Pictures from Morocco

Okay, I think I managed to figure out how to get some photos up, so courtesy of Brook and Chiarina, I have some more pictures from our first few days from Morocco, to tide you over until I can continue with the next part of our travels.

Marrakesh by day ( in the souks):


In the museum of Marrakesh:


The Saadian Tombs:

Marrakesh by night (Djemaa el-Fna):


Essaouira:

I would be telling you about the rest of my time in Morocco, but it seems a shame to do it without pictures, and blogger doesn't seem to want to upload mine. So, in lieu of that, a preview of my upcoming travels:

January 31st-February 4th: Koeln for Carnival
February 9th-February 11th: Amsterdam
February 12th-February 18th: Prague
February 19th-February 24th: The Netherlands (definitely Haarlem, the Hague, and Rotterdam, but I'm not sure what else)

Holidays, pt 5

The next morning we woke up and, after breakfast, tried to find a rental car so that we could spend the next few days seeing the area and making our way to Fez. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that all of the national rental places were out of cars and all of the small ones would cost a lot, as we would have to pay for a driver to pick up the car wherever we left it. So we decided, after some discussion, to take our hotel-owner up on his offer to arrange a "tour" for us. Basically, he told us that for 700dh each, we could get a driver to drive us that afternoon and the next day, then a camel ride and a night in the desert, and then a drive to the bus station on the third day. It was more money than I was hoping to spend, but overall it seemed like it would be a lot simpler than trying to do the same thing ourselves (I remained a little dubious about it).

While we were waiting for our driver to show up, we saw what there was to see of Ouarzazate, namely this casbah (with a very large stork nest). Then we stocked up for supplies for the journey, buying lots of prepackaged cheese, some bread, and delicious fruit-yogurt drink.


It turned out that our car for the trip was just a grand taxi, the old mercedes that make up the one of the primary transportation networks for many Moroccans (we saw lots of people in small towns waiting for a taxi with an empty seat to pass by and take them to the next town). Here it is:
Legally I think you can fit six passengers and a driver in the taxi (four in the back and three in the front) but we were squished enough with five:
Our driver was a very nice older man who spoke next to no English and only a little bit more French.

We originally wanted to go to Aït Benhaddou, featured in the movies Lawrence of Arabia and Gladiator, but the road there was closed due to the kings visit. So our first stop on the road ended up being this casbah, featured on the 50dh bill (due to a misunderstanding, we didn't actually go into it).

Then we saw a herd of wild camels on the side of the road, which was pretty cool:

And, just as the squishyness in the car was getting unbearable, we stopped at this large rock formation just outside of the Valley of the Roses for exploration and mint tea.

After we found our hotel in Boumalne-du-Dades, we got back into the taxi and drove up into the Dades Gorge, which had some pretty amazing views.

These rock formations are called Monkey's Paws.



When we got back to the town, we left our driver (with an agreed upon time for leaving the next morning) and set out to find a place to eat. In the process of looking, we bumped into two very friendly young guys, who were very interested in talking and telling us lots about life in the Dades Valley. They didn't speak very much English, so I got good practice with my French. They were both Berber, the people who lived in Morocco before the Arabs settled, and so we had some very interesting discussions about Berber life and their relationship to the Arabic state in Morocco. One of their grandfathers was a Berber anarchist and atheist who fought against the Arab settlers. It was a great meal, too!

Holidays, pt 4

So I'm up to day four of my Moroccan adventure.

We woke up very early and caught the bus to Essaouira, about three hours west of Marrakesh, on the coast. Sara, who left us that morning to go to a Moroccan wedding, had been there a few days before and really liked. On the bus, we saw goats climbing into argan trees (a few were actually totally up in the trees); argan is processed in Essaouira and made into eating- and rubbing-oil. We started our day with some shopping, and then found a really tiny Italian restaurant recommended by my guidebook. Chiarina, who is half Italian, was really happy being able to speak Italian with someone, and we were all really happy with the delicious (and still cheap!) food. Here we are in the restaurant, from right to left, Clare, Brook, and Chiarina, drinking some mint tea.


After lunch, we wandered down to the coast, and walked up to the old ramparts.


The canons (we're leaning on one) were from Barcelona.


The ocean was quite spectacular.
Now I've seen the Atlantic ocean from three of the five continents it is bordered by.

