Chefchaouen and Charlottesville, VA

Bright and early on Friday morning all of the exchange students from Amideast were on buses headed north to Tanger.  We were off to see Tanger and Chefchaouen with our faithful leader Michael Peyron, the Mountain Walker.  Just before reaching Tanger we stopped at Hercules' Cave.  This is the cave which stands opposite the Rock of Gibraltar and whose mouth resembles the shape of Africa.  Observe:

Afterward, we reached Tanger and checked into a hotel directly across the intersection from the hotel where I stayed for my previous trip.  For this reason the trip was a little uneventful, as the sights were familiar for me.  The Hotel Flandria, however, was a 4-star hotel, and far more modern than anything I have seen since reaching Morocco.  The key card was an electronic swipe card.  The interior decorating was minimalist!  We spent the afternoon visiting the amazing research facilities of the American Legation Museum, where I hope to find myself studying at some point in the future.  Did you know that Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States as an independent nation?  Every day you learn something new.

After a long night profiting from Tanger's infamous nightlife, we spent some time wandering the medina and kasbah.  This time there was far less hassle from the locals, as we seasoned veterans were able to plow through towards our destination.  The key is to walk with the air known as "I want nothing. Nothing from no one."  I was able to appreciate the beauty of the city and the abundance of astounding views which cause the endless stream of tourists and flourishing ex-pat community.

Soon we were on buses, again, headed toward Chefchaouen.  To preface this story, I must tell you that every citizen of Morocco claims that Chefchaouen is their favorite city.  This is even true of people who have never been to Chaouen, such as my host mother.  The reasons for this preference lay in its location (on a mountainside), its color (painted blue by the previous Jewish residents), and the amount of hippies/drugs available within its walls.  Chefchaouen is a beautiful place to relax.

I am clearly having fun.

 I was dazzed on arrival and forgot to ask around for a hotel roommate.  Instead I was placed in a single room.  This was the most fortunate mistake of my trip.  I ended up in a beautiful room in the top corner of the hotel with a full size four-poster bed with princess drapes and a private bathroom.  Need I say more?  My Darija teacher stayed across the hall and laughed hysterically about the amount of the color pink in my room and called me a princess.  Then he opened the door to his room to find out he would be a princess that evening, as well.  Every room was pink from floor to ceiling.  I maintain that it was painted pink in order to balance the brain after all of the blue buildings in the medina.

For the afternoon we were free to wander the city and take it all in.  After tea we walked through the blue maze and tried to restrain ourselves from buying everything we saw.  We attempted to reach the mosque on the hill to watch the sunset, but finding that we were only halfway up the mountain by the time the sun set, my friend, Kate, and I walked down into the medina, looking for dinner.  Our mistake was trusting my sense of direction.  After an hour of wandering in Huffalump-esque loops, and attempting to get directions from locals which appeared to mean walking through solid walls, we found our way to the main square and enjoyed a dinner of couscous.

We decided these were dyes.

 

This is where it gets really interesting.  When we arrived, exhausted, in the hotel I discovered that there was free wireless in the hotel lobby.  No big deal.  However, my email inbox had a surprise waiting for me.  I had been accepted to the University of Virginia's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.  I will be studying linguistic anthropology and psycholinguistics starting in August.  Nate and I will be moving to Charlottesville, VA over the summer.  Needless to say, celebrations ensued and the rest of the weekend was a blur of endless hugs, smiles, and spontaneous tears.  Chefchaouen was nice.  Knowing that I am attending a fantastic school in the fall is grand.

Breaking with Berbers, Part 3

The third part of our trip was a camel trek in Merzouga from Thursday morning until Saturday night.  We arrived in Merzouga after a 7 hour bus ride on Wednesday and were picked up from the station by the proprietor of La Roche Auberge.  The mud and straw traditional building where we stayed was built around a large courtyard.  After arriving we were led into a large dining room where other travelers were already enjoying after dinner music with a number of young men who worked there playing drums and guitar.  There was a comraderie already between these people that we had yet to understand.  Also, the functionality of the building we only understood later.  Our two friends, Alaina and Wajida, were already waiting for us in Merzouga and we spent the evening catching up.

In the morning we got on six camels, one for each of us, and were led by our two guides into the desert.  Moustapha and Adi were about to become our greatest friends yet.  The dunes were spectacular.  Words just cannot describe the experience.  It looked like a computer desktop background.  The sun shone the entire time. Not a cloud in sight.  The days were hot.  The nights were cold.  The stars were bright.  The food was delicious. The sand was in everything.  Our clothes were dirty.  We were smelly.  We laughed and danced and never felt more freedom in all our lives.

I won't say more about this part of our trip, though my conversations are full of anecdotes of these two nuts we traveled with.  Words cannot describe the beauty and there would never be time to tell each experience.  In sum, we spent the first day wandering to an oasis where we drank tea and to a second hut where we slept after singing and dancing.  The second day we trekked to a nomadic woman's tent where we ate lunch as her small children ran around.  That night we slept with goats at a second nomadic home.  The final day we trekked back and reflected on our experiences.  At different points I hoped to never go home again and also was dying to read the news.  I made a concrete decision about how I hope to lead the rest of my life and who I want to do it with, (you know who you are).  I will let the pictures tell the rest.

Waka waka, Zanga zanga

Our camels: Jimi Couscous, Bob Marley, Obama-Massage, Qdaffi, Jimi Hendrix (mine), and Zenga

The quintessential camel shadow picture.

A-Knowing is A-Going

djellabas are warm.

Adi and the guy whose name I can't remember.

Moustapha playing with fire.

Adi

The berber woman's home.

