by Zoe May
‘Now I feel like you’re blaming me.’ Will looks downcast.
‘I’m not, I just … It makes sense, doesn’t it?’ I explain. ‘And then there was that moody redhead woman, I bet she wasn’t keen to hang about,’ I add, thinking back to the redhead who was checking her watch as Will and I boarded the bus this morning.
‘I guess. I’d get it if we didn’t come back after an hour or something though, but five minutes? Urghh. Maybe I shouldn’t have booked with the cheapest tour company. They’re clearly unprofessional.’ Will sighs. ‘I was just worried the higher end ones might know Medhi.’
‘Damn!’ I grumble as I slump down onto the carpark wall.
The sun is beating down on us and I’m beginning to feel sweaty. It feels hotter out here in the mountains than it did in Marrakech and even though I expected to be gripped with panic if the bus left, the bright, warm light of the sun has taken the edge off my worries and I find myself feeling strangely okay about it. Will is still glancing around the car park as though by some miracle, the bus might suddenly appear.
‘So, Mr Renegade Traveller, what shall we do now?’ I ask.
Will smiles weakly and sits down next to me on the wall. ‘Well, this is a curve ball. This isn’t even a proper tourist village. They don’t really have hotels,’ he groans.
I can’t help laughing. ‘Hotels?! I thought you were all about camping and mixing with the locals and shunning the tourist trail? And now you’re worried about going without a nice big bed and fluffy pillows?’ I snigger, pinching him. ‘Do you want rose petals too?’
‘Hmph. I was thinking about you actually,’ Will insists.
‘Sure you were, Will!’ I smirk.
The chickens in the nearby crate start clucking loudly. Will and I both turn to see what the commotion is all about, when we spot a man pulling the crates from the cart and carrying them towards a nearby market.
‘So, what’s the plan then? Shall we try to find somewhere to stay? Or maybe there’s a bus back to the city?’ Will asks, distracting me.
‘Hey! What are you doing here?’ the man unloading the chickens shouts over to us.
Will hops off the wall. ‘We came to get our bus, but it’s left unfortunately,’ Will explains.
The man looks at us like we’re crazy. ‘What do you mean? There are no tourist buses here,’ he says gruffly, looking annoyed.
‘Yeah, we know,’ I sigh.
‘No, you are in the wrong place. The tourist buses leave from the other side of the square. This area is for trade. This is for locals only.’
‘What?’ My mouth drops open.
‘You’re in the wrong place,’ the man reiterates impatiently as he reaches for another crate of chickens.
‘Right, okay. Sorry about that. Which way is it?’ Will asks.
The man sighs loudly as he places his crate on the ground, before pointing us in the right direction.
‘Thank you!’ Will says to the man, before turning to me. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
I can feel the man’s eyes on us as we scurry out of the trade depot. Tourists are clearly not welcome.
‘I can’t believe we went to the wrong place,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘I was sure it was the right one.’
Will gives my arm a sympathetic squeeze. ‘It’s okay, hopefully they’re waiting for us,’ he says, smiling optimistically as we dash back across the square, weaving through the crowds.
Finally, we get to the bus station which has the exact same gate and layout as the depot – a mirror image. Bursting through the gates, Will and I scan the depot for our bus, and while the depot is full of buses, with no chicken crates in sight, the space where our bus was parked is empty.
‘Seriously? They’ve gone?’ I stand in the empty parking space, looking around. A group of elderly tourists who look a little hot and bothered pile onto a nearby bus. Definitely not our group.
‘We are half an hour late now,’ Will sighs. ‘You’re right. Maybe they did think we’d gone off and decided to do our own thing.’
‘Oh Will!’ I sigh, shaking my head. ‘So, what shall we do?’
‘There’s probably a bus back to the hotel. Let’s go find a timetable,’ Will says, looking across the station.
‘Oh! Exciting!’ I reply sarcastically.
‘What do you mean?’ Will asks, glancing back towards me.
‘“Let’s go find a timetable”. Hardly the words of a free-spirited explorer,’ I tease.
