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Hello! I hope you are enjoying the summer back home. I have to say that even though it's supposed to be dry heat here, it still feels very humid. I can tell we are in the desert because soaking wet clothes dry within an hour! Kelly and I spent our last night hanging out with some British tourists and some locals. We had some really good talks about the differences in our cultures. They said it can be very difficult for them to travel because they are Muslim and everyone assumes that they are terrorists. We also talked a lot about why the women cover. It was a great learning experience.

We then spent a few days in Marrakesh before heading to the Sahara desert. Marrakesh is much more fast paced than Essaouria. We spent some time looking for souveniers, but the bartering here can be exhausting. They gave us prices that we knew were ridiculous, but had to go through the "no, I will pay only this" until they chased us down the street saying, "Ok! Ok! Final price"! It took forever to buy one thing and since it was 110 degress it actually kept me from buying a few things that I wanted. There is a huge medina in the middle of the city and that is where our hotel was. We splurged for a hotel with a pool and it was so nice! It's not easy to find a place to swim here, as you can imagine. The medina can be a little overwhelming with people everywhere trying to sell tourists things and give us brochures. If we denied them we heard some nasty, but quite funny remarks. In addition to the touks were snake charmers, orange juice stands, women giving henna tatoos, tons of remedy spices, and street performers.

From Marrakesh we took a 3 day tour to the Sahara. It was so amazing! We visited a few Berber villages and learned about their culture. We walked through the huge stone structures that encapsule their town and saw how they make rugs and they served us mint tea. We were told that when a man proposes marriage to a woman she responds yes or no by how much sugar she puts in the tea that she serves to the family. If it is very sweet, she accepts. Can you imagine?? He also said that there are rugs for sale, but they "don't push like George Bush". We had to laugh! During the one hour tour, we left our water bottle in the van. When we got back to the van I tried to take a sip and I swear I could have made hot tea with it. We had a laughing attack about it for some reason! We stayed at a hotel in a tiny town next to a gorge. I met a little pup that I REALLY wanted to take home with me. His paw was broken and he was all muddy, but he was so friendly and jumpy. Since I knew I couldn't take him with me I made sure he had a full belly by feeding him tons of chicken that they served us for dinner. I named him Lucky because I'm hopeful that his luck will change soon.

Finally, we arrived to the Sahara and to the CAMELS! I couldn't believe my eyes! There are enourmous mountains of smooth, coral colored sand everywhere...it is so beautiful! My camel's name was Bob and Kelly's was Marley. We both had really sweet camels. We rode them with the 12 other people from our tour (they were a mix from the Netherlands, France, Spain, Morocco, and Canada) for an hour and a half. I mean, 90 minutes of heading straight into the desert...Literally, we were in the middle of nowhere with only mountains of gorgeous colored sand...mixed with some huge black and white spiders, but we won't talk about that :) We came upon our tent site that were several half-ass looking tents in the middle of the Sahara. The leaders cooked us a traditional Moroccan meal of Tajine in the candlelite outside under the stars. Then they lined up 14 sleeping pads on a huge rug outside for us to sleep. You should have seen Kelly and I mummied up in our sleep sacks regardless of the heat (remember the spiders). We woke at sunrise and rode the camels back to town for breakfast. I have to say that it was one of the most memorable experiences of all of my travels! I just loved the camels and the mountains of sand.

The tour usually heads back to Marrakesh, but Kelly and I decided to head to a city called Fes so that we could get to the Atlas mountains to a town called Chefchaouan. There is only 1 bus at 8pm from this hot desert, so we shared a grand taxi zith 4 Spainards for the 8 hour drive to Fes. Have you ever ridden in a front seat with another person? It was a long, hot 8 hours. It would have been much shorter, but our driver was going half the speed limit and driving in the wrong gear. I wanted to push the driver out of his seat and drive the car myself, but all we could do was laugh because we were delirious from heat and hunger and lack of sleep. We finally arrived to Fes and asked the right person where we could get pizza and beer. He told a taxi driver where to take us (alcohol is technically illegal, but some places sell it) and an hour later we were full with cold drinks on a terrace.

Tommorrow morning we will catch a bus to Chefchaouan where we will relax for a few days. Thanks for all of the comments!!!

Lots of love,
Nikki

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