Morocco!!!

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Hi all! I haven't written in a while, sorry about that. Now I will update on the week in Morocco though! It was an amazing trip, the scenery was gorgeous and so varied! And the Muslim culture was fascinating to see. The downside of the trip...lots of bus riding, and I was sick most of the time. Moroccan food did not agree with me so I was nauseous and then I also got a nasty cold towards the end, but all in all, it was a great trip! Now for the details:

Traveling and Marrakech

We left Valencia at 9:30pm on Friday and headed towards the southern border city of Tarifa. This was a 10 hour bus ride, long but we watched movies and slept a lot. Then we got on the ferry to Tangiers which took an hour, this was kind of exciting, I had never taken a ferry, and it was cool to see all the cars coming on. And the coolest part was all the people all on the boat were going on adventures, we saw a big group with rock climbing gear. Morocco is really for adventurers, it has lots of natural wonders to explore. Then we got off the ferry and had another 8 hour bus ride to Marrakech. During which our bus had a flat tire (but thankfully we were at a rest stop, so it wasn't too bad to wait 2 hours for that to be fixed...and we were glad to have a break from sitting in the bus). Our hotel in Marrakech was really nice, with Islamic architecture and really nice big rooms. Our room had little windows that opened up to the lobby, it was fun. Then we went down to have dinner, they had a nice courtyard with a pool that we walked past. The dinner was good (one of the few meals I ate), their main dishes are cous cous and tajin (which has the typical spices and what I don't like). After dinner we walked down to the market to check it out at night. A bunch of the shops were open, so we wandered around and looked to see what they had since in the morning we would spend our time shopping there. They also had stalls selling food, I didn't try any, but it was interesting to see. Then we walked back to the hotel, we were all exhausted from such a long day of traveling.

The morning started out on a bad note when we found out that a guy in our group was going to the hospital because a mirror in the bathroom fell on him after his shower and he couldn't move his fingers. He had broken a tendon, and had to get surgery in a Moroccan hospital, pretty scary! And we lost Miguel our guide at this point, so it was a little chaotic (especially since none of us know French, much less Arabic). We got ourselves checked out of the hotel, on the bus, and to the market though! The market was really interesting, you had to bargain for everything, so there is a specific technique you need to master. It was fun to watch everyone try it, I probably wasn't too great, but you get excited when you get the price you wanted. The salesmen are really insistent and do not like to let you leave without buying something, especially if you have shown interest. I bought a few things, but it was more fun to just look around. They had lots of silver jewelry, touristy items like wooden camels and tribal masks, drums, leather, scarves, then they also had knock-off designer purses, and much more. It started raining towards the end, then we got on the buses for a long trip through the High Atlas Mountains.

High Atlas Mountains and the Kasbah

The Mountains were absolutely gorgeous, and they changed vegetation all the time. There were parts with lots of trees, then a few minutes later it looked almost like a desert. My favorite part of the drive was when we saw 2 rainbows! We also saw snow! Some was falling, but we went so high on these curvy mountain roads that we saw snow covering them! It was a really cool drive, and seemed to go by a lot faster than expected.

The Ait Benhaddou Kasbah was really close to where they filmed "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "Gladiator", it was a really pretty old fortress/town on a hill. We went up the hill to watch the sunset and sunrise the next morning. They were stunning, and even in the background, we could see the snow-capped mountains and the small town at the bottom of the hill. We had dinner at the hotel that night after the sunset, which was good, but made me really sick. I was really nauseous the whole night and most of the next day. But we spent most of the next day after the sunrise and breakfast on the bus going towards the desert, so it wasn't too bad. On the way to the desert, we did stop and have lunch at the Todra Gorges. They were amazing! There was a crystal clear river at the bottom, and little restaurants where we had lunch (more like waited for 2 hours!...we should have realized it would be a while when they suggested we take a walk and come back for the food). We saw little tiny people (or they appeared that way to us) way up on the gorge cliffs and just wandered around for a while.

Sahara Desert

After lunch we drove a bit more and then switched into Jeeps to go into the desert. The Jeeps were really fun! The drivers were a little crazy and would go over lots of bumps and rocks, and also they played Arabic music, which made it feel really authentic. We rode out to the dunes and put our stuff down at our tents. The tents were in a circle and each of us got our own beds, and shared a little section with one other person. There were carpets so we weren´t directly on the sand. Next, we had to rush a bit to get up the dune to watch the sunset. The dunes are really hard to walk up since you sink into the sand! And they were fairly tall. The sunset was disappointing though because it was too cloudy. After that we had a typical dinner in the tents (they had a dining room set up), and sat around a campfire at night. I was exhausted so I went to bed pretty early.

