (mine weren’t terribly good) and much cooing over goats ensued.  The cooing reached pigeon coop levels when the goatherd charged up and threw a newborn goat at us and by newborn I mean the umbilical cord was still attached.  The baby was surrounded and almost photographed to death on its first few moments in the world.  I suppose the positive side is that for this goat at least things can only get better.

I stood aloof from the baby pestering because I was still trying to get a decent photo of a goat in a tree.  Unfortunately the goats took advantage of the distraction afforded by the newborn to make their escape.  Here’s an interesting fact.  Goats may be good at climbing trees and they’re certainly great at balancing on the branches once there but they are absolutely shit at getting out of trees.  If it wasn’t for gravity I suspect most of them would still be up there.  As it is the goats essentially point their noses at the ground and then fall.  I’m not sure if I got any good “goat in a tree” photos but I have any number of “goat on its back thrashing helplessly amongst the roots” photos.

Finally with all the goats out of trees and the baby returned to the goatherd (hopefully to be passed on to the new mother) we piled back into the minivan and continued our journey.  Our destination this evening was a town so nondescript that our guide didn’t even make a token attempt at organising a walking tour but that didn’t matter because we were staying in a freaking palace!

Yep, a genuine palace once owned by a Danish prince who sold it to a French billionaire who gave it to his Moroccan gardener.  He must really have liked the way the man trimmed edges.  The family of said gardener still own the palace and they have converted it into a hotel (because seriously what the hell else can you do with a palace?).

We dined in the most extravagantly decorated hotel restaurant I’m  ever likely to see and frolicked in the pool and generally rinsed some of the desert dust from our bodies before retiring for the night.  The next day we visited a supermarket!

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