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I have switched gears and jumped to another continent, I am now writing to you from Africa. The initial plan was to work my way through Europe and take the Trans Siberian railway to Beijing, but a combination of the cold weather in the north and European cities not really sparking my interest made me head south. I had no intentions of heading to Morocco but as I started to hear stories from everyone, it began to intrigue me. I flew in with no expectations and was a little confused with trying to understand the country in the begining. Its not like any other place I've seen. To sum it all up in one sentence it would be one of the most developed countries in Africa, with French being the main language, alcohol being somewhat obsolete, rich but poor at the same time. a strong Islamic presence, and a mixture of Middle Eastern, African, and European Culture.
I started in the main city of Marrakech, it is a modern day labyrinth. Even though all the hostels give you directions on how to get there and maps are free everywhere, it is still impossible to navigate. You have to pay a
local to walk you to the door of where your staying or you wont find it. The first few days in the city was spent relaxing in the hostel and understand the way of life here. In every city you go to there is a massive PA system that echoes across the entire the city, it announces a prayer call five times a day that can be heard from anywhere. It's so out of the ordinary that I thought it was some sort of evacuation signal when I first heard it. In Marrakesh your constantly surprised when you walk around. On one of my first walks exploring the city I had a unanticipated cobra and monkey thrown on me, I found out after I had a cobra rapped around my head that they do this in hopes of you taking a picture and giving them money. I've learnt to walk a certain way here, you have to scan the crowds and avoid the monekys, snake charmers, donkey carts, and leather gypsies trying to scam you. The first few days I wandered into the world famous souk here, Its the biggest market in Africa and contains some of the most bizarre
things. There is no order or organization of the stalls here, its just chaos with people yelling in Arabic, French, English, and Spanish. The deeper you get lost into the souk the more interesting things you start to see. I've seen many different cities in countries all over but here I truly felt like I was in another world.
Once I started to understand the customs and norms here I decided it was time to leave the city and experience some of the country a bit more. I met a group of Brazilians and we booked a trip in the Sahara desert right near the border of Algeria. We all hopped in a minibus and left the city into the mountains. It was a 12 hour drive of twists and turns through the mountains, with there being hardly any guard rails I was a little anxious when the dirver started to yell in arabic on his phone as he took the turns one handed down the mountain. We stopped in a few villages along the way and I began to understand Morocco a little more. Its a relatively safe country and the people are externally hospitable, nearly every local
you meet invites you for tea and just wants to talk to you more. After crossing the Atlas mountains we started to hit a very barren landscape and you could tell we were getting closer to the desert.
We stopped at another the village and walked through a traditional Berber house and Casbah. Our guide explained that this village has been used for shooting some major films like Prince of Persia, Gladiator, and they were just cleaning up set from a shooting a few weeks ago for the TV show Game of Thrones. After a full days travel we rested in a Casbah and prepared for the desert in the morning. Approaching the sand dunes in the morning was similar to seeing a mountain range, they look really small from a distance but as we got closer they kept getting bigger and bigger. The endless peaks of golden colored dunes were exactly how I pictured the Sahara desert. We arrived at the foot of the desert and traded our van for camels and had desert nomads start leading us to their camp.
There are certain moments when travelling that are just unforgettable, the ones that are incredible
and lifetime goals. Its these moments that make the tedious bus rides, bad weather, and dirty living conditions all worth it. Trekking into the Sahara with a group of camels while the sun was setting over the dunes was one of these moments. I can try to describe what it was like but Id only be able to paint a fraction of the experience.
We continued on the camels into the desert and arrived at the Berber (dessert nomads) camp in time for a traditional tagine dish for dinner and Moroccan style music around the fire. After the music died down we hiked up a massive dune to check out the stars. The height of the dune was deceiving and after about 35 minutes of walking up in the sand we got to what felt like the top of the world. The moon glared across the dessert and illuminated the dunes. We sat up there for most of the night in complete isolation from the rest of world and watched the stars.
My first week in Morocco was up there with one of my best weeks travelling so far. Morocco is more of my style compared to
Europe. It’s not just the country itself but it’s the type of travellers you meet as well, it’s a much different crowd than Europe, and I’ve already met some of the most interesting people here. The country is so out of the ordinary that it turns you life upside down, you forget what’s normal, you become so lost in the culture that you give up trying to understand everything and just enjoy it. I’ve only seen a fraction of the country but I can already tell this is my kind of place and I may be here for alittle while to come.
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