I returned last night from one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I was in Morocco from Wednesday November 4th until Sunday the 8th, but I feel like I've been gone from Madrid for a month. Now as I think about it, the trip seems like a dream. I'm going to try to explain what we did on the trip, but many things we saw and feelings I had are too difficult to put into words. When I said that to a friend, he asked if I could put my feeling into sounds, but I'm not sure I could do that either.
I planned the trip with my friend Cameron. I knew that four other IES students were going, but he and I planned to fly solo, even though we booked a reservation at the same hotel the first night. Sitting on the plane, Cam and I talked about some potential plans for the trip. I said to him that I couldn't wait to try some Moroccan food, and his response was, "I may shit all over you in the night." Appetizing. Well, the plane dropped the six of us (we were on the same flight as the four IES pepole) in Fes. The airport was much quieter and smaller than I had pictured. We walked outside towards the "Taxi" sign, but no taxi was to be found. Eventually, a man came up to us and said, "taxi?" We hesitated, and said yes. (I have had some bad experiences with fake taxi drivers in Buenos Aires, and was very reluctant to get into a strange man's car.) He pointed us in the direction of a line of three silver rinky-dink four-door cars. I told him we were going to the Riad Sara Hotel, and he just nodded and pointed to get in his car. I didn't see any other options around to get us to this hotel, so we divided ourselves into two groups of three to go in these "taxis". The driver took my backpack, Cam's, and Deidre's, and we started to get into the car. He then proceeded to put Taylor, Megan, and Caitlin's bags into the trunk and told them with gestures to get into the car also. The six of us ended up squishing into this car with the strange man who took us to our hotel in Fes. It ended up being fine until we arrived at the alley of our hotel. We took our backpacks out of the trunk and asked the man how much we owed him, and he responded in French. Our blank faces showed that none of us understood French, so he tried Arabic. Again, no chance of comprehension. Eventually, he took a certain number of Durham out of his pocket and signaled to us that that amount was what he wanted from us. Phew.
We followed the sign on the alley towards our Riad. Side note-Riad in Arabic means garden, and a very typical hotel/hostel in Morocco is called a Riad, where there are several circular balcony-like floors that surround some sort of garden or central area. Usually, there is no roof. The Riad Sara was beautiful! Our rooms felt like they were for kings, fully equipped with pretty decorations, couches, an armoir, and wooden sandals to use in the bathroom. Also, they served us delicious mint tea upon arrival. After paying, Cam and I asked the Riad man if he could help us find a guide the next day or a method of transportation to Merzouga (we knew about a cool hotel there) and he was not very helpful. He said the only train leaves at 6am to Merzouga. Cam and I ended up deciding that it would be best to stick with the other four, as Taylor had already arranged a guide who would take them around the country for the next three days. The Riad man kindly called this guide to ask if he could take two more people in the car. Cam and I stood next to him as he talked in Arabic to the guide, and the conversation did not sound to be going well. It actually sounded like the Riad man was yelling at the guide and nothing was going right. Suddenly, he hung up the phone and said to us, "It is ok. He pick you up 7 in morning." Success! We asked the nice man if he had a recommendation for dinner, and he turned and picked up his phone. One minute later, he told us there was a man from a restaurant coming to the Riad to escort us. The nice man did indeed come, and walked us through the alleys about five minutes to his restaurant. It was so cool inside--beautiful tile work, a fountain, and live music to accompany our meal! We ordered a mixed salad to share and a beef/vegetable tagine each. Out came the mixed salad: six separate plates of amazing vegetables and olives with a sort of pita bread. I don't even like olives, but these were so yummy. The tagine is a classic Moroccan food-it is a circular bowl-ish plate with a cone-shaped top to keep the food warm. They bake this pottery itself and whatever is inside the tagine in the oven for hours and hours with so many spices, and the result is a delicious soft mixture of love. For dessert, they brought us sliced oranges and bananas with cinnamon sprinkled on top. YUM.
