Shakran Maroc

I have no idea where to start or go with this post. There's so much to say about my experience in Morocco; I filled up over 30 pages alone in my travel journal. So, let's begin by showing you my home away from home, the one and only Riad DOUZI! Here we quickly made friends with 7 French guys, 6 Dutch students, a Japanese girl, a German girl, and of course our 2 amazing hosts: Majid and Houria. Michele and I spent every night up on the terrace until the early AM discussing politics, women's rights, religion, languages, and music with all of these wonderful people. I'm glad that my first official hostel was such a success; I really did not want to leave on Monday and Majid said the same back to us.

Entrance

Our room

Two floors of tiles like this! Even in a hostel!

Long live Morocco!

So what did we do over there with Aladdin? We ate a ton of tajine, couscous, brochettes (our version of kebabs), orange juice, and my favorite...drum-roll please, Fresh Mint Tea! The most amazing thing about the food in Morocco is how cheap it is; less than 7 euros for a three course meal, all prepared daily with fresh ingredients. In fact,  I saw a man carrying live chickens down the street, that's how fresh it gets!

Honey and butter for our pita bread breakfast. YUM

Berber chicken tajine. This was the best tajine all week :)

Our OJ guy

Moroccan cookies, oranges with cinnamon, and fresh mint tea=HEAVEN

We also bargained a lot for anything and everything we wanted. For example, Michele's lantern started at 100 dirhams:
I'll give you 60. 
No, no. That's mean. And then as soon as you start to walk away....Okay, how much can you pay? 
I told you 60 dirhams. 
But this is good quality. Very good quality for such a good price. 90 dirhams, how about 90 dirhams?
No. Oh well, I'll just go to another vendor.
WAIT, 80 dirhams, 80 dirhams, a good price! 
I said 60, sorry. 
75?
70.
Okay, okay. Are you a Berber?
At heart, yes.

And you've got yourself a deal. The only problem is doing this hour after hour and not getting exhausted from A) standing firm with your decision to only pay X amount B) trying to understand French with a Maghreb accent C) Not staring too much at the vendor if he's cute or else he'll demand a kiss on the cheek (don't worry I didn't fall for it; I told him he already got a free smile).

Looking down a souk

Beautiful spices

One of Hassan's fun facts: the spice cones are not Moroccan. They're used to trick tourists; they actually come from China!

The other fun thing about the souks (markets) is being the eye candy. Constant cat calls of "Ca va les gazelles? Fromage blanc, ça va? Oh la la vous êtes belles" is quite annoying at first but as the week goes on your instant impulse to flip the Flipadelphia finger turns into a game and you smile back and say "Oui ça va, et toi?"


What else? We took a day trip to the Atlas Mountains on Wednesday and then we drove 9 hours through them on Thursday to get to the Western Sahara Desert. Our taxi driver on Wednesday was amazing. The most incredible thing about Hassan is that he has a Master's in History yet wants to be a taxi driver. He explained to us that a History degree in Morocco is not specialized, you have to study the history of every empire, every country, every great leader. Furthermore, he'd rather be a taxi driver than anything else because of the people he meets and the discussions he has with them. As power hungry Americans, our first thought was, "Why would you want to be a taxi driver if you have a Masters? Can't you do better?" He explained to me that his Dad wanted all of his children to be in the Police Force like him, but he refused because he didn't like how crooked you have to be to stay in that position or even think of being promoted. Immediately, it all clicked together and made me feel better about the philosophy to do what you enjoy rather than what someone tells you to be because it pays well. We can all dream in Morocco, right?

Amazing colors

An Arabic prayer written on the mountains

ROCKS!

The Atlas Mountains are breathtaking, again pictures can't do justice. The colors of the rock change depending on the area and history. Some areas really reminded me of the Shenandoah Mountains (shout out to JMU). I thought back to my Geology class and how the continents shifted and all that jazz and thought hmm, maybe it was altogether one point in time. Just checking Wikipedia now... and what do you know? I mean Wikipedia is always right, right?

Dried-out river- reminded me of the Grand Canyon

My favorite picture

When we stopped every so often for bathroom and coffee breaks, every building, even the huts on the side of a cliff, had the Coca-Cola logo painted on the walls. They are truly obsessed here. We also stopped at a few Berber houses, an Argan Oil co-operative, and pottery huts. The Berber houses were very, very simple- made of straw, clay, and stones. What blows your mind is that they work to live, not to make money so to speak. They have handmade irrigation systems, goats wandering up and down the hillsides, rickety bridges across the river, and donkeys to ride up the windy paths. They all just live life day by day, hour by hour. Michele and I noticed that a lot of people were just chillin', relaxin', and soakin' up the sun. So our game in the car was to point out new "chill" places: on top of a cliff, on a guardrail, on a pole, on a donkey, on a bike, on a pile of straw. I already miss looking out for that; not that France is as busy and time obsessed as the States, but Morocco really allows you to think and dream on your own time.

