Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Mental photos
So this evening I am sitting on the top of our center looking into the southwest at the most amazing sunset and light I have seen in the past 6 months of traveling. The sun is now red and is about to go under the horizon, but in the last rays of light I'll describe the evolution of the light in the past 15 minutes. It started with the sun being low in the sky but still behind a layer of cloud, it was a bright gold, very strong light color like a really hot flame. The edge of the cloud and the open sky way a single ray of the brightest light; like a ribbon waving across the sky. The sky to the north and east was turning ever more purple but as the sun descended it hit the medina and light up the white buildings slowly turning them orange as the sun lowered. The depth in the light was amazing and you could see every corner in the countless building. The mosques rose above everything like orange pillars. A rainbow came out of nowhere in the north and was part of a purple that the sky was becoming. All of a sudden the sun hit the horizon and the sky turned deep orange and the light died on the city only to turn the cloud that was once this bright white gold into a pink deep fire. The sun turned dark red and then dipped below the horizon. The curtain of cloud is still red but slowly tiring. Cobalt gold dying into dark grey. Didn't have my camera, this is one of those mental photos. Now the call to prayer starts.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Todra in 54 hours
With ISP upon us, I wanted to try and go on one last grand adventure before I had to face the reality of starting my research project. I had aspirations of visiting the Todra gorge ever since I had read about it in the guidebook. It boasted 1000 ft. walls and a narrow bottom. The gorge is located on the other side of the Atlas Mountains near the desert, a long way from Rabat. To get there we had to take a 14-hour bus ride down to Marrakech, up over the mountains and then back up the other side of the mountains to the small town of Tinehir.
The bus ride was a surreal experience and would turn out to be the most interesting part of the short weekend for me. Mike, Kelsi, Henry and caught the bus leaving Rabat at 10 on Saturday night. These buses are a dirtier, older version of the tour buses we have been traveling around the country in our group for the past 3 months. They make constant stops in order to try and maintain a full passenger load, as to increase profit for the bus driver and decrease happiness of the customer. The most interesting of these frequent stops occurred at the base of the Tiz’n Tichca, the highest mountain road pass in Morocco. It was about 4 in the morning and I had only been able to daze off and on into lucid dreams of snow, Erica, thanksgiving at home and other comforting thoughts. To announce stops they abruptly switch the cabin lights on….brutal. I stumbled off the bus to three shops lit up in what was otherwise a surrounding darkness and freezing air of the high Moroccan mountains. Smoke was billowing up from two barbecues stationed in front of two butcher shops ready for hungry customers from the bus. I have the remaining image when looking into one of the shops of this solitary face in a sea of products surrounding it.
I drifted in and out of sleep over the next couple hours awakening to sunset over the now desert landscape. We arrived in Tinehir around 10 or 11 on Sunday, and quickly jumped in a grand taxi that drove us up into the gorge. The beginning of the gorge is beautiful with a long green palmary spilling out of the mouth of it, but as you drive further into it, and the walls become more spectacular, it becomes increasingly apparent that this is a very touristy destination. Hotels and small guesthouses are everywhere and there are a number of tourists walking along what is now a paved road bottom of the gorge. We decided to spend the night in a spectacularly placed hotel in the narrowest section of the gorge under a HUGE overhanging wall. Although exhausted, we managed to walk up a bit and sit on some warm rocks further down the gorge where it opens back up.
We were all very impressed with the physical beauty of this place, but we all agreed the infrastructure and people marred the experience. It is kind of disappointing to end the description at that, but that’s the impression I left with. We crashed really early that night and slept in. We woke up, packed and decided to start hiking down the road in hopes we would hitch a ride back to Tinehir. 4 or 5 km later we got picked up. Nobody wanted to pick us up. It was strange. Perhaps we smelled kind of funky from the bus ride the night before.
Back in Tinehir, we passed the time by talking with a local man who was nice enough to show us around without trying to get us to pay him. I had decided I needed to get back to Rabat to be able to start some work, so my plan was to leave the others on the 5 o’clock bus. I spent the remainder of my time shopping and bargaining, at one point being called a “Berber” because my price was to low. I think it’s the Moroccan form of the “Jew” insult. Little did he know…haha. I found that pretty funny for some reason: maybe it reminded me of high school and how my friends would react to me not ever wanting to spend money, I don’t know.
