"i'm in morocco! i'm in morocco! i'm in morocco!"

This was my favorite line last week when I was, in fact, in Morocco. It was the reason why I could not sleep at night even though I was sooo tired. It was the reason I got one of my many new nicknames from the trip, Dory. Like the fish in Finding Nemo with short term memory loss who is always way too excited about everything? Ya that was me. It probably didn't help that I wore a blue sweatshirt for almost the whole trip so I even looked like Dory.


I was in Morocco all of last week for fall break. I was picked up by a shuttle at approximately 4:30 in the morning on Halloween and on a plane to Casablanca at 7:25. I sat across the aisle from Gabriel, the French/Greek guy who leads the trip and was born in Morocco and named Casablanca's Most Beautiful Baby in 1956, the year of Morocco's independence. He also wore a sleeping mask on the flight, and don't worry I got pictures. He was a great tour guide/Arabic teacher/Franglais speaker! The only problem is it's impossible to tell when he's joking, but that just makes it more entertaining.


We landed in Casablanca at about 8:30 in the morning with the time difference, and it was cloudy and raining. It's not supposed to rain in Africa! But the later part of the trip in the Sahara Desert during which I saw three tiny white clouds in three whole days made up for it! We got on a bus and drove around a lot of Casablanca, including la mosquée Hassan II, a big, beautiful mosque on the coast right next to a rocky beach. We had to take our shoes off in certain parts of the mosque, we saw where the men and the women pray separately, and we went on a guided tour that was scheduled in between the five times a day when thousands of Muslims come to pray. We saw the public baths in the basement of the mosque that have never been used but are meant to symbolize the ritual washing before prayer in the religion of Islam and the social aspect of the mosque. Then we got on the bus and drove three or four hours to Fès, where we stayed in a four star hotel.


The next day, we visited the medina in Fès. The word medina means "city" or "town," and medinas like the one in Fès actually were the whole city hundreds of years ago. Today, the medina is a never-ending maze of dirt roads that go uphill and downhill and open up into everything from dirt-floored stands to modern-looking stores full of hand-woven Moroccan rugs and Moroccan spices. We visited a rug shop, a spice shop, a clothing store, a tannery, and a textile shop, all with owners who seemed to be personal friends of Gabriel, or at least very friendly. We were offered amazing mint tea with real mint leaves at almost all of our stops. Sometimes it was easy to forget that we were in an ancient medina with dirt paths and donkeys and cats wandering around outside. Everyone was very persistent about selling their products, but I got out of there after spending only a few dirhams on green lipstick (no really!) in a green tube that turns incredibly pink when you put it on your skin or lips. You have to see this to believe it. Barbie pink is the best way I can describe it. Somewhere between all of the shopping and tea-drinking, we had lunch in a restaurant hidden in the medina. We sat at two big tables surrounded by benches covered in pillows and cushions. We were lucky to have a guy name Brent on the trip who is studying at another school in Paris, and his brother Brian who is currently in the Peace Corps in Morocco joined us for the day. He showed us how Moroccans eat out of one big plate in the middle of the table usually with only their hands. He demonstrated how to eat couscous by rolling it into a ball and eating it gracefully out of your hand. It looks like it takes a lot of practice, and most of us chose to use utensils. After the medina, we visited a place where they make pottery. We saw every step of the process, including forming the pots on a pottery wheel, painting them, and firing them in kilns. Then we had a chance to buy some of the gorgeous finished pottery and tiles, but I restrained myself. That night, we went to a traditional folk show, complete with belly dancers, drummers, wine, and audience participation. 