The Argan Oil co-op was very interesting in the same sort of sense: everything is handmade. The women pick the nuts, crack the nuts, grind the nuts, add scents, bottle it up and then give tours to tourists like us explaining all of the beneficial results of lathering your hair and skin with oil (it must work, all the older ladies were lacking in the wrinkle department). They even sold a Moroccan version of Nutella-made of the argan nuts, but even crunchier- let's say half peanut butter, half Nutella- a spoonful of heavenly goodness.

Now onto the camels. It was a bumpy, smelly ride. They are so cute in their "Merrr I'm a camel" way but boy do they fart! And poo and pee! Every minute a different camel was doing his thang. Smelly! Like leftover brussel sprouts and cabbage! And their hump does hurt. Maybe the first 10 minutes weren't so bad but after an hour, my butt was killing! I did like my camel though; his name was Achmed (yes I named him that). He was smaller with black wool and wouldn't walk in a straight line; we got along perfectly.

Once we got to our Berber tents, we were greeted with Berber Whiskey (a stronger version of the mint tea, without alcohol though-most Muslims don't drink). We tried to talk to one of the guys but since he wasn't very good in French or English we all used a lot of arm movements. All of what he did know, he told us he learned from other tourists. Furthermore, he couldn't write it down or read it, just speak the language (a common theme with a lot of the guides here). The best part of the night was asking him about dating. Really, how do you date if you're a nomad in the Sahara Desert? Do you get to kiss a girl before your camel gallops in the other direction or the sandstorm starts up? He told us that if you really like a girl, you go to the closest city with paper, you write down your names, and you get a stamp. And then babies come. Right......

Later after dinner, we listened to them play the drums and sing in Berber. Pretty sick. Even better? Getting free drum lessons. Even better? Being able to see EVERY single star there is in the sky AND the whole Milky Way because you are that secluded from the rest of the world. You want even better than that? How about being woken up by Michele and being told that she's hearing a sound and she thinks something is in the tent and she's going to get sick if it doesn't go away because she's hopped up on adrenaline. As some of you know I can be a complete and utter bitch if woken up from my precious sleep. Between that and not wanting to think about having a snake, scorpion, or lizard sitting on my feet, I told her to go back to bed, she's hearing things. And then I heard it. A mixture between a frog's croak and Lord knows what else. I covered my ears and counted. After a while, she couldn't take it anymore and woke up the whole tent. The two Brazilians with us heard it too.  The only guy in the tent, Marcel, turned into the knight in shining armor, and flashed his cell phone around the tent. He claimed it was outside and we felt a bit better after someone looked around (we were way too scared to even dare to move). And then it started again. It sounded like it was coming from the same spot every time. Marcel got up again, touching the sides of the tents, thinking that was the noise, when Aya (the Japanese girl) woke up and asked what was going.
You know, my friends say I grind my teeth sometimes.
Aya, it's not your teeth, there's a f***in' animal in this tent!
It sounds like this...
Holy Shit. That's your teeth? You need to see a dentist ASAP.

Oh life in the Sahara.

Our infamous tent

Once back in Marrakech, and still hurting from the violent camel whiplash, we decided to try out the traditional hammam. It was so relaxing and my skin was so soft after the 1 1/2 hour ordeal. We were lathered up with so much oil but my skin and hair must be really dried out here in France from the wind, crappy water, crappy French hair products, that it soaked it all up by the end of the night. And smelled damn good.



On our last day we visited the museums, tanners (leather makers), and city gardens. Oh and of course some more bargaining in the souks! We met another Berber guy, who not only made us free necklaces, but polished my Magi box before I bought it. In Morocco, that sort of customer service is rare!

Sick Cactus I shall name Carl.

Random things: There's actually still a pretty decent Jewish population in Morocco (it was the main religion before Islam swept up over the land).

The call to prayer happens 5 times every day. The best is at 5 AM when you're in the middle of your REM cycle and your dream switches settings and you think you're on top of the Jamaa Al Koutoubia mosque with him, but you're not. Bitter disappointment when I woke up.

When country officials come to Morocco, they are offered dates and milk to show respect for the purity of the relations (not sure why dates are purer than figs but that's what I was told folks). Berber language has some pretty cool characters and I want to learn it just so I can write like this (Berber is in blue, Arabic in orange).

All in all, it was probably the best vacation I've ever had and to make matters even better, the cheapest as well. I have a ton of other stories and pictures, so feel free to email me if you want to learn more! Otherwise, I'm off to beddy byes, Strasbourg calls my name for the weekend :)