The bus ride back was long and uneventful, but when I finally got off the bus at 5:20 the next morning, I had a pretty unique experience. I walked through the medina virtually alone. It was eerie to a point where it hard to describe. Having lived in this city for the past three months and never seeing the streets empty left me under the impression of never really feeling alone. For the first time, I was alone. It was dark, and I didn’t have my key to my house. Being me, I didn’t want to wake up my family, so I decided to wander around as much as I could until I either got mugged or couldn’t stand anymore. I walked around, found some comfortable stairwells to take little naps in. Around 5:45 the call to prayer started and awaked the medina for a moment. It was amazing to just sit in the dark stairwell with a little light coming in from the street and listen to the prayer erupt around me. It finally died, and I moved on fearing the man of the house would come back from prayer and leave for prayer. The only things that were open where the mosques. I discovered new ones i never new existed, especially on the main drag where I am normally only used to seeing barber shops and street venders. At 6:30 I decided to ring my bell, my dad got mad at me for not ringing it sooner thinking I was crazy to wander the streets alone. I disagreed, but didnt say anything.
random facts:
-28 hours in a bus
-24 hours at the gorge
-stupid idea?
-it was cool to see people climbing in the gorge
The bus ride was a surreal experience and would turn out to be the most interesting part of the short weekend for me. Mike, Kelsi, Henry and caught the bus leaving Rabat at 10 on Saturday night. These buses are a dirtier, older version of the tour buses we have been traveling around the country in our group for the past 3 months. They make constant stops in order to try and maintain a full passenger load, as to increase profit for the bus driver and decrease happiness of the customer. The most interesting of these frequent stops occurred at the base of the Tiz’n Tichca, the highest mountain road pass in Morocco. It was about 4 in the morning and I had only been able to daze off and on into lucid dreams of snow, Erica, thanksgiving at home and other comforting thoughts. To announce stops they abruptly switch the cabin lights on….brutal. I stumbled off the bus to three shops lit up in what was otherwise a surrounding darkness and freezing air of the high Moroccan mountains. Smoke was billowing up from two barbecues stationed in front of two butcher shops ready for hungry customers from the bus. I have the remaining image when looking into one of the shops of this solitary face in a sea of products surrounding it.
I drifted in and out of sleep over the next couple hours awakening to sunset over the now desert landscape. We arrived in Tinehir around 10 or 11 on Sunday, and quickly jumped in a grand taxi that drove us up into the gorge. The beginning of the gorge is beautiful with a long green palmary spilling out of the mouth of it, but as you drive further into it, and the walls become more spectacular, it becomes increasingly apparent that this is a very touristy destination. Hotels and small guesthouses are everywhere and there are a number of tourists walking along what is now a paved road bottom of the gorge. We decided to spend the night in a spectacularly placed hotel in the narrowest section of the gorge under a HUGE overhanging wall. Although exhausted, we managed to walk up a bit and sit on some warm rocks further down the gorge where it opens back up.
We were all very impressed with the physical beauty of this place, but we all agreed the infrastructure and people marred the experience. It is kind of disappointing to end the description at that, but that’s the impression I left with. We crashed really early that night and slept in. We woke up, packed and decided to start hiking down the road in hopes we would hitch a ride back to Tinehir. 4 or 5 km later we got picked up. Nobody wanted to pick us up. It was strange. Perhaps we smelled kind of funky from the bus ride the night before.
Back in Tinehir, we passed the time by talking with a local man who was nice enough to show us around without trying to get us to pay him. I had decided I needed to get back to Rabat to be able to start some work, so my plan was to leave the others on the 5 o’clock bus. I spent the remainder of my time shopping and bargaining, at one point being called a “Berber” because my price was to low. I think it’s the Moroccan form of the “Jew” insult. Little did he know…haha. I found that pretty funny for some reason: maybe it reminded me of high school and how my friends would react to me not ever wanting to spend money, I don’t know.
The bus ride back was long and uneventful, but when I finally got off the bus at 5:20 the next morning, I had a pretty unique experience. I walked through the medina virtually alone. It was eerie to a point where it hard to describe. Having lived in this city for the past three months and never seeing the streets empty left me under the impression of never really feeling alone. For the first time, I was alone. It was dark, and I didn’t have my key to my house. Being me, I didn’t want to wake up my family, so I decided to wander around as much as I could until I either got mugged or couldn’t stand anymore. I walked around, found some comfortable stairwells to take little naps in. Around 5:45 the call to prayer started and awaked the medina for a moment. It was amazing to just sit in the dark stairwell with a little light coming in from the street and listen to the prayer erupt around me. It finally died, and I moved on fearing the man of the house would come back from prayer and leave for prayer. The only things that were open where the mosques. I discovered new ones i never new existed, especially on the main drag where I am normally only used to seeing barber shops and street venders. At 6:30 I decided to ring my bell, my dad got mad at me for not ringing it sooner thinking I was crazy to wander the streets alone. I disagreed, but didnt say anything.
random facts:
-28 hours in a bus
-24 hours at the gorge
-stupid idea?