Tagine
After an excellent night's sleep in my bed made for a king we woke up around 6am to meet our guide. The Riad man handed us a bag of fresh squeezed orange juice, pita bread, and cheese slices and we were on our way. It was raining :( We walked outside and after a few back and forth walks along the same alley we eventually found the taxi stand. We were supposed to meet our guide at some fancy hotel, and unfortunately we had less durhams than the taxi man told us we needed. He put out his hand and said euro here, I will exchange. We looked around and saw no ATM nor any place that could exchange it (and we were standing in the pouring rain) and eventually Taylor handed him some euros. The man lead us into a sort of bar, said sit, and we waited while Taylor and the man walked to exchange his euros. We felt very uncomfortable in this bar surrounded by scary looking people at 7am while Taylor was off in the unknown, but we ate our pita bread slowly and he eventually returned. We got into two taxis this time as they were petit taxis and only fit 3 passengers each. We arrived at the hotel at 7:15, 15 minutes late for the guide. No 4x4 was to be seen, nor anyone looking for a group of tourists. We went into the lobby of the (very fancy and beautiful) hotel and waited. Taylor eventually called the guide and he said that he had just left because he thought we weren't coming. A few minutes later, we were greeted by Umbarack! (Side note: the night before, Cam and I discussed how we thought our guide would look. He imagined a mouse-looking man, skinny, tall, and with medium-dark colored skin. I added that he must have a mustache. Guess what? Umbarack looked exactly like this!!) He put down the two extra seats in the back/trunk of his 4x4 off-roading SUV with just enough room to squeeze all six of our backpacks in the trunk. We fit perfectly as he had six passenger seats. "Yala yala," said Umbarack, and off we went towards the Merzouga desert!
People in these tents tried (really hard) to sell us fossils
The drive out of Fes was pretty rainy, but eventually it cleared up as we entered Efran, the highest city in Morocco. We passed many mint trees and saw donkeys carrying mint, tree branches, olives, etc on their backs along the road. Umbarack stopped at a sculpture of a huge lion, and explained to us (in English! yes!) that this was the last lion. I'm not sure that any of us actually understood what he was talking about, but I think he was saying something along the lines of an extinction of lions in Morocco and they built this sculpture when the last one died. He showed us next that we were driving through the High Atlas Mountains. They were beautiful. After a few hours, we stopped for tea and a look at a map. The tea in this country is so delicious; always a mint tea with sugar. It reminded me of the tea I had in the Bedouin tent in Israel. Umbarack taught us how to say mint tea with sugar in Arabic: atei b'neinei o'squar. He also wrote it down in Arabic in my journal! B'saha, or cheers/salud/l'chaim. During our beautiful drive through the mountains, Umbarack taught us about the Berber people of Morocco, the actual indigenous first inhabitants of the country. He himself is Berber, and it's a completely different language than Arabic. He also told us all about the Bedouins and the Nomads, and showed us some that were living in tents along our drive. Somewhere along this drive through the high Atlas mountains, we drifted in what seemed to me like slow motion towards the guard rail of a very large cliff. Although Umbarack was braking and steering the wheel in the complete opposite direction of the rail, we skid all the way across the road sideways into the guard rail. Thankfully, we were all completely fine, and the car only had a small bump in the bumper. The scariest part was getting out and seeing how far we could have fallen. We were a little shaken up, but we all looked at each other and just took a big deep breath and realized that someone was definitely watching over us. We continued through the Valley Ziz, a beautiful green valley in the middle of huge mountains. The land became more and more dry after this, and eventually we entered the desert! Cam leans over to me at this point and asks if we're going to brush our teeth with sand and pebbles. Suddenly, the paved road ended, and Umbarack took us off-roading into the sunset. I have to say, I was a little worried our car would flip over with the amount of bumps we went over! We got out of the car to take a beautiful panoramic photo with the sunset behind us. Soon, we reached the edge of the sand dunes where there was an awesome set up of many tents next to which were....six camels!! We got out of the car, and Umbarack told us to leave all our stuff, but we might need a jacket. We took one just in case, and each of us met our camel.
Off-Roading!