Will laughs. ‘Well, I doubt you want to go venturing into desert. But we could, if that’s what you fancy doing. We could camp under the stars.’
‘I’m up for it if you are,’ I retort, not quite believing he’s serious.
‘You do realise that you won’t be able to plug your hair straighteners in and there won’t be free breakfast and coffee in the morning if we camp, don’t you?’ Will asks.
I smile begrudgingly. ‘Yes, Will. I do realise that. Now are you game or not?’ I ask, calling his bluff. I don’t actually believe he wants to camp. He’ll probably be wanting to check into a local guest house soon enough.
‘Of course, I’m game!’ Will scoffs, although his voice is a little high-pitched and his brow is beading with sweat.
‘Great! Well, if you’re game, I’m game!’ I reply.
‘Great, well I’m definitely game,’ Will insists. His voice sounds more resolute as though he might actually be warming to the idea.
‘Great! So we’re both game!’ I wonder what the hell I’m letting myself in for.
Chapter 19
We might have decided to camp in the desert, but it turns out that making that happen isn’t as easy as it sounds. While the souks in Marrakech are great if you want to buy spices and kaftans and tagine dishes, they’re not exactly well stocked when it comes to tents. And Will, for all the intrepid explorer tales he always spouts, is definitely more than just a little uneasy about the prospect of actually venturing into the wilderness.
‘I know camping under the stars sounds like fun, but I don’t think you’re meant to do it literally under the stars,’ Will comments as we wander past the seventh or eighth spice stall. ‘What if it rains?’
‘Will!’ I tut. ‘We’re in Africa. It’s thirty-five degrees!’
‘That doesn’t mean it won’t rain,’ Will huffs, before pausing at a stall to admire a silver lamp.
‘Honestly! I thought you were bloody Bear Grylls. You’re more Mary Berry,’ I tease.
‘Shut up, Natalie!’ Will places the lamp down and pokes me in the side, causing me to flinch. ‘Even Bear Grylls wouldn’t just go camping without a tent! We don’t even have a torch. Or a stove or anything. And somehow, I doubt they sell them here,’ Will says as he looks around the souk.
‘Okay fine, so what are you saying? You don’t want to camp after all? You just want to find a guest house and have a nice cup of tea? Hey, maybe they do scones?’ I tease.
Will rolls his eyes.
The vendor spots me eyeing a bangle that I think Lauren would like. He approaches, offering a price. I do a quick pound to dirham conversion in my head. It’s around two pounds. I accept and hand him a few dirham notes, before Will and I wander deeper into the souk.
‘I thought you wanted to go camping and since we’ve done a ton of coupley things, I just thought we should try to make that happen, but we can head back to the hotel. It’s up to you,’ I tell him.
‘Why don’t we see if we can find the group?’ Will suggests. ‘I think I can find the name of the campsite they’re heading to.’ Will digs a crumpled brochure from his pocket. ‘Maybe we can hire a car and meet up with them later tonight or in the morning.’
‘In theory, that’s good idea, but I don’t see any car rental places,’ I reply.
‘I’m sure we can hire a driver. We’ll just ask around,’ Will says, looking around for someone to ask.
‘Okay.’ I shrug.
‘How about that guy?’ he asks, spotting an older man standing by a stall selling rugs.
His stall is packed with hundreds of rugs and he appears to be giving instructions to a co-worker. He definitely looks local.
‘Yeah, go for it,’ I tell him, even though I’m not feeling too positive about our prospects.
We approach the stall and Will asks the man how to get to the tourist campsite in the mountains where our group’s heading. He laughs.
‘It’s twenty minutes away. No more than a few kilometres,’ he says. ‘You can walk.’
‘Really?’ Will balks.
‘Yes, it’s not far at all,’ the man says.
I can’t help laughing. All this time we’ve been fretting over missing the bus and we were only walking distance away from where we needed to be.
Will asks the man exactly how we get there, paying attention as he describes which exit to take from the main square, which path to take out of the village and the correct road to head down. I can tell Will’s making a deliberate effort to double check each of the instructions so that we don’t get lost again.
