Maroc

Sorry for the delay in getting these last few posted, but hope you enjoy reading about how my summer adventure ended!

8/10/2009

Day one in Morocco was primarily a travel day. After waiting for the ship to clear, there was not enough time to go out in Casablanca before my trip, so the first time I left the ship was to go down and load the bus to Marrakech. A nearly four hour bus ride later and we were in Marrakech, checking into our hotel, which was very nice. My randomly assigned roommate for the trip was named Lexi, and we had a room with a balcony overlooking the pool! Morocco as a whole was not what I expected at all. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of another Egypt, but was surprised at the amount of effort put in to making the areas I saw appear to be pretty. There was landscaping, and the buildings were very nice and finished, unlike those in Egypt. It was almost like being in an amusement park town though, in that at face value, it looked nice, but upon unloading the bus and walking around, it was clear to see that it was in fact only the looks that were nice. The sidewalks were falling apart, and there were still some buildings that were under construction, but still had people living in them because they provided a shelter (despite the lack of walls). The first night in Marrakech I went walking around with Lexi, Meredith, Anna, and Dan (not the same one from Egypt), and then we called it a somewhat early night.
I woke up earlier than wake-up call for day two in Marrakech, and Lexi and I headed down to breakfast. It was delicious! Not only was there cereal, fresh squeezed orange juice, real hot chocolate, and pastries, there were also Moroccan crepes being freshly made by a chef. They were flaky and mix of crepes, tortillas and pancakes. They were also good with pretty much any topping you can think of. After breakfast, Lexi and I went for a quick swim, and then it was time for the day to begin. We loaded up the bus, and headed out into the city. Our first stop was a brief photo stop at one of the mosques. We didn’t get to go inside, but instead walked over to it from where the bus stopped, and took some pictures while we listened to the history of it, then walked back. Our next stop was the Palais Bahia, a gorgeous palace with intricate tiling, hundreds of doorways, and detailed carvings in every room. We went through the rooms and learned what they used to be used for. After the palace, we continued on to the Tombeaux Saadiens, or burial tombs. It was fun to finally have all of the years of French I took on school pay off, as Morocco has a very strong French influence, and many of the signs are in French as well as Arabic, and many of the locals speak French. We stopped for lunch at a Moroccan restaurant, where the food was very good. They came around to all of the tables and washed our hands – and then we all passed around hand sanitizer, because who knows how clean the water was – and then our food was served in a traditional Tagine. A tagine is a clay pot that they both cook and serve the food in. Lunch was good, although it was very slow, especially since we were all eager to go out and explore more. After lunch, we stopped at a pharmacy, where we learned about the medicinal uses of some traditional Moroccan spices, oils and lotions, and then finally we moved on to the long anticipated square in Marrakech! As we wondered through the souks (the open markets) to get to the square, I was talking to our tour guide to get a rough idea of pricing and inflation so that I would be able to recognize a good deal when I was bargaining for prices.
Upon showing up at the square, we set a meeting time and place to go back to the hotel for lunch, and then I set off with Lexi to get some shopping done. The square was full of performers, and monkeys and vendors. All of them wanted to charge for pictures, and some of them would even do things like put a monkey on your arm and then charge you to get it off. Luckily I managed to avoid that. After wondering through the market and making some purchases, we made it back to the bus (barely) and then headed back to the hotel for a quick dinner and freshening up. After dinner, the bus took us back to the square, where we were greeted with an entirely different scene than there was during the day. There were people everywhere, bright lights and food stands set up everywhere, and circles of people congregated around games, performers, story tellers and more. Henna tattoo artists were set up all over the place, and with the number of people and the sounds and smells, it seems like it was a festival, but it was just an average Monday in Marrakech. I set off with Anna, Meredith, Betsy, Lance, Courtney and Michelle. After getting our fill of the square at night, we split two cabs back to the hotel and all went to bed.