En Route to River Village

While wedged into a taxi that made me appreciate why the Peace Corps recommends female volunteers buy two seats – yes, Mercedes sedans have a wide backseat, but there ain’t no way four adults can comfortably ride, side-by-side, even skinny ones! – we drove past herds of camels! I wonder if they serve any purpose other than giving rides to tourists? Not that it’s bad if they don’t – tourism provides income for the locals – but I’m curious what role they might play in the local ecosystem / economic system.

This region is ringed in mountains, many of which are still snow-capped. I wonder if they’re permanently like that, maybe with alpine glaciation going on, or if it’ll all melt off in the next few months?

Driving through our Souq Town, we were outed. Recognized and announced. I have no idea how they did it, either… We were driving through town in a grand taxi just like the thousands of other grands taxis all over Morocco. We were going slowly, as is necessary on streets as pedestrian-choked as these are, but not crawling – probably going around 20 mph. A group of Peace Corps Volunteers were walking down the sidewalk towards us. As we passed by them, we still hadn’t recognized them. (There are lots of European tourists all over Morocco, especially in the larger towns and cities, so seeing a group of young non-Moroccans is in no way a giveaway.) They’d recognized us, though. Through the maze of identical grands taxis and even though the windows of the car, they’d seen us and pegged us as the new crop of CBT-ing PCTs. As we drove by, they shouted out, in unison, “PEACE CORPS!!”