Taylor, Megan, Deidre, Cameron, Caitlin and I named our camels respectively: Lorraine, Paddington, Pepper, Jimmy H, Marco, and Frank. It will very hard to describe our camel ride through the sand dunes, but I'll try. The sun had just set, and throughout the two hour ride more and more stars started to shine above our heads. All I could see was the faint orange color of the turban of our camel guide walking in front of my camel, the silhouette of the dunes everywhere around me, and the most stars (and the brightest) I have ever seen in my life. The six of us were laughing and joking around at first, and for the second half of the ride we were silent, except for the swishing sound of Frank's steps combined with Yusif's (our leader) in the sand. I have never felt more at peace. That is, until Lorraine flung Taylor off of his camel into the unknown depths of the sand dunes! Later, Taylor told me that the first thought that ran through his mind as he was flying slow motion off of Lorraine was "Damn, I might miss dinner." We eventually arrived at a small set-up of tents, although it was hard to see in the pitch black. After we dismounted our camels, Yusif lead us toward what we later called the eating tent. Of course, we were greeted with amazing tea. Next, they brought us what was the best meal of the trip--some sort of what I call an Israeli salad-cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions chopped up (I think there were olives on top too) with the most amazing spices that made this the best salad ever. Of course, there was a huge tagine next that we all devoured. After we finished dinner, Yusif came and sat with us in the tent. He spoke a significant amount of English, and he said he learned it all from tourists. He is Berber, and we had a really interesting conversation with him-in answer to a question I asked him, he said he didn't know anyone that's ever been outside of Morocco. We went outside of the eating tent, and before getting into our sleeping tent the six of us stood outside and watched the stars. I think we each saw at least a few shooting stars in the desert sky that night. (Side note: boy, were we glad we took our jackets! Couldn't believe he said we
might need them...it was pretty chilly at night.)
Around 6am, we were awakened by Yusif clapping outside our tents. He told us that we should run up to the top of the tallest sand dune to catch the sunrise! This hike was much harder than it seemed from the bottom. After an excellent morning workout, five of us made it to the top to see the entire horizon on all sides, and just in time to catch the sun rise. The contrast between the brown sand, the blue sky, and the orange-ish colors of the sun rise was one I will not forget. After a very peaceful long sit, some of us rolled, some skipped, and some glided down the mountain. I think gliding was the best and least sand-in-the-pants choice. There was a simple but delicious breakfast waiting for us between the tents, served by the woman who lived there and her eight month old baby. Of course it was then that we noticed that there was a toilet next to the tents that we could have used instead of squatting in the desert the night before. Oh well. Yusif and his friend in their matching orange turbans then lead our camels with us on top back through the dunes toward the place where Umbarack left us. Sure enough, Umbarack was there waiting for us. We rushed inside to use the real bathroom to brush our teeth and change clothes (and empty the pounds of sand from our pants, bras, and socks). Umbarack then drove us towards our next destination for that night. We drove through a village called Casablanca that was built in the 16th century! The walls were made of mud, and were still standing. It was after this village that we saw a man on the side of the with a significant display of dates for sale. We stopped, and I saw his son picking the dates from the tree right there and laying them out carefully to dry. He let us try a few, and we knew we had to buy some. We did not know yet that it would destroy our bowels for the next week, but we bought what had to have been a five pound box of dates. They were so delicious! We couldn't stop eating them from then until we got onto the plane in Fes two days later. Oh, how innocent we were...For lunch, Umbarack made a stop in a town called Tinejdad. Excellent food, as always. After, we drove with the small Atlas mountains on our left and the high Atlas on our right toward the Tudra valley to see gorges. What an awesome sight. We continued driving towards the gorges where we would sleep, and Umbarack showed us almond trees, olive trees, wheat and alfalfa plants, and a mountain in which they were mining for silver. We finally arrived at our hotel which was in the middle of these sweet gorges. They served us dinner, and afterwards the six of us went out onto the terrace where our new friends Moaha and (?) were playing a bunch of bongo drums. There were a few other people outside listening too. Moaha asked if anyone wanted to play them, and Cam, Megan and I all had turns! After playing music for awhile, we sat and talked with Moaha. He told us he is Berber, and there is a lot of discrimination by Arabs in Morocco against his people. Many Arabs do not learn the Berber langauge, even though it was the first language of the land and all Berbers learn Arabic. He also said many Arabs look down on him and other Berbers. We also talked a little about religion, and Moaha told us that he doesn't care whether you're Islam, Jewish, or Christian-it doesn't matter to him what you believe in or where you're from.
dates galore
Mayyybe we didn't need so many pounds of dates?
