Marrakech

Though Morocco has been a bit of a clusterfuck so far with little to no planning, no tours, and no pre-booked hostels, I think Saimah and I did fair a bit better once we got to Marrakech. We actually did pre-book a hostel this time: Bab Joukala or something like that. It seemed to be in a pretty sketchy part of town, but that may have also just been what the entire city was like, and it took a few twists and turns to get there. Our landmark telling us which street to turn on became a huge dirt pile at the end of the street that two golden stray dogs tended to frequent. So after a seven and a half hour train ride with no air conditioning and cramped compartments, I was just praying for the hostel to actually be nice and have bathrooms with soap and toilet paper. Once we reached our hostel, we had to wait outside for a while until one of the guests came to let us in because there was no one else to let us in: seems promising. In reality though, this place was awesome for once the owners did finally arrive (one guy was actually the owner from a different hostel but used to work at this one) they were so cool and treated us like family. They gave us cups and cups of mint tea the first night, maps, told us where to go, what to see, how much to pay for everything. Saimah and I finally had our own room with our own clean bathroom that was fully equipped with a shower, toilet, toilet paper, and even two bars of soap! After settling in we went out to the open air living room and smoked “sisha” a.k.a. hookah with one of the hotel managers then ventured out to the infamous Jaam el fdna square. Ahhh so crazy. This square was probably the largest I have ever seen with numerous fruit stands and an abundance of outdoor food stands that serve relatively the same food for the same price. In front of each place people will also grab you, shove menus in your face and harass you until you are at least 4 or 5 stands away and even then sometimes they will still follow you until you start screaming at them. I seemed to have a bit of an easier time than Saimah, I think 1) because I am a white girl, and 2) because I just never made eye contact, never responded to guy’s pleas, and would just bolt so fast if people started talking to me. I also found it highly entertaining and eventually just started joking with the guys, saying “You give very good price for pretty lady?” and “Five star?”, “Air Conditioning”. These were phrases that continually were used to try and get us to buy things to the point where I think the guys must have all been trained at the same school of harassment or some equivalent.

After a hellish time at the square but a somewhat decent meal we headed back to the hostel to smoke some more sisha. The next morning—our only full day in Marrakech—we took a tour with the owner of the hostel, Hammid. Though it was overpriced, we still had an awesome time. Hammid drove Saimah and I out of the city and too some Berber house, showed us how people bake their bread, cook their food, churn their own butter, make their mint tea. We saw the cows that slept in the same house, had a delicious breakfast with the best butter and honey I’ve ever tasted. Then we drove a little ways further, road some camels into the beautiful Atlas mountains. Though really we road the camels for like half a mile, which kinda sucked. The most enjoyable and worthwhile part of the journey was our quest into the mountains up to a waterfall. I probably shouldn’t have gone on this trip that involved somewhat intense adventure portions, for it was impossible to wear my boot in these situations. So, I went from wearing my boot one day to climbing a stone-faced mountain the next. I was a little nervous and cautious at first, but once we started climbing all the rocks, the albino monkey portion of me came out and I started quickly scaling the mountain, jumping from rock to rock. I think I almost gave Saimah a heart attack a few times when I decided to just slide down 10 foot rocks. Luckily everything turned out fine with no more breaks, maybe only a bruise or two by the time we reached the waterfall. I wanted to go swimming in the freezing pool, and even brought my suit, but no one else was, so I decided maybe this was not the place to swim and risk hypothermia. Instead I just rolled up my pants, took off my shoes, and waded for a while, getting as close as I could to the falls, without wiping out on the mossy rock floor. Hommid’s job was to take pictures of us, which he did for a while, but then got bored because when I looked at my camera there were a bunch of pictures of this stone camel that we got posed on the rocks to look like it was smoking real cigarettes. Love Hammid. On our way down we five fingered discounted a cereal bar, which Hammid took and ran down the mountain with, while I held up and possible pursuers, hobbling as slow as possible behind. We stopped to have a laugh, got in the car/dance club with crappy American pop music and ventured to an awesome Moroccan restaurant with couches and copious amounts of amazing food. After being thoroughly broke by the time we got back, we saw the “some Moroccan word” tombs, which sucked, called it a day and headed back for some more sisha. After smoking sisha to the point of absolute vertigo, we decided to take a break and then come back with some wine. Saimah was trying to save this bottle of wine that she bought from Granada for her boyfriend. Well, let’s just say it didn’t quite make it there. Our reasoning was that wine needed to be kept at relatively 14 °C for it to be any good. Morocco was quite hot and Italy would probably be even worse. We just couldn’t sit there and let good wine go bad. It would have been a crime against nature, sinful to disrespect the hard-working people/machines that made and bottled it, and right about then sounded pretty delicious. And oh it sure was. I kinda I wish I would have gotten a bottle for my dad, but I know that I inevitably would have ended up drinking it for the same reasons, and maybe tacking on so I wouldn’t have to carry it around as well. Wonderful night, wonderful day and now am headed to the beautiful city of Rome!!! Then Florence, Venice, Barcelona, and finally in 10 days time I will arrive in Palma, where I will stay until I leave to go home on the 21^st of July.

Alas I am done and will spend the rest of my flight watching the sunset over a snowy blanket of clouds.