Morocco and the Berber Villages

My Moroccan adventure begins: We were met at the ship by a tour bus along with 2 Moroccan guides who took us on a 15 min drive to the train station. We all hopped on the "Marrakesh Express" (thanks Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) for a three hour ride. I was feeling really alone since everyone had a companion. There were the two team leaders Dan & Pat, a really nice gay couple, a younger married couple Brian & Kristen, who are staff on the ship and Spencer,a photo journalist who sat with the students. I sat at a window seat across from them and the one facing me was empty. There was a bit of a mix up with the seating and some locals started arguing and kicking the SAS people out of their seats. We were apparently in first class!  Our guides did a great job in getting it all organized and things calmed down.

A young woman asked me if the seat facing me was taken and I told her no, please sit down.

We started talking and I found out that she was from Portugal and was coming to Marrakesh on business. She owns her own shop in Portugal and buys good quality items for her shop at the market. She gave me some really good buying tips about the conversion of the money, which I passed on to some of the kids, regarding what kind of things to buy and the quality. She also gave me her business card. She was very interesting and we could converse fairly well with her limited English and my limited French.

From the train, we all piled into 3 vans to take us to our hotel. We were paired up by rooms and I felt sorry for the student who got me. She was so nice about it and said please come with us to the market, so off I went with Kat, Jordan, Hilary & Laura. I had a really good time with them and they were so great. I just didn't want them to think they were going shopping with their "Mom". It did help a few times though because those vendors can be relentless. They will follow you around for awhile and keep after you until you finally have to say "NO" and walk away. I was like a mother hen making sure her chicks were all together and even when we got separated, we made sure there were two people together. I only bought a few things in the market as those of you who really know me know that shopping is not my thing. My vendor was very kind and only tried to get me to buy some other items but didn't push when I said "No thank you". A pleasant experience all around. On our way back to the hotel (it was a 20 min walk) the call to prayer was just playing on a loudspeaker outside the mosque. The tower was lit up as the sun was setting. It looked beautiful.

We were to meet at the hotel for 8pm and taken to a restaurant beside the market. I don't know if they have a website, but the name was Al Baraka. It was a beautiful place, sort of reminded me of Poland or Louisiana with the courtyard in the middle. That's where we sat, outside, and the weather was beautiful. The food was delicious; the taste is so good because of the freshness of the ingredients. The meal was included in the trip cost, we only had to purchase our drinks...even water, which came in l.5 L bottles. We all bought them to keep for our hike the next day. Most of the students wanted to go to some nightclub that they had all talked about on Facebook before the trip, so my roommate Kat said that she didn't want to wake me up coming in late so would sleep in Jordan's room because she had 2 Queen sized beds where we had only 2 singles. Bonus. I was on my own again!!

The hotel was gorgeous and a lot of families were there for the weekend. It had 2 large pools and I had wished I had brought my bathing suit if I had known. The breakfast buffet the next morning (7:30) was a little scarce, however it served its purpose. We got to eat outside again. So warm and lovely and NO HUMIDITY! The students trickled in a little at a time, some very hung over and tired. There was a discrepancy with some of the bar bills from the night before and a few of the students had to pay their tab before we could leave.  We found out later, that most of them had already paid for their drinks at the bar and this was a sort of a scam that happened in a few other hotels. We told them to check their accounts and if by chance they had been charged twice, then the bank could take care of it. They all seem relieved with that answer.

We finally left for our first hike at 8:30, stopping in a small village for water (2 X 1.5L each). It took an hour drive to get to our starting point.  We then loaded up the donkeys with our luggage and only had to carry our day packs with our 1 bottle of water, camera, and any other necessities we would need before lunch. We hiked for 2 hours and I got to spend time talking to some great kids. We stopped for lunch in the shade of some olive trees. The donkeys and our kitchen crew were already there. They prepared a wonderful lunch of chopped tomatoes, onions, green peppers, olives and coriander as a salad (with olive oil dressing on the side), tinned sardines mashed with lemon and parsley, steamed white rice with cinnamon, bread of course and apples for dessert. After that filling meal, we got to rest for 2 hours.  Before continuing on our journey, most ventured off behind some bushes to use the "facilities", me included. Very humbling.

We continued with our journey and after another hour and a half and breathtaking scenery, reached our accommodations.

The village was very small with just a few buildings. Our gite was owned by a 73 year old man who had 12 children and they were mostly married and had lots of children too. We only saw the wife when some of the students went to help make the bread for our snack. The mint tea that they serve is used all the time; morning, afternoon and evening. It's rather delicious and some make it with sugar already in it, other times you have to add it yourself. We were given free time to wander and to "freshen up" as it were. The showers and toilets were very primitive, however, no one complained and did the best they could. We all wanted to sleep under the stars, so we all carried our mattresses, blankets and pillows up to the roof.

Dinner was served at 7:30pm and was prepared by our same cooks who made us lunch. They travelled with us the whole trip just preparing our meals. What a cool job! Dinner was lentil soup, bread, a beef tagine, couscous with carrots and zucchini and chick peas. Dessert was yellow melon slices that taste like a cross between cantelope and honeydew melon.

After dinner, we got to have an interview (with one of our guides acting as an interpreter) with the old gentleman and he answered questions that the students had. We asked if he had any questions for us, and he wanted to know how many people were married! Dan (one of our trip leaders) said "Where's Brenda? She's married!" I spoke to him in French and told him I also have two children. ( At least I hope I said two and not twelve!) He smiled and shook my hands and thought that was great.  We all had a good laugh because that's what he feels is the most important thing to keep the village going....lots of kids = lots of help.

After the tables were cleared, the cooks started to drum on their pots and makeshift instruments and started singing. Three of the little girls started to dance and we all got in a circle and clapped. It was a real party atmosphere. The students all danced, drummed, etc. I ran up to the roof to grab my camera and took a video of it through the opening in the roof. It went on for about an hour and then finally about 10-10:30 we all climbed into bed. The giggling (boys included) went on till about 11:30 and then silence......except for the barking dogs, braying donkeys, night sounds......we hardly slept for all the strange noises.

That's just 2 days worth of fun, so I will stop there and fill you in a bit later.....I have to run to get to class now.