World Blog 2: Morocco

Hello Everyone!

Morocco was awesome, and now we are back at sea for a 8 days until Namibia.

We were set a day back getting into Morocco because rough seas in Gibralter delayed refueling for us. So we finally got to Morocco and were able to disembark the ship on Tuesday morning. I had a trip booked through Semester at Sea that left immediately when we docked up.

We got on a bus and drove about 3 ½ hours to Marrakech, an ancient city in Morocco known for the Souks market. We had a tour guide with us from Morocco the whole time named Lurbie who was very hard to understand. The countryside of Morocco was beautiful and looked like it hadn’t changed in centuries. People were herding sheep and using donkeys to transport small amounts of their crops. It was really cool.

The first place we went to when we got there we went to a touristy garden that used to belong to some French guy. It wasn’t impressive. Then we went and checked out a library that had some cool stained glass and paintings. Our tour guide soft of strayed a lot from what we were supposed to be doing and added a lot of random stuff that weren’t on our itinerary, but oh well.

Then we finally went to “the square”where the famous Souks are. The Souks is the name of the market place that has been around since the 900s. We went immediately to a restaurant that had prepared a mass meal for Semester at Sea students. I wasn’t too fond of this meal, or Moroccan food in general. It was a lot of sweet meat. Like honey, almonds, and beef all in one. It was good but not how I like my meat. I felt like I was eating dessert for every course. They had yogurt for dessert that was really good, however. Then our tour guide took us through the Souks at a very rapid pace, we weren’t allowed to stop at all, and we picked up some random creepy dude that was helping our tour guide –a delirious old man that was wearing mascara (no, that’s not custom, no other men were wearing makeup, just this creepy old dude).

Our guide took us to a pharmacy place that had all sorts of herbs, and they gave us a little presentation on the herbs and then sold them to us (this was not on our itinerary, and it was very obvious that Lurbie was making a cut on the sales for taking a group of 30 American students spending their parents money there). I bought some mint tea, saffron (apparently Morocco is the cheapest place to buy saffron), some meat spices (a mixture of 35 different spices), and some perfume cubes. Then we walked some more and Lurbie took us to another store that sold a bunk of random stuff and let us buy stuff only from that store (once again, he was obviously making a cut). Here, I bought a few small silver charms for really cheap.

Then we power-walked through the Souks some more, it was really annoying and unenjoyable. We weren’t even allowed to stop for long enough to take a picture before the creepy old makeup dude started yelling and making a scene. People don’t mind getting their picture taken there, but expect you to pay them after you take the picture. Then we got on the bus and went to check into our hotel, which was pretty nice –a lot better than I expected a Three-Star hotel to be. We had about an hour to change and get ready before dinner.

We got back on the bus and drove for about 30 minutes to this really obnoxious, touristy dinner place. Think Dixie Stampede or Medieval Times, but Aladdin-style. There was a big fake castle thing that was built specifically for hosting large tourist group dinners. There were about 4 groups of like 50 Asians, and another big group of French businesspeople, and then our group of American students. (I forgot to mention, in Morocco, their primary languages are French and Arabic, everyone can speak both languages, and people are, for the majority, Muslim).

Besides being so extremely authentically Moroccan (not), the dinner was really entertaining and enjoyable. I was seated at a table with a lot of the Lifelong Learners (Lifelong learners are older people who are no longer in school that go on the trip) and a few students. At first we were served bread and bean soup, which was really good. Throughout dinner, different groups of people in various African, Muslim, and Aladdin-ish costumes came in and sang and chanted and what not. It was pretty cool. The beer in Morocco is called Flag, and it was pretty good too. Then we got some eggs over meatballs with honey (I didn’t really like this that much). Our next course was couscous with vegetables over chicken, which was pretty good. Then we got a big bowl of just-picked oranges, which were delicious. After dinner we had a horse show where they just rode horses around and did tricks and shot fireworks. Cool, but not very Moroccan. It was freezing cold and raining. Then we went back to the hotel.

The next morning we had to be up and checked out of the hotel by 8am, when we got on the bus and rode for about an hour to a Berber Village in Ourika Valley. This place was really cool. There were red-clay snowcapped mountains towering over small Berber Villages. We drove though and went first to check out a little house and a mill. The mill was really cool, it was just a big round, flat stone that was powered by the streams that spins over grains to break them down (see the pictures). Then we walked around the house and took pictures. I thought it was really cool ,and it was a “real”house, despite the fact that every single semester at sea student (whether they were on a semester at sea trip or had planned something independently) went to exactly the same house. O well. The house came complete with a gift shop, too. Mom, I bought you something there.

Then we went to another Berber house and had some mint tea, which was good but a little too sweet. On the way back to Marrakech, we stopped and checked out a school. Then we ate lunch back at the square by the Souks (I left lunch early because I wanted to have some time to walk around the Souks myself). I got attacked by some henna ladies, who had grabbed my hand and drawn “Good Luck”signs all over it before I even knew what hit me, and then demanded money. I tried to give them 3 US dollars, and they replied that the American dollar is worthless because of the depression. Then they followed me to an ATM (I knew they were following me, and I needed to go to the ATM, but I wasn’t going to give them money, I didn’t even want to be drawn on). They tried to make me give them Durhams (Moroccan money) but I gave them 2 Euros and 3 US dollars and told them I didn’t even want henna and left.

In the Souks I bought 2 really cool tapestries for a total of 300 Durhams (about 32 bucks), with a lot of embroidery and beads and glass and stuff sewn into them. After the Souks we all had to meet back at the bus and drive back to Casablanca. It was pouring rain when we got back so I just stayed at the ship that night.

The next morning I got up and went to into town in Casablanca. First we went and checked out the Mosque (but didn’t go inside b/c they wouldn’t let you go without a tour, and there wasn’t another tour starting for a while). Then we got a taxi over to the marketplace and walked around and had some lunch at a French Café. I bought a really awesome painting for about $40 that would easily be at least $300 dollars in the US. It’s really big. Then I went to an internet café and uploaded pictures really fast. I didn’t get to check to make sure everything uploaded okay, I’m told its doubles of everything? I can’t do anything to fix it until I get to another internet café, which won’t be for over a week.

By Elizabeth Elliott