The université de provence has a one week break in february, vacance d'hiver. I decided to use this time to explore Morroco. It was the trip of a lifetime!
I travelled with two other americans, Sheryl from indiana and Brendan ( knickname Beej) from Wisconsin
Day 1: Friday
bust to airport at 5 in the morning. ryan air flight to tanger. we arrive and it is gorgeous and sunny, palm trees everywhere and sparkly blue ocean.
taxi into town. we were tired after our early morning so we napped on the beach. I woke up from my nap to find camels crossing the beach not 5 feet from where im sleeping. I dont think i've been more disoriented, if it werent for the photo sheryl snapped id have thought i was dreaming it.
We bummed around tanger all day. there isnt all that much to do there, but the weather was lovely, so we relaxed and explored. In the afternoon we had our first Morrocan thé à la menthe, or mint tea. Its fantastic and usually comes with springs of fresh mint. We took a petite taxi to the kasbah, where we looked accross the strait of Gibralter. You could just barely make out Spain. then ate a big morrocan dinner, the first of many Tagines. Delightful. and we got a lesson on Morrocan carpet making. There are different regional styles and traditions.
we went back to the train station that night to catch a night bus to Marrakech. The night train was wonderful! our own private compartment with really comfy cots and a sink.
Day 2
Woke up early and watched the sunrise from the train. the stop at marrakech caught us by surprise so we rushed to get out of our pjs and off of the train. we caught another petite taxi into town, and found our hostel. It was in the middle of the souks ( famous markets) down a very confusing alley. still surprised we found it so quickly. dropped off our stuff and headed out to explore.
first stop- Djemaa El-Fna, a huge open square in the heart of the city. It is constantly changing, there is always something going on here. Snake charmers, trained monkeys, veiled women giving henna tattoos, street preformers, you name it and it is there.
we then had to run some errands- exchanging money and stopping at the tour office to pay and confirm
when this was out of the way we went to a restaurant where we ate traditional morrocan food on the terrace overlooking the square. washed it down with mint tea and lost ourselves once more in the hustling and hassling of the souks.
Dinner was at an outdoor stall in Djemaa El-Fna. It was completely transformed at night. In the center was a sea of tents selling snails, tea and pastries, lambs head soup, kebabs, couscous, tagines- the smell of it all was incredible. surrounding this were little islands of light where fortune tellers and musicians were seated on blankets around their propane lights. Crowds would form around one circle and then slowly disperse to reform around another. As we walked through this people called to us from every side trying to attract our attention and pull us into their stall or lamp lit circle.
We ended up at a barbecue stall, 114. the servers were all very friendly, they referred to us all as america, and made jokes about KFC of all things!! the guy who served us was called shakespeare and had an incredible unibrow.
we ended our evening with one more circuit of the square.
Day 3
We got up early and walked to the tour office. There werent enough people signed up for the 4 day 3 night tour, so we ended up getting a partial refund and going on the 3 day 2 night. We loaded into a white minibus and set off. I fell asleep almost immediately on the bus.
Our first stop- Ait Benhaddou Kasbah in Ouarzazate. It was used in the filming of lawrence of arabia, the mummy, and the gladiator. Its one of the best preserved kasbahs from the period.
back into the bus until lunch, when i got to know our fellow tour participants. There were two other americans, both of whom were living in paris. one was studying law there, the other was teaching english. There was a young guy from japon who had been travelling europe alone for several weeks, and barely spoke english, another japonese girl who was very quiet, two friends from tawaiin, and a middle aged chinese NGO worker named vincent.
back on the bus. we drove the rest of the day, making occasional stops at small towns or view points to walk around and take pictures.
We arrived in the Dadas gorge around 6, and checked into a small hotel right on the river. During dinner, we bonded by swapping travel stories . Vincent must have asked everyone at the table if they had been to cambodia at least 5 times. He then told the americans that they really should visit cuba. 'Very nice. I have contact there.'
After dinner abdullah and the hotel staff started playing the drums, a bunch of us actually got up and danced. Then they sat around smoking hookah ( or narguilé), and we talked, half french, half english. We were joined by the only other guests, two girls from manchester. One of them was a parole officer, though she was only 25. She explained that english parole officers are more like social workers.
By this point it was quite dark, and we decided to go up to the terrace on the roof to look at the stars. We brought our blankets- it was freezing! but i've never seen such brilliant stars. i cant think of a non cliche way to describe them- shimmering, brilliant, luminous- i was shocked my the sheer multitude of it all, framed by the sheer sides of the gorge.
abdullah and another one of the hotel staff, Ahmed, taught us some berber words.
i did my best to spell them phonetically:
Moon- Airure
shooting star (we saw three)- tamar wite
star- teetreet
river- assif
and we talked about berber culture. Morroco is about 80 percent berber, and even though their culture has been greatly influenced by the arab population and tourism, they still have a very strong sense of identity. They seem to enjoy educating visitors on their language, their food, their crafts. It was fascinating.
