Morocco, Pg 7

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Before I go any further I just want to make a few things clear.

Having the journal to work from made a huge difference in putting many pieces of the story together, as well as helping to remember so many almost forgotten details.
There were however as stated earlier, some events weren’t logged and memory does tend to fade a wee bit after forty plus years.

So before I committed to writing the story I put some serious thought into it.
I decided that if was going to go through all the time and effort of writing the story about the most exciting month of our lives, it was important that the events and the details within them be as accurate as possible.

There were some activities I had thoughts about that were not within the pages of the journal.
So when I had a recollection about a specific incident or an event that may not have been logged, or maybe I just had a vague remembrance of an event and was unsure about how it came about, I would then confer with Eve; which I did a number of times.
If we came to roughly the same conclusion, then it was correct.
If we were too far apart about an event or some details, I would just skip it and move on to the next event.
I never wanted any part of the story too come across as artificial or manufactured just to fill a gap, the accuracy was very important to me.

Fortunately there were only a few small incidents that we were too far apart on, and by not including them never really took anything away from the story.

now back to the adventure.

After spending quite a bit of time at the beach we decided to go back to the campground and chill out for a bit.

There were lots of hippies around our end of the compound, people from many parts of the world, several different languages being spoken; but many spoke varying degrees of broken English.
Everyone was going around looking for some hash.
Even though some of the languages weren’t understood by everyone, we all understood the gestures, no one had any hash, at least not that they were willing to part with.

A little while later or maybe the next day, we saw a short Moroccan guy setting up a tent.
We knew that Moroccans weren’t generally allowed into the compound,
so we’re curious how this guy gained entry, we’ll ask around and find out…

Okay… we now know why he was allowed in.

Once he got his ‘store front’ tent all set up he began moving through the compound, clipboard and pen in hand, asking if anyone was interested in buying some Hashish.
Everyone who said yes was given an appointment time with a 15 minute time limit.

Processing everyone that wanted some Hash would probably take a couple of days.
Our appointment was for 9 o’clock tonight.

We went to the bar to have a beer and something to eat. The beer was really good and cold, Stork Pilsner bottled in Casablanca.
We ate ke-bebs, same thing as shish-kabobs, just not such a western sounding name, that’s how they prefer it; so from then on we always referred to them as ke-bebs.

It was getting on to 9 o’clock, time for our appointment.
We all headed on over to the guy’s tent. As we arrived four people were just leaving, they had big smiles on their faces, no surprise there.

The guy invited us in. He said his name was Amon. We went in and sat down, it felt a bit crowded. It was about an eight person tent, but with his stuff in the tent, and seating positions for seven people, that made it feel pretty crowded.

He had a really cool setup. Across the floor at the back of the tent was a carpet with a cushion that he sat on.
Down each side from back to front were two more carpets for his guests to sit on; but no cushions.
Slightly to his rear was a small cassette player, a speaker, and a box of tapes.

On each side of where he sat were medium size duffle bags, and in the top of the tent was a small single light bulb with a plugin for his cassette player.
This guy was no shady dude out behind the bowling alley selling dope.
He conducted himself like a businessman, a real pro; or at least a wannabe pro.

He opened both bags to expose their contents, Holy fuck-WOW!, and I really mean holy fuck-WOW!
Inside each bag were many dozens of nice looking slabs of Hash, each weighing about four ounces. [115 grams] they looked like little chocolate bars; mmm yummy.

He explained the difference between the two grades, one was called “zero”, quite a good grade and modestly priced, the other one is what he said was “the best Hashish the country has to offer”.

It was called “Double Zero” and it cost 25% more than the lesser grade, but it was twice as good. It all looked the same to me, there was no real way to tell the difference just by having a look.
He was really pitching quite hard the difference between the two grades, just like one of those TV commercial snake oil salesmen; like the sham-wow guy. He really wanted us to buy the higher priced hash, of course.
Apart from being a bit pushy, which is part of what salesmanship is all about, and the ability to close the deal; he was a really likeable guy.

I suspected both bags contained the same kind of hash, and his story about two different grades was just the business tactic he used to get you to buy the higher priced hash, while attempting to convince us that you were getting a better deal, and a bigger bang for the buck.

I’m pretty sure that when the Double Zero bag became empty, the other bag of hash would miraculously become the new Double Zero.
His business strategy was an indicator that he wasn’t all that experienced with sales, but we were experienced when dealing with salesmen; especially dope dealers.

For us the bottom line was: we didn’t care about the cost, we were there for the hash, it was all cheap so the money part didn’t matter that much, we just wanted to get high.
And just like almost everyone in the park, if you’re there for the hash you didn’t care about the cash; we were all there on a holiday and not concerned about the price for hash.
Rich man or poor man, it didn’t matter which you were, we were all there for the very same reason.

But, just in case everything he told us about the difference between the two grades was true, we wanted to make sure we got the best hash possible, so we’re going to opt for the Double Zero; just like everyone would.

We had no idea whether it was better hash or not, so we’ll just consider the extra 25% as insurance.
If he was a more experienced salesman he would have brought out just one bag of hash and avoided all the sales bullshit.
Given what he was selling he could have charged whatever he wanted too, and no one would have cared, and everyone could have avoided all the tactical sales nonsense.

Maybe not everyone would have bought the Double Zero.
I’m sure there could have been a few cheapskates in the crowd.
Oh well, different strokes for different folks I guess.

