Morocco

Now that I am back home in the States, I can finally do the b log for Morocco and my wrap-up blog. Morocco was one of the better places, in my opinion, that I visited on my travels. Maybe it was the fact that it was my last stop and I wanted to "live it up", but whatever the case was, I really enjoyed my time there. After leaving Cairo, I flew into the economic capital of Morocco, Casablanca. Casablanca is notorious for being very boring and mostly a transit stop for tourists, so I hopped on a train to Marrakech, a six hour train ride south. The train ride was a last minute entry into my awards for the "Worst Travel Moment". The train was oversold by about two hundred tickets, so every single seat was taken, as well as every single standing spot, and because I was one of the last people on the train, I was forced to stand in the stairwell leading to the door. To make matters worse, there was no door, so I had to hold on for dear life the entire six hour trip. And, if that was not enough, I happened to be standing next to the disgustingly foul smelling toilet and half way through the ride, the toilet overflowed and set filthy liquids running through the floor onto my bag and feet. I was less than pleased upon arrival, but I did not let this horrible ride get me too bummed. I arrived in Marrakech at night, and one thing I learned from my travels is that arriving anywhere at night leads to problems. This was no different. I only new the location of my hostel in English, and virtually everyone in Morocco speaks only French and Arabic. This made communication with people very difficult. I luckily found a cab driver who could speak a little bit of English, and he agreed to take me for a ridiculous price, but I was in a bind and had to do it. Marrakech is a crazy city, full of small streets and alleys that you must take to get around, making it very easy to get lost, so I thought that this cab driver was trying to take me to somewhere where I was going to get mugged and robbed of all my things. After driving for some time, he let me out of the cab and told me that my hostel was up the street about fifty meters, but he could drive any further because of roadwork. I got out and immediately was lost and had no idea where I was. Finally, a group of kids approached me and told me they knew where I was staying and walked me to my hostel, only twenty meters from where I was dropped off IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. They then demanded money from me, almost 6 USD, to which I gave them half. They swore at me and I went inside. I found out later that that was a common scam used by cab drivers and young kids in Marrakech. Marrakech is a very crazy city. The main square was only about a fifteen minute walk from my hostel, but it can sometimes take up to an hour because of how packed the streets get with pedestrians, motorbikes, and small cars. The square is filled with people all hours of the day, but is totally different during the day from at night. During the day, the square is a lot less crowded (but still a madhouse) with beggars with monkeys, snake charmers with live cobras, people playing drums, women drawing henna, and various other people trying to make a buck. The square is lined with various restaurants and cafes, including the Arcana Cafe, recently destroyed by a terrorist attack which killed twenty tourists. I was there only days after the attack, so I was able to see the cafe and the absolute destruction that had occurred. At night the square is a totally different animal. The square is packed with food stalls, cooking various Moroccan delicacies with benches set up right in front of the stall to eat. It was really fun sitting at the stalls eating various things, rubbing elbows with the locals and seeing what the real Moroccan people ate. One night I decided that I would try every type of odd (non-Western) food I could find in the market. The specialty of many of the stalls is entire sheep heads. They cook the heads and then extract the various goodies for consumption, including: the brains, tongue, eyes, and various other parts that I could not decipher. I plopped my self down at the most busy stall I could find and made the gesture of brains and tongue to the man with the large butcher's knife sitting in front of me smoking a cigarrette. I got a plate first with brains covered in some sort of spice. It was absolutely delicious. I then got a plate with tongue, lungs, heart, eyes, and some other parts that I could not make out. Once again, they were very good, although some of the more grizzly parts were hard to stomach. Even so, the locals around me seemed impressed that I was eating everything on my plate. Either that or they thought I was an idiot because I was eating what even they would not eat. Whatever. Because of the heavy French influence in Morocco, snails are also a big delicacy. I finished off my night with a bowl of snails and a plate of olives, and was quite content with my gastronomic experience (although the snails were a little odd even though I had had them before). Shopping in Marrakech is also very exciting. Right off the square lead small roads and alleys that lead to an immense amount of shops called "souks". There are souks for every type of thing imaginable. The people are all extremely nice and happy to make a deal. They always offer tea and treat you as a guest in their house when you enter their shops. Definitely the most pleasant shopping experience of my trip. Some people I talked to really did not like Marrakech because they thought of the people as pushy and there were too many beggars and scammers, but because of the longevity of my trip, I had become totally used to these aspects of places. I loved Marrakech because it seemed as though the culture of the city and people were right out front in the open. Where as other cities and countries one sometimes has to go in search of the culture of a place, such as traditional clothing, food, or music, in Marrakech, you are almost overwhelmed by these things. I could sit and watch the people in Marrakech for hours and be completely content. Despite my being enamored with Marrakech, I decided to book a guided trip to the Sahara desert to ride camels and hang out with Berbers, the traditional inhabitants of Morocco. After a terrible entire day of travelling I finally made it to the desert around 5 PM. I was given a camel and we then set out into the sand for around three hours until we arrived at the Berber camp, which was essentially a group of wool tents in the middle of nowhere. Riding camels was one of the worst things I had done on my trip. It sounds fun and looks fun from afar, but actually riding the hideous beasts for an extended amount of time is all kinds of terrible. The way they walk makes the ride very uncomfortable and they are constantly walking up and down the tall dunes, making the rider have to hold on for dear life every time they do so. Despite the fact that the ride was unspectacular, the surroundings made up for it and then some. It is an odd sight to look out on to the horizon and see nothing but sand and dunes for miles and miles. You could see so far in front of you that you could see Algeria. Eerie experience. After finally arriving at the camp and walking around like I was severely constipated for a few minutes (my legs were shot from the ride) we sat down to a traditional Berber meal cooked over a fire. It consisted of couscous and various vegetables, potatoes and chicken cooked in a clay pot called a tagine. It was delicious but I cannot tell you how many times I had this dish or something similar during my time there. I was a little tired of it by the end. That night, I slept in one of the wool tents and got no sleep because sand was continually blown in my face. I even got up for the sunrise but it was too cloudy (that day it rained the desert, who would have thought?). The next morning I was able to take a snowboard that they had in the camp up one of the very large dunes and ride down on my butt which was very fun. It was incredibly exhausting to get up these dunes, so I was only able to get about thirty or forty yards up. Still a blast though. Then, the fun truly happened. Myself and a few others who decided against taking camels back to the awaiting bus were able to hop on the roof of a land cruiser and drive through the desert. In the US they would have made you sign waivers, get your insurance, and most likely would make you ride inside the jeep, but in Morocco none of that matters. The driver floored the jeep at frightening speeds through the desert, over huge dunes almost causing us to plummet off the roof. At points I was truly scared that I was going to fall off and get hurt. Even so, it was so much fun and one of the most fun things I did on my entire trip. Once I got back to Marrakech I had to make a decision on whether I wanted to go on to Fes, another city to the north, or stay in Marrakech for a few more days and enjoy the last days of my trip. I liked Marrakech so much that I stayed. Because I only stayed in Marrakech and the desert for my time in Morocco, I did not get the best feel for the country as a whole, but I definitely think that Marrakech is one of the coolest cities in the world to visit. I was definitely impressed.