Morocco: Riding "famels" in the Sahara!

Hi everyone! I just got back from Morocco and I had the BEST time ever! It has been my favorite place so far just because it was such an experience and so different than anything that I have ever seen. I was totally out of my element and I hope I can describe just how amazing it was!

Ok, so Saturday our flight was at 1 PM. We met up around 10 AM and went to the airport. It was really weird packing for this trip because I had to be very conscious of my clothing. Now, I am not one to show a lot of skin but I had to always make sure that I was wearing clothes that covered my collar bone, arms and legs. So, that was different for me. I was really nervous that i would offend someone or something. But, the second we landed in the airport we realized that Marrakash is a pretty touristy and modern place so we didn't stick out. We found our hotel and then served us tea when we got there. We learned it is called "Berber Whiskey" because the berbers, the nomadic people of the desert, always drink it. I loved it! We put our bags in our rooms and were immediately off to the market, the biggest in Africa, called the Souk. It was crazy!!!! I have never been so overwhelmed in my life! Immediately, we were swarmed by vendors. There were snake charmers and men with monkeys. They would just come up to you, put a snake around your neck or a monkey on your shoulder. Then, when your friends take a picture of you, than claim that you own them like 100 dirham, or 10 Euro, which is just crazy! But, since you are so frazzled, you tend to just pay. Ha, this is exactly what happened to me. Except, my friend calmed me down and I only gave the guy a Euro, which to me was totally worth a picture with this monkey! Ha.

I cannot even describe how crazy this market place was. Everyone was coming up to us, talking in English, French, Spanish, whichever language they thought we looked like we spoke. We all just tried to ignore them or turn the other way but the minute we would walk away, there would be another 10 vendors! Finally, we made it through the initial craziness and found our way to the actual market area full of little stores. Except, I can't call them stores because they were just separated by sheets, it was like a giant tent. I didn't really enjoy the bargaining and haggling so I tried to just kind of walk around but some people in my group loved the shopping and got some really neat things. After walking around and shopping for about 3 hours, we decided it was time to get something to eat. We looked at a few restaurants but nothing looked that awesome. In the center of the market where all of the monkey men and snake charmer people were, it turns into little places to eat at night. So, even though we had heard to be careful with some of the food and the water, we decided to try one of these places in the center of the market. We were SO happy that we did. Not only was it very cheap, but the food was delicious. I had chicken kebabs, like the ones on a stick, with some cooked veggies and rice. It was only like 5 Euro. Plus, before the meal they gave us all the bread and this tomato sauce/paste stuff that we could eat. And, it was goooood! We loved it and vowed to return after our time in the desert. After we ate we just walked back to our hotel and went to bed because we knew we had a full day on Sunday.

The next day we woke up at about 7 and ate the complementary breakfast at the hotel. Then, Moyu, our travel guide guy showed up at the hotel. Our group of 9, plus Muyo and the driver were all in this bus vehicle thing. It reminded me of what we used to take to basketball games, bigger than a suburban but no where near the size of a school bus. Anyways, for the next 8 hours I would say we drove through the Atlas mountains and to the Sahara desert. We stopped about every hour and would get out to take pictures of the amazing scenery. It was such a contrast of the snowy mountains and then the desert that we would drive through. It was freezing cold at the top of the Atlas mountains! Then, we started our way back down the mountains to the Sahara. We stopped in Ouarzazate to eat and it was delicious. Again, I had a chicken kebab but this time I ate some couscous. They have this thing called a tajine. It is like a little contraption that they use to cook veggies and chicken. Some people ordered that and it was very good, very traditional Moroccan food. We also stopped here to go to a movie museum. Movies such as Babel, Gladiator and many more have been filmed in Moroccan cities because of the desert landscape. So, we walked through this really cool museum/film studio. We arrived in Zagora about 30 minutes before sunset. We had to go to a different camel riding place because at the first one we would have crossed the river on our camels, but because of the rain, the river was too high. As we crossed the bridge over the river in our bus there was probably over 200 people just sitting on the river banks. We asked our guide, in Spanish of course, because he didn't know any English, what they were all doing. Moyu looked at us like we were stupid and responded, "They are watching the river." Ha, what else would people be doing on a Sunday night... Obviously.