-it was cool to see people climbing in the gorge
Monday, November 12, 2007
Rural Home Stay Week
Its hard to describe a whole week in detail, especially when days and nights run together like they do out in the country. It's not so much that you count days when you are out there but you just go through cycles. Life is a cycle that is dictated by the rising and setting of the sun. Cliché perhaps but it is very true: you wake up with the sun at about 6 and go to bed shortly after the setting of the sun. You have a morning devoted to whatever task is at hand. Then, you eat. Then, you have your afternoon devoted to whatever you are doing. Then, you eat. Then, you lounge with family. Then, you sleep. Then, wake up and do the same thing over again.
Our week in a rural village started out with a three-hour bus ride south to a town called Boujaad. There we were greeted by a ridiculous parade of people in this one neighborhood. They were welcoming us to this education center where we learned briefly about what they do. The parade convoy was then marched up a block to a nice house where we all enjoyed a huge couscous. The entourage made me uncomfortable. We then boarded the bus to make our way to the little villages, in which we would be staying individually with families for the next week. I didn’t really know what to expect, but, surprisingly in my case, I wasn’t really worried about it at all. I know that comes as a great shock to some of you, but there was just no need to worry about it since I would be there for the next week regardless and that would just make it that much more uncomfortable.
Luckily, I was to live in this secluded complex of houses closest to the hills and farthest away from the main village with five other of my close friends; Bryon, Alex, Mike, Dan, and Greg. So, the men (our host fathers and us) set off to our homes walking along the highway for ten minutes and then following a pleasant dirt road into the hills. The sun was low in the sky and sent rays of yellow light up into the darkening sea of blue; it was beautiful. I got to see the silhouettes of the neighboring houses above me for the first time, a sight that every night subsequently I would be able to sit back and just soak in. The setting of the sun, the evening light and silhouettes would become my favorite memory.
My family was relatively small in comparison to others. I had a father, mother and three young sisters. This is a regular village not even a poor one by any accounts but I now know what its like to live at the $2 a day mark. I have never eaten so much bread in my life. The diet consists of bread at every meal along with olive oil or this kind a melted off butter I describe later, and maybe a plate of tagine, lentils, or salad. To wash it down you have Moroccan whiskey, aka sweet mint tea, a lot of tea. The bread(hobbes) is amazing, fresh baked every day before every meal and the olive oil…best I have ever had.
I find it pretty hard to account for everything that went on during the week, so this is going to be loose thoughts from the week that will float back to my memory in hopefully somewhat of a chronological order. The pictures will help more description of the time that was spent
Here are some notes I wrote on my first night there:
- Sitting in silence on the concrete floor with a worn sheepskin mat over it with my father Mustafa. The room is dark with only one halogen light bulb powered by a solar panel that sucks up the suns energy all day.
- We both silently sip on tea and eat bread with what seems to be melted goat butter? That tastes a little off. I don’t eat very much of it.
- His praying in the corner is the only thing I can hear. Short swift mumbling under his breathe.
- We sit again in silence, youngest daughter has joined us in silence. Mother comes into room and beings to pray in corner. Silence.
That was the theme for the week. When I was with my friends I was talking, joking, playing cards, playing a game like charades. When I was with my family it was quiet and I was blissfully ignorant to what was being said around me and unable to communicate as they only speak Darija (the Moroccan dialect of Arabic) and I don’t really know much. It was kind of nice not being able to communicate. Just sitting back and staring at each other until we would all go to sleep.
I would follow my dad around in the hills whether he was herding or digging holes for the current reforestation project in the area. It’s hard to imagine that trees once grew here.
There was a craggy hill behind all our houses and we would hike up it for a nice view and good game of charades. The evening light would drape across the valley and would invite good emotion and comfort at our current position. The best way to describe this place is a simple beauty. Life is simple here. The landscape is simple, the houses are simple, the diet is simple.
Some funny notes taken from day five.
- Day 5…Madness sets in.
- We sit and laugh at everything
- The Kfupe rides again…
- This room smells like “someone took a shit on a pile of old socks and the threw bottles of concentrated B.O. extract on it and then someone took another dump on that.”
- Its been concluded, by scientific inquiry and analysis that when two men are sitting alone things are fine…when more join them the farting begins.
- The brilliant Greg is quoted again…“ Hey are you guys sexually frustrated? Have you considered whacking it to the cover of my Jane Austin novel?......(long pause)…..because I have…(long pause)…there is plenty of cleavage and the women are looking at each other like they want to scissor…(long pause)…can I borrow that book tonight? (Alex)”
I feel like that might be the best way to end this entry and let the pictures fill in the rest.
Hope you enjoyed.
