Spring Break:Morocco

Hello everyone!

So last you heard it was cold and snowy. Well it finished being cold and snowy in February, and was then just cold. We got some snow in March as well, but it wasn't too bad. The worst part of the weather is making sure I wear the right clothes to go to work. It may be a nice 50 degrees in Madrid but up at work it could be a chilly 32. Darn mountain air. Anyway. Winter passed mostly without incident here. The week before Semana Santa was"culture week" at school. In true Spanish fashion the kids spent the week learning about Aztecs as Mexicans. Gotta love Spanish cultural sensitivity. That week at work the other assistants and I were sent to be with the 3 yearolds and sent to decorate piñatas. All in all a very, very pointless week. At least our piñatas were pretty.

After cultural week was SPRING BREAK!!!!!!!!!!! For spring break we went to Morocco!!!!!!! We have been planning this trip since December, more or less. The six of us who went were, Carlos, Alissa, her bf Noel, Chelsea and my friend Eric. Eric is doing a world tour and stopped in Spain and visited and I had convinced him to come to Morocco as well. We were well guarded with the three men.

Our first stop was Marrakech. After a failed arranged van, we opted to take a Grand Taxi to our apartment. One taxi for all six of us plus our luggage. It was a great start to a trip to have 4 squished in the back and two in the front plus the driver. An experience we repeated many times. The apartment in is a complex located just outside of the old city walls. It cost of 11euros each per night. It was an apartment that was built around an open main 'atrium' type thing. The stairs wound up around the sides of the wall and from each level you could see the downstairs area. It had a great couch and good rooms. It also came with the requisite Moroccan pouf. The first day we went out and saw two castles. One was a ruin with huge empty swimming pools and the other was still more or less in tact that reminded us greatly of La Alhambra. A LOT. Even if you didnt know that the Peunisula was invaded for 8 centuries by Muslims, you would definately be able to see the connection between Morocco and Spanish architexture. Walking around also gave the strange sensation of being back at Scripps. Orange trees everywhere, tiles, plants in the middle of a desert, fountains...

Marrakech is full of people and motos and burros and people trying to get your money. If you look, you pay. If you take a picture, you pay. If you smile, you pay. If you talk to them, you pay. We mostly were able to avoid the random payments. We also walked around the main plaza in the Marrakech Medina which is called "Djemaa el Fna". It's meaning is actually connected to death and public hangings because this is where they were held before public hangings were banned. Now, it is full of life. In the morning there are mostly dried fruit and nut stalls and orange juice stalls. Delicious fresh orange juice for 3dirhams. Or the equivilant of about 3 euro cents. Amazing. There are markets that surround the plaza which are streets and streets of covered stalls with spices, leather goods, cloths, trinkets, lamps, gourds, hats, anything and everything. We got a little taste of it on the first day before we surcombed to the effects of flying at 6.30am and returned to our apartment. That night we had paid for dinner which ended up being lemon chicken, a beef tajine from the nearby gas station restaurant, and delicous bread.

Day two was spent in the new part of the town looking at the Jardin Majorelle which is a beautiful botanical garden mostly full of cactus. It is said that Yves Saint Laurent spent time there and there is a rather phallic column erected in his honor. The colors were amazing as were the cacti. It reminded me of being in Frida Khalo's house. We took a walk through the new area on the way to the train station and stopped in a little hole in the wall restaurant off a side street. We ate a great meal of chicken, tagine, beans and bread. Walking around, even in the new area you see the gender seperation. We saw very few women at restaurants of cafes. We saw groups of women, but never sitting down and just watching the people go by. After lunch we bought train tickets for 5am in the morning and wandered though a cyber park and the markets before we ate dinner in the main square. Along our journey through the souks, the markets, we had a round of pastries and Eric was daring and tried snails from an old man vendor in the back of one of the small plazas. He scoops them out of a pot with salty snail water and gives them to you in a little chipped bowl. You pick out the snails with a toothpick. I tried one. It was very salty.