Suddenly, the bus stopped and we looked out the window. There we saw the camel parking lot, as I liked to call it. We couldn't believe it! Ha, we all climbed on top of my camels with the help of the Berber boys. Actually, they were dromedaries, or camels with one hump or fake camels or "famels" as I have creatively titled them. So, we all laughed and excitedly took pictures as our camels stood up and we walked along. These animals were so much stronger and larger than I was expecting! They weren't fazed by anyone, not even the biggest guy in our group, plus all of our luggage! We rode on the camels for about an hour and half and got to watch the sunset. It was incredible but it was NOT comfortable haha. I named my camel Carmelo, he was, well I can't say cute because they are very unfortunate looking animals, but he was much cleaner than the others, so I liked him!

About an hour into the Sahara Desert, we saw our tents set up. There were about 8 of them in a circle, 7 for sleeping and one larger tent. Since we had 9 people in our group, 5 people slept in one and 4 in the other. We put our backpacks in the tents and then went to dinner. Our Berber's name was Salah. He was 23 years old and has never left the desert. We referred to the parts of the Sahara as the big desert and the small desert and assumed we knew where those were. Haha. He had learned English in order to work for this company. The company that we went through hires these Berbers to take tourists on camel rides, make them dinner in the desert and entertain them until the following day. So, we ate a delicious meal of chicken and veggies again. And of course, the Berber whiskey!

Then, all of the Berbers sang and played music for us. We even danced! It was so much fun. There were about 5 groups of travelers and about 5 berbers. They were all in the traditional head wrap thing and the dress-like outfit. Most of the groups went to bed but we stayed up with them dancing (which was really just like jumping around ha) and they played their instruments and sang. Then, we noticed Moyu was drunk! Thank you for that tour guide haha. But, Salah was very sweet and looked out for us while Moyu had his fun. After some time, the Berbers suggested that we go out from the main tent in order to see shooting stars. We fell for their trick because after some time sitting in the sand trying to see shooting stars we realized that the Berbers really just wanted to be on dates with us American girls. Haha. They kept telling the boys in our group that they should go back to the tent. We slowly figured out their plan and headed back to our tents, no American wives for them! Ha.

The next morning we woke up to watch the sun rise and eat some bread with honey for breakfast. There was a "bathroom" at our site but it was really just an area surrounded by sheets with holes in the ground. The desert was often referred to as our giant sandbox, not a pretty visual but a funny idea. Anyways, we ate our breakfast and rode our camels back to where we started. We then hopped back in the bus and made our way back to Marrakesh. Again, we made many stops along the way and stopped for lunch. By the time we got back to our hotel we were all exhausted. However, some of our group decided to head to the market again but 4 of us decided to stay closer to the hotel. We got some dinner and headed back for an early night. I was dead! The next day our flight was at 2:30 but I was of course paranoid about missing it. There is only one flight out to Alicante that day so if we would have missed our flight on Tuesday we would have had to stay until Saturday and I did not want to do that! So, we walked to the market again, did some last minute shopping and then headed to the airport.

The flight was only 2 hours and customs didn't take long at all so before I knew it we were back on the C6 bus in Alicante, almost home. I got home and took a much needed shower. We had showered in the hotel but I still didn't feel clean clean. So, now I am back in Alicante or "home" as I catch myself referring to it as and I am ready for a good night sleep! Tomorrow is Beatrice's concert at the university which I am excited for and then I leave for Munich on Thursday morning!

Sorry about the delay in posting, I will try and better I promise.

Love and miss you all! It is going by fast, I will be back in KC for I know it.

Adios!

Love, Me.