Morocco Chapter Two

So I woke up that morning after not actually sleeping, changed clothes, and ran to meet Joanne. God is good, because I was amazingly awake! I definitely slept some that morning on the bus though. This was a trip with my program so all 50 of us were on a bus together with two leaders from our center – an administrator named Ester and an English teacher named Michael. They were both really nice and a lot of fun. We drove an hour or so to Gibraltar and then took a ferry across the Mediterranean. I felt slightly seasick on the ferry but I could barely keep my eyes open so luckily I slept some. We got on a bus when we landed at Ceuta, a Spanish city. I think that was when Mohammed, our Moroccan guide, joined us. Then we drove to cross the border into Morocco. It was all strict – we couldn’t take pictures or anything and then we had to wait for like 30 or 45 minutes to for a girl in our group to get a visa. She was born in the Congo so she was surprised she had to have a visa to return to her own continent! During that time we had our first experience with a Moroccan bathroom – a ceramic hole in the ground. It definitely takes talent to use! Fortunately not all of the bathrooms were like that; we always had toilets in the hotels. Anyway, luckily we finally made it across the border.

Then we drove more… The Moroccan countryside is gorgeous – the mountains were breathtaking to me. I loved looking out the window in the bus while we winded through the tan peaks spotted with green towering above us. (Sorry, about the flowery writing…you will just have to bear with me because it’s the best way to really paint the picture!) But it wasn’t that perfect because the roads that my eyes loved the most were also the ones that the rest of my body hated the most. Going around those curves in a charter bus (especially when I sat in the back) is enough to make almost anyone feel carsick!

So we finally got to this little town tucked away in the mountains called Chefchaouen to have lunch. It seriously looked like it was from a movie or something! It was almost completely surrounded by mountains bigger than I have ever seen. Like all other Moroccan towns we went to, it had windy narrow streets and lots of teeny tiny venders along the street selling food and all kinds of other random things. Almost all of the buildings in Chefchaouen were painted with different shades of an aqua blue – apparently it keeps it cool without reflecting the sun like white would. It made for pretty scenery as well! We ate lunch at a restaurant there and I liked it a lot. We always ate well on the trip, normally the meals were around three courses and very yummy! That first lunch was similar to a lot of the others: we started out with bread (which we had refilled throughout the whole meal) and some cold vegetable salad thing and then they brought out this huge clay thing with something that was like a pot roast except Moroccan-style – with saffron I think and different flavors. We ended with a plate of fruit and the Moroccan staple, mint tea. It’s always served hot in a little glass and made with green tea, mint, and lots of sugar. Sounds simple but I don’t know if I can ever replicate the delicious taste! They drink it ALL the time there; we normally had it multiple times a day! So we ate and walked around the town. It was like going back in time, there were woman washing their clothes in the river. I felt bad though because some other people and I tried to take picture of their little wash houses on the river in just trying to get the whole scene but they would yell at us not to take pictures. We realized that it was like we were treating them as a spectacle, which of course is the last thing we want to do. It was a weird situation…to be in awe of these people just because they are so different from me…but at the same time to remember they are still people just like me. I would hate to have people walk by gawking at me every day and trying to take pictures.

Then we drove to Fes, where we would sleep for the night. That was what we did for probably more than 50% of the time: rode in a bus! Everything was just really far apart. Fes was pretty cool, it was decorated with lights strung across the streets and other things because the king had just visited. There were pictures of him everywhere – apparently he is more modern than his dad was. His wife is actually a public figure, no one ever saw his mom like that. Anyway, we got there in time for dinner (a really good coconut cookie, tomato and garbanzo bean soup, roast again, and yummy orange juice fruit mix) and going to bed, which was much anticipated!

So that was the first day. Sorry for all the details, I just like to write them if I have time because like I said this is to explain to my family and for me to remember, too! If I were you I wouldn’t have time to read any of this so no one feel obligated hehe.

Besos!