Ok everybody this might be a long one so hold on! Morocco has proved to be amazing and the beautiful thing it would be nothing but a country if it were not for the people who have so enriched every experience! I spent the first day in the Moroccan markets in Marrakech, also known as the Souks. So fun! Imagine Mexican markets hopped up on steroids and filled with Arabians. It was unbelievable. As soon as we arrived the prayer was blasting over the loud speaker throughout the whole city and it was an intensely eerie thing to hear. The skies were dark, I mean pitch black and the irony of it all is that our tour guide told us that it only rains 20-25 days in Morocco. Well wouldn’t ya know we hit one of those days! After about an hour of wandering and winding through the Souks I found myself with a group of SAS kids one of which speaks Arabic, an incredibly handy friend to have in Moroccan markets. So with about 20 minutes left to find our way backs to the bus it starts POURING down rain and we discover we are twisted extremely far into these crazy streets. We end up eventually finding our way out and running to the bus, all the while the Moroccan men in their shops are cheering us on, like some bizarre foreign mini-marathon! Hard to relay through the Internet, but it was unbelievable. Nothing really compares to being soaking wet in rain, realizing you are running through the filthy streets of Morrocco.
The next day we loaded the buses for a terrifying eight hour bus ride through the Atlas mountains. I say terrifying because the Morrocans have very little sense of traffic safety. We actually saw a wreck in the highway and the injured people were just laying in the middle of the highway with no help. Bizarre. Anyways, we wound through mountains with nothing between the road and the plunge to our death, literally. The roads were hundreds of yards up and the curves so sharp the driver would honk to warn opposing traffic we were there and coming around the bend. Visibility around curves was 0%. The terrain was beautiful. The mountains were green and lush, full of tress and shrubbery, then next thing you knew it was desert, completely dry with mud huts and adobe type houses. We finished the bus ride and rode camels about an hour and a half to our campsite for the night. The camels were led by extremely friendly nomads, one of whom offered me the camel I rode to stay with him, he then proceeded to tell me his yearly earnings and ask me to meet his mother and sisters. Berber men are extremely friendly! The night was wonderful, full of great conversation, getting to know wonderful people-my sweet neighbor Leigh Anne! The stars were innumerable in the desert with no lights, so we laid for hours talking and laughing, sharing stories and all the things you do in the middle of nowhere with 170 of your closest classmates!
Today we arrived safely home, a lot sandier, dirty and more cultured. A group of us met up and decided to travel out into the Casablancan night, which led us to Rick’s Café-just like in the movie! It was amazing, so nice and they had the movie on repeat in one corner. Probably 25 SAS kids all ended up there and we stayed until the place closed listening to jazz music and sharing our stories from our separate excursions.
Oh I wish I could share every detail because there is so much to say. I wish I were a better writer to convey my stories properly, but nonetheless, there is an update. Tomorrow holds one last trip to the market before departing for Ghana. Six days on ship of class and then we will be in Ghana on our own stumbling into the next adventures!
LOVE LOVE LOVE…
Carley
