My tan having ‘done a runner’ after the 5 hour white knuckle drive over the mountains, and the rest of me, being too fragile to consider moving from the bland luxury hotel I find myself in, I settle for the comfort of familiarity. Taps that work and surly (hands extended for the obligatory tip), room service. My intent for the final 10 days is to retrieve it – the tan that is.
I am not a lover of luxury hotels. They are all the same. Same square rooms – large double bed (useful if you’re travelling solo), dressing table with its ‘fat’ mirror, mini bar, balcony, bathroom (with sachets of multi purpose washing up liquid for the bath or your hair), hair dryer…HAIR DRYER!!! My hair hasn’t seen a hair dryer in 3 weeks! The excitement instantly dispelled by the discovery that the bathroom too has a ‘fat’ mirror.
When will shops and hotels realise that it is in their best interests (if they want repeat business) to install ‘skinny’ mirrors?
As one who hates shopping of any kind, it really annoys me when they put ‘fat’ mirrors in changing rooms. Do they want me to buy this little black number? There is no way I have that much cellulite and my knees are NOT that flabby.
That’s the another thing about luxury hotels, people feel they have to dress as if they were going to a film premier in Cannes.
The breakfast slaves greet me with a look that says “She’s wearing the same thing – again – cheapskate”.
I’ll have you know I have 4 pairs of these very comfortable Thai black trousers and 6 of these tops, which are very modest. They are NOT the same as yesterdays (I could only get away with that in the real Africa). I have showered put perfume on AND I have dried my hair!
Bland luxury hotels are not conducive to writing, they have no soul. Bling in abundance, marble everywhere – but no soul. Bland luxury hotels are places to see and be seen. Daily a fresh cargo arrives, German, Spanish, French, Italian and (ghastly) English. All intent on finding something to complain about; the holiday having cost “a fair few bob”(in any language) and “I want me money’s worth”.
So they complain.
“The mini fridge is not working”.
“There are not enough sun loungers”.
“Why do I have to pay for a safe?”
“ Not like an English/Spanish/Italian/German/French breakfast is it?”
NO, OF COURSE IT’S NOT! IT’S AFRICA!
They are met in the foyer by their jaded tour rep who promises them a day of delight in the souk and a camel ride, and patiently listens to their drivelling diarrhoea. He smiles with benign resignation – he heard it all yesterday.
They have come to Africa, but they don’t really want Africa, they want the illusion. They want tick boxes so they can go home and tell everyone what a wonderful time they had, how they “really saw Africa”.
Of course they didn’t – see Africa that is. You have to live in Africa to see it, not stay in a hotel that far outranks your home in Florence/ Lille/Munich/Barcelona or Leeds. You could be anywhere.
The reality is they want to watch the footie on the wide screen in the bar, they want to complain about the service (like they’re used to any kind of service).
They want to spend their days haggling, with ‘foreign’ money for crap in the souk, manufactured in China and twice as expensive as Camden market.
They want to ride on flea ridden, gobbing camels so they can imagine themselves to be Lawrence ofArabia.
They want to flirt with the sweet smelling, brown eyed Arabs so they can say they had a romantic adventure and “I could have run off with a sheik you know”.
Trust me ladies, Mohamed will be offering a ‘good time’ to the next cargo of desperate housewives before you have even hit the Easy Jet departure lounge.
As I stretch out by the pool, having done the breakfast buffet battle and bribed the pool man for the last sun lounger (my reward for this being malicious looks from the armies of every european nationality still waiting for a lounger), I fondly imagine myself to look like the 20 something, golden tanned, pert breasted, flat stomached, long necked thing in the pink bikini on the other side of the pool.
I don’t of course – look like the goddess in the pink bikini – if nothing else, I am a realist.
How can a neck tan like a road map? Criss crossing narrow white lines (a bit like the mountain roads) scarring across angry, red – nay purple, inflamed flesh. I am the Christmas turkey – the very old Christmas turkey.
Bat wings flapping, I plop onto my front – SQUELCH – surely my arse must look a bit better? Well at least I don’t have to look at it.
As I bury myself in Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, trying to push out the now reality of it, I wish for a different world. A world where consumerism has little importance, a world where keeping up with the neighbours means nothing, a world where just ‘being’ is what counts.
Fond though I am of the chaos in the Medina, the hustle and bustle of commerce, the motor bikes over laden with sacks of something green, the glorious maze that is the souk – I wish I was back in Taroudant.