At night, the main plaza is filled with food stands and food vendors. They are all clustered together and they employ at least 2 or three people to try and get you to eat at their stands. After being acosted several times, we chose a place with sheep's head and a bunch of Moroccans. We squeesed into the benches and ordered by pointing and gesturing. Noel speaks French pretty well, which was a great help on the trip, but these stalls moved too fast to be able to do more than point and eat. We got some lamb meat stew thing, bread dipped in boiling lamb juice, lamb head, brains, tongue, and some other unidentified thing. After braving the sheep head stand we finished off with a glass of fresh orange juice where Eric had to endure the pleas of a small child asking him for some juice. We learned not to use straws because they reuse them and learned from Noel how to say 'don't touch me' in French. Eventually the boy gave up and went back to his sister who was playing with a handful of coins. We wandered around some more which I found to be very stress inducing because at night you can't see donkeys coming or people and you can hear the moto, but not really see it. There are people everywhere and no lights. We got some tea and headed home.

Day three was spent going to the beach, at the beach, eating fish, riding camels, and coming home. We hired a van for the 3 hour drive to and from the beach called Essaouira. We through caution to the wind and went in and played around. There was a sign on the boardwalk that said not to stay in more than 10 min the first time around....oops. The sand was very fine and the water was not as cold as in Santa Cruz for instance. I hope we don't grow a third ear in the future. Since I've been into Lake Merrit before, I think I'm ok. After we swam we got lunch at a seafood stall by the old city. There are a bunch of little stalls out on a point that have their fish out so you can choose which ones you want and then they grill it and put it on your table. We ordered 100euros of seafood between the 6 of us. We had shrimp, crab, sardines, calamari, and several types of white fish. It was delicious. Following this we went and rode some camels and horses. Well, I suppose they were dromidaries because they only had one hump. We struck a deal to ride camels half the time and then horses the other half of the time. The horses were little small things and we all looked ridiculous on top of them. The camels were pretty fun . Mine kept frothing at the mouth and some of the others had this weird bubble tongue thing going on. Very strange and funny. We only got to see the city for an icecream before we made the 3 hour journey back in which people slept and we played 20 questions and guess who.

Day four in Marrakech was used to take another day trip to the Ourika Valley at the foot of the atlas mountains. We caught another Grand Taxi which meant another squishy ride, this time up the hill. Once we got past the city, everything started turning green and lush. The Lonely Planet book told us that during the late winter early spring is a good time to go because you can see all the trees blooming. They didn't lie. It was beautiful. The taxi took us to Setti Fatma, which is basically the end of the line in the Ourika Valley. From there you can take a hike to see 7 water falls and the village it set over a river. They had really awesome log/plank bridges that makes you feel like you are in an Indiana Jones movie. We had some tea before we headed out to check out the waterfalls. We were told that the first one was an easy 5 min walk away. We were all wearing skirts but Alissa and Chelsea were also wearing sandales, which would prove a difficultly later on. We 'hired' a boy guide to take us and show us the way, eventhough in hindsight we could have found it quite easily by ourselves. There were so many people on the 'trail' that the going was hard. There were points where you had to cross the river on rocks that when they get wet they are very slippery. Some parts ask you to scramble up like a mountain goat. I'm suprised more people haven't been injured. We made it to the second water fall and relaxed for a little and decided not to go up to the third one eventhough we were told it would be easier to get down after the third one. To get to the third on you have to climb up a ladder that is put up the shear part of the rock that goes right other a mini water cascade and you had to scramble up the rock face. A definite no-no for skirts and sandals. We mad our way back down the mountain and had a well deserved lunch of meat skewers and tajines. On our way back to Marrakech, we stopped at Tnine which has a Monday market. It was amazing. It was so real. No tourists, just Moroccans doing their thing and going about their business. We saw spices and veggies and fruit and some fish places and the donkey area and a part where you can get your hair cut or get shaved, and clothes and a food area. It was so neat to walk around and see the normal people doing their thing. We then loaded back into the grand taxi and came home.

Day 5 was spent mostly in the train. What was a 7 hour ride ended up being about 8. Our aircon cut out after the wee hours of the morning and the time we really needed it, it was off. We slept and talked and ate and looked out the window. The second class part of the train, where we were, still has the old compartments with the little doors and the benches. Like in the Hogworts express. It was awesome. We got to Fez in the afternoon and we met by the caretaker of the apartment. He got us into taxis and took us to the aparmtment. Cars are not allowed into the main main part of the medina so we got dropped off outside and then had to follow Rachid through the laberinth of Fez. The apartment was amazing. It is the whole building with three floors and a terrace up at the top that has a view to the city and beyond. There are couches up there to hang out and it is built around the same open courtyard in the middle idea. They whole place is decorated with Moroccan textiles and tiles and huge old wooden doors and ironwork. For 15euros a night per person, it is a palace. It has a full kitchen and 3 toilets and two sitting areas. We feel in love with it. We were provided with our first and only couscous meal of the trip, that was homemade and then went off to explore Fez. We had a market near by with had all sorts of fresh food and then the souk area was interesting and we wandered until it was time to buy food for dinner. We of course bought from the market and cooked it at the apartment.

