when I WENT to Africa!!

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This week, I went on a 6 day trip through a few parts of Morocco! It was amazing. I went with a group of about 100 people my age, mostly girls, mostly american students. Here, I will tell you how it went down!

Day 1 (Friday, April 3)
I woke up at about 4am after going to sleep at about 2. I do not recommend that sleeping schedule AT ALL!! I got ready and walked down the street to where we were all meeting the bus. We pulled out of Sevilla at 5:15am and were headed for the Southern border of Spain... Tarifa (the beach town I went to with Laura and Gaby). There, we got off of the bus to get onto the ferry that takes you on a 40 minute ride to Tangiers, Morocco. When we got to Africa, it was only 10am for us and we got thrown back to 8am by the Africa time change... so much for lunch coming soon!! It was a crazy new world right when we got into Africa. Well, it looked a little like Spain, but there were more people coming up to us to sell stuff and there were more women with their hair covered.

We met our guide there. She was a Moroccan woman from Rabat. Her husband works with the king and travels with the king. She stayed on our bus and explained things to us. We were on the bus then for a while going to Rabat, but it was a really pretty and interesting ride that I didn't really mind at all. We stopped at a rest stop to find the stalls in the bathroom were only doors in front of a hole in the ground!! Right next to the bathroom in each rest stop, there was a room of mats for praying! So interesting.

We had lunch in Rabat and it was AMAZING. We ate in a room overlooking the ocean. We had those pastries that are full of yummy chicken and nuts and covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon. Then we toured a few things in the city. There were a lot of houses painted blue in this neighborhood that we toured and it was to keep the mosquitoes away! It was all very cool and soooo surreal. Then we were back on the bus on our way to Fez. It was a long day of traveling, but we were just soaking it all in and we were still so tired. In Fez, we ate dinner on the top story of our hotel. We had a buffet style dinner which included Moroccan salad and then a chicken dish, veggies, and potatoes. Moroccan salad consists of several separate plates of veggie mixes, rice, tuna, couscous, yogurt sauce, etc. Some of my favorites were the cooked carrots that were all spiced, the pico de gallo-like mix, the cucumbers with yogurt, and the tuna and rice mixtures. I can not begin to explain how good it all was.

Day 2 (Saturday April 4)
We started the day with breakfast at the hotel. Again, we ate on the roof. I walked to the buffet line, slightly urged by the lack of fruit and then pleasantly surprised by the hot pot on the end.... oatmeal??!! It was a ricemeal really, but I was sooooo excited. There is NOT oatmeal in Spain, and this stuff was so good. They also had a chocolate powder to go in my coffee so really it was great. They also had dried dates, lots of pastries, bread and a toaster, jams, laughing cow cheese, butter, and hard boiled eggs. From there we left for Merzouga!

It was a long busride but through quickly changing scenery that was soooo diverse. We went from the city to the town to the farms to the canyons to the forest to the jungle to the desert!! wow!! At one point, we stopped at a high area where there was snow and watched monkeys! It was great. As of this day I stopped trying to use rest stop bathrooms and started finding bushes behind them. They also charge you to use their holes in a lot of them so it really was not worth it!

We stopped for lunch in a town. We had a huge banquet room where we sat on pillowy benches around big round tables. It was a buffet with a hot area, a salad area, and a dessert area. The hot foods included a chicken-veggie dish with amazing moist chicken, a beef dish that had dates and apricots in it, and couscous dishes. The salad also included a cabbage dish that was really good. The thing that made these dishes do amazing was the spices!! YUM! The dessert table was a huge pile of fruits, platters of sliced oranges covered in cinnamon, and fruit tarts. Then we hung out at this property for a while before getting back on the bus to continue toward Merzouga!

We arrived at a super nice hotel that reminded me of places I have stayed in Hawaii. It was night and there were berber tribesmen playing music. We were instructed to go to the bathroom, grab our bags, and wait to be assigned to a jeep. We all got in these huge jeeps that were driven by a berber. They took us on an hour long ride through the Sahara desert across the sand at night to out hotel. It was so cool. It was like driving across snow. The crazy part was that they all went different ways and we had no idea where we were going so at the end when we finally got close to the hotel, we could see all the jeeps coming in from different directions. It was a lot like Indiana Jones. We even went across a river!

When we got there, we were surprised yet again because the hotel was super super nice. We dropped our stuff off in our rooms, which made us all scream with delight!! beautiful!! and then went to dinner. Dinner was divine. More of the same amazing Tastes in a beautiful dining hall. I had so many veggies... OMG!! The bread was also really good and I had a really good assortment of veggies and stews! For dessert, we had a huge assortment of little cakes, log cakes, tarts, and custards. My favorite part was this fruit salad that was mixed with a wonderful yogurt sauce. We diched it into huge sundae cups and we all shared all the cakes and all. After dinner, we walked into the lounge room, got comfy on some pillows, and listened to the berbers play drums and sing. There were drinks, dancing, and lots of fun. I went to bed in a beautiful room with a big dark blue net over me!!

Day 3 (Sunday April 5)
The day started out with breakfast!! I had cereal with a banana and coffee and hard boiled eggs, but there was also a huge assortment of breads, pastries, etc, and some crazy crepe-like breads. Then we went outside where we discovered what we couldn't see the night before. There were huge dunes all around us and camels just close by!! We got our heads wrapped by the berbers, hung out, and explored the hotel grounds. Then we went on a berber guided walking tour of the area. We got to see the agriculture system and water system that the berber tribe uses and then we were taken to their market area where they tried to sucker us into buying all their stuff. This was my first experience with the berber goods that I would from there on out dream about every night!!

We came back from our LONG walk and had a great lunch! No need to repeat what has been said. Just divine!! Then we packed our overnight bags and brought them out to get onto the camels. I was pretty excited for the camel ride and really hoped I would like it after my gross horse experience last semester in Spain. So we walked over to get on our camels. A group of 5 of my friends and I went to try to get on together, but we were separated into smaller groups. The first group was called over and then Karli and I followed close behind toward another group of camels. As we were passing our friends, we watched Kasia get on a noisy camel and get completely bucked and thrown off of this huge dinosaur size animal. It was so scary. Luckily, a berber caught her, but we were pretty shaken. Right as she was being caught, out guide turned to me and asked me to please get on the first camel. I was like NO WAY!! I was so scared. But then I just did it and held on for life. The camels are so tall so you have to get on them while they are lying on the ground. When they stand up, you go on a full on roller coaster as they get onto their front legs and then back legs. All went well for my camel. Then we were all up and headed into the dunes. It was so beautiful. I really loved it and couldn't get over how happy I was with life at that moment (for 2 hours).

We finally came to the Oasis where we found our tents behind the biggest dune out there!! We all claimed cots with our bags and then came out to gulp down water after the long hot trek. Then we all started our hike to the top of the dune to make it for the sunset. Some people started out by running. One girl who is a runner even made a bet with one of the guides that she could make it in a half hour. NOPE!! It was so steep. You were pretty much crawling and sliding backwards the whole time. It was crazy and felt SO good to get to the top. We all stayed up there until it was too dark and cold to stand it. Then we came down and hung out on rugs, listening to music until dinner was served. The berbers made dinner. We had rice and veggies and some meat stew stuff with bread. Then fruit for dessert. Very good!! But minimal cause we were in the desert. Then we all sat outside and danced and listened to music until we slowly all went to bed. Karli and I slept outside under the stars which were only amazing deep into the night because the moon was so bright above us until really late.

I will have to continue the morocco trip later... this is long... u are bored!!

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Photos

stream at rest stop
no... i did not make this stream