While Will’s locked in conversation, a man with a monkey comes up to me and tries to get me to pose for a photo.
‘No, it’s okay!’ I insist, but the man is insistent and dumps the monkey onto my back.
Suddenly images of it biting my ear off flood through my mind. I even heard that monkeys can carry rabies. I read an article about a girl who needed a face transplant after being mauled by a chimpanzee. I scream and Will spins around.
‘Photo?’ the man says, as though me screaming is a great photo opportunity.
‘Oh my God, get it off me,’ I cry. As much as I love animals, I don’t trust monkeys. I sneak a glance at it, and it eyes me cheekily.
‘Help!’ I shriek as I reach up to the monkey and attempt to pull it off my shoulder. A few people, tourists and locals, have turned to watch, taking in my predicament with a combination of shock and amusement on their faces. One woman has even got out her phone and is filming the whole thing.
The monkey grabs my hand and yanks the wedding ring from my finger, sliding it off in one skilled move.
‘Oh my God, he took my ring,’ I gawp.
Will watches in shock as the monkey jumps back onto its owner and they hurry away through the crowd.
I’m so glad the monkey’s off me that I let out a huge sigh of relief.
Will places his arm around me and rubs my back. ‘It’s okay,’ he says comfortingly.
‘Thief!’ someone cries out.
I look over and see a local, pointing at the man. Another guy joins in, screaming ‘thief’ as well. Someone even insists that we call the police.
A woman rushes up to me. ‘You poor thing! That monkey stole your wedding ring. That’s so awful.’
I look back at her blankly. I couldn’t care less about the cheap crappy ring, I just wanted to get that monkey off me.
‘Umm … Yes, I’m devastated,’ I reply.
I glance over at Will, who’s looking at the commotion in the crowd, an inexplicably panic-stricken expression on his face.
‘Sorry, I need to speak to my husband,’ I say, turning away from the woman.
‘What’s up?’ I nudge Will.
People are still pointing down the road in the direction that monkey man disappeared to. Will watches. Word seems to be getting around between tourists about how awful it is that my wedding ring has been stolen.
‘I think someone’s called the police.’ Will turns to me. ‘If the police come, they might want to question us. They might wonder why we’re not actually married,’ Will whispers.
Oh God, he’s got a point. Will and I could go from victims of a crime to potential suspects. What if they contact Medhi and Amira? What if we get done for fraud or something?
‘We should go, Will,’ I whisper.
‘Yeah, we definitely should,’ Will replies.
‘I think he went that way!’ Will shouts, pointing down an alleyway.
Everyone turns to look, and Will and I seize the opportunity to hurry away. We nip down a tiny alleyway, which leads to another alleyway, and another, and before we know it, we’ve found our way to the outskirts of the village. A road stretches into the distance.
‘I think this might just be the road the man I asked directions from was talking about,’ Will says.
I eye the non-descript road. ‘How can you tell?’
‘He said it had a boulder by it,’ Will says, gesturing at a boulder.
‘Right,’ I reply, shrugging as we wander down the road. It’s not like we have any other options. If the police start investigating the monkey thief in the village, they’ll definitely want to speak to us and neither Will or I want to have that conversation.
We walk in silence for ten or twenty minutes, half-awed by the staggering rocky landscape all around us and half shell-shocked from the incident in the village.
Eventually, I look over my shoulder to see the village has retreated from view.
‘So, where’s this campsite then?’ I ask, turning to look ahead. I can’t see any signs of life, it’s just red mountains and desert dunes.
‘He said to just follow the road,’ Will explains.
‘But I can’t see anything,’ I point out, squinting into the distance.
‘That’s because there are mountains. It’s probably obscured behind them. Once we’re around this bend, I’m sure we’ll see it,’ Will insists, looking down the road, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun.
‘Okay!’ I reply, as we continue down the road.
