Tannerie, backgammon and loads of hash...

Yesterday was half stressful and half relaxing, but fun overall.

I got up at 5:30am and walked around the medina to take photos, then I came to the Tannerie where thousands of goat skins are dyed everyday in dozens of small open pits. Goat skins are carried in by donkeys, then they are thrown into specific pits for desired colours. This is all done solely by human hands and feet, which dates back for centuries. I stayed till noon and took hundreds of photos, hopefully will have a couple keepers.

When I got back to the guesthouse, there was an English guy Ben who told me about his trip to Merzouga in the Sahara desert and recommended this tour organiser called Mohammed Sahara. We walked over to Mohammed Sahara's cafe and I was immediately impressed by him and agreed to paying Dh 350 for the camel riding tour with a night sleeping in tent in the desert. Now I have to talk a bit about this Mr. Sahara. He runs a little cafe here in the medina, and says he has family in Merzouga who run the tours. However, Mr Sahara is locally better known for his hash supplies (the sort that you would have on speed dial), even some policemen are his frequent customers. So the cafe is popular with locals, tourists, muslims, christians and others.

At the cafe I also met Ben's companion, Adolf, from Iceland. And Americans Josh, Amanda, Emily, David and a few Spaniards. Everyone was having an awesome time, and I was especially proud that I learned to play Backgammon, and it was fun! Just a couple of hours ago, this girl Emily was robbed in a back alley while walking with her boyfriend, and she was slit in the arm by a machete! We saw her stitched up elbow with medical wraps. Later on we found out that the police had caught the bad guy and who was said to be a junkie. What a night! Finally came back to the guesthouse around 2am.

Tomorrow, overnight bus to Merzouga.