We continued walking down the walls and got some beautiful views of the city.


Then we walked down past the docks, with lots of blue fishing boats, to a beach.
We all (except for Clare) put our feet in, but got driven away when the incoming tide started threatening our stuff.

We got stuck in uncomfortable seats on the bus ride back, but when I looked out of the window I could see a ton of stars. When we got back to Marrakesh, we decided to celebrate New Years Eve by drinking some spiced tea in the central square. Then we went up to our terrace, where we could see fireworks from the ville nouvelle (which was developed by the French and where a lot of ex-pats and tourists stay).

The next day was a little up in the air. We were supposed to leave for Ouarzazate, a city south and across the High Atlas range, in the morning, but Sara was unable to get a bus back from her wedding, so I walked down to the old Jewish cemetery, which was massive and just had rows and rows of white stone, we spent a long time sitting on the terrace in the sun, and then walked around the souks one last time. We caught a bus at 3:45, but there were some troubles with the engine, so we didn't actually end up leaving until 4:30. Luckily, we got some gorgeous views of the mountains and the valley in the sunset, but we didn't get to see any of the most spectacular sights, because it was already dark (though I am not sure I would have wanted to see the bus navigating around some of the hairpin turns). We got to see even more stars, though, and the seats were really comfortable so it worked out.

When we got to Ourzazate, we were greeted by the gendarmerie and lots of pictures of the king, which was a little weird. (We found out later that he was visiting the city.) After we found a hotel--our most expensive night (at a whopping 86 dh), because the hotel we made reservations ate gave them away because we were an hour late, but we got hot showers and free breakfast--we ventured out for a late dinner. The only place that seemed to be serving inexpensive hot food was a little street stand of vegetable soup, so we each got a bowl. It was delicious, and the women serving it seemed very pleased by how much we liked it.

After that we settled into bed to wait for Sara to get in so we could plan our next few days.

Holidays, pt 3

Okay, here goes (from where I left off, below). Thanks to Clare's digital camera, I also have a few pictures to illustrate:

Our first night in Marrakesh, we wandered around the medina (walled city). Our hostel was pretty much right in the center of the action, with a terrace overlooking the central square, Djemmaa el Fna, which featured snake charmers, henna drawers, and fruit juice stands during the day, and spiced tea, food stalls, and gatherings of people singing and playing music at night. This is the food-stand area.


Just past that, we entered the souks, which are tiny alleyways/ tunnels/ labyrinths, where during the day you can shop for things but at night feel sort of like you are wandering around in someone's basement. So we wandered for a while, got harassed by vendors who wanted us to buy things, and then went to bed.

The next day we met up with Clare, Sara's friend from Leeds, and decided to go to the Ben Yousef Medersa, which is a religious school. It took us a while to get there, since we didn't exactly have an accurate map, and anyway we spent lots of time stopping and looking at things for sale. (There was a lot of fabric and leather. It was also pretty impossible to figure out which place to go to buy things, as they all looked pretty much identical. Some stands, like the ones selling dried fruits, even had the various goods laid out in the same order.) We got there eventually, and it was pretty amazing. It was interesting contrasting it with the Alhambra, in Spain, which is pretty similar architecturally; the main difference was that at the medersa the public spaces were really intricate, but the student's chambers were totally barren and tiny.

We bought a combined admission, so after the medersa (and a pause for mint tea, which was quite refreshing, as it was getting kind of hot) we went to a museum, which was in a restored riad and featured contemporary photography exhibits (quite a contrast), and then an old aquifer. I could imagine how nice it would be to go down there in the middle of the summer heat. On the way back to the hostel, we stopped and grabbed lunch from a streetside stand:
It was offering fish sandwiches, which Clare and Sara tried, but the rest of us, being vegetarian, got eggplant, peppers, and french fries with tomato sauce. These stands were one of the few places that women worked in the medina, though there were often men (presumably their husbands) working with them as well.