Our week in a rural village started out with a three-hour bus ride south to a town called Boujaad. There we were greeted by a ridiculous parade of people in this one neighborhood. They were welcoming us to this education center where we learned briefly about what they do. The parade convoy was then marched up a block to a nice house where we all enjoyed a huge couscous. The entourage made me uncomfortable. We then boarded the bus to make our way to the little villages, in which we would be staying individually with families for the next week. I didn’t really know what to expect, but, surprisingly in my case, I wasn’t really worried about it at all. I know that comes as a great shock to some of you, but there was just no need to worry about it since I would be there for the next week regardless and that would just make it that much more uncomfortable.
Luckily, I was to live in this secluded complex of houses closest to the hills and farthest away from the main village with five other of my close friends; Bryon, Alex, Mike, Dan, and Greg. So, the men (our host fathers and us) set off to our homes walking along the highway for ten minutes and then following a pleasant dirt road into the hills. The sun was low in the sky and sent rays of yellow light up into the darkening sea of blue; it was beautiful. I got to see the silhouettes of the neighboring houses above me for the first time, a sight that every night subsequently I would be able to sit back and just soak in. The setting of the sun, the evening light and silhouettes would become my favorite memory.
My family was relatively small in comparison to others. I had a father, mother and three young sisters. This is a regular village not even a poor one by any accounts but I now know what its like to live at the $2 a day mark. I have never eaten so much bread in my life. The diet consists of bread at every meal along with olive oil or this kind a melted off butter I describe later, and maybe a plate of tagine, lentils, or salad. To wash it down you have Moroccan whiskey, aka sweet mint tea, a lot of tea. The bread(hobbes) is amazing, fresh baked every day before every meal and the olive oil…best I have ever had.
I find it pretty hard to account for everything that went on during the week, so this is going to be loose thoughts from the week that will float back to my memory in hopefully somewhat of a chronological order. The pictures will help more description of the time that was spent
Here are some notes I wrote on my first night there:
- Sitting in silence on the concrete floor with a worn sheepskin mat over it with my father Mustafa. The room is dark with only one halogen light bulb powered by a solar panel that sucks up the suns energy all day.
- We both silently sip on tea and eat bread with what seems to be melted goat butter? That tastes a little off. I don’t eat very much of it.
- His praying in the corner is the only thing I can hear. Short swift mumbling under his breathe.
- We sit again in silence, youngest daughter has joined us in silence. Mother comes into room and beings to pray in corner. Silence.
That was the theme for the week. When I was with my friends I was talking, joking, playing cards, playing a game like charades. When I was with my family it was quiet and I was blissfully ignorant to what was being said around me and unable to communicate as they only speak Darija (the Moroccan dialect of Arabic) and I don’t really know much. It was kind of nice not being able to communicate. Just sitting back and staring at each other until we would all go to sleep.
I would follow my dad around in the hills whether he was herding or digging holes for the current reforestation project in the area. It’s hard to imagine that trees once grew here.
There was a craggy hill behind all our houses and we would hike up it for a nice view and good game of charades. The evening light would drape across the valley and would invite good emotion and comfort at our current position. The best way to describe this place is a simple beauty. Life is simple here. The landscape is simple, the houses are simple, the diet is simple.
Some funny notes taken from day five.
- Day 5…Madness sets in.
- We sit and laugh at everything
- The Kfupe rides again…
- This room smells like “someone took a shit on a pile of old socks and the threw bottles of concentrated B.O. extract on it and then someone took another dump on that.”
- Its been concluded, by scientific inquiry and analysis that when two men are sitting alone things are fine…when more join them the farting begins.
- The brilliant Greg is quoted again…“ Hey are you guys sexually frustrated? Have you considered whacking it to the cover of my Jane Austin novel?......(long pause)…..because I have…(long pause)…there is plenty of cleavage and the women are looking at each other like they want to scissor…(long pause)…can I borrow that book tonight? (Alex)”
I feel like that might be the best way to end this entry and let the pictures fill in the rest.
Hope you enjoyed.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Halloween
here are some pictures from a fun halloween party that the SIT kids threw at our center. creative costumes were seen and fun was had for a couple hours until they had to close the center down.
My 21st in Rabat
A low key birthday was had on the 30th of October, this 2007. Mike, Hen, Daniel and I decided to skip our second Politics lecture involving an elaborate escape plan from our Center where we barely made our way down an alternative stairwell out the front door before the angry tribals got us with their spears...my imagination got a hold of that thought. wont happen again. sorry.
We took some taxis down to Marjane (a big superstore on the water) to purchase a picnic of bread, bad cheese, dark chocolate, 7up and a bottle of Sunrise Tequilla. Its amazing how many "muslims" are buying alcohol. I put the quotations because alcohol consumption is forbidden in Islamic law. Almost everyone in the checkout line had some form of alcoholic beverage in their pile of stuff. I found the irony interesting. Is it hypocritical, hypothetically speaking, for a Islamist man to hate America, even though he is buying a six pack of Budwieser? The consensus of my peers is yes.