Eventually the cold drove us inside. There was no heating in the building, so it was a rather rough night.
I travelled with two other americans, Sheryl from indiana and Brendan ( knickname Beej) from Wisconsin
Day 1: Friday
bust to airport at 5 in the morning. ryan air flight to tanger. we arrive and it is gorgeous and sunny, palm trees everywhere and sparkly blue ocean.
taxi into town. we were tired after our early morning so we napped on the beach. I woke up from my nap to find camels crossing the beach not 5 feet from where im sleeping. I dont think i've been more disoriented, if it werent for the photo sheryl snapped id have thought i was dreaming it.
We bummed around tanger all day. there isnt all that much to do there, but the weather was lovely, so we relaxed and explored. In the afternoon we had our first Morrocan thé à la menthe, or mint tea. Its fantastic and usually comes with springs of fresh mint. We took a petite taxi to the kasbah, where we looked accross the strait of Gibralter. You could just barely make out Spain. then ate a big morrocan dinner, the first of many Tagines. Delightful. and we got a lesson on Morrocan carpet making. There are different regional styles and traditions.
we went back to the train station that night to catch a night bus to Marrakech. The night train was wonderful! our own private compartment with really comfy cots and a sink.
Day 2
Woke up early and watched the sunrise from the train. the stop at marrakech caught us by surprise so we rushed to get out of our pjs and off of the train. we caught another petite taxi into town, and found our hostel. It was in the middle of the souks ( famous markets) down a very confusing alley. still surprised we found it so quickly. dropped off our stuff and headed out to explore.
first stop- Djemaa El-Fna, a huge open square in the heart of the city. It is constantly changing, there is always something going on here. Snake charmers, trained monkeys, veiled women giving henna tattoos, street preformers, you name it and it is there.
we then had to run some errands- exchanging money and stopping at the tour office to pay and confirm
when this was out of the way we went to a restaurant where we ate traditional morrocan food on the terrace overlooking the square. washed it down with mint tea and lost ourselves once more in the hustling and hassling of the souks.
Dinner was at an outdoor stall in Djemaa El-Fna. It was completely transformed at night. In the center was a sea of tents selling snails, tea and pastries, lambs head soup, kebabs, couscous, tagines- the smell of it all was incredible. surrounding this were little islands of light where fortune tellers and musicians were seated on blankets around their propane lights. Crowds would form around one circle and then slowly disperse to reform around another. As we walked through this people called to us from every side trying to attract our attention and pull us into their stall or lamp lit circle.
We ended up at a barbecue stall, 114. the servers were all very friendly, they referred to us all as america, and made jokes about KFC of all things!! the guy who served us was called shakespeare and had an incredible unibrow.
we ended our evening with one more circuit of the square.
Day 3
We got up early and walked to the tour office. There werent enough people signed up for the 4 day 3 night tour, so we ended up getting a partial refund and going on the 3 day 2 night. We loaded into a white minibus and set off. I fell asleep almost immediately on the bus.
Our first stop- Ait Benhaddou Kasbah in Ouarzazate. It was used in the filming of lawrence of arabia, the mummy, and the gladiator. Its one of the best preserved kasbahs from the period.
back into the bus until lunch, when i got to know our fellow tour participants. There were two other americans, both of whom were living in paris. one was studying law there, the other was teaching english. There was a young guy from japon who had been travelling europe alone for several weeks, and barely spoke english, another japonese girl who was very quiet, two friends from tawaiin, and a middle aged chinese NGO worker named vincent.
back on the bus. we drove the rest of the day, making occasional stops at small towns or view points to walk around and take pictures.
We arrived in the Dadas gorge around 6, and checked into a small hotel right on the river. During dinner, we bonded by swapping travel stories . Vincent must have asked everyone at the table if they had been to cambodia at least 5 times. He then told the americans that they really should visit cuba. 'Very nice. I have contact there.'
After dinner abdullah and the hotel staff started playing the drums, a bunch of us actually got up and danced. Then they sat around smoking hookah ( or narguilé), and we talked, half french, half english. We were joined by the only other guests, two girls from manchester. One of them was a parole officer, though she was only 25. She explained that english parole officers are more like social workers.
By this point it was quite dark, and we decided to go up to the terrace on the roof to look at the stars. We brought our blankets- it was freezing! but i've never seen such brilliant stars. i cant think of a non cliche way to describe them- shimmering, brilliant, luminous- i was shocked my the sheer multitude of it all, framed by the sheer sides of the gorge.
abdullah and another one of the hotel staff, Ahmed, taught us some berber words.
i did my best to spell them phonetically:
Moon- Airure
shooting star (we saw three)- tamar wite
star- teetreet
river- assif
and we talked about berber culture. Morroco is about 80 percent berber, and even though their culture has been greatly influenced by the arab population and tourism, they still have a very strong sense of identity. They seem to enjoy educating visitors on their language, their food, their crafts. It was fascinating.
Eventually the cold drove us inside. There was no heating in the building, so it was a rather rough night.
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