Warm Heart of Africa

Here's a nice picture of the markets in Fez. In reality, it's dirtier, more crowded, and there are no white people. The other picture is a map of the Fez markets. As you can see from the actual picture and the map, there is simply no way you could navigate these things!








*Disclaimer: I just reread through this post, and I apologize for how choppy it is. It's really scatter-brained, but what I have already took me two hours to write and I'm really not feeling editing this to perfection. Sorry you have to deal with my internal monologue :)

Here's the song I picked. I refused to pick Rock the kasbah or such cliches!:


So I’m finally getting to write about Morroco, the trip that kind of changed my life. As Devon and I were flying into Fez, I was definitely a bit nervous. I’ve never been to a developing nation before and I was really hoping that it went well because I’d hate to be responsible for Devon spending all that money and having a terrible time. As we fly into the airport, Devon leans over and whispers excitedly, “did you see the guard towers?!” No. I did not see the guard towers. We definitely were not in Kansas anymore, and while I’m a big girl and don’t need mommy and daddy holding my hand the whole way (I love you guys!) it was a huge adrenaline rush and kind of scary taking the reins of our trip in northern Africa. Plus, I was a bit worried about being a female in a place where they’re treated like property- Thank God Devon was with me!

Customs and passport control were a total joke, like everywhere else in the world, a fact which both makes my life easier and simultaneously blows my mind. So once we were there I went to get the hostel reservations to show a cabbie- omfg…there was no address on it! Granted, I should’ve checked this before, but these reservations ALWAYS have that info on it. Thankfully, I picked a very well known hotel in the medina (a walled old town) so the cab driver knew exactly where to take us. We get in the cab and drive to the city, a fairly long drive of about twenty minutes through the rather poor outskirts of town, and arrive safely at the hostel to check in. That all went fine, though on the inside I was still nervous about the unfamiliar culture and people, especially since we hadn’t seen any tourists. Now, I knew going in that I’d be a minority, a white person surrounded by a mostly Arabic population, but I was expecting some tourists to be around. Nope, it was mostly us. We decided to explore the markets (the longest in the world!) and they were insanely awesome. You do get heckled a lot with people asking you to look at their merchandise or go on a tour, but it really wasn’t that big of a deal.
Let me take a second to explain to you what these markets are like. They’re crowded, colorful little stands all cramped together and usually have bags, shoes, food (olives, dates, disgusting meat, spices), etc for sale. They’re enclosed by clay and shoddy wooden planks for walls and ceilings and the floor is mostly mud and dirt. At first we were kind of intimidated and didn’t want to get lost so we didn’t explore too far, but then once we decided to embrace our now standard “what the heck” philosophy, we had a pretty fun time wandering through. You all would be amazed the sheer size of this market. That, and there’s NOT A SINGLE ROAD THAT GOES STRAIGHT THROUGH IT! Seriously, you CANNOT navigate, you just have to hope you find your way back, which Devon and I managed to do….after SIX HOURS. Everyone tells you you’re supposed to get a guide, but us being bored and cheap considered ourselves above it. We wanted to discover the REAL Fez, and do the fun way, on our own. Well, it was definitely fun for the first two and half hours, but after that we were sick of the Morocco smell (I’ve pinned it down to cumin, Mexican blanket, and wet camel), of seeing the same stalls over and over, we’re starving, exhausted, tired of being hassled, and just want to get back to the hotel. After about four hours total, we managed to get out of the markets, but the last two were trying to figure out how to get out of the residential area we found ourselves in and how to get back across the medina to the hotel. You would think a taxi would be the way to go, but they refuse to take you anywhere inside the medina if you’re already there, it has to be somewhere like the airport or across the new town Fez. We finally managed to get to Hotel Batha, but the journey wasn’t pleasant. We did see the real Fez though! Pretty much all the Medina, actually. It’s impossible to go without a guide though, because not only is it insane to navigate, but all the mosques and awesome architecture is randomly thrown through out the markets, so you have no idea how to get to it. You just have to keep your eye out. Oh yeah, and I bought some head scarves for the trip. I was worried about keeping up with the traditions and blending in.