He put on some Doobie Brothers for background music, it was the “Once Vices are Now Habits” tape, awesome; and humorously ironic I thought, given the reason for which we’re in this guys tent in the first place.

Before he would sell us anything he insisted we sample it first.
It was important to him that we knew exactly what we were buying.
Customer satisfaction seemed to be a big deal to him.

He may have seen this selling event as an opportunity to hone his skills, and advance from being just a dope dealer to a high falooten businessman; but still just a dope dealer; perhaps up a rung or two on the ladder

He had a container with little 90 degree clay pipe fittings. He fit them onto the end of long hollow wooden stems that he called sebsis, assembled it’s just a hash pipe.
Into each bowl he put a small chunk of hash, enough for two really good tokes.
because that’s all you needed


This Double Zero hash really kicked our ass. Major head tripping, lips sticking to your teeth, tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth, very hard to work up enough saliva so you could even talk or swallow. All signs of good hash.
This was all part of the holy fuck-WOW! factor.

Al bought a small chunk. Mel and I split on a couple of ounces, and Ron, he would have bought a chunk for sure; just another one of the details that didn’t get logged, and I couldn’t remember for sure.

Amon told us that currently, ‘this quality of hash was only available in Morocco, only the other grades were subject to transport out of the country’, but who knows and who cares. All we cared about was scoring some good hash, and did we ever.
good hash…thanks man

Our 15 minute time limit was now over and we had to leave as the next clients were arriving. We went back to the bar for a drink, we needed to wet our mouths so we could swallow and talk.

Now hydrated we went back to our site and just sat in the tent and had a few more tokes, didn’t really need it, but we had it so we’re smoking it.

I remember thinking, WOW, wouldn’t our friends back home love to smoke some of this hash. CLICK…….the idea light in my head just turned on and ah…um…um…ah… fucking hell, I’ve lost my train of thought;… yes you did Joe;
oh yeah man, I’m really fucking high.

It was getting late, most campers have had their appointment, the rest will get coverage tomorrow. We got our hash and now it’s time to crash, but not everyone did.
For the part of the night that I can remember all you could hear were muffled happy coughs, they came from all over the compound, even from the rich European area, it was funny, we laughed about it.
After smoking Double Zero we were laughing about everything.

Sleep finally came.

Up early the next morning, went for showers and breakfast. The girls are off to do a laundry in a sink with a built in scrub board, old time laundry, no washers and dryers here.
After a bit of a smoke fest we went back to the beach to hang out for most of the day to have some playtime fun.

Eve and I decided we’d had enough sun and fun for the day and headed back to the compound. Along the way we ran into a couple of Canadians, a guy and girl from Alberta.
They had a van and had been travelling around Europe and north Africa since September.
We hung out and chatted for awhile about how nice it was to run into fellow Canadians. We exchanged a few stories about some of the places we had all been. We all had a few laughs but now it was time to split, the couple left and we went back to our tent.

When the rest of the gang got back we decided to go out to one of the local dining spots for dinner.

We wanted something different than fried potatoes and ke-bebs at the bar. We asked Amon the dealer if we could take him out for dinner, he accepted.
We didn’t know where to go, but we knew he did. He took us to a nice little bistro.
When we went in he asked us to wait for just a minute while he went to talk to the proprietor.

They spoke briefly, then the proprietor went into a back room and within in a few seconds a half dozen men came out, they either left or sat somewhere else in the main room.
We were then escorted into the back room which had a pleasant sweet aroma of hashish lingering in the air.
The overall look of the rooms interior gave me another one of those Arabian nights vibe.

Along the walls were large sofas, carved benches, also several big stuffed cushions scattered all around the room, there were also several carpets and wall mounted tapestries, it also had a table that was half the length of the room, maybe eight or nine feet long with very short legs;
but not a chair in the room.

To eat, you could fill your plate and sit on one of the benches and hold the plate on your lap, too awkward and uncomfortable.
But as the table was made for floor use we opted for cushions and floor, it was quite comfortable.
This style had a definite feel that we were dining in a Bedouin’s tent somewhere out in the desert; all that was missing was the sand.
This whole scene is so cool, I’m absolutely loving the vibe.

There was six or maybe seven for dinner, again, depending on whether Ron was still with us; which I believe he was.
Although Ron spent a few days with us, he was still quite the loner, and inconspicuous most of the time.
It was quite easy now to see why he was travelling alone. He wasn’t comfortable around people, not at all.

However, our group dinner tonight seemed to be the only time in the three days he was with us that he appeared to be genuinely enjoying being together with us, and having an excellent and fun time.

There must have been enough to feed at least ten or twelve or people; they were also very generous with the portion size. There were trays of local cuisine consisting of: couscous, chicken and lamb Tajine, figs, dates, ke-bebs, a variety of cooked and raw vegetables, baskets of bread, orange Fanta and mint tea; this was so awesome.

They brought the food to us in alternating courses so we would have a variety of hot and cold dishes throughout the entire dinner. The treatment we received made us feel almost like royalty.
We were blown away by their incredible hospitality.
One of my thoughts at this event was, the people in Casablanca could sure learn a lesson in courtesy and respect from the people in Agadir.

We ate what seemed like a ton of food, smoked a shit load of hash and laughed our asses off the whole time. This was an amazing dinner event, and in the end it cost about $20 for everything.
they got a good tip

What a fantastic meal and an unforgettable night. We’re all tired now, it’s time to crash out and have pleasant dreams about the start of a beautiful new day tomorrow….

oh yeah man this is really good Hash….

page #7

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