Cute little Hassan

Well water for camels.

Where we slept the second night with goats.

Wajida, Alaina, Me, Moustapha, Macarena, Abesha, Anna

Breaking with Berbers, Part 2

Hisham buys us tea on the way.  Note the
 meat hanging behind me. Yeah. 

Abesha getting her turban on with Hisham.

On Monday we were off to the second part of our adventure, Ouarzazate.  We had to take a bus back to Marrakech and then again to Ouarzazate.  The amount of the country we saw was boggling.  On the second bus we met a very nice young man named Hisham.  He bought us tea on a bus break and then our driver made everyone get off the first bus and on to a new one.  The second one didn't have a seat for me or for Hisham.  We, therefore, ended up sitting awkwardly with our friends and on the floor, respectively.  This part of the trip was actually amusing because of Anna, Macarena, and my game of "My Grandpa owns a grocery store and in it he sells something that starts with the letter__...."

When we got to Ouarzazate Hisham helped us walk to our hotel, which was not a nice hotel though it was cheap.  Don't stay at the Bab Sahara.  Unless you want to save money and sleep on a rock.  After we settled in we ate tajine at Hisham's friend's apartment.  In the morning we went back to their shop to go on a trip around the city.  Ouarzazate is famous for being convenient.  There is actually nothing sight-worthy inside the city, however it is surrounded by film studios and sets and beautiful old kasbahs and oasis.  The city is actually situated on a wind swept plateau in the mountains so all sides seem to be bordered with snow capped mountains.  As we were driven around the city in an SUV we encountered hail and dirt trails.  Hisham 1 and 2, our friends and drivers, played Maliese music and hopped out of the car randomly while it was still moving.

Momo's apartment for dinner.

Abesha killing people in Hisham's shop

Momo teaching Anna how to tie a turban.

Hisham's four wives.

Dinner. Note Mac's excitement.

First time smoking shisha in Morocco. (Don't worry, Mom.  It is tobacco. No drugs.)

Kasbah magic.  It is incredible how the color
 just doesn't translate to pictures.

Movie studio where Cleopatra was filmed.

A Kasbah

We saw beautiful sights all afternoon for only 100 dirham a person, and finally we ended up at a small nature reserve in a Berber village where we drank tea while playing drums and watching the sun set on a terrace.  We sat on the hood of the SUV while Hisham drove us through creeks and in figure 8s.  I imagine this part of the trip as a movie montage that somehow correlates high school shenanigans with an African safari.  Afterward we had more food and dancing with our new friends and head back to the hotel for a deep sleep and prep for the long trek to Merzouga.

I'm probably dancing.

Breaking with Berbers

Riding the train- standing in an open doorway
with the wind blowing my hair back.

Plans for my spring break began with my friend Anna and I discussing the possibilities.  As it seemed most of our friends had family visiting or were hoping to leave the country, Anna and I were on the same page about seeing as much of the country as we could.  As the semester progressed we collected advice on hip cities and intriguing adventures.  The top adventure on our list was to hit up the desert for a camel trek.  Once we decided that the desert portion should last about three days and that we wanted Alaina to join us after her family left on Wednesday, we had to formulate the plan for the first five days.  It seemed intriguing to spend this time relaxing on a beach.  Once we factored in the amount of travel from one side of the country to the other we had a stable idea of travelling down the west coast from Essouira to Agadir across the weekend and then heading east towards Merzouga in the middle of the week.  This meant we had to be in Ouarzazate, in the middle of the country, by Wednesday.  With this vague sketch we headed out to conquer Morocco.

Pretty graffiti in Essouira's main square

As an added bonus, our friends Macarena and Abesha decided to join us.  Both had planned to travel abroad, to Italy and Egypt respectively, but were denied visas because they are not American citizens, (Peruvian and Ethiopian, respectively).  We were excited despite their disappointment and soon they were excited as well.  On Friday we headed to the train station.  The trip began with a train to Marrakech and then a bus to Essouira.  Although we did not get there until late in the evening, we had a very enjoyable trip.  Marrakech is very salmon colored, in case you wondered.

Dinner of fresh fried sardines on the port.

Running on the beach.

In Essouira we spent the first night at a nice Berber restaurant and then drinking wine and eating crepes and chocolate in our hotel room.  We stayed at the Cap Sim, which is a very nice small hotel near the port, and would pass on the advice to stay there to any friend wishing to travel to a beautiful city.  The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel and spent the day wandering the port, the beach, and through the souks in the rain.  One of the best cities for shopping which I have yet encountered.  I bought some beautiful hippie outfits and a large ring.  That night we watched the sun set from Taros Cafe, which overlooked the port, and then spent the night with a few girls from school and their friends.

At Taros Cafe, Waiter who couldn't open a wine bottle, Abesha, Me, Macarena, Anna

Oh the ramparts we watched...

Hotel Cap Sim

The beautiful windows of our hotel room.

Berber restaurant

Our Berber friends who own a store across from the restaurant and with whom we had tea the next day.

We decided that Essouira was so enjoyable we had no use for a trip to Agadir, which is well known for its modernity and tourism.  After a nice sleep and showers (hot showers!!) we spent the second day in the hotel lobby with Youssef, the hotel manager, playing Uno and reading.  Youssef's brother delivered schwarma sandwiches to us from his restaurant and we watched movies on the English tv station in the evening.  I found that Youssef was actually Berber, and he taught me some sounds which distinguish Berber from Arabic.  Later in the day we had tea with the Berber shop owner who worked across from the restaurant where we ate the day before.  Early the next morning we headed to the second part of the adventure: Ouarzazate.