Morocco

WOW!!! This is the port were I experienced the greatest amount of culture shock. It was incredible to see how a religion dictates how a country runs, how people dressed and acted, and how life in general seemed to run on to a different beat.

Day1: We ported in the industrial port of Casablanca at 8am (cranes and crates everywhere) but were not allowed off the ship until about 11am. The reason for us disembarking late was due to the fact that the Port Officials had to see every passenger face to face before the ship was free to let people off. This was extremely annoying and pointless. Because of this, my SAS trip missed its train to Marrakech and we instead had to take vans to the city. In the end this didn’t cause any problems for our trip, but I know of a few trips that had to be canceled because of the ship be late to allow people off.

                Anyhow at around 11am our vans left for CAS03 Berber Villages of the High Atlas Mountains. It was about a 3 hour drive from Casablanca to Marrakech, along the way we got to see the Casablanca for the first and last time. It looked like any rundown city. A lot of beat up old cars, ratty motorbikes, crumbling buildings, ignored infrastructure, etc. As we got on the highway we began to see how vast and desert like Morocco is. A lot of hot dry dirt, cacti, shriveled up trees, and mountains. However, although it may sound bad, the landscape was beautiful and surprising. It was so hot and dry, this particular day it was 40 degrees Celsius, but there were farms everywhere! A lot of olive, fig, melons, and cacti fruit farms…it’s shocking that anything can grow in that kind of heat!

                We taking a short break along the way, we arrived in Marrakech around 3pm. Our tour guide Muhammad, who you will later learn in The Man, gave us a few hours to explore the city before dinner. A group of us got together and headed to the Medina, the shopping and cultural heart of Marrakech. It was about a 2 mile walk to the Medina, along the way we got some gelato to cool off and watch a group of kids play in a public fountain. Once at the Medina we just explored the shops, got snakes wrapped around our necks, had people try to sell us monkeys and turtles, and got heckled to buy ridiculously cheap stuff. 1USD = about 10Dirham, and prices were not equalized. So a nice futbol jersey was going for about 150dirham, 15USD…not too bad at all. Of course though you had to barter, but it was a lot easier to do here than in Turkey. All you had to do in the Medina was to start walking away from the sale and the guy would cut the price in half instantly. It was a lot of fun.

                In the evening we went back to the Medina for a wonderful dinner and belly dance show. We ate a 5 course meal:

1.       Salads (tomato, cucumber, olive, pepper, eggplant, and potato salad)

2.       Bread with cheese and olive oil

3.       Rice and meat dumplings with power sugar – AMAZING!

4.       Meatball dish in a red spice sauce with cheese and eggs

5.       Dessert Platter

6.       Mint Tea

After the an amazing meal, music, and a belly dancing show we headed back to our hotel, watched some Olympic weight lifting, and then went to bed.

Day2: After breakfast we left the hotel, around 9am. We had an hour and a half drive to the beginning of our hike that day. Along the way I was amazed to see golf resorts in Morocco, if you ever want to go golfing abroad go to Marrakech for a cheap stay. We got to the start of our hike around 11am, loaded our donkey’s with water and threw our night packs in a van that was going to meet us in the village we were staying in that night. The hike would be a 3 hour one this day with a hour lunch half way through the trek. It was hot and dry, but the views were amazing. So beautiful - I will have plenty of photos in the slide show.

An hour and a half into the hike we stopped in a field of olive trees for lunch. There we met our three chefs that were going to be with us for the rest of the trek to cook us food. For lunch today we had a large and amazing salad, bread, cheese, rice, and mint tea (I must have had 4 liters of mint tea by the end of our stay in Morocco…so good). After an amazing lunch we went on the second half of our trek, and ended in the Berber village where we were spending the night. We explored the town, talked to locals (all of whom are related to each other. It turns out that each village is a large family) and played soccer with the kids. It was a blast, the kids were so cool. They took us on a short walk to a field of olive and fig trees. They climbed the fig trees and picked figs to eat. We learned that the best fig is a yellow one, there so sweet! One little girl loved to steal our cameras and take photos of herself and others. It was so funny; I swear that because of us she’ll go on to become a professional photographer.

After the fig adventure we went back to the house we were staying in to relax and to have more tea with a fried dough like pastry. We played cards, read books, and hung out until dinner. Dinner was about the same as lunch but with lamb, it was really good. Knowing then that we had to wake up at 6am to start our 7 hour hike tomorrow, we went to bed early on the roof. Slept under the Moroccan night sky…nbd. Sleep was hard to come by though. We kept being waking up to the call for prayer. It was cool, but annoying haha.  

Day3: We woke up at 6am to an army of flies attacking us. It was annoying as hell but did get you up and going. After breakfast we set off for the hike that we had all been waiting for. I could write a novel on what I witnessed on this trek, but as you have seen by now I am not a writer so I’m going to let a couple of photos explain my trek. It was a really cool. I should make the point now to say that our two guides, Muhammad and Ya-ya, along with the cooks and our donkey boy were the best. They were kind and funny, very lay back and very knowledgeable. And, since it was Ramadan, they were doing the same 11 hours of hiking (over 30miles) in 40 degree Celsius weather, without eating a single crump or a drop of water during sunlight. It’s simply amazing that they were able to do this hike without water…

  

                We arrived in the next Berber village around 3pm, hung out and took in the view, had some tea, exchanged riddles, played cards, ate dinner, and again slept under the stars

Day4: We were supposed to be up at 5:30am to get ready for our hour hike to the vans to make our way back to Marrakech, but it was so fricking cold that I was up at 4:30am and stayed up finishing a book for my Public Health class (“The Healing of America” by T.R. Reid, very good, a must read). After breakfast, our last meal by cooked by our chefs, we head off to the vans. It was a very short trek, but a nice way to end the trip. At the end we hoped on to the vans again, and headed for Marrakech. We went straight to the train station, where we ate lunch (Moroccan McDonald’s! haha) and waited for the train. On the train we had a little cabin that held six; we played cards for the whole three and a half hour trip. It was a long but awesome trip. Defiantly the best SAS trip I’ve done, and easily one of the top five best things I’ve ever done.