As we departed from the ferry, my senses were overwhelmed by the Moroccan environment. They shuffled us over to the bus where we had another 2 hours by bus to get to our evening time camel ride. I myself had yet to ride a camel, so I was one excited gal!
The landscape was very forested and hilly, and not what an ignorant American like myself thinks of when I think of “Northern Africa”. My poor comparison skills lead me to describe the scene as a safe version of Saudi Arabia meets Nor Cal woods. Right off the bat we made a new friend on the bus, named Tautiana from Belgium who was currently studying nursing in Seville.
We chatted a bit, but before you knew it we were on some beach with camels ready for mounting. Sadly, the ride didn’t last long, but none the less, it was an experience for sure. Everyone was acting all shy and timid around the camels, and I was thinking “C’mon guys, they are literally just camels”. No sooner did I say that when the camel I was taking a picture with took a good shot at my face. I whipped my head back just in time to prevent a generous portion of my face from becoming camel food.
These things were frickin straight off the Sahara! After that little incident I decided to gain a healty respect for the animal before mounting. I won’t lie; riding a camel is nothing extremely different from riding a horse, except they swing from side to side much more. So, if you’ve ridden a horse with serious swagger, then you’ve pretty much ridden a camel.
Afterwards we were informed that we had another hour to the next stop, the Caves of Hercules. Tautiana and I were talking and came to the realization that we both needed the little ladies room…however we were on a cliff next to the beach in the middle of no-man’s land. We saw a little ways down that there was a random patch of forrest, I jokingly suggested we just venture in there and take care of business native style.
…well, wouldn’t ya know it 5 minutes later there I was bonding with a girl from Belgium by peeing in the middle of Moroccan trees together. While that’s not exactly one I might tell my grandkids, it still felt a lot more adventurous then it probably seemed.
Tautiana and I then hopped onto the bus with everyone else and headed to the Cave of Hercules. The cave itself was pretty cool, but I always forget how spoiled I am in Grass Valley where we have beyond awesome old caves/ abandoned mine shafts for exploring. I tried to keep this in mind as we went in and observed the Africa-shaped-hole opening up over the ocean at the end of the cave. It was a fairly impressive view, especially with sunset approaching over the ocean.
Sadly, we didn’t get much time there, but I was okay with that since dinner was the next stop…and the last thing I had eaten was a roll of Euro Donuts 6 hours prior. As Derek, Elyssia, and I sat down to dinner, the effects of our exhaustion was now blatantly obvious. Everything that we were saying was apparently comedic gold (at least in our eyes). The bread at dinner was flat and round, so as Derek proceeded to slice his and start eating it I said “How’s the hamburger bun coming?”.
Apparently this was the best joke of the night, because before you know it he’s laughing hysterically, and then I can’t help but join in. You thought that was lame? Oh no, it gets better…or worse depending on how you look at it.
I was then discussing how most people in Madrid think my name is Amy and I’m from the bay area. This is because not even American’s can pronounce “Afton” so how the heck will Spaniards be able to?? I also say I’m from the bay area because everyone knows where that is, no one in California even knows about Grass Valley, so, again, how are Spaniards supposed to know/care? Therefore, when I introduce myself, I become Amy from the Bay.
I was explaining this to Elyssia while out of nowhere Derek does some ridiculous hand motion/attempt at sign language and says ”My name is Amy”. Um…excuse me? Did I miss something here? I was terribly confused until Derek explained to us that apparently there’s some movie about some smart chimp that would use sign language to communicate, and apparently her name was Amy.
Okay Derek, how random was that? I couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous that little side story was, and before you know it we’re practically on the floor of the restaurant laughing ourselves to even further exhaustion. After we had a hearty chuckle at that we couldn’t help but revisit the image of ELyssia’s eyelashes flapping off of her face to conclude the comedy show of the night.
As we made our way up to the room our 4AM morning really started to kick in. I don’t even remember getting ready for bed, and when I hit the sheets I was out like a light. Sadly, this blissful slumber didn’t last long as the alarm went off around 7:30 the next morning to jolt us into action to get ready for the big day.