Day Six was spent wandering around the city and the older parts and trying to find things that we could go into as non-Muslims. We saw the royal palace from many angles and walked through a neighborhood and saw a park that was being renovated. It was a good thing that Fez was not as hot as Marrakech. Fez was also a lot calmer. Not as many tourists or hawkers or donkeys and the people were more friendly and willing to help you for the sake of helping you and not just for some change. We grabbed a menu for lunch in a funny little terrace that was being painted and soldered at the same time we were eating. Then we went back and enjoyed our lovely terrace with some tea, pastries, and card games. For dinner we went to a well known little expat place called Cafe Clock for camel burgers. Its behind a few alleys and then you think it is small, bu you can just go up and up and up and there were seemingly endless levels to sit. At last we scored a place inside and ordered our camel burgers along with some other little snacks. Highly disappointed with the little snacks and the'smoothies'. Camel burger was quite tasty and it was a good expereince, but not something any of us would go back to.

Day seven was an early morning in which we found our way through the medina to the tanneries. Once you get in the correct vecinity, everyone wants you to go and look at their terrace and see the tanning pits. It didn't smell as bad as I thought it would, but at one place we were still given mint to hold to our noses. The tanning pits are about the size of the normal house jacuzzi and filled with color. Most of what we saw were reds and browns. We did see some yellow colored skins drying in the sun. The men work down in the pits beating and coloring and moving things around. Very interesting to see. After we saw the pits we got taken to see some weaving where they weave brightly colored cactus fiber into scarves and blankets and stuff. Really pertty stuff. We assured the man we would be back and then we went to see the courtyard of one of the religious schools. It was pretty amazing, but I was about at the saturation point where all the pretty architecture kinda looked the same. For lunch we returned to the tanneries and we got to see the difference in what the give to people who speak arabic and people who do not. We pay the same price, but they get all sorts of tasty little finger foods to go with the meal. Oh well. After lunch we lost ourselves in the souks behind the tanneries. I've decided that the souks and other areas are pretty much grouped by type. The tanneries in one area, the bronze and silver smiths in another. We passes though a market that was devoted just to the leather shoes that Moroccans wear and another devoted to fabrics and anther devoted to traditional clothing. After finding our way back to the apartment we ate dinner and played some fun charade games.

Day eight was spend packing and doing last minute shopping and dropping off of post cards. Carlos and I went in search of a drop box for the postcards and ended up wandering around somemore in areas that we hadn't been to yet. We saw the oldest psyciatric hospital in the world, built around 1281 where they aparently didn't use medicine, they use music,. We also saw this amazing wall that was in front of a mosque. It was a wall from about 3 stories up that was just decorated and placed between two buildings. Beautiful colors and shapes. We spent the last of our dirhams buying snacks and food and then we headed home to catch the taxi to the airport. We caught the taxi late because we were unsure of where to meet it and then once we got to the airport we had to pass through a series of security measures. You have to go through metal detectors to enter the airport and then passport stamp where they had the flight manifesto and then through a boarding pass passport check and then they ask you go through your ag check and then you go through immigration/customs where they look at your passport and the info that you filled out and then you go through security, where they don't take out liquids, and then onto the plane. By the time we got in line for the customs they had already opened up boarding so to add to the stress of the security there was the stress of missing the plane. Good thing about half the plane was late or going through what we did and we made it home ok. We even got the Ryanair fan faire that means we arrived on time.

I'm so glad I got to go back to Morocco without any guides and without a specific itinerary and that we could just go and wander and eat and do whatever we felt like. It gave me a chance to see the city at a more personal level and to explore a lot more. I would definitely go back to Fez in a heart beat. Marrakech for me is nice, but I think once was ok with me. Too touristy and the sellers are two pushy. But 6 of us went on a 8 day trip without killing each other and managed to enjoy our time and have a most excellent Spring Break.