Part 1 of who knows how many:

Okay, Okay, Ngaire, dearest – I am in fact not dead or absent from this cruise, merely slothful. When one has mojitos and caipirinhas to drink at the pool bar (made by Alfonso, whom we have renamed “Mojito Boy” in view of how much some of us enjoy watching him make those labor-intensive drinks - calm down, Karen, we will give no further prurient details), long breakfasts, lunches, afternoon teas, and, of course, marvelous dinners, to eat, and many languorous naps to take, there seems to be little time to spend at the keyboard of our laptop. Nevertheless, I will not let the side down and will crank out a few comments, observations, and other more-or-less relevant bits from my somewhat hung-over stream of consciousness. Pat has already posted much about our impressions and special memories. I will try to supplement those messages somewhat, perhaps adding my own addled spin to them.

As you may have guessed from Pat’s posts, in our memory banks this trip will certainly be renamed, “GOATS”. Unless something overwhelmingly dramatic occurs before we land at FLL in a couple of days (i.e. iceberg collision a la Titanic…), our two adventures with goats will remain the unusual highlights of the trip. That encounter with dozens of sweet and affectionate chevres, followed by the delightful feast outside the farmhouse while looking across the hills to the sea, was right out of the pages of “A Year in Provence”. We will long savor the visual and gustatory memories of the large wicker tray heavily laden with that bounty of goat cheeses. By the end of the lunch, it was in fact far less heavily laden – hey, if you have to choose one of the seven deadly sins in which to indulge, gluttony is one of the most fun, no??

The second goat encounter, the tree-climbing goats on the Road to Taroudant (I’m thinking of writing a song about the “Road to Taroudant”, if I can convince Willy Nelson or some other over-the-hill Moroccan C&W crooner to sing it…), was equally memorable, if not quite as satisfying culinarily. The image of Kathy being handed that baby goat by the goatherd is a memory as sweet as the recollection of Pat’s aghast expression when the goatherd offered to let him inspect one of the excreted argon nuts is hilarious. The gentleness and amiability of the tree-climbers was utterly (and udderly) entrancing. It is a bit unfortunate that another group of LCTers who also visited the goats were a bit less engaged with the goats, based on some concern that they might bite (ah, city folk just don’t seem to understand the innate friendliness of goats). As it turned out, they (the goats, not the LCTers) may have tried to nuzzle us to death, but never bared their teeth even for an instance.

Many people on the ship have complained that Regent should not even make stops at Agadir, since it is such a dreary city. Of course, our hardy group of LCTers who do their “due diligence” know that while Agadir is indeed a city of scant appeal, there are exotic delights within a moderate drive, such as Taroudant, whose old city is a real view into Moroccan markets, not to mention the opportunity to see the tree-climbing goats on the way there. Our lunch at the hotel Palais Salaam, the former palace of the Grand Pasha of Taroudant, was a whimsical respite from the heat and dust of the old city, as we wandered the cool gardens and ate beside fountains whose tender music banished all of the noise and bothersome details of life outside the high walls of our little haven of flowers, fountains, tile, and carved marble. As Groucho Marx said in his famous book of advice on living well, “If you got to choose between being a Pasha and a pauper, go for Pasha every time!!”

(Time for the Country Fair on the Pool Deck – to be continued) Cheers, Fred