Journey to Bogota, Spain, on the continent of Africa, July 2014, Part 2

Spain, by way of Spain, by way of Morocco

As a coping mechanism to deal with the challenges I've encountered during this ill-fated vacation, I decide to view it all as a research trip to get material for the screenplay I will one day write. The opening scene, I think, will take place in a mold-infested crumbling bathhouse in Fes, Morocco, where I somehow ended up a mere three days after I had arrived in Spain. How I got here will be explained in a series of flashbacks, maybe in the second act.

Camera zooms onto protagonist, lying supine, pinned under an elderly unshaven man in his his not-so-tighty and not-so-whity underwear who is scrubbing said protagonist with an exfoliating glove. The nylon wire-meshed glove is not much newer than the paint that was peeling in sheets off of the Roman vaulted roofs. I'm not sure yet whether this will be a comedy, action, or horror movie, but, while trying not to gag from the smell of the sewer running audibly just below the drain or the scent of my nearly toothless masseuse's hot breath, I tell myself that it was a good decision to visit the bathhouse. Had I not followed my hotel owner's advice to come here, I would not have an opening scene. How would I possibly convey to the audience the sheer pain experience via a Moroccan bath without having experienced my thighs and groin being scrubbed raw while I shriek in pain?

Great material, I think, as I limp back from bath house after dark, completely lost in the lower depths of the Medina, all while being followed by the most wretched looking characters who are, for some inexplicable reason, cursing at me in broken English and Arabic. This was not at all a bad choice to visit Morocco during Ramadan in the middle of a heatwave. Just necessary research, I assure myself, upon returning to the hotel as I eat a bowl of olive-green hummus, which is not actually hummus, I soon discover, but congealed lamb fat. A very good idea, in fact, as I take a bite of a sweet-roll that my hotel owner has served me for breakfast, which is not actually a sweet-roll, but is a savory roll stuffed with pigeon meat. A great decision, I reassure myself as I gulp water from my water bottle while hiding in dirty bathroom stalls so as not to get the "evil eye" for consuming a beverage during Ramadan.

If I had not come, how else would I be able to describe the hostility of an environment where no locals can eat or drink from sunrise to sunset, leaving all restaurants closed and streets mostly empty of all but the homeless drug addicts and a one terrified-looking German tour group?

An excellent option, really, to embark on this adventure. Even other passengers on the train to Fez from Tangiers have given me good advice for my characters. "Don't tell anyone you're American," one says, “because here there are good people and there are bad people." I have no idea what this means, but it makes for great dialog, I tell myself, as the guide I hired for a morning tour of the city, who had a permanent carpet burn on his forehead from so much prayer, turned every description into a diatribe about why Americans were so greedy and why I should be paying more for this most informative tour.

“Why would I go to Fes, Morocco during the middle or Ramadan?" is your next question. This rhetorical question-assignment technique is how my Moroccan tour guide would transition into his anti-American rants. Example: "Why are American people too greedy? is your next question." Or “Why do Arabic people care for their aging parents while Americans steal from theirs?” is your next question.”

I am as incapable of answering your question as I am his. I can say though that I am not an American. I am a Canadian. This was how I responded my guide when he asked me where I was from. What town in Canada? Toronto. Your brother lives in Toronto? Small world. He is visiting you for Ramadan? What a coincidence. Would I like to breakfast with you and him tomorrow? Thank you but no. La shookran. No thank you. Very nice of you to offer though. He will give me a private tour of Medina? Again, la shookran. No, merci. He will take me to see more leather tanneries with no obligation to buy? La shookran. What time this evening is good for me? La shookran. La shookran. La shookran. Why am I so arrogant? I don't think I am. Am I the son of George Bush? No, again, I am from Canada.

This was a sound decision, I am certain, as I stand up after slipping on the steep narrow cobblestone street wet with a mix of donkey urine, sheep blood and silk-dye, landing on my tailbone, much to the amusement of the locals. No question this was a good idea as I sit completely alone in a restaurant (even the waiter left so that he could eat with his family after serving me a plate of lukewarm couscous with vegetables that cost me $35.) Who cares if I can’t eat the food because my waiter has sprayed saliva droplets all over my dish during a series of phlegm-producing coughs he incurs (intentionally?) while he sets the platter down in front of me. I doubt I could have eaten it anyway, as the smell of pigeon shit and chemicals they use to treat the cow skins at the leather tannery up the street has already destroyed my appetite.

All just great research, I insist, while scanning in vain, using the eye that did not contract conjunctivitis during my previous rub-down, through the hundreds of blocked channels on my hotel TV, trying to watch Germany and Brazil play in the World Cup game. The afternoon I have spent hunkered down safely in my hotel room, searching websites on my computer for direct flights back to Spain has given me lots of time to invent plot twists. Not a bad choice to take a five-hour broken-air-condition train ride back to airport in Rabat, missing my stop and then discovering, while on the return train, that the return train is an express, skipping the next two towns. Just very good material, I think, as I gesture to the taxi cab driver, who speaks nothing but Arabic, the international sign for airplane, uncertain of what that sign is. It was such an good idea to come here, in fact, that the $100 fee I’m forced to pay for checking in four minutes after the two-hour check-in time shouldn’t upset me. It’s just the cost of research.

Great idea to spend half ten-day vacation in Morocco, I assure myself, as the woman next tells me about how beautiful the Saharan desert, the coastal towns, Marrakech, Dakhla, Agadir, etc., are in the spring-time and what a terrible pity it is that I didn't visit then.

All just excellent material for the screenplay that I will one day write. One day, when I’m back home, after my eye infection clears, and my tailbone heals, and my stomach settles. One day. Right now I'm back in Madrid wondering why I didn't come here at the start. No mires atras...No mires atras...I am still very tired and all my clothes smell like Fes.

I try to sleep but every time I close my eyes, I hear the question I have most come to dread being yelled at me by young tattooed poverty-stricken Moroccan men following me in the streets. It’s a question I tried to ignore while I walked faster, pretending to know where I was going and hence becoming more lost in the labyrinth of 9000 mule-width streets that is the Medina of Fes, while my roller-bag fell onto its side each time I was forced to dodge a seated man or woman selling their wares or reading their Koran.

It’s a question, however, I am asking myself right now and one I will have to answer if I ever write this screenplay or begin to understand how I made so many awful decisions this trip.

“My friend,” I can hear the skinny bearded man say. “What are you looking for?”