Anyway, we went to the big and beautiful public park by the Hilton in Rabat and had our picnic, talked, laughed, played frisbee and hung out until it got cold. Pretty much, not much more I could have asked for granted my surrondings.
We took some taxis down to Marjane (a big superstore on the water) to purchase a picnic of bread, bad cheese, dark chocolate, 7up and a bottle of Sunrise Tequilla. Its amazing how many "muslims" are buying alcohol. I put the quotations because alcohol consumption is forbidden in Islamic law. Almost everyone in the checkout line had some form of alcoholic beverage in their pile of stuff. I found the irony interesting. Is it hypocritical, hypothetically speaking, for a Islamist man to hate America, even though he is buying a six pack of Budwieser? The consensus of my peers is yes.
Anyway, we went to the big and beautiful public park by the Hilton in Rabat and had our picnic, talked, laughed, played frisbee and hung out until it got cold. Pretty much, not much more I could have asked for granted my surrondings.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Lazy Weekend
Spent the weekend laying around the Medina watching alot of soccer and drinking alot of espresso. Friday night was great because, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I walked out of my room on my way to take a leak and the court yard was completely illuminated. I looked up and the moon was looking straight down back at me. It was beautiful, so I just sat in the court yard playing with my camera and the light.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Rabat Rain
Heavy rains in Rabat yesterday. Loved it even though it was definately to short. I wish it would rain for a day straight. The only thing that stinks when it rains are the streets. All that dry shit and urine that you can't see with the naked eye re-liquifies and stinks up the place. Its this stale, rotten dirt smell that evaporates off the slick tile roads. Smells are hard to describe. Thats all I can think of right now.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Southern Excursion 10/16-10/22
Getting out of Rabat after two long weeks was a wonderful respite from the monotony of my daily routine. We left really early Tuesday morning on another big tourist bus for a weeklong field trip circling the Atlas Mountains. Day one consisted of driving up to Azrou, a small town nestled in the foothills of the Middle Atlas Mountains. It’s home to the biggest forest in North Africa. We drove up to the forest and had a nice, somewhat boring picnic (same thing we always have: consisting of bread, cheese, olives, potato chips, jelly etc.) in the pine tress with Barbary Apes playing around. It was interesting to be in forest in a country that most people associate with desert. It was nice, but littered with trash that made the stay less aesthetic. We drove back down the hill and settled into our nice hotel above the town. That night some friends and I went for a walk only to be stalked by a police car with its lights off thinking it was being sneaky, and another police man following us on foot. It made us all kind of uneasy, so we headed back to the hotel. No one likes sketchy authority figures.
We woke up really early, and by really early I mean 7 o’clock, to start our first of many long drives. The drive from Azrou to the dunes of Erg Chebbi was beautiful. Starting north around the Middle Atlas, we then turned south and followed the edge of the mountains till we hit desert. Beautiful winding roads through dry but green treed hills reminded me of the drive from Lewiston to McCall, Idaho. This led us to a more arid drive to Rissani, where we stopped for a great lunch of Berber pizza; bread with carrots, egg, and other stuff cut up inside toasted. We then all got into Land Rovers and headed toward the Sahara. We peeled off the paved road at some random spot and headed straight for the dunes. Out of nowhere, villages and small communities started to popup out of what had seemed to be flat, black, rocky land. We dismounted the Land Rovers at our impressively nice hotel/guesthouse on the edge of the dunes, and were herded onto the forty or so camels patiently waiting to take us for a nice sunset stroll into the biggest desert on the planet. These camels were different from the ones I rode in the Gobi in Mongolia. They did not have the two humps and were not as big.
The desert is going to be very hard to explain in words, and the pictures only start to grasp at the expanse of nothingness that unfolds in front of you. Imagine a stormy sea of very fine red sand frozen at its angriest moment by the heat of the North African sun. You have swells of dunes rising up from a shore of black rock that lays to the west. It’s endless; as far as the eye can see, and even when you wander out and find the highest dune in your vicinity you look see another dune in the distance that’s taller. The air has a stale sandbox smell to it and there is no moisture to be had.
I wondered out the farthest to the east and found a high perch where I could enjoy the sunset with no noise from the group. Maggie and Asia came up and joined me 5 minutes later followed by a couple others who left the dune shortly after arriving. Maggie, Asia and I stayed up there as long as we could trying to soak in the breadth on the desert that lay around us. The Gobi had dunes, but they had mountains in the background dwarfing them and did not give the same semblance of vastness that these did.