After lunch we decided to go to a hammam, a traditional bathhouse. There are some very touristy ones, sort of like spas, but we went to one recommended by the lonely planet for being traditional. We decided to all splurge for the massage option, and it was lucky we did because it meant we got someone to show us how things worked--otherwise we would have been totally lost. Hammams are sort of like large wet saunas/ group showers (like at a gym). You get big buckets that you can fill with water from hot and cold taps, and then you go claim a little area and wash yourself. Often women go with someone else (a sibling or parent) and scrub each other's back and wash each other's hair. Hammams are often used by both sexes, but there are certain times for each (though we did see a few young boys), and as my guidebook said, while there is much modesty between the sexes, there is not much within--everyone in the hammam was down to their underwear or less, and not only did we get a massage, but we also got scrubbed, with traditional black soap and a scrubber that looked sort of like those pocket washcloths but felt like sandpaper. It was very much like being a little kid given a bath, and ended with a bucket of cool water being dumped over my head.

After the hammam I was a little woosy from all of the heat, but we decided to take advantage of the last few hours of daylight to go to the southern part of the medina, which was the old royal area and the Jewish quarter. On our way, we stopped and walked through the gardens of the Koutoubia mosque, which was right in the center of town and a model of mosque architecture.




Brook picked an orange from one of the trees in the garden and it was totally bitter. I guess to dissuade people from picking them (or just because they hadn't been bred for eating). We happened on the Saadien Tombs, which were the burial grounds for the Saadian dynasty which ruled Morocco between 1554 and 1669. The biggest mausoleum, which was reserved for the kings, was pretty impressive:

The area was also inhabited by many, many storks.

Our sense of direction and energy waned after that, so we went back to the hotel, where we helped ourselves to a delicious buffet (I was actually feeling kind of sick after the hammam, so I tried to force myself to eat, to no avail). Then we found an internet cafe (I think it was 5dh, or 50 cents, for half an hour), and ate some gelato (I recovered quickly), and went to bed early so that we could get up early the next day to catch a bus to the coast.

And that is all for now.

In lieu of completing my Morocco tales, I give you this "Morocco by the Numbers," which I wrote up elsewhere.

Number of...

(The place)
-Cities I visited: 7 (Casablanca, Marrakesh, Essaouira, Ouzzarzate, Boulmane-du-Dades, Er Rachidia, Fes)
-Hotel/ hostel rooms that cost less that 9 euros a night: 3 (the one in Marrakesh was 10, but included breakfast and dinner)
-Nights spent in unconventional places: 2 (in a tent in the dessert and in a car/a road hut)
-Times I went to the ocean: 2 (one I just looked at it from a distance)
-Times I put on sunscreen: 2 (but maybe it should have been more)
-Times I accidentally fell in the snow: 1
-Rolls of film I shot: 6.5

(The people)
-Times I bargained successfully: 4 (taxi fare, scarf, and some jewelry)
-Times I bargained unsuccesfully: Every taxi fare in Marrakesh (and our Southern adventure)
-Times we got called the Spice Girls: at least 7, probably more
-Times we got referred to by "Jubbly lovely": 5-ish (what does that even mean?!?)
-Massages I got: 1 (at a hammam)
-Languages spoken by the average person we talked to: at least 4 (almost everyone spoke some Arabic, French, and English, and usually one other)
-People who didn't have a language in common with us: Most of the older women

(The transportation)
-Hours spent standing in train cars: 4
-Hours spent sitting in train cars: .5 (and it was on my backpack)
-Hours spent on buses: 10
-Hours spent in taxis: Too many (two half days, one full day, and one entire night)
-Seats in the average grand taxi: 5
-People in the average grand taxi: 6
-Hours spent on camels: 2.5

(The food)
-Servings of mint tea: 9 (mmm...)
-Bowls of soup: 6 (I think)
-Types of bread I tried: 6 (my favorite was the ethiopian style)
-Types of fruit yogurt drinks I tried: 3
-Alcoholic drinks: 2 (both on my flight back home, because somehow I ended up in first class)
-Dirhams spent on my cheapest meal: 4.6 (equivalent to 46 eurocents, for an egg and cheese sandwhich)
-Dirhams spent on my most expensive meal: 50 (equivalent to 5 euros, for tea, some omlette, and a veggie tajine; though my night in the desert might have actually been more)

Pictures!

I am back in Blois now, and have much more to add to my Morocco tales, but I don't have time right now, so here are some pictures from Paris, courtesy of Brook.

The Eiffel Tower on our first night

The Arc de Triomphe


A wall with "I love you" in many languages in Montmartre


Looking up at the Sacre Coeur


By Les Halles

There are a few more, but the internet isn't working so well, so I guess that's it for now.