sun, food and bad manners – first published 7 & 8 August 2012

Holidays are about relaxing and a little indulgence. So far on our 2012 Moroccan adventure the heat had killed my appetite but, unfortunately, this didn’t last and there was a little overindulgence. Some of it was accidental.

7 August 2012

Today we had a lazy day. At lunchtime we accidentally had a huge meal. The sandwich we decided to grab at the pool bar turned out to be a giant affair with chips and a big mound of some kind of coleslaw type salad. I couldn’t eat it all but I had a reasonable try.

When it came to our evening meal we decided to share a small pizza at Camel Cafe as neither of us really wanted much. Then Commando wanted desert so, we chose a desert to share, thinking it wouldn’t be too big that way. We didn’t know what it was going to be because it was just called Camel Special Desert. Obviously there wasn’t going to be any actual camel in it, we were pretty confident of that much.

When it came is was humongous. A giant plate filled with stuff. At first we weren’t actually sure what the stuff was as it was drizzled with some kind of chocolate sauce. On closer inspection it turned out to be sliced bananas and apples wrapped in a kind of crepe with three mini dishes of ice cream, strawberry, chocolate and vanilla.
‘”It’s basically fruit apart from the ice cream and the crepes,” I told Commando.
“Chocolate sauce isn’t fruit,” he pointed out.
“It sort of is,” I said. “Chocolate is a bean, the bean grows in a fruit, therefore it’s more or less a fruit.”
That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. Thinking about it, using the same logic, coffee is also a fruit.

8 August 2012

Commando came back from his run this morning and confirmed that the nice pool man had left towels on our sun beds just like he said he would. Yesterday he came over and spoke to us. He recognised us from last May and told us not to worry about getting loungers every day, he would put towels down for us each morning. Obviously we will give him a few Dirhams for his trouble but I don’t think this is the whole reason he offered. Unlike some of the guests, we are always polite, we smile and we say please and thank you, or in this case min fadlik and shukran.

Unfortunately not all guests are as polite. At breakfast this morning we were unlucky enough to witness an almost comical case of rudeness. The couple sitting next to us were Russian, we could tell from their sporadic conversation. The woman sat eating crepes with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp. She called the waiter because she wanted something but, as she was speaking Russian, couldn’t make herself understood. Commando thought it might be salt and pepper and helpfully held ours out towards her. She just scowled at him and carried on shouting at the waiter. Eventually, she got up angrily, walked about four steps to the waiter’s station, pointed at a pile of serviettes then went and sat back down. The waiter smiled and brought her over some serviettes, winking at Commando as he did so.

Better our way I think, smile, be polite, engage in conversation and make friends. I’m sure we enjoy our holidays much more that way and we certainly learn more about the culture and the people of the countries we visit.

After breakfast I went for another walk down to The Marina. This time I explored it a bit more thoroughly and also managed to speak to one of the waiters at Le Quay, the restaurant Hollie recommended yesterday, to check if we needed reservations or not. Apparently not. It looks very nice and I’m quite looking forward to Commando’s birthday on Thursday when we will be eating there.

The walk took about an hour so I guess that’s a good few calories burnt off. Pretty good job too because we spent the rest of the day on the sun beds, only moving to have lunch at Mackie D’s on the promenade. This was to satisfy Commando’s need to eat at a McDonalds in every country we visit. Although we’ve been to Morocco many times we’ve never had a Moroccan McDonalds. I have to report that it was exactly the same as every other Big Mac I’ve ever eaten.

This morning the sea mist took quite a while to clear and Commando was getting a bit annoyed at not getting his fair share of holiday sun. Even so, I have managed to get a tad pink in places so I’ve left him down by the pool while I come up to the room to have a rest from it all. I’m not as good at sunshine as he is, being fair skinned. I had an ice cream from the amazing Glacerie to cool myself down. They have so many different kinds it’s a tough decision on which to have. In the end I went for bounty, sort of bounty bars crushed up into ice cream and, of course, chocolate. I know it’s bad but I am on holiday after all. I’ll probably regret it when I get on the scales on Monday though.

We ate at the hotel tonight and Commando indulged in a half bottle of wine. I didn’t, I’m not really much of a drinker at the best of times and in the heat doubly so. It was a buffet style meal and Commando proved how he can really tuck it away by eating enough to feed a small country. How does he do that and stay so slim, it’s so unfair? I had a salad with a little cheese and salami followed by chicken cooked in a tagine with a few vegetables. I did, however, succumb to the huge selection of deserts, all tasty little bite sized morsels so tempting you wanted to try each one (I think Commando did). I had five little things on my plate but, once I’d eaten a little macaroon thing, a chocolate mouse thing and half a kind of lemony thing, all tiny squares no more than a mouthful each, I couldn’t eat the rest. I think I went into sugar overload after that because I felt quite sick.