We were going to Terrifah, one of the main cities in Morocco. The bus weaved itself in and out of mountainous terrain, I couldn’t help but laugh at the sandy desert scene I had been invisioning before coming to Morocco. At last we found ourselves high up in the mountains stepping off the bus and into the misty Moroccan morning.
The tour guide only spoke Spanish, which disappointed me a bit, but his Spanish turned out to be simple and slow enough that I got some excellent practice for my language class while also getting an excellent tour of the city. The walls were painted while on top to keep the heat down in summer, and blue on bottom to ward off bugs and mosquitoes. Why the blue? Don’t ask me, but the Moroccans swear by it.
We made our way over to the national park (I didn’t even know they HAD a national park…is it just me, or is my American showing?). Then we went to a lovely waterfall where the local laundry was done. It was slightly bizarre watching all the women who were down there scrubbing dirt and stains out of clothing, I all of a sudden felt like I was time warped into the age before electric washers.
We were weaving our way through narrow corridors when something else peculiar happened. I started hearing a slow slight-moan/slight-song sound. It was steady but started to get louder. It sounded like one of the songs on my “Yogi Music” mix. But then other voices joined in. The tour guide just kept going as if nothing was happening but I was whipping my head around trying to figure out what the heck was going on.
Apparently my sheer confusion was plain to see, because only a moment later Derek leaned over to me and explained “It’s the call to prayer. They do it 5 times a day where someone will call from the tower of the temple to lead the people to pray to Mecca”. I’m pretty sure he had to help my scrape my jaw off the floor after that one, because I couldn’t get over how radically cool that was. Here we were, in the middle of some city in Morocco, and actually experiencing a Muslim based culture first hand. I had never witnessed anything like it. It was one of those humbling yet totally radical things.
The tour proceeded to turn into a rain storm which proceeded to turn into a hurricane like force causing us to job through the streets of Terrifah and into our lunch time destination, Aladdin’s Palace. The place was cozy and delicately lit in such a way that the drapes of fabric and softly cushioned seats glowed around the room. It was almost surreal, and I started to wonder when the magic carpet was going to make its guest appearance.
It was there that I had my first experience of Moroccan Mint Tea. When the waiter came with the steaming glass full of mint leaves and freshly brewed green tea, I started to get my hopes up. I was just glad to have something warm to hold after the mini monsoon we had just survived, so when I went to sip on the green beverage, I didn’t know what to expect.
It was pure magic rolling across my tastebuds. Seriously, I don’t know if I’ve ever had more delicious tea, INCLUDING Arizona ( I know, I can hear your gasps already). No, this stuff seriously rocked my socks off. The green tea was sweetened quite a touch, which was perfectly combined with the refreshing coolness of the mint, it was like the perfect trinity of tea. Sadly, this holy union was cut short because we had some bartering to do! And I have never been one to miss out on a good argument over insanely overpriced goods.
Elyssia, Derek, Tautiana, and I went to a Moroccan Rug store to get our barter on! The room he lead us into was a bit ridiculous. Rugs covered literally every surface, excluding a portion of the ceiling. There were rugs of every color draped over the walls, stacked in every corner and along the walls, and even a few hanging over the window.
As the guy showed ELyssia all the different rugs, I could tell she was having a hard time bartering. I remember the days where I had never bartered before and was with some buddies in Mexico. I recalled how they would barter on my behalf and helped me until I felt bold enough to barter on my own. I decided, well, better pay it forward by helping my fellow beginner barterer!
This turned out to be a fairly horrid idea, as bartering in Morocco is apparently a whole different ball game than the bartering in the small streets of Mexico. As I started giving Elyssia some support and a few tips (aka, saying things like “Dude, don’t pay more than XXX” or “That’s insane, don’t settle for that!”), the shop keeper all of a sudden decided to let me know that it wasn’t proper Moroccan custom. He did this by yelling at me in a fairly frightening manner for a good couple minutes and then stormed out for a minute.
