Morocco, you have won my heart

DAY 1

I love Morocco. It was definitely a better experience than Egypt. Don’t get me wrong, Egypt was awesome, but the experiences and the general atmosphere of Morocco suited me better. I had originally planned on doing 2 trips: Casablanca city orientation on the first day and the second day I was going to go to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. However, I really wanted to make it to Marrakesh for at least a day. I wanted to go hiking in the Atlas Mountains and I heard that Marrakesh is one of the best cities to get a real Moroccan experience.  So I sold my trips and my friend Katie and I booked 2 nights in a hostel in Marrakesh.

We left the ship and headed to the train station. We had heard earlier that it might be a good idea to get first class tickets… yeah we didn’t. That was kind of a mistake. Our group of 7 for the train was split up and then the 2 other girls I was with and I ended up standing for the first 2 ½ hours of the 3 hour train ride. First we were standing in the front of the car by the bathroom and then we moved to the aisle outside of the compartments to wait for available seats. We should have just stayed standing! It was so hot in the compartments. The sweat just soaked through everything you were wearing. Cute huh?

The train station in Marrakesh is really nice. It looked practically brand new and of course there was a KFC and a McDonalds there. We got a cab into the medina to find our hostels. The taxi dropped us off outside of the Djemaa El-Fna which is the main square in the Medina. It was packed with women doing henna, snake charmers, people selling dentures (and single teeth?), and guys with monkeys. It was really sad to see the monkeys. They were all on leashes and in cages. The snakes were definitely ill treated as well. They were handled too much and you could tell that they were sick.

Long lines of fresh squeezed orange juice booths ran across the empty square. I don’t think you could have really found orange juice in containers in any of the countries we went to except maybe Croatia at the supermarket and maybe Varna, Bulgaria. The women doing henna were intense too. We learned the hard way that they will just come up to you and draw on any available part of your body and request being paid. She grabbed Katie’s arm and drew and then asked for 200 Dirham for each (she drew on me too). We paid her 100 each which was still way too much but only because she wouldn’t let us go.

The girls we were with actually had directions to their hostel from the square where as we only had directions to the square. So we decided to go with them and then ask for directions since it wasn’t supposed to be that far away. The experience was a prime example of language barriers! The woman that owned the hostel spoke Arabic and broken French and there were 2 other tourists there, both from Paris. One spoke Arabic and French, the other spoke French, broken Arabic, and English and no one on our end spoke anything but English. So we were talking to the one girl that spoke English and French. She was then talking to the lady in French and broken Arabic and was asking for help in French to the other girl that spoke Arabic. It was hilarious. But we were eventually told to just head to Café France.

We headed down the alley and eventually found our way to the Riad Rahba which owned our Hostel. We checked in and followed the guy back down the alley and down another alley to our hostel. It wasn’t that bad. We were taken upstairs to a room with 5 beds in it… bed is a general term really. They were these foam mattresses that had body imprints in them. The different rooms on the top floor shared a bathroom which again wasn’t bad. We weren’t really planning on showering maybe just a quick rinse. Especially since we wanted to go hiking the next day. After checking in, we went back to the Riad to book our tour to the Cascades d’Ouzoud the next day. Then we went out into the square for dinner and to shop.

Dinner was alright. I just had some sort of pasta and then we went into the souks which were Morocco’s version of the bazaar in Turkey and Egypt. I must say, they were definitely better than both Egypt and Turkey. They were really clean (well as clean as you can get in Morocco) and there were so many different shops. The people were also a lot nicer. We didn’t get screamed at as much. Most of the shop owners greeted you when you walked in and then let you alone until you asked about something. They had semi-reasonable prices too. Bargaining is definitely an art! You have to get over feeling bad about asking for something for a lower price and when they laugh at you, you just have to get over it and keep asking for the lower price. They usually buckle in the end. We didn’t really get anything that night, we just wanted to gauge prices and stuff. Later that night after getting lost in the souks (which were 3 stories and outside) we walked through the square again to see the difference between day-life and night-life.

