6 hour slide show full of "you had to be there" anecdotes to be given upon my return

SO…Morocco was awesome. I am not really even sure where to start. I was hoping I would get some idea as to the angle I wanted to take when writing this blog, but I have nothing. And I will forget precious details the longer I wait, so I am just going to go with it.
Before I go into details, here’s a rundown of my anything but relaxing vacation.
Friday, 2/13- 5:30 train to Bayonne.
2/14- took 6:30 am train from Bayonne to Irun. Then took an 8 am train from Irun to Madrid.
2/15-flew from Madrid to Casablanca.
2/16-Rabat
2/17-Rabat
2/18-Marrakesh
2/19-Marrakesh
2/20-Gorges
2/21-Sahara dunes
2/22-Fes
2/23-Fes
2/24-Fes
2/25-Meknes
2/26-Meknes
2/27-Rabat
2/28-flew back to Madrid
3/1-8 am train from Madrid to Hendaye, 2 hour wait, 4 pm train to Bordeaux, arrived back in Bordeaux at 6:30. I was welcomed home by the tram not working and had a lovely walk with my bags after traveling all day.

Umm…I love Madrid. I don’t know what it is about it, but I love it, maybe more than I love Paris. It is clean, easy Metro, could be that the weather was perfect. It also might be that when we were walking to the train station at 7:15 Sunday morning the streets were still crowded with people out from a looooong Saturday night out. Spain in general seemed very beautiful. I really hope I can spend more time there soon.

I saw a man get taken off the train in cuffs by passport control at the Spain/France border, bringing the grand total of people that I have seen get arrested to 4 in 5 months. Not too shabby.

I arrived in Morocco and got the raddest stamp ever in my passport. And yeah, judge me if you want for using the word raddest, but you know you want to use it as well. ANYWAY, it does make me chuckle, I got a new passport right before I left for France. I only have 4 stamps and a visa. They fill all of two pages. However, the man at passport control in Casablanca opened the passport to page 26, the one with the picture of the Statue of Liberty. So now her arm is tattooed in Arabic.

Just outside of the airport of Casablanca I saw slums that would make Sally Struthers cry and come calling. Hard to imagine calling that home, and thankful that I don’t have to.

I saw fields being plowed by a man and a donkey. Old school.

I had henna forced upon my hand, despite my pleas to stop. Luckily I scraped it off as soon as she was done, so it was only on there for a few hours, rather than several weeks.

I rocked so many Kasbahs that I got sick of seeing them…almost. Here are a few pictures from the Kasbah in Rabat.

Casablanca is an interesting city, one that I have no strong desire to return to. It was dirty, and Hassan II Mosque aside, there was not much to see. Hassan II is one of the few mosques that allow non Muslims to tour the inside. But sadly, we were there on the wrong day. But that might be reason enough to get me back to Casablanca, should I ever find myself in Morocco again.

I got pushed by a bum when I wouldn’t give him money. It was funny scary. There were little kids begging in every city. It was sad. At dinner in Rabat one night there was a little girl playing around the table we were eating at. I smiled at her and said salut. She smiled back at me, then went back over to where her mom was sitting. Her mom said something to her. The little girl came back over to me, smiled shyly, kissed my cheek, then ran back to her mom. I was scared she was going to ask for money. She didn’t, making it super cute.

Despite being known as one of the more liberal cities in Morocco, almost every woman in Casablanca was wearing at least a head scarf. Rabat was probably less than half, as was Marrakesh. Most of the women in Fes and Meknes were also wearing scarves. There were many cafes/restaurants that we very clearly felt unwelcomed at, especially when it was just me and 2 other girls. The weather was GORGEOUS, but I wore my coat the entire time, making it uncomfortably warm. This is a picture I took in Marrakesh.

I brought dirty to new heights. I packed enough underwear to last me the 16 days that I was gone. And that was the only clean thing that I put on daily. I brought 4 pairs of pants for 16 days. You do the math. I brought 1 towel that never seemed to dry out, probably because almost daily I shoved it (still damp) back into my suitcase among all my other dirty clothes. I ran out of socks by about the second Tuesday that I was there, meaning I wore the same pair of socks the last 5 days. However, none of this even comes close to the dirty I felt after spending the night in the desert. I showered before going to bed the Friday night before we left our hotel in the gorges. After brushing my teeth and putting on already dirty clothes, we left Saturday morning. Despite driving several hours the day before, we still had 7 hours of driving before reaching Merzouga that afternoon, and we stopped at the some pretty sketchy gas station bathrooms along the way. I learned how to use a Turkish toilet (grossest thing ever, I preferred the bathroom in the desert, which was find a place where there was no one around and do your thing). I also learned what it feels like after not showering for 36 hours, not using toilet paper for almost 24, not brushing my teeth for 36, not changing clothes for 36, then spending another 10 hours squished into a “grand taxi” with 3 other people (or possibly 4, our driver wasn’t exactly Mr. Clean) in my same hygienic state. In Fes, we finally found a hotel with room for us around 10 PM Sunday night. We were all dying for a shower and a good teeth brushing. And this is the bathroom that was in our hotel (and no, I do not mean bathroomS). Although there was a Turkish toilet in a little closet next to this bathroom, and there were no locks on the doors to either room.