Two women making wheat in the irrigation channel
Between the gorges
Sunset in the gorges
After an excellent sleep next to the sound of rushing water through the valley between the dunes outside our window, we woke up for our final day with Umbarack. We knew we would end up in Marrakech around 5pm that night. We drove through the high Atlast mountains, a rose valley, a town of 1,000 Kasbahs, and saw so many people carrying mint on the side of the road. We arrived at a famous Kasbah. Kasbah=old home where rich people of Morocco used to live. The signature of the Kasbah is four towers on the four corners with walls made out of mud. This Kasbah was featured on the 50 durham bill and in many movies! The grandson of the man who built this Kasbah was our tour guide, and he was great. His name was Reda Nassiri. He made semi-funny jokes and then giggled about them for about 45 seconds after we were done laughing. He showed us the wells his grandpa built, and the olive press they used to use. There were strategic windows in every section of the house (I couldn't believe that we didn't fall through the floor when we were on the top floor--how did mud hold us up?) because there used to be fighting between Kasbahs and people who lived near there. After leaving (but not before writing down Reda's name because he wanted six new facebook friends) we drove through more beautiful mountains-these ones were called our zazate, or no noise. Umbarack said they were called this not only because the lack of wind made it not noisy but also because the town in those mountains had always been neutral during any fighting. The sun set on the left side of our car over the small Atlas mountains as we entered Marrakech. There was a lot of traffic, and our car was suddenly surrounded by what seemed like millions of people and donkeys and cars when Umbarack said that this is as far as he could take us. We were very sad to leave Umbarack, but there exactly where we stopped in the middle of this chaotic street was a man from the Riad where we would stay that night (Umbarack hooked us up). We said our teary goodbyes to Umbarack and grabbed our backpacks and followed this man through the crowded street and into the alleys towards the Riad. It was very nice, although not as nice as our first night's Riad in Fes. After dropping our stuff off (in rooms that didn't lock so well) the Riad man walked us to a dinner place. I think this was the best food I had on the trip. Yes, the salad in the desert was better than the one at this restaurant, but the main dish was the best ever. We had something called a chicken pastilla. It was sort of like really sliced up chicken surrounded by baklava and cinnamon. It should be characterized as a dessert. After dinner, we explored the main square a little bit. It was pure chaos. Entering the huge smoke above the square because there were so many people cooking, we passed dancers and many people selling things. It was very very touristy, and locals kept coming up to us to try to get us to buy whatever chochkees they were selling. I was very glad that we had Umbarack to take us around the country, because had we not had him we would have been stuck in a touristy place like this!