We made our way back to the inn and stayed up late talking and wandering out into the desert in the pitch black. Scary. You feel like your in some sci-fi movie where a sand creature is going to silently pick each one of your friends off at a time until its just you with the flashlight….alone…….breathing…heavily….and then your flash lights dies and all you have for company is your breath….and then the creatures breath behind you…
Anyway, Henry, Mike, Kelsi, Dan, Steffa, Jules, Hong and I woke up around four in the morning and starting hiking out east into the dunes in search of a high perch to watch the sunrise from. After an hour or so of walking we thought we had found a nice spot. A year ago, I had streaked across the Gobi desert at sunset and thought I should keep the tradition alive. So, the boys de-robbed and ran out into nothingness with nothing. It’s a very freeing feeling when you are in such an empty expanse relatively alone with nothing on you. Its just you, the desert and the stars. It got cold so I ran back to my clothes. The other boys followed.
The drive from the dunes to Ouarzazate is flat out one of the most gorgeous desert mountain landscape I’ve ever seen. Huge ancient fault lines create big flat valleys with southern-Utahish looking swells on either side with palm groves cutting in and out of valleys. I am not going to spoil it for other, just go to Morocco and make the drive.
I woke up the next morning feeling really crummy. The only thing this day turned out to be for me was a painfully LONG haul up over the High Atlas to Marrakech. I threw up and was leaking out of my butt hole in the morning and the twisty, turny mountain roads just added to the problem. Midway through the day I had to pull the trigger again. I wish I could have enjoyed the views more because they were astounding. Looking forward to them in December when I make the drive with the family. The sickness passed and the next morning Hen, Mike and I would be walking around the city all day shopping the souks and drinking fresh squeezed orange juice.
Sunday, I woke up and felt much better. Mike, Hen and I set off to wander the souks of Marrakech. We walked up and down the crowded narrow streets, shopped and bargained, ended up bartering away a set of American playing cards to get a lower price on a present. Pretty funny. That night we had dinner at one of the MANY food stands in the Djemaa el Fan Square and washed it down with the delicious fresh squeezed orange juice. A lot of tourists in the city, but its got a great vibe.
The next morning we departed for Essouria stopping at an Argon oil commune where women work to produce different types of culinary and cosmetic oils. We moved on to the town, which sits in a nice bay on the coast with a big beach stretching down to the south. We played a big soccer game on the beach, which was super fun and everyone was really into it. Still sore from it…ha that’s sad.
The drive back to Rabat was uneventful, stopping in El Jadida for the same picnic on the beach.
So as you can tell I kind of lost steam on this blog….it’s long enough as it is. But it conveys the week pretty well. Exciting up until leaving Marrakech and then kind of blah.
We woke up really early, and by really early I mean 7 o’clock, to start our first of many long drives. The drive from Azrou to the dunes of Erg Chebbi was beautiful. Starting north around the Middle Atlas, we then turned south and followed the edge of the mountains till we hit desert. Beautiful winding roads through dry but green treed hills reminded me of the drive from Lewiston to McCall, Idaho. This led us to a more arid drive to Rissani, where we stopped for a great lunch of Berber pizza; bread with carrots, egg, and other stuff cut up inside toasted. We then all got into Land Rovers and headed toward the Sahara. We peeled off the paved road at some random spot and headed straight for the dunes. Out of nowhere, villages and small communities started to popup out of what had seemed to be flat, black, rocky land. We dismounted the Land Rovers at our impressively nice hotel/guesthouse on the edge of the dunes, and were herded onto the forty or so camels patiently waiting to take us for a nice sunset stroll into the biggest desert on the planet. These camels were different from the ones I rode in the Gobi in Mongolia. They did not have the two humps and were not as big.
The desert is going to be very hard to explain in words, and the pictures only start to grasp at the expanse of nothingness that unfolds in front of you. Imagine a stormy sea of very fine red sand frozen at its angriest moment by the heat of the North African sun. You have swells of dunes rising up from a shore of black rock that lays to the west. It’s endless; as far as the eye can see, and even when you wander out and find the highest dune in your vicinity you look see another dune in the distance that’s taller. The air has a stale sandbox smell to it and there is no moisture to be had.
I wondered out the farthest to the east and found a high perch where I could enjoy the sunset with no noise from the group. Maggie and Asia came up and joined me 5 minutes later followed by a couple others who left the dune shortly after arriving. Maggie, Asia and I stayed up there as long as we could trying to soak in the breadth on the desert that lay around us. The Gobi had dunes, but they had mountains in the background dwarfing them and did not give the same semblance of vastness that these did.