A shower is a shower, but needless to say, we only stayed one night at that hotel. Bright and early the next morning, we set out to find a different hotel. Aside from the toilets and showers not being on top of each other, the one we found the next night was not much better. There were two toilets, two showers, and one sink for the hotel. The showers were gross because they did not drain. By the end of the shower, you were standing in several inches of your own (plus probably a lot of other people’s)filth. The toilets were in impossibly small little rooms. The WCs were so tiny it was impossible to get in and out without brushing against the toilet. Which would not have been so awful…EXCEPT that often times, toilet paper is not used in Morocco. Instead, many bathrooms come equipped with a water spout on the wall, a bucket under the spout, and the user’s good left hand. I will leave it up to your imagination as to what you are supposed to do but I will say that 1. It is customary in Morocco to only eat with your right hand, and 2. I didn’t use that cleaning method, ever. SO, the toilets in this hotel were always soaked with bucket water. The sink in the hallway of the hotel leaked water all over the floor. The hotel management had a towel on the floor to soak up the water. That is also the same towel they used to “clean” the toilets and showers. We only stayed there one night as well. We splurged (20 euros each, our most expensive hotel in Morocco) our last night and stayed here, which also had an amazing rooftop terrace.

One this trip, I took many trains. Here is a video I took on the train from Rabat to Marrakesh. Morocco is very very green some places.

I took a minibus from Marrakesh to Merzouga. I took a camel from Merzouga out to where we camped in the desert. Here is a camel video.

I took a grand taxi from Erfoud to Fes. Grand taxis are funny. Each city has petit taxis, which are basically like little Fiesta’s, or some such tiny crappy car. They do not go outside of the city limits. If you want to go outside city limits, you must take a grand taxi, which are always old white Mercedes. Here is our grand taxi.

Usually, grand taxis are meant to have 4 people in the backseat, and 2 plus the driver in the front seat. Considering the fact that we were all disgustingly dirty, and had to be in that car 10 hours, we opted for renting the whole thing. So it was just 3 people in the backseat and 1 plus the driver up front. We bummed a ride from an older British couple to go from Meknes to Volubilis, and we took the Moroccan bus from Volubilis back to Meknes. The Moroccan bus…I don’t even know what to say. Had we not taken the grand taxi from Erfoud to Fes, the Moroccan bus would have been our next option. After riding in the bus for 40 minutes going back to Meknes, I am happy with our decision for the grand taxi. The Moroccan bus was hot, filled with diesel fumes and had a questionable engine especially going up hills, but CHEAP. I could have used every available mode of transportation had I been given just a bit longer at this stop along our way to the night in the gorges. For 5Dh you could cross the river on a donkey.

During our rides in the minibus/grand taxi, we were on some mountain passes that made the mountain roads in Colorado seem like I80 going through Nebraska. Despite being slightly terrified by the fact we were riding in questionably maintained Moroccan cars, it was unbelievably beautiful.

Prayer calls. Lots and lots of prayer calls, from lots of different mosques, especially in Fes.

Food! Moroccan pastry, although very much the same, MIGHT be better than French pastry…might. Jury’s still out on that one. But it was darn tasty. I also drank the best OJ of my life. The rest of the time my diet consisted of tajines, couscous, beef brochette, lots of and lots of bread, delicious mint tea, dried apricots, olives (bleh), rotisserie chicken, reeeeealllllly good coffee, and one afternoon, after being fruit/veggie starved, we did break down and buy some strawberries, despite being told not to eat produce that had been washed in tap water. But we were fine, and the strawberries were SOOOO good. (stolen picture...)

And by the end of the trip I had gotten lazy and was brushing my teeth with the tap water, and never got sick.

Moroccans don’t have pets, but there were stray cats and dogs everywhere. I broke the don’t touch the strays rule a few times, especially when I found this little guy.

Ummm…that is all I can think of right now. I have a thousand and one more stories, but I guess this is getting a little long. I had an unbelievable time. Morocco is also dirt cheap, and considering that I was gone over 2 weeks, relatively speaking I did not spend that much money. That having been said, considering that I don’t make that much money, I am broke.

All of my pictures are on my Shutterfly sight, and I am going to work on labeling them this afternoon, in case you do find yourself bored at work :)