And boy was it different! In the time that we had spent in the souks, the square had completely transformed. People had set up little restaurant grill places EVERYWHERE just rows and rows of them and then there were rings of people watching drum performances and others were playing some carnival games. The number of people had easily tripled since the afternoon. We watched some kids try and get these rings that were attached to giant fishing poles around the neck of soda bottles. It was practically impossible to win! We met a guy there named Rashim who talked to us a bit about the square and the music that was going on (Berber music – the people from the villages in the mountains) and he told us about his travels in the US. We decided to grab some cokes up on the terrace of a café on the outside of the square to see exactly what we had just fought our way through. The view from above was breathtaking. There was easily over 5000 people in this square just EVERYWHERE eating and drinking orange juice, playing games, playing music and listening to music, dancing, everything. It was amazing and definitely something you have to experience when in Morocco! It was really nice to relax in the cool air too after a long day of sweltering heat (and wearing pants). It was even cold enough for a sweater. After sitting atop the room and watching this scene for an hour or so, we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep before our hike the next day.

DAY 2

We woke up at 7am to get ready for our hike. We headed to the hotel that we had booked the hike through and waited for our guide to show up. The cost of the hike wasn’t bad. It was 300 dirham for transportation to and from the area which was a little over a 2 hour drive. 300 Dirham translates to about 37.50 which really isn’t bad for a driver to and from the area. The drive was fine. It was still chilly out, so the breeze in the van was welcomed. We stopped about ½ way through the drive to grab water and for a bathroom break before arriving. The scenery was great. It kind of reminded me of Chile with the mountainous terrain that was all desert like and sandy and covered in different desert trees and cacti. The countryside was stunning in it's own way. We drove past and through several Berber villages and everything. I started wondering about the nearest hospital. I don’t think they really have doctors or anything in these small villages. Just curious. I wish I had a chance to talk to one of the locals about this. Driving through Morocco it was easy to see that agriculture was their main means of income for the entire country. There were different farms everywhere. I don’t really know what they were growing, but farms were littering all of the valleys around the river beds (which were dry).

We got to the village where the waterfall was and were greeted by a tour guide. All together for our group of 5 it was another 300 dirham which was about $8 each. Really? Haha $8 for a tour guide around the waterfall is REALLY good. Especially compared to some of our other tours such as the Vatican. He was really nice too and it was convenient that he spoke English and French since the family we were with spoke only French. We walked through these wild olive groves and along the river until we clambered over this wall to find ourselves standing on the edge of this steep cliff with the waterfall directly to our left. It was gorgeous. I mean, I’ve been to Niagra falls and it’s amazing since the falls are so big and grand, but this was beautiful in a different way. The earth was red and there was green all around the area since it was damp pretty much all year and it was one of the few places that lush vegetation grew in the country. The falls were broken into different parts too, it was just beautiful!


















We hiked down the side of the cliff on the one side of the falls and learned about the different plants and trees in the area. All of which were medicinal or had some other cosmetic or food use. Our tour guide picked us some fresh Lavender. It smelled amazing. It was amusing to see that instead of using refrigerators, the little cafes and such around the river and falls just let the cold spring water run over the bottles. It was really cool watching their different engineered set ups to get water over to the bottles or to different areas of the camp sites. Yes camp sites. Apparently it’s a big thing to rent a camp site and camp near the falls for a few days for vacation in Morocco. We walked across the river at the bottom of the falls and watched all of the local and visiting Moroccan children and boys swimming in the water. None of the women were swimming, just dipping their feet in. Which was normal for me now since we had been to Egypt and Turkey before now.


We ate lunch at a little restaurant near the falls. We had some sort of chicken kabob with curry seasoning, fries, and fresh melon for desert. And no GI issues! I stocked up on my pepto before and after every meal to avoid issues with my stomach, but I do know a lot of my friends did get sick. Which is completely understandable because there are really no food handling laws and water purification laws for a lot of the places in Morocco. Well I don’t know of any. Probably something else that I should look into. That could have been an interesting global studies paper topic… oh well… ANYWAY…

After lunch we headed back to the top of the falls. On the way, we had a chance to feed peanuts to the wild monkeys that lived in the trees around the camp sights. They were so cute! The one monkey just grabbed all of our peanuts and stuffed them in his mouth before the other one came. There was even a baby monkey climbing and swinging around in the trees!