We made our way back to the inn and stayed up late talking and wandering out into the desert in the pitch black. Scary. You feel like your in some sci-fi movie where a sand creature is going to silently pick each one of your friends off at a time until its just you with the flashlight….alone…….breathing…heavily….and then your flash lights dies and all you have for company is your breath….and then the creatures breath behind you…
Anyway, Henry, Mike, Kelsi, Dan, Steffa, Jules, Hong and I woke up around four in the morning and starting hiking out east into the dunes in search of a high perch to watch the sunrise from. After an hour or so of walking we thought we had found a nice spot. A year ago, I had streaked across the Gobi desert at sunset and thought I should keep the tradition alive. So, the boys de-robbed and ran out into nothingness with nothing. It’s a very freeing feeling when you are in such an empty expanse relatively alone with nothing on you. Its just you, the desert and the stars. It got cold so I ran back to my clothes. The other boys followed.
The drive from the dunes to Ouarzazate is flat out one of the most gorgeous desert mountain landscape I’ve ever seen. Huge ancient fault lines create big flat valleys with southern-Utahish looking swells on either side with palm groves cutting in and out of valleys. I am not going to spoil it for other, just go to Morocco and make the drive.
I woke up the next morning feeling really crummy. The only thing this day turned out to be for me was a painfully LONG haul up over the High Atlas to Marrakech. I threw up and was leaking out of my butt hole in the morning and the twisty, turny mountain roads just added to the problem. Midway through the day I had to pull the trigger again. I wish I could have enjoyed the views more because they were astounding. Looking forward to them in December when I make the drive with the family. The sickness passed and the next morning Hen, Mike and I would be walking around the city all day shopping the souks and drinking fresh squeezed orange juice.
Sunday, I woke up and felt much better. Mike, Hen and I set off to wander the souks of Marrakech. We walked up and down the crowded narrow streets, shopped and bargained, ended up bartering away a set of American playing cards to get a lower price on a present. Pretty funny. That night we had dinner at one of the MANY food stands in the Djemaa el Fan Square and washed it down with the delicious fresh squeezed orange juice. A lot of tourists in the city, but its got a great vibe.
The next morning we departed for Essouria stopping at an Argon oil commune where women work to produce different types of culinary and cosmetic oils. We moved on to the town, which sits in a nice bay on the coast with a big beach stretching down to the south. We played a big soccer game on the beach, which was super fun and everyone was really into it. Still sore from it…ha that’s sad.
The drive back to Rabat was uneventful, stopping in El Jadida for the same picnic on the beach.
So as you can tell I kind of lost steam on this blog….it’s long enough as it is. But it conveys the week pretty well. Exciting up until leaving Marrakech and then kind of blah.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Asilah
This past week seemed to crawl by, and I cannot believe it's only been seven days since the adventure to the falls of Ouzoud. This weekend I wanted to travel because I knew that next weekend was the end of Ramadan and supposedly it’s a huge party. I do not want to miss being with the family for that experience, so I flipped through the guidebook in search of an easily accessible destination with a beach and a beautiful town. Enter stage left: Asliah; A picturesque, small town that attracts a lot of tourists because of its clean-whitewashed medina streets, the old Portuguese ramparts surrounding the medina and a large amount of art; whether it be found in studios, on murals outside houses, or at the annual art/music festival held there every August. I wanted a relaxing weekend where we could find a beach and just walk around town and ‘be’ or read a book in a park.
My travel companions would again be my trusty sidekick Frenchman Henry accompanied by the lovely Asia and Maggie. I got Byron, a fellow CC student, to come along for the ride. We would conveniently be taking the train there from Rabat. The train ride there is a painless 4-hour ride for about 130 MDH round trip, which comes out to be about 14 bucks, and is direct with no stops or changes of trains needed, so it was a welcome change from last weekend. We got an early start Saturday morning leaving Rabat around 7:45 and sleeping/daydreaming most of the ride to Asilah. When we got off the train we hopped on the bus that brought us 2km into town. A clean, well laid out Nouvelle Ville (new town) with kids running around and fountains flowing welcomed us. We made our way to a nice budget hotel we had read about, but upon arrival passports where mandatory and of course most of us had left ours in Rabat. So, we wandered around finally finding a shadier hotel with stained sheets that would have to do.