We walk for another ten or twenty minutes more, but the road remains desolate. Eventually, the rocky landscape gives way to desert. It’s beautiful – a vast expanse of sandy dunes that glow golden in the bright light, and for a moment, I’m silent, awestruck by the landscape, which is the kind of thing I’ve only ever seen before in films. Then the wonder passes, and I’m left with the dawning realisation that there is no campsite in sight. Not one.
‘Will …’ I grumble.
‘Yes?’ he replies in a small voice, slowly tearing his eyes away from the scenery towards me.
‘Where is the campsite?’ I ask in a clear calm voice that belies the frustration building inside me.
‘Erm … I thought it would be here,’ Will replies, looking puzzled.
‘Where?’ I ask.
‘Around here,’ Will says, gesticulating around him.
‘I don’t see a any signs of life, Will,’ I utter, taking in the rolling dunes and the dusty baking ground stretching on as far as the eye can see. ‘Let alone a campsite!’
‘Hmm … Well, that’s odd,’ Will replies, scratching his head. ‘It should have been here.’
‘What the hell?’ I gawp. ‘You sound like you’ve misplaced your sun cream or something! Will, this is serious! We’ve been walking for ages and there’s no village in sight! We’re in the middle of nowhere.’
‘It’s fine!’ Will chirps. ‘We’ll just walk back.’
‘To the village where we’ll probably get arrested?’ I balk.
‘Erm …’ Will scratches his head, looking out to the desert as though for a solution.
‘Oh my God,’ I sigh, flopping down onto a nearby boulder. ‘I thought you were listening to that guy when you asked for instructions.’
‘I was listening,’ Will insists. ‘But I guess I got a bit distracted when you got mugged by a monkey.’
‘What are we going to do?’ I groan, fanning my increasingly sweaty face with my hand. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere. With no water.’
‘We’re not exactly going to die out here, Natalie. We’re a mile or two away from the village,’ Will points out.
‘Yeah, I guess they’ll at least have water at the police station,’ I sulk.
Will laughs weakly.
The sun has sunk lower in the sky and is no longer as blisteringly bright as before. Its light has tinged to a golden glow. It’s beautiful and I can’t help thinking how nice it would be to be riding a camel right now through the Atlas Mountains. Instead, I
’m sitting on a boulder, feeling hot and thirsty, in the middle of nowhere.
‘What are we going to do?’ I sigh.
‘Let’s just sit down for a minute and then decide,’ Will replies.
‘So much for our epic adventure!’ I joke.
‘Ha. Well, we did make it off the beaten track. Literally.’
I laugh, when suddenly the sound of hooves distracts me. I look up to see two Berber men riding down the path on camels. Their eyes widen when they see me and Will – two flustered tourists sweating on a boulder, far off the tourist track. We must look like quite a sight.
‘As-salāmu ‘alaykum,’ they say as they approach.
‘As-salāmu ‘alaykum,’ we echo, smiling awkwardly. What is the etiquette for running into two men riding camels in the middle of the desert?
‘Are you lost?’ The older-looking man asks in a heavily accented voice. I’m impressed that even in the most remote part of Morocco, people still speak English. He’s probably around the same age as me and Will, although he’s missing a few teeth.
Will looks a little embarrassed. It no doubt hurts his male pride that he was unable to navigate his way to the campsite.
‘A bit,’ Will admits, before explaining that we were heading to the tourist campsite but managed to somehow end up here. He leaves out the bit about running around in a panic because we thought we were going to get rumbled by the police after a monkey mugging.
‘I see.’ The man nods. ‘The village you are looking for is a long way from here,’ he says.
‘Oh, right.’ Will glances at me, looking embarrassed.
‘It is that way,’ he says, pointing far off across the horizon.
Will and I both squint into the distance but we can’t see anything.
‘You cannot go by foot. It’s a long way,’ the man tells us.
‘How far?’ Will asks.
‘Too far to walk,’ the man replies. ‘Why were you going there?’
I explain about visiting the Atlas Mountains and camping, feeling a little embarrassed to be making such a novelty out of what is probably daily life for these Berber men.