SAHARA-FEZ

I am nearly at a loss for words as I attempt to write to you about my most recent experience in Morocco. In actuality, it was one of the best trips I have ever taken in my life, and one of the craziest. Our group sat on a bus for 60 hours within a span 6 days, camped in the middle of the Sahara desert, rode camels, and visited a traditional medina or market in Fez, the third largest city in Morocco. Despite my hesitance at my ability to communicate my sentiments to you, I shall begin back in Granada, at 3am on Sunday morning, because this is where our trip began. When I say that we spent 60 hours on a bus in 6 days, I am in no way exaggerating. While to some this may seem…like a good way to ruin the desire to travel FOREVER, to me, it was fabulous. Sixty hours yes, but those hours were spent sleeping, watching movies, having amazing conversations, and in the company of 45 college students, who for the most part, love the idea of a crazy adventure in Morocco just as much as I. So with this in mind, we headed for Gibraltar, to take a ferry to AFRICA. After 2 hours at the border, we crossed into giant fields and hills of the unexplored country. Shepards, sheep, goats, dogs and cattle, dotted the irregularly tiled fields, along with women in head coverings, and the occasional donkeys that plowed as the farmers sowed behind them. Ironically the lushness of northern morocco surpassed that of Andalusia. Only the south of the country is dry. The next day we spent walking around the market in Fez. The medina is one of the largest in the entire country, has about 6,000 streets without any sort of pattern or grid, and is equipped with the same commodities and methods of production as existed 2,000 years ago. Wet stones were run by feet peddles as men sharpened knives, giant vats of black and red dye sat in rusty metal barrels as the others waited to stain globs of spun wool, bloody sheep heads sat next to live snails and dead fish, huge straw baskets overflowed with olives of all different colors, rugs shops presented colorful hand-woven carpets with brilliant designs and shades, and tanners ran up and down the honeycombed lime and tar basins pulling freshly skinned hides from the tubs and drying them under straw roofs.
The next day we submitted to yet another long and admittedly, at times laborious, bus ride to the desert. We stopped at an oasis to have lunch and continued our drive towards the southern part of the country. When we were about an hour out of our campsite, we all got into 4x4 jeeps and drove (off-road) into the desert. The campsite was legit…like out of a movie…like really crazy…like sand dunes exist. We slept in tents made from wooden poles and giant Berber rugs. SO CRAZY. We woke up the next morning to see the sun rise over the sand dunes; it was an unreal experience. The sky was pink and purple and orange and yellow all at the same time. The sand was a lighter color orange but changed color shades based on the point of the sun in the sky. It rose over the dunes as if they were mountains, and was immediately inescapable as soon as it rose fully at about 6:15. The temperature began to change rapidly, and the sweatshirts and layers that had clothed us in the evening were exchanged for shorts and tank tops. We met the locals, hiked up sand dunes, played with the young kids, rode camels into a pueblo, got a Berber carpet demonstration, ate, learned how to play bongos and write Arabic letters, and got henna flowers tattooed on our hands and feet. Although we were obviously all tourists, the hospitality and kindness that we were shown by the Berbers made us feel apart of the town. We had a huge dance party that evening with traditional music and musicians. I felt like I learned so much just by sitting and talking to the people, listening to their stories and sharing dances and games with them. It was almost out of a movie and almost everyone in our group was content to have this experience with these people that it didn’t even matter how long we had to travel. The country is amazing, the people are wonderful, and it ranks in the top as one of the best trips I have ever taken.

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