Luckily they had already given us our “complimentary” Moroccan mint tea, or else I’m pretty sure I would’ve found a decent amount of spit floating in mine. I asked if I should leave, but I guess that was bad Moroccan custom as well, so I just sat where I was and tried not to get all of us thrown out of the shop.
Afterwards when we all left (Elyssia with newly purchased rug in hand), we had a good laugh at the trouble I had almost gotten us in. I felt bad, but luckily we had gotten out with what we wanted and still in one piece. We continued utilizing our bartering skills in the various huts that lined the streets for what seemed like miles. I found a leather bag that I figured I couldn’t really live without, so I bartered it down a decent amount and decided to quit while I was ahead and buy the dang thing.
Derek followed suit and got himself a generously sized man satchel (don’t worry Derek, it looked very masculine, I swear!). We looked at our watches to find we overestimated our shopping time, so of we were with our newly purchased goods in hand to the meeting point; where I almost got this weird soapy smelling cube stuffed up my nose by a gypsy.
We finally got the rest of the people together and hopped onto the bus to make it back in time for dinner after quite a full day. It wasn’t until we got back to our room to freshen up when both Derek and I noticed something. “Hey, does your bag smell funny?” Derek asked, referring to the newly purchased camel leather purse/murse/satchels we had just purchased. I gave him a bit of a funny look (is this another random observation time?), and took my bag and sniffed it.
“BLECHH!” I exclaimed and tossed my purse away from me. That thing smelled FOUL. I mean, okay, it wasn’t night bus man’s breath, but dang. It was like slightly soured milk meets rotting meat stench. Derek got his thinking cap on and started googling what the heck could be wrong with our bags.
What he read off a webpage moments later was no comfort. “It says here that there could be several reasons for the smell. But the main one is because the way they dye the leather they use bird poop, camel pee, and 20 other disgusting animal bodily fluids. Or another theory is that by the time the leather is processed it’s already starting to rot, so it starts to give off a foul smell”.
Oh, great. So either my bag is covered in bird poop, or the hide is already half rotted. As we read horror stories from people complaining about it stinking up their whole houses we couldn’t help but start laughing…it was either that or start crying. There was hope on the horizon though, because we then googled some “tried and true” smell-be-gone recipes, and dang if I’m not trying every one of those I can the moment I get state side (in the meantime, the bag is tucked in 3 layers of plastic bags in the depths of my closet in Madrid).
There wasn’t much time to try out any of the remidies then, so we just tossed our bags onto the terrace attached to our room and headed down for another delicious dinner. After filling our bellies with couscous we were informed that a “Huge party” would be held in the hotels club downstairs about an hour after dinner was over.
I wasn’t beyond pumped or anything, so I went down in the same baggy t-shirt and jeans I had worn all day. Derek, ELyssia and I grabbed our “complimentary sangria” and headed down for some dancin’! As I went down I saw that everyone had dressed up for the event, and as I looked down at a piece of couscous stuck to my shirt I thought, “Oops…”. Then I remembered I literally had no one I wished to impress that evening, and proceeded to dance like nobody’s business. Actually, the dance floor was pretty barren, and after I few songs I realized how tired I was. I told Derek and Elyssia, “Okay, this last song and I’m leaving”. So I thought, might as well give it my all.
After three full minutes of dancing like I one legged parrot having a seizure, I realized, I actually really enjoy this extreme dweeb dancing. I’m pretty sure 90% of the club was convinced there was something else besides sangria in that cup, but I couldn’t have cared less. An hour, 3 dance partners, and 2 dance off’s later I was exhausted, yet I felt victorious. That dance floor was MINE. Alas, I was now stupid amounts of sleep deprived, and decided to get my sweaty self to bed before I broke something or accidentally set something on fire.
Elyssia and Derek weren’t far behind, so I gave a few of my new best friends some high-fives on the way out and was down for the night. I thought it wasn’t possible to pass out any quicker than I had the night before. But as I got ready for bed after a well earned shower, I climbed into bed and didn’t even remember my head hitting the pillow before I was deep asleep.