By this time it’s coming to about 4:30 so we go to a café across the street from the hotel to get a snack. The host hardly speaks English or French, so when I’m asking him for a table he has no idea what I’m saying. That’s when this man already sitting down at a table asks, “What do you want? Tea? Coffee?” and helps us order. This is where I am introduced to Moroccan whiskey, or mint green tea with sugar. It’s so amazing!! It was really nice to sit down and have a hot beverage, and the random guy at the café was pretty pleasant to talk with. He was kinda sketch after a bit, and we were worried about being scammed (and yes Dad, I was skeptical!) when he offered to show us some shops and restaurants. Knowing of course, that some of his family must have worked at this places, we politely refused the shops but let him show us a restaurant, which was actually pretty nice and we never would’ve found it on our own. We thanked him and went our separate ways and decided to skip lunch and just eat a nice, big dinner when we pick up Lauren from the airport. It was actually getting close to 6, so we take a taxi over and have him wait outside til she arrives. I’m starting to panic because we’re going to be late (due to a miscommunication with the first taxi we took- apparently we needed to take a grand taxi, not a petit taxi) and I’m worried Lauren’s going to freak out if we aren’t there. First thing that goes wrong is we discover there’s a time change coming from Spain to Morocco- whoops! So in actuality, we’re an hour early! Well as far as problems go, that’s actually a good thing, so we chill for a bit and excitedly wait. Here’s when things start to go wrong. Lauren never gets off the plane, and I am watching everyone who gets off with incredible endurance to ensure that I do not miss her. Maybe she’s stuck in customs? Omg, where is she? Phone isn’t working. Did she miss her flight or did we miss her and she’s in the city by herself? Which one is worse? Why aren’t the freaking phones working?! Before we know it, the airport is closing and I’m numb with panic. We talk with some airport people and they (bless their hearts) go find the flight roster and tell us she was on the flight. Here’s where my cursing starts to get pretty bad. I’m totally freaking out. We go back to the hotel, the cabbie over charges us but I was really sick of dealing with him, we figure out the payphones, we go to an internet café and try to facebook Lauren, and I try calling her family (a 10 euro charge to call from the hotel phone….awesome), hoping someone will know where she is. By this time it’s 9pm, we finally figure out the payphone, I call my family in a panic so that they can call her family so at least some one knows what’s going on, and then there’s nothing Devon and I can but wait. Actually, we’re famished at this point. I was NOT going to eat the market food (things I saw previously on Andrew Zimmerman’s bizarre food) and we hadn’t eaten since 6 that morning (an orange) and I was weak and shaky form lack of food and insane stress. So we go to that restaurant that guy showed us which was in a pretty sweet set up, had live music, a massive five course meal, and cost us about the same as it would to eat out here in France. Then I hear from Dad that Lauren is safe, hallelujah! Next problem…what do we do about the tour? I’m determined to get Lauren to Morocco, so we stay up til 1 am hopping between payphones and internet cafes trying to get ahold of her and the tour manager. We never get a hold of Lauren (pretty much the most frustrating thing in the world), but we do get in contact with the guide and manage to push it back a day so we can give her a chance to get there. Long story short, Lauren does not come to Morocco and Devon and I wait in Fez.
Devon and I now absolutely detest that God forsaken city, most of it not even being related to the tourism of the city. But between getting lost, starving, being exhausted, the incredibly stress of having a friend be MIA, and all the money we spent trying to make things work, it really left us with a poor taste in our mouth. But it gets better (as it always does with Devon and I). That night there’s a windstorm. A crazy wind storm with howling winds, things breaking all night, and doors slamming. I’ve been through hurricanes, and I was pretty shaken. Devon, being Devon, slept through almost all of it. There was once where he woke up startled but I was already awake to remind him there was a crazy windstorm. Did I mention that 45 minutes away this storm blew down a mosque and 100 people died? Oh how we loved Fez. A few hours later, at 5:30am sharp, I am woken by the entire city praying. This was actually pretty cool. I REALLY loved hearing the prayers from the towers and the entire city chanting along. At first, I admit, it was creepy and unexpected, but then I loved hearing it! To me, it was a city unified by their respect for humanity and their god, something totally foreign to me. It’s been a while since I’ve been surrounded by such religious devotion and commitment. Then we go back to bed for a bit and have to decide how to spend the day in a city we’ve already seen and felt no desire to be in. F that. We stayed in the hotel ALL day. There was a TV in our room that had one English channel- BBC, wohoo! And that was all I needed. There was no way I was going back out there til I had too. It’s sad, I know, but if you were there, you’d totally understand. Devon was so miserable. I thought he was going to suffocate me in my sleep!!

