Friday, June 22 12:55PM PADOVA - It's hard to believe that my last week is finally here. There are some many things I have been doing that I haven't updated on here but I am going to do my best to catch you up. The last place I left off was between my Amsterdam and Morocco trips WAY back in April. Joe and I got back from Amsterdam spent a couple of days at lessons and then took off again to Morocco with Kylie and Tisha. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
Arriving in Casablanca on a Friday morning we immediately experienced our first bit of the native culture where everything was in Arabic or French (which none of us spoke) and we had a tough time finding an ATM to get the local currency (the Dirham) and buy our first breakfast brioche.
Finding the train to Marrakech wasn't too bad and we had the help of a local police man to buy us tickets and tell us where and when to get off. We had to change trains in Casablanca (because the airport was a little out of the city) and after a several hour train ride through the deserted Morroccan country-side with the occasional "town" going by we knew that we were about as far as we could be from Kansas.
Arriving in Marrakech mid-afternoon we exited the station to a mob of people all offering various things: Hotels, car rides, jewelry, knives, etc. We took a random stab in the dark and asked some guy to give us a ride. After hopping into his car we showed him where we needed to go and we drove through the crazy traffic and city that is Marrakech until we arrived at this small little ally where we got out, paid the guy and then he handed us to some other randomn on the street. Somehow we made it to the exact place we needed to be and our newfound friend Hasan made us tea while our rooms were prepared.
After sending us with someone else to another location we arrived at our Riad (like a hotel) which was about a 4-5 minute walk to the famous market Djemaa el Fna where we were completely blown away by the sensations the market presented us with.
The smell of all types of meat and vegetables roasting at almost every stand, the sounds of vibrant life: snake charmers, beating drums, people yelling, asking you -no pleading for you - to come and eat at their place "Number 42!". The visuals of a setting sun over this grandiose marketplace with smoke rising, various animals, people from all walks of life. It was truly an imagery I will never forget.
After eating a scrumptous lamb/mystery meat dinner with cous-cous in the square, we walked around the periphery where all the little shops were selling anything you could ever ask for.
We decided we didn't want to stay out too late that night because we had arranged for a trip to the Atlas mountains the following morning so we went back to the Riad where I taught the Californians how to play Euchre and we watched an Eddie Murphy movie with Arabic subtitles.
The following morning we met Hamid where we were dropped off and we hopped into a white van with windows and waited for an hour for the Spaniards who were supposed to come with us to show up. Eventually they came and we took off for the mountains. We stopped at several places to admire the scenery (even though it was cloudy in the morning) and have stuff offered to us. We stopped at a tradtional home and had tea, we went camel riding, and we climbed up a waterfall crossing Indiana Jones-like bridges (some with more difficulties than others), and ate another delicious meal. After that long day we got back in time to go out and have another nice dinner above the famous square. By that point it was time for another round of Euchre and sleep because the following day came the mosque and Casablanca!
More on that to come...
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