Marocco part 1

BEST TRIP EVER!!

Marocco has to be the coolest place I have ever visited. Its going to take a long time to report it all to you but I will try.

K, so I went with Kristin, Meagan and Natalie, the first two are Canadian and Nat is half US, half CAN though she told everyone she was Canadian the whole time (it turned out to be a wise plan). We left on Friday, Feb 10 at 9am and took the train to Nice. We flew out of Nice at 2ish and arrived in Marrakech, Morocco at 5ish. A bus took us to our hotel since it was a package deal. The first thing we noticed were all the orange trees full of oranges. We arrived at our hotel, Hotel Marrakech by Marmara and went to a little presentation where we had our first of many glasses of mint tea. Their mint tea is made by putting lots of mint leaves and lots of sugar in a tea pot and steaping it then pouring it in to what we would consider little juice glasses. Its delice if not a little too sweet. Next we went up to our rooms which were nice and clean but funny because the 2 beds were pushed together, hehe. We had time to kill before the dining room opened at 7:30 pm (suppers are late everywhere but North America it seems) and we decided to take a walk down the main drag. Our hotel was perfectly located in the center of the city so we didnt have to walk very far at all.

Anyway, our first encounter with a random male speciman was possibly one of the most startling for us, at least at that time. A man started hissing at us, (thats what they do apparently to call you to them, to us it sounds like a peeing noise though). We ignored him like we do here in Toulon thinking we were pros at dealing with random men. We were surrounded by other tourists and maroccans so it didnt seem too bad. All of a sudden, I saw the man reach down to his zipper and I was like "no way, hes not going to do it" and then he did it! He pulled out his penis and rubbed it on Natalia's jeans. GROSSSSSS I yelled "shooma" (shame on you in arabic) and he turned away. It was disgusting and wierd but also semi hilarious after we were back in the safety of our hotel. Suppers were buffet style and since I was the only one that had had the fun experience of a uni meal hall, I told the girls all about what we used to do in first year and it became kinda like meal hall again, which anyone from Eaton house will remember as FUN! The men, as it turned out were worse than in France, much worse and even the hotel employees hit on us. One guy liked to meow at Kristin, another man told us crude jokes about why another employee's head was bald, another man sang to me at the top of his lungs and alot of them just came over to the table to "chat". Nat is a super fun person to travel with because as one market man put it, she is full of charisma. This girl is hilarious and laughs, sings and dances all the time no matter where we were, even at supper in the restaurant. The Maroccan men loved this since traditionally, muslim women are submissive. Alot of the men didnt know how to take her which we all found hilarious because these men seem to always be in control of the women around them.

We did a package deal thing from a travel agency which included transportation to the desert, sunset camel ride into the sahara, supper, overnight in a tent in the desert, breakfast in the desert, sunrise camel trek back to the town and transport back to marrakech. Sunday we left at the crack of dawn on our trip to the south of Morocco. We drove something like 450 km driving through both snow and sandcapped mountains. Finally we arrived at our destination town of Ouzazet only to find out that it was raining for the first time in 5yrs in this part of the desert. What odds! They told us this using me as translator since 2/3 of the tour group didnt speak French. We all acted very upset, which we were and finally they decided to let us go in to the desert anyway and just risk getting soaked in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, they assumed that we wouldnt want to risk getting wet so we had to wait a couple of hours to leave and our sunset camel trek turned in to a moonlight camel trek (though the moon was covered) so it was really just a pitch black camel trek with wonderful views of blackness. In the middle of the trek and far in to the dessert, my cell rang to let me know I had a text message, yep thats right; I got a text in middle of the Sahara, hehe. It turned out to be from that guy who wont leave me alone even after I told him I got back with an exbf (which one remains a mystery, haha). He was just texting me to say he hoped I would remember him, not as being annoying but as being a good date. It was hilarious and I almost fell of my camel laughing. Nat and I sang Disney songs at the top of our lungs and later the young boys who were guiding our camels told us we were good singers, hahahahaha. Anyway, we arrived at the tents which looked very Aladdin and learned that the promised bathroom facilities didnt exist and that we all had to pee in to the night. By this time the moon was shining and the sand dunes were not as high as you would think so we went and crouched in to the night with our bare bums facing mud huts. Thank goodness one of the girls in our group brought TP. They served us tajine for supper, the very traditional moroccan dish of meat and veggies cooked all together in this peculiar pot thing. It was nice and warm because by this time we were all freezing nearly to death in our tent. Finally it was bed time and we loaded blanket after blanket on our heavily clothed bodies and I ended up being the only person who slept well and didnt snore though apparently I did the tongue smacking noise thing all night long.

We got up, ate a lovely breakfast of tea, white bread, butter and jam and were off on our camels. I have to say, the camel boys were cute in the head scarves and kaftans and they even sang a little Madonna with Nat. We walked back in morning lightness and saw people in the mud huts and little children raced after us hoping for candy or money. I have never wished I had a stash of dolls and trucks in my backpack as much as I did then because these kids were very poor. I dug in my purse for coins since I had no candy and threw it to the kids. I tried to take pics of them too but it was hard since I was on the camel and it was a bumpy ride. We walked through the ocean of palm trees that are beside the desert and watched the little children driving bikes to school. There were lots of birds chirping and and it was very peaceful. I remember hearing Oprah saw how happy she was in Africa and I understood. I will never forget that camel ride. We got back to the hotel where our driver greeted us and offered, me and only me a shower in the hotel. I declined but the ride back with him was interesting, to say the least. More to come later.

I must kicker since its time to get ready to go out for the night!
xoxo

PS We took many many pics and as soon as I get back to school in a week I will post some!