View outside my window in the gorges hotel
Famous Kasbah
A little boy made this camel out of grass for Megan
Altitute: 2260 meters
Main square in MarrakechThe next morning, we had arranged (or rather, Umbarack arranged for us) to be picked up at 5am where Umbarack dropped us off the night before by a man named Hassan in the same kind of 4x4 car to drive us the seven hours to Fes, because our flight from Fes was that afternoon. We got ourselves up and out by 4:45 and made it to that place in the street by 5:00 on the dot. It was sort of a sensory overload; it was pitch black out, and at the same time that it was so silent compared to the chaos in the same place the night before there was a recording in the distance of the morning prayers, and there were a few sketchy men on the corner staring at us, and suddenly three taxis drove up to one inch away from our feet. The drivers all got out and asked where we wanted to go. We said no thank you, we were to meet someone there. Then, one of the sketchy people came up very close to us and started telling us about his 4x4 car in which he could drive us anywhere we wanted. By now, it was about 5:10am. He started talking louder and closer to our faces with every time we told him we weren't interested, and we could soon smell the alcohol on his breath. We then noticed a mini-bus parked on the side of the street, and I asked the man inside if his name was Hassan. He shook his head, and showed 3 fingers and said "Fes, 3:00." Umbarack had told us the day before that our driver would get us to the airport in Fes by 3:00 because our flight was at 5pm. I asked the driver why this was the car instead of the 4x4, and he clearly did not understand anything I said. I asked if he knew Umbarack, and he nodded his head. Meanwhile, the drunk man is starting to get aggressive with us and is actually blocking the door to the mini-bus. We reached a group consensus that the mini-bus man is the one who Umbarack hired to drive us to Fes and we should get into his car. We slid past the drunk man and all got in safely, but as the driver tried to close the door, the drunk man pushed his body between the door and threw rocks into the car, right at Cameron. He kept saying that he wanted a euro from each of us and he wouldn't leave until we paid him. We eventually were able to slide the door shut, but as the driver tried to get into his front seat the drunk man slid his hand through the front seat right into Cam's face. Cam put some durham coins from his pocket into the man's hand right after I was sure the man was going to punch Cam. The drunk man said "go to hell" and he finally left. Not such a delightful experience to start our day. After taking a few deep breaths (sound familiar?) we were on our way, we hoped, to Fes. I was the only one in the front row closest to the driver, and I tried to make some conversation with him to make sure he was legit and that we were indeed headed towards Fes. No such luck. I asked how long the ride would be, and if we would stop along the way, and he answered me in lengthy French sentences. Oh well. About a half an hour into the ride, the driver's cell phone rings (to the tune of the Carmen fantasy). I sort of ignored his convo in Arabic because I wouldn't have understood it anyway, but then he said Umbarack, and handed the cell phone back to us! Cam was so excited, and had a very nice conversation with his best buddy Umbarack. He had just called to make sure we were okay and that we were on our way. What a gem. After that convo, we were all able to snuggle into our seats (some better than others-I had a bar sticking into my hip) and sleep for the next few hours. The driver stopped around 10am at a gas station and woke us up to tell us that we should use the "toalette," or however you say it in French. I think it was during this stop that the driver told Cam that his name is Bill. I had a nice sleep for the rest of the drive, and we finally arrived in Fes around 12pm. Bill took us first to an awesome view above the entire city and then to a ceramics school! We saw students working on each step of the pottery-designing it out of clay with a thing that he turned with his foot, a man laying them out to dry, the huge ovens they use, two men painting the pieces, and one carving exact pieces with a hammer. We learned that the classic pottery color they make is blue, as it's the color of Fes. He took us then to their shop where he made "special price for you because you student." Bill then took us to the Medina, or market. We only had about half an hour before we had to go to the airport, so we walked down a few alleys to get a quick glance at the Medina. They were selling some of the freshest produce I've seen-such colorful fruit and vegetables lining the alleys, and millions of spices and grains and mint plants too. Taylor noted that this was the most modern place we had been thus far, and then a donkey brushed by my shoulder trying to get down the alley. We arrived safely back at Bill's van, and we communicated with him in airplane gestures that we had to get to the airport to make our flight. We successfully arrived at the Fes airport with plenty of time to spare as there was basically zero security. Oh wait, we did have to put our bags through an x-ray machine, but there was no guy sitting watching the video of the bags pass through. The group of us had a nice sit in the café where I used the last of my durhams on gross orange juice, and eventually boarded our awesome RyanAir plane. I'm so lucky everything worked out with the awesome kids I went with, and talking to the locals in each village and learning so much from them and from Umbarack made the trip. Watching the sunset over the clouds outside my window was a beautiful way to end an amazing adventure.
View of Fes
Pottery School
In the Medina
outside of the louvre
falafel number one
"and the rest is history, dollie!" --mom
falafel number one
"and the rest is history, dollie!" --mom