We got back in the van and then all passed out on the way back to Marrakech. When we got back, we went back to the hotel and met up with Rachel. Up until now, I haven’t mentioned that I did spend the last 9 hours not knowing where my passport was exactly. So here is the whole story. I had to have my passport with me since I was staying in a hotel. I kept it in my money belt for safekeeping. And I haven’t actually worn my money belt since being in Italy since I bought a purse that I could keep tucked under my arm, zipped, and in such a way that they would have to tear it off of me and touch me to open it, so I had just been keeping my money belt in my purse.

ANYWAY, I had the ticket for the hike in there and when we got to the hotel, I had to show it to them. I did and then I THOUGHT I put it back in my purse. Apparently I didn’t because when we got to the van I had realized that I didn’t put it back in my purse but thought that I had put it in my book bag which was under the main desk at the hotel. So I spent the day pushing this to the back of my mind and everything until I got back to the hotel and could actually do something about it. So here we are. Katie and I met up with Rachel at the hotel. I grabbed my bookbag right away and pulled everything out of it in both pockets realizing that I had indeed, misplaced my money belt. Not only did I not have my passport, but I didn’t have my credit card or ship board ID card with me either. Those were both in there along with another 300 dirham. Go me right? I ran down to the desk and asked them if anyone had turned in a passport. Both of the guys working there got really worried and then started checking through all of the drawers and everything. It wasn’t there. No money belt, no passport. I ran into the lobby of the hotel where there were a bunch of cushioned benches and tables that we were sitting at that morning and checked under all of the cushions and under the bench. Just when I had given up hope, I found the waist belt of the money belt poking out from under the table cloth. WOW. I was SO lucky… no one had taken it. I don’t even think anyone had seen it. I had just saved so much money and stress! (Haha aren’t you glad I didn’t tell you about this when it was happening mom?) So that is how I almost lost my passport.

Rachel, Katie and I went out and did some shopping and then had some more dinner and hung around the square a little more. It was really relaxing and fun. I got some shirts and this awesome cushion for my apartment. It was a pretty eventful and tiring day.

DAY 3

Today we woke up around 9 and rinsed off again and headed back out into the market after checking out. We wanted to get some last minute shopping done, hit up the internet café and then get back to the ship in time for dinner. Which all worked out very well. I got a pair of earrings, a cheaper henna (only 50 Dirham for my calf/shin/foot), and some other random things. We got a cab back to the train station, had a McDonalds lunch, and then hopped back on the train. The 1st class section was sold out, so we had to sit 2nd class again, but since Marrakesh is the first stop, we were able to secure seats for the entire journey. We were extremely lucky to have a girl in our compartment from Morocco who had gone to an American high school in Marrakesh and who goes to college in Ohio. It was really great talking to her about the differences between Morocco and the US and everything. She said the main thing she misses when she is at school is the food in Morocco. I am glad we had a chance to talk to her, she was really nice and gave us some ideas of where we should go in Casablanca and other cities we should visit if we make it back to Morocco. After our long train ride back, we got a cab back to the port and then the shuttle back to the ship. The rest of the evening we just relaxed and took nice long showers.Or two.

DAY 4

Today was pretty uneventful. We just went out to the shops around the area in Casablanca. We all had to spend the last of our money since the currency in this country was controlled. Meaning we are not allowed to really take it out of the country. So I got some more jewelry, added to my henna and got a coke in a glass bottle so that I could save it! It looks really cool with the Arabic on it. I wanted pillow cases too for my couch and ended up getting 3 for 150 dirham (about $19). He originally wanted 140 for 1, so I think I did pretty well. After that we just went back to the boat and chilled on the 7th deck.

 

Overall I really enjoyed Morocco. I think I will definitely return. There are so many things that I want to do and places to go! I would love to go back to Marrakesh too. I felt a lot safer here than I did in Naples, Italy and in Egypt.  It felt a little cleaner than Egypt as well which was very welcome! Anyway, so we’re on our way back to the states now! And I should probably get to writing my papers!!!!