On our third day in Morocco, we went to the desert, which is what I was the most excited for! After a looong bus ride, we got in jeep 4 x 4's with guys who can only be described as VERY experienced desert drivers and left civilization. It was kind of sad to leave Fès because the king was coming! Everyone in Morocco loves the king, and he makes time to visit many of the cities and towns regularly. When he comes to town, everything is cleaned up and all of the people wait outside for him to make a short speech. During our bus ride, there were guards standing every 200 meters for 65 kilometers on the road we were taking out of Fès, according to Gabriel. They were everywhere! Then we stopped somewhere on the side of the road, got into four jeeps, and were driven into the middle of the desert as the sun went down. By the time we stopped, the sky was completely dark and the stars were starting to come out. I still don't understand how the drivers knew where they were going with no signs, no roads, and even no marked paths. Turn right at the third tumbleweed? Turn left after the first dramatic dip in the ground? And they took four completely different paths, I think to avoid the blinding dust their tires kicked up. I was très impressed!...almost as impressed as I was by the place where we had just arrived. It was completely in the middle of nowhere. Besides a few tents, there were only sand dunes as far as you could see. Well, it was dark. Maybe you couldn't see yet. But there were soooooo many stars. There were probably as many shooting stars as I have ever seen in my life. It seemed that every time I looked up, or even just straight in front of me while standing on top of a dune, I saw one. I made plenty of wishes. We went to sleep in the tents. And by tents, I mean the nicest tents I've ever seen with carpets and mattresses and light bulbs! So maybe it wasn't exactly camping, but it was a really nice place to sleep when you have to get up at 4 the next morning!


That's right, we got up at around 4 to walk to the best sunrise-watching dune we could find with the help of our guides who seem to know each dune by heart. The moon was up after being nowhere to be found when we went to bed, and we watched it disappear as the sky turned from black to orange to yellow to blue. It was cold, and we were tired, but it was sooo worth it! Then we spent the day riding camels, climbing dunes, and visiting a little village full of really cute Moroccan kids! I rode two different camels and was on and off camels three times. I think that's enough for a few years, but it was so much fun! The camels had names like Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Ba-hello (that's the phonetic spelling of course), and Jubbaly Hubbaly (no idea how to spell or pronounce that one anymore!). We spent the rest of the day walking around the dunes, climbing them, running down them, and snowboarding down them (well, some of us did). With my complete lack of snowboarding skill in the past, I just watched and attempted to photograph the boys in action. I also walked around barefoot A LOT. Gabriel told us not to because of the scorpions, but then the Moroccan guys told that all of the scorpions live on the other side of the mountains in Algeria, so I felt a lot better. We could see ALGERIA! At this point, I still could not even believe I was in Africa, let alone so close to another African country! After another night in the desert of almost no sleep because I was so excited, I saw most of the sunrise again (not the 4am part, but closer to the 7am part), and it was almost time to get back in the jeeps to go back to the bus and back to real towns and real cities. The drive in the 4x4's looked completely different in the daylight, but it was still cloudless. I miss the desert. 


The rest of the trip was mostly driving on the bus and taking in the changing landscapes. Some of it reminded me of driving through Iowa and Nebraska, only more interesting because it's AFRICA!...and there are sheep everywhere instead of cows. Other parts of it reminded me of driving through the narrow, winding roads in the mountains of Colorado. There were even mountains with snow on them in the distance! We made one very important stop between the desert, the hotel in Meknès for the last night, and the airport in Casablanca. We stopped to feed the monkeys! I only saw two or three monkeys compared to the hundreds that supposedly come out sometimes, but one took a banana right out of my hand! While I was wondering if I should peel it and how much monkeys really even like bananas, he had it out of my hand, out of the peel, and gone in about five seconds. It was so cool! I just wish I had time to take a picture. 


I miss Morocco! Especially since it has been raining and gray in Paris ever since I got back. But it's still Paris! And now it's Paris with some new goals--journal more (like I kind of started to in Africa), take more pictures, actually learn about photography, go back to Africa, and go to all of the continents (3 down, 4 to go!). I'm so happy to be back in Paris, but Morocco was probably the best week ever. I still can't believe it. I was in Morocco! I was in Morocco! I was in Morocco!