The next morning we woke up to the sound of camels outside our tents. They make weird groaning noises, not too cute. But so we had to get up quickly and get out on the camels to watch the sunrise. The camels only took us half-way up the dunes though, and it was a struggle in the morning to go the rest of the way while we were still tired (and I wasn´t feeling too great still). But it was an amazing view, the hike was worth it in the end. Then we got to go back down after taking lots of pictures and enjoying the views. The camels were waiting for us and we took them back to the tents, loaded our luggage onto the jeeps and then rode the camels to the hostel in the desert where we would have breakfast. I named my camel Marmelade, and the wooden camel that I bought at the market in Marrakech is now named after him. Camels were fun to ride, felt just like horses, but they were a lot bumpier, especially when they weren´t in the soft sand (near the hostel).

After breakfast, we had time to clean up (a lot of people wanted to shower) and get ready for the rest of the day. The day was beautiful, not too hot but a nice dry desert heat and very sunny. We got back in the Jeeps and did an awesome tour of the desert. We left the dune area and went first to a village which had immigrants from Sudan (black Africans) who played music for us and we even danced with them. It was really fun to be able to share their culture with them. Then we had a stop at a lake in the middle of th desert, it was a strange phenomenon that I don´t really understand. Also we went to a nomad house and saw how they lived in the middle of the desert in mud huts. It was like going back in time, they had to survive by almost only what they could make themselves (they did take bike rides to a town to get water and probably other provisions). We also stopped at a place that had lots of fossils! The fossils were really interesting, and they were all in one small part of the desert. The rocks were black in this area because the sun has scorched them, it was really interesting to see. The Sahara is not all the sandy dunes that we normally see in pictures, although those are probably the most beautiful parts. Eventually we left the desert and had lunch in a town nearby. Then we got back on the bus for a long ride north to our hotel.

Volubilis and Fez

We stayed in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, and then the next morning we went an hour to see the ancient Roman ruins of Volubilis. This was a town that was built when Rome had control of North Africa. It was fairly well-preserved and we could walk around and explore most of it, except the mosaics that were still partially intact on some of the floors. It reminded me a lot of the Roman forum. I wish we had more information about it (there was no tour or much written information available), but it was interesting to see the ruins and try to make up our own stories on how the buildings were used in the past.

After Volubilis, we head to Fez, which was a cool old town and we would explore the old inner city, called the Medina. We had a tour guide since the old part of the city has teeny-tiny streets that wind and turn and are practically impossible to get around if you do not know your way. There are no cars in this part, mostly people go by foot but there were also some donkeys walking around. It was a very poor section of town and very smelly, but we saw some interesting places. My favorite was the Farmacy, which had a demonstration about all the traditional herbal medicines that they use. They had one that works really well that you sniff and makes headaches go away. It lasts forever because you can sniff the same pieces over again. I bought some, and love it. I also bought some mint tea, rose lotion, and myrrh. Some other stops were at a cloth weaving workhouse and a leather store. The tour company gets commission off of what we buy so the tour guide took us to all these stores that would give little demonstrations then try to sell us their products. We were really sick of being shipped around and pressured to buy things. I especially hated the leather store, the smell was horrific and I don´t like leather to begin with. The last place we went to, and another one that was cool was the clothing store. They showed us all the different Islamic dresses for men and women and then we got to try them on. We got some cute pictures of everyone dressed up, it was fun. Then they pressured us into buying everything...I was really sick of the Moroccan salesmen, they are really pushy. I was sick at this point as well, developing a fever since it was raining all day and pretty chilly. Finally we went to the hotel and I went straight to bed.

The next day we got up early so that we could stop at a market on the way home to Spain. We were all excited about going shopping for a few more souvenirs that we didn´t get in Marrakech. But...the bus broke down only 15 kilometers from the town and we were stuck by the side of the road in the middle of the mountains with nothing in sight. We were all really bored and sad that we could not make it to the market, but many people were sick, so the rest was nice (the Moroccan food and traveling was getting to us). Finally we got some vans to take us to Tangiers so that we could hopefully catch our ferry back to Spain. We missed the ferry that we were supposed to take, then the later ferry was delayed an hour. We were all just hoping we would make it back to Spain! Finally we did, and spent the whole night and morning on the bus back to Valencia. It was a long trip, but I was very happy to be back in my bed!

Morocco was really fun overall, despite the weather, excessive bus rides, and being sick. The experience nonetheless was amazing. I loved the desert, and the different Muslim culture. Well, I will update with other things soon. Going to Germany today, should be a nice weekend!

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