The next day we start our tour with Mr. Yager, and other than the extra expenses we incurred, I was sooo excited! Mostly to leave Fez, lol, but still. Our destination that day was the dunes is Merzugoa , and the weather we encountered on the way there was totally unexpected. It snowed. That’s right, Devon and I go to Morocco, and what happens? Freak wind storm, the sun, the rain, then snow!! Lots of snow. So much snow the road is closed and we have to take an alternate route. We take a bunch of stops along the way, the scenery is phenomenal, and Mr. Yager plays his really wonderful Arabic music the entirety of the 9 HOUR car ride (this isn’t sarcasm, btw, I really liked his music). We had a stop for lunch half way through, and that was a new experience. (we’re still the only white people for miles around, btw) We get there, talk with a butcher, he chops us off some ribs from a carcass, it gets put straight on the BBQ, and fifteen minutes later, we have an AMAZING communal plate of grilled ribs seasoned with grilled onion and tomatoes! Seriously, this could’ve been the best BBQ of my life. There was fresh cumin and pepper to put on it, we ate it with the amazing Moroccan bread that’s served with every meal, and you eat it enthusiastically with your hands. It was the best thing ever, and the tea that went with it (this time with a part of the absinthe plant as the flavoring, instead of the mint leaves) was just the icing on the cake!

As we get to the dunes, we have to go off-roading to get there. I swear, this kind of stuff only happens on trips with me, but our SUV gets stuck in the dunes five minutes from our destination! At this point, Devon and I can do nothing but laugh, and we get out and play in the sand and take lots of touristy pictures while we wait for another driver to come pick us up. Btw, Mr. Yager is pretty awesome, and I loved talking with him and asking him a million questions about everything. This is where the trip starts to go from really fun to OMG AMAZING!! We trek to our camp in the desert during the sunset, which was pretty nice. Going with us is this really great family from Indiana (but the just finished living in Strousburg because the wife’s company moved her there for a bit) who we could not have loved more. The dad, Bryan, is an artist and musician and the mom is a bio/chemical engineer who works in pharmaceuticals (and is an opera singer and a good cook) and their two kids were quite cute. We loved talking with them (omg! Americans! This means we can talk about the Colbert Report and good Mexican food and they’ll understand!) and the camel trek was super fun and thankfully only an hour and a half or so (that camel hump hits you right between the legs). The camp was pretty fun, the tents were made out of thick blankets, we had mattresses with sleeping bags and more blankets, and we had a wonderful tanjine dinner with our American family. Afterwards we all played the drums, but Devon and I were so bad it was actually pretty embarrassing lol. The best thing about the camping in the desert (other than the camels) would have to be the scenery. It was so beautiful, and omg THE STARS!!!! I’ve never been in such an isolated place before. The night sky was unlike anything I’d ever seen before and was simply breathtaking. The sunrise over the dunes was also really magical, and though it was way too early and Devon and I were total messes, it was definitely worth it.

Too me, what I’ve written so far is the most interesting part of the trip, and this post is already too long so the rest of the tour I’ll be brief about. The next day we trek back out of the desert, stop at a cool fossil place, stop at these insanely high gorges, and drive through the Rose Valley, all the while stopping at a bunch of Kasbahs for photo ops. The next day we drive some more all through the Atlas mountains (we did the low, middle, and high Atlas Mountains on this trip), saw a bunch more kashbahs and amazing scenery, and I have some pretty awesome conversations with Mr. Yager. There was one point when we were driving that there was a funeral on the road and that was pretty interesting to see. Only the men walked because the women always cry and make noise, so they’re left behind. Mr. Yager said you come into this world surrounded by happy people and that’s how you want to leave it. More of the celebration type of deal than the mourning. We also picked up a hitch-hiker while in the gorge, and that was pretty fun. It was this guy from Sicily who has traveled all over Europe and now he’s doing Africa. I love people. Another fun fact, in Morocco you can buy 10 grams of weed for 2 euros and it’s supposed to be really high quality stuff. We, of course, did not have any, but I thought that was INSANE.