We had read about a beach called Paradise beach that boasted of clean sand, no people and a nice 3 km hike along the coast to get to it. Sounded perfect. So we got changed, and started walking along the rampart wall of the medina to the southern end of town where we found the road/path that led along the coast. The hike was beautiful; traversing up and over ridges along the coast, looking down on the crashing waves against the sandstone cliffs and watching fishermen cast their lines into the ocean. We had a little picnic on top of one of the ridges. About two and half hours later and after what was more like 5km, we crested the final ridge and the beach laid out before us. It reminded me very much of the Oregon coast. The beach was long and broad and turned out to be the flattest beach I’d ever been on. The sand was very fine and you could walk out into the water for 100 yards before it would get to deep to stand. We played in the waves and body surfed for a bit. It was getting close to 6 and we knew that if we didn’t want to walk back the way we came we would need to find a ride back to town. After negotiating with a buggy driver we hopped on a horse drawn buggy for a bumpy, but great ride, back to town. We made our way along a dirt road for 20 minutes and then onto a paved road. The highlight was when I saw a man herding his sheep with the help of a Portuguese water dog! Lisbon! Made me miss my dog, but it was great to see a dog move and run the way my dog does.
Spent the evening at an overpriced, small-portioned restaurant, which I don’t really have much to say about. Went to a café with Henry where we enjoyed our regular Fanta Citron while watching Espanoyla beat Valencia. Played some cards in the hotel room and hit the hay after a long but good day.
We all slept in except Bryon. When we finally did wake up the sun was shinning, and we felt rested. We made our way to the ramparts and the entrance of the medina. This medina was the cleanest one I have been to so far and was beautifully painted. We had an espresso and made our way through small streets with interesting murals. The ambience of the town was perfect and calm, and you were always excited to see what kind of mural or paint job the building around the corner would have. We came to this house with a painting of hundred of little black figures called “The Tree of Life”: I think it was my favorite mural.
We had to catch the 2:45 train home so we went back the hotel packed up and decided to walk to the train station. Started reading Al Gore’s new book The Assault on Reason and I have to say I think it’s a good and important read for anyone concerned about the current state of politics and democracy in our country. A very intelligent and well-researched man with important things to say, take a look.
My travel companions would again be my trusty sidekick Frenchman Henry accompanied by the lovely Asia and Maggie. I got Byron, a fellow CC student, to come along for the ride. We would conveniently be taking the train there from Rabat. The train ride there is a painless 4-hour ride for about 130 MDH round trip, which comes out to be about 14 bucks, and is direct with no stops or changes of trains needed, so it was a welcome change from last weekend. We got an early start Saturday morning leaving Rabat around 7:45 and sleeping/daydreaming most of the ride to Asilah. When we got off the train we hopped on the bus that brought us 2km into town. A clean, well laid out Nouvelle Ville (new town) with kids running around and fountains flowing welcomed us. We made our way to a nice budget hotel we had read about, but upon arrival passports where mandatory and of course most of us had left ours in Rabat. So, we wandered around finally finding a shadier hotel with stained sheets that would have to do.
We had read about a beach called Paradise beach that boasted of clean sand, no people and a nice 3 km hike along the coast to get to it. Sounded perfect. So we got changed, and started walking along the rampart wall of the medina to the southern end of town where we found the road/path that led along the coast. The hike was beautiful; traversing up and over ridges along the coast, looking down on the crashing waves against the sandstone cliffs and watching fishermen cast their lines into the ocean. We had a little picnic on top of one of the ridges. About two and half hours later and after what was more like 5km, we crested the final ridge and the beach laid out before us. It reminded me very much of the Oregon coast. The beach was long and broad and turned out to be the flattest beach I’d ever been on. The sand was very fine and you could walk out into the water for 100 yards before it would get to deep to stand. We played in the waves and body surfed for a bit. It was getting close to 6 and we knew that if we didn’t want to walk back the way we came we would need to find a ride back to town. After negotiating with a buggy driver we hopped on a horse drawn buggy for a bumpy, but great ride, back to town. We made our way along a dirt road for 20 minutes and then onto a paved road. The highlight was when I saw a man herding his sheep with the help of a Portuguese water dog! Lisbon! Made me miss my dog, but it was great to see a dog move and run the way my dog does.
Spent the evening at an overpriced, small-portioned restaurant, which I don’t really have much to say about. Went to a café with Henry where we enjoyed our regular Fanta Citron while watching Espanoyla beat Valencia. Played some cards in the hotel room and hit the hay after a long but good day.
We all slept in except Bryon. When we finally did wake up the sun was shinning, and we felt rested. We made our way to the ramparts and the entrance of the medina. This medina was the cleanest one I have been to so far and was beautifully painted. We had an espresso and made our way through small streets with interesting murals. The ambience of the town was perfect and calm, and you were always excited to see what kind of mural or paint job the building around the corner would have. We came to this house with a painting of hundred of little black figures called “The Tree of Life”: I think it was my favorite mural.
We had to catch the 2:45 train home so we went back the hotel packed up and decided to walk to the train station. Started reading Al Gore’s new book The Assault on Reason and I have to say I think it’s a good and important read for anyone concerned about the current state of politics and democracy in our country. A very intelligent and well-researched man with important things to say, take a look.
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