If you can find it in your heart, you can find it in your budget (Selling line for one persistent seller)

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My thoughts pryor to visiting Morocco was that our highs would be conteracted with lows but that we would come away with some or the most interesting stories to tell out of our whole backpacking trip.

Morocco did not disappoint on these initial thoughts.

We spent eight days total in Morocco. Three were spent on a tour to the desert and 1 was spent at the Douzoud falls and the rest were spent in Marrakech.

MARRAKECH

Marrakech is the most visited city in Morocco and gained it´s popularity with the largest medina in all of Africa called the Djemma el fna. The Djemma el fna is a spectacle of snake charmers, storytellers, henna tatooist, monkey tamers, food stalls, and markets selling anything from homemade remedies to touristy t-shirts. The best place to view all the action is above on one of the many terrasses overlooking the fna where your not constantly being hasseled to buy anything. Marrakech of course has many palaces that you can pay a small fee to go into but our lazy butts never made it to any of them. We stayed in two different accomodations near the fna. The first was a backpackers hostel and if you think you would enjoy the heat in hell then you might enjoy this hostel. Unfortunately I can´t remember the name of the hostel to warn anyone who may be traveling to Marrakech not to stay there. The second was the hotel Atlas which was a riad style hotel that was cheaper yet a million times nicer then the hostel. In fact Laura and I have been staying in a lot of two person bedrooms on our backpacking trip. I´m starting to think were not the hostel type.

SAHARA TRIP

Impart to the overwhelming nature of Marrakech we booked ourselves on the next trip out of Marrakech and into the Sahara desert to ride a camel. Along the way we stopped at gorges, casbahs and a Berber villages to learn a little bit about the Berber people. The Berber people make about around half of the Moroccan population and are mostly farmers and herders. We found the Berber people to be a very friendly. The camel ride was definetely the highlight of our 3 day tour. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. We also had an awesome group of people on the tour with us. We got a long so well with this British couple on the tour that we continued to hangout with them when we returned to Marrakech.

CASCADE D´OUZOUD

We decided to take a trip to Morocco´s best (and probably only) waterfalls for the simple reason that we wanted to go swimming. Always living by water my whole life has made it quite easy to cool off on a hot day so after sitting around in 100 degrees temperatures we were willing to go over budget just to get there.


My final thoughts on Morocco is that it´s a beautiful country but it was def. a bit overwhelming at times. I do think that young female tourist recieve a lot of harassment especially in places like the Djemma el fna. We repeatedly were gawked at, made sexual comments to and a couple of the men even grabbed my butt. The young females I saw that were traveling with a male didn´t seemed to get harassed as much. I guess this means I have to get myself a boyfriend. hehe.....sighh!!!

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Photos

Sensory Overload
The Djemma el Fna at night

Orange stall
There is about 50 different fresh squeezed orange juice stalls throughout the fna. The guy was cute at 44 so we went to that one everytime. Not the guy that you can see in the photo.

Food stalls
At night the Djemma el fna sets up food stalls where you can eat mostly kebabs, cous cous, tangine and if your very brave sheeps heads. As you can see Laura took the kebab route

Casbah
No this is not a Moroccan toilet it´s a casbah well

Casbah
Awesome picture of us

If you can find it in your heart, you can find it in your budget
On our tour we got to hangout with some of the berber people for a bit. They gave us all tea, tought us a little bit about weaving then they tried to sell us their rugs for about a half hour. My title phrase was their selling line

Camels
My favorite picture

Sahara Desert
Would you like a pack of camels

Sahara Desert
Sunset

Sahara Desert
Me with my stupid backpack

Laura of Arabia
Laura with her trusty camel

Sahara Desert
Our desert home

Comments

[Mom]

Incredible
What incredible pics. An adventure of a lifetime. The phone call you made to me, well, the charge just came through. It was $55.92, soooooooooo, try not to do that again unless it is an emergency. Phone cards are much, much, much better. Keep the blogs comin' and enjoy. Love to you and Laura.

[Krista]

WOWWW
All I can say is...AMAZING..the pics are great...its so cool to see what you are doing, what a once is a lifetime chance! The kids loved their postcard and I loved mine also, Thank you for that. They were especially impressed with the Spain stamp. Sucks about the harassment for being such a beautiful American girl that you are!!I had a feeling you would get some butt pinches. Well as always we miss you and look forward to your next blog!

[Mrs Craner]

you are so lucky to be seeing the world you also look good on a camel did he do what you wanted? have fun and stay safe

[Juliana]

Hi Lisa
Hi Lisa I just saw the pictures of Morrocco. It must be fun there. My friend was born in spain. did you have fun in spain while you were there? I hope you have a good time on the rest of your trip. Love Juliana!

[Sissy]

Hi Lisa
Wow! It sounds like you're having a great time. I really cannot wait to go. After some of what I read, I'm really happy I'm going to be going with a guy! Have fun and stay safe.