This is where I get to why this trip kind of changed my life. This was a radical way of traveling for me. 1- when I plan traveling, it’s never with a tour. Mostly because I’m cheap, but also because I really just want to explore a lot of it for myself. However, in Morocco, you HAVE to have a tour because there’s essentially no safe or reliable public transportation from city to city, and the tour we went on was like having a driver for our own, personal three day road trip. And what made the difference to me (quite a dramatic difference, actually) was we were living like a local. We had a Moroccan man drive us to secret places, show us what and how to eat, tell us about customs, the way of life, and you better believed I asked a lot of questions. I’m so curious, sometimes I worried I was pestering him, but we had some pretty amazing talks about religion, life, family, friends, military/gov, etc. and it was so nice to see through the eyes of a local! Especially in such a different culture- they still have arranged marriages there! And Mr. Yager was living on his own when he was 11! The whole experience was just fascinating and awe-inspiring (once we were out of Fez, that is lol). It’s not good, because it really made me want to travel more, and I already want to travel quite a bit. And as usual, my love of humanity was reinforced every day. Between picking up hitch-hikers (who were awesome), giving to the poor, inviting people over for dinner, the Moroccans are so friendly and chill. Granted, there are those who are there to scam you and get your money, but we didn’t really come into contact with them too much. So what you should’ve gotten out of that paragraph is I have discovered a new way of culture and have REALLY seen through different eyes into a different world, and that profoundly affected me.

When the tour ended, we switched drivers and had a slightly-comical-now-that-it’s-over experience on the way to Marrakech. Our new driver couldn’t speak English very well, and we’re driving all through the way too curvy Atlas mountains. I only say that with such bitterness because I get motionsickness. Within twenty minutes, I’m ready to vomit and I’m sick of trying to decipher this guy’s English. Every five minutes he would just point something out on the side of the road that we could clearly see. Like so: Ten minutes of driving. “Look, sheep! Baa baa!” “yes. Sheep.” Omg im going to be sick. Kill me now. Five minutes of driving “Almond trees!” “Yeah.” “Rain!” Wow. Thanks for that observation. “so green!” Yes. Grass is green. If I wasn’t so sick it would’ve been comical, but I was just ready to get the heck out of that car! Oh yeah, and then he asks us, “how many turns are there from here to Marrakech?” And thinking, why the heck would anyone count the millions of turns on this road I’m like “I don’t know.” “Guess!” “I don’t know” “Guess!” “um..1500?” “No. Guess again!” Omg, I am going to kill you if you do not shut up. I’m sick and I have no idea what you’re saying. This blows. “Guess again!” he repeats. Devon pipes in “1700” “No! 2! Right and Left!” hahaha….soooo funny…not. Omg, I was so irritated.

We finally got to Marrakech though, and found the hostel (which looked really sketch from the outside) and thank the Lord, Marrakech was touristy! Hooray for no longer being a minority! The hostel owner was such a sweetheart. She’s a british traveler who came to Marrakech a few years ago on vacation and fell in love with a guy working at her hotel and she never left! They just opened up a hostel there and have been happy ever since! Anyways, Marrakech was amazingly touristy, and the markets were insane, but way better than Fez. They were more open and you could always find your way back to Djamaa El Fna, the main square. Devon and I did some insane bargaining with the crazy stall owners, which made Devon really excited. He wanted to stay and bargain all night (he gets it from his father, so I hear  ) while I was like, nope…time to go! We had a nice dinner, wandered around the belly dancers and snake charmers and food stalls, and then headed back.
Morocco was absolutely amazing, and I’m so glad we decided to do it! I really recommend it for whoever can find time to go, as I will NEVER forget it. Getting to know the people and culture of a place instead of being like…oh here’s that monument, let’s take a picture and bust butt to get to the next monument! Was fantastic. Sorry this post was so long, I just felt it deserved it. Love you all! I’ll post up about Carnival in Nice by the end of this week- that was a great time. Not exotic, but really happy and festive.

As usual, take care and take it easy! Miss you!

Devon and I have SO many pictures combined, but here are a few:
http://s884.photobucket.com/albums/ac43/kolormekatie/Morocco/