Notes and Learnings From a Solo Break in Morocco

Some mathematician or statistician or simply mere cynic once hypothesized that if you put enough monkeys in a room with enough typewriters, paper and of course time - they'll eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare. (They may have also written the complete works of Jeffrey Archer along the way but the Baboons ate it).

The Monkeys are chattering.

If you sit quietly, alone, at peace for long enough the random words, ideas and chaos theory in your head will form a few gems of their own. Not sonnets or three act history plays I grant you, but flickers of potential. There is order in that noise or at least there's the chance to make some sense of the noise that's always there. Enjoy that.
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Never trust a city that's painted in one colour. Especially when that colour is orange salmon.

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Look proudly back at the maitre ‘d when they question your table for one.
“Oui. Moi. Seulement.”
If you know the French for, ‘You got a problem with that?” use it.
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Stray cats that join you for dinner are probably ordered to by the management.
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Souks are designed to keep western white trash in there. When a teenager offers to lead you out of there PAY HIM.
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It’s better to ride a horse on the beach at sundown than a camel. Some how, “I rode off into the sunset on a camel," doesn’t have the same anecdotal zing to it.

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If you find yourself in a restaurant ‘annex’ with 15 elderly Norwegians all carrying copies of Mao’s Little Red Book you probably HAVE stepped into a David Lynch Movie.
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Khallini is one of the most useful Arabic phrases you will ever learn.

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Spending two hours genuinely looking for a hearing aid, to make the professional local hasslers think you are deaf, is a fruitless task. An Ipod kind of does the same trick. Apple should advertise it that way.

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You wake up on the beach naturally with low blood sugar, dreaming of a Twix bar. A passing trader sells you what look like innocent sweet cakes. You should have read between the lines when he mysteriously called them, ‘sweet and spicy’. You quickly realise why you haven’t done this since college.

BBC World however is very funny for the following hour.

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“Realtionship Chasm Spread Bet SMS” – A new game we can all play. Pick a couple at dinner who seemingly haven’t spoken for months. After a brief description friends SMS back guessing how long it takes before they have any meaningful conversation. “Mmm try this”, “Are you sure Gary” and “Desert dear?” Are not meaningful conversations.
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Bad scripts from bad books can't be doctored no matter how hard you try. Sitting by the pool to work won't help.

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One of the sweetest things you will ever observe. Two twenty something drunken Brits go late night skinny dipping, in a Muslim country, watched by a fairly disapproving group of local men. As the Brits pass the breakers one of the locals runs over to their clothes and bundles them up. The Brits come splashing back, resembling black cabs on speed ramps. The local dumps the clothes five feet back, saving them from the incoming tide.