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Published: April 14th 2008
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yeah, it´s the flag from there Morocco, or as I used to spell with a bonus ¨r¨, Morrocco, was an entirely different universe. The trip was a 6 day whirlwind of different foods, old cities, arabic, sand, camels, and seemingly countless bus trips.
the very first thing that got me after the ferry ride when we were in Tangiers was the writing. It was weird first getting to Sevilla and seeing stuff in Spanish and then in Barcelona when stuff was in Catalan. However, Arabic takes the cake since they dont even use the alphabet. It pretty much looks like either doodles or a series of lower case i´s and j´s with the occasional random semicolon. you have no idea what you´re looking at. from tangiers we drove to rabat for lunch which was better than i expected. it was like a weird salsa for a salad and then some bread, chicken, egg thing topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar. after we the kasbah and royal mausaleum. then we drove towards fez and stopped to see some monkeys. they were the same kind of monkeys as gibraltar but i took a lot more pictures this time since i had my better camera back.
probably the
coca cola in morocco
arabic writing is so weird coolest part of the trip was the desert. first off, we got to the hotel in land rovers that drove through the desert where there was no roads at night. when it was going on it was hard to believe that these guys actually knew where they were going and we had no common language with the vast majority of the people in the country which made things even more interesting. at the hotel we had big meals of cus cus and different kinds of spiced meats and all kinds of crazy stuff that i don´t really know what it was most of the time. there were these local guides that stayed with our group during the time in the desert and were always playing drums and singing which was actually really cool. after a night in the hotel, we loaded up on our camels to head out to the oasis for a night.
camels are fun to ride for about 10 minutes, after that it´s tolerable for a little while, and then just painful. i´ll try not to get too detailed but i can think of numerous unpleasent things that i would choose to do before having to
the kasbah
in rabat, cool fortress, palace deal ride a camel for 2 hours again. the dunes were really cool. it was crazy just to do a 360 and all you see is sand all around you. at the oasis there were a bunch of tents that we slept in but first there was a huge dune next to our little campsite that we all decided to climb. when i say ¨dune¨think like decently sized hill, this one was essentially a small mountain of sand that took about 45 minutes to climb and there were numerous breaks along the way. it would have been easier if as you climbed the sand didn´t slide down making you do twice the work for half the distance you climb. when we were at the top the view was insane. our guides pointed into the distance and said that we could see into algeria from where we were. there was just small dunes all around us and the dunes that were the size of hills when we were on the camels looked like tiny little ripples on water. there´s really no picture or words that could capture what it was like on top of the dune. you kind of have to be
cool street
in rabat, after the kasbah before the mausaleum there to understand it. while we were on top just chilling the sand started to blow and we were essentially in a sandstorm on top of a mountain of sand. we figured out if you just stood up the sand would only hit your legs and it was only wind above that. it was a crazy sensation. we probably spent 2 or 3 hours just chilling on top of the dune. dinner that night was the first time the food got to me. after that i had to eat bland stuff for about the next 4 or 5 days including once i got back.
after the desert our bodies and gear was all full of sand until we got back, too. we went to fez to tour the medina which was really cool. it was essentially a giant old maze of buildings where about 350,000 people live. it felt like barrio santa cruz in sevilla but 10 times as confusing and 100 times the size. we went to a factory where they made and sold rugs that were amazing but also amazingly expensive, doormats were like 150 euros so i just took pictures. after we went to a tannery
that looked really cool but was like the grossest smelling thing ever. they had some cool stuff for sale there but i´m not really looking for any leather goods. then we went to a tapestry and scarf factory where prices were a little more reasonable but a lot of people that i know bought their own scarves in sevilla so i decided to opt for photos here again. the last place we went was a traditional pharmacy that sold herbal supplements, creams, teas, essential oils, henna, and all kinds of stuff. the guy there explained a bunch of different stuff and what it was good for and let us smell the spices and teas and try the lotions and everything. i ended up getting some spices and oils including some saffron. i´m not really sure what i´m going to use the safron for but apparently it´s the most expensive spice on earth. in the u.s. it goes for like $40 to $70 per ounce and i got 10 ounces for about $14 so i figured it was a decent investment if i ever decide that i want it for some reason.
the last day´s journey back was a marathon.
royal mausaleum
3 kings inside, kinda cool, super ornate inside we were in buses for about 7 hours and when we get to the ferry station/port place we find out that our ferry is cancelled since the strait was too rough. the guides were trying hard to get us on a different one while making contingency plans incase we were stuck there over night for a hotel and everything. we sat there about 6 hours and i got a lot of reading done and we finally got on a ferry at half past midnight. i took a dramamine and slept for the duration of the ferry ride back which was extremely slow and steady do to the weather. we finally got back in sevilla around 11:30 AM on Thursday. I slept almost all day and then went to the Feria grounds at night.
Feria was really cool. It´s a huge springtime festival in Sevilla that is all about dancing flamenco and hanging out. the grounds are huge and full of tents called casetas that are owned by private families, clubs, and companies. for most of them you have to know somebody to get in but we just went to one of the public ones that was owned by the
dome in the mausaleum
most ornate one that i´ve seen anywhere PSOE. One of my more conservative friends was with me and he was a little suprised to find out that we were hanging out in a caseta sponsored by the socialist party of Spain when I told him what the PSOE was.
i´ll write about the frisbee tournament in a seperate entry soon. hasta luego
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