Thank You Very Marrakech -- Crystal + Allison's tales of Moroccan mint tea, camels, rugs + rip offs

Marhaba (welcome) to our holiday adventure to Morocco! by the way, i (crystal) will be "guest" blogging on this entry. all comments made in this color are mine. for those of you who visit allison's blog regularly, i hope you don't mind ... and for those of you visiting for the first time, i invite you to read all of allison's other entries (sans my added commentary).

(Moroccan flag -- found everywhere you look in Morocco) the red in the flag is representative of being of royal descent from the Prophet Muhammad via Fatima (pronounced Fah-tih-mah, not Fuh-tee-mah). Until the early 1900s the flag of Morocco was just red, but during the Mulay Yussef dynasty the green seal of Solomon was added to the flag.

Random side note about "Fatima" and how/why Crystal personally knows the pronunciation of the name...during our trip Crystal was called Fatima and wanted to know what it meant (other than the name) bc she didn't understand why he was calling her Fatima or saying fatima to her. We were then informed that the names Fatima and Muhammad are the most common names in the country (very popular names within the Muslim religion) and in some cases when people want to speak to someone that they haven't met before, or whose name they don't know they call them, if male, Muhammad, or female Fatima as a respectful way of getting their attention instead of saying "eh you over there..." bc 1) it's likely that their name is Muhammad or Fatima and if not they are linking the person to the Islamic faith as a brother or sister in that bond.

Here I am eating a tangerine (THE fruit of Morocco) which represents how super greedy Crystal and I were on this trip and ate waaaay more than necessary... (for those of you wondering why allison is wearing what looks like an engagement ring, please read on ...)

Casablanca - Dar al Baida (allison is currently studying Arabic, so you'll find random Arabic words, phrases and references throughout this blog. but I'm going to assume this means Casablanca.)

We started out our trip in Casablanca. Not necessarily because we thought Casablanca would be an amazing city, but because it has a major airport and offered more reasonable airfare. We arrived there on the night of Tuesday, December 23rd. When we arrived at the airport, all I could think was "look Moroccan, look Moroccan (notable insertion: 9 out of 10 Moroccans we encountered asked if we were moroccan. and this was usually AFTER we made it clear that whatever they said before that - in arabic/french - we absolutely did NOT understand. i mean i guess people go back and visit the countries from which their ancestors hailed, but then do they really walk around claiming to be a local, knowing good and well they don't speak a lick of either of the 2 official languages?? doubtful.) and pray that you learned enough Arabic to fake something!" When we exited the airport we found a row of "vintage" Mercedes Benz's parked out front with shady looking men eagerly waiting to rip us off. I was glued to my Lonely Planet - Morocco + we noticed later that EVERYONE else was also glued to theirs. No matter what street or train we were on, or what cafe we were in...someone had that book in every language imaginable. (if you either a) are not a frequent traveler or b) don't refer to reliable sources for travel information, lonely planet is a line of travel books with just about any & every bit of helpful information one could need when traveling to a foreign land.) I swore that with just a little bit of street sense and our book to guide us we would NOT get ripped off. Crystal tried to use her petite petite petite francais to tell him we were going to the center of town to Hotel Central, and he told us that it would be 300 Dirham which is about 35-40 US dollars. In the dark of night on the ride to Casablanca, which mind you, is NOT anywhere near the airport, I dug through that Lonely Planet to see how badly he was trying to rip us off.
We decided that we'd pay him 250 and he'd deal. Bad part was he had our luggage which was worth way more to us than that. When we tried to give him the 250 he protested until I (with my sassy, late night not-in-the-mood-for-this-mess attitude) went into our hostel-like hotel (no need to fret...it was in fact a hotel. my hostel days were over when i left college.) and asked how much it should be...cabby was pissed because our 250 was dead on but he grumbled himself right back to the trunk, got out our bags, and drove off into the night to rip off more unsuspecting travelers.

We stayed at a decent enough "hotel" definitely not anywhere close to as nice as the riads (traditional Moroccan houses or old palaces with an interior garden; the word riad actually means garden) we stayed in the rest of our trip, but the company and hospitality were just what we needed our first night in Al Magreb ("Morocco" in Arabic). The staff was super warm and inviting. We were starving by the time we arrived at Hotel Central, so we asked our chubby + comedic concierge how to get some late night eats. He sent us out in the dark of night and said just walk straight out of the medina (the medina is basically just the city or town; each neighborhood is it's own medina basically) for 5 minutes. So of course we walked for five minutes and found absolutely nothing resembling food; so we hopped in a Petite Taxi (cute, extremely petite red taxi) that had a pretty amazing driver. We explained to him in frenchabiya (French and Arabic concoction invented by Crystal + myself) what we wanted + where we were trying to go. We ended up going to his own little neighborhood late night spot. He took us inside the keboberia (another Allisonism) where there was a slew of random raw-ish meat laying around, along with some rotisserie chicken. Since it's the only thing that looked remotely safe, Crystal asked for some of the chicken and what did she end up with??? an ENTIRE rotisserie chicken to go. We got back to our hostel and were greeted by the late night staff, and the owner Jamal who was looking quite dapper (Crys was checkin out his gear). They were about to sit down for a nice tajine dinner (tajine is a north African (Moroccan) clay pot that is used to cook meats and veggies, and the meal you eat out of the clay pot is also called tajine) and invited us along and offered to cut up Crys' chicken for her. We had a really nice time chatting with them and felt immediately really comfortable. (thanks to the "hotel crew," i learned how to eat like the moroccans. they use only the thumb, pointer & middle fingers of the right hand to scoop up the food with bread. by the end of our trip i was a pro!)

** Only annoying point was one of the guys asked if we liked rap and when we said "yeah, sure", he replied with "I mean of course you do"...womp womp...why do we HAVE to like rap? I mean...come on... all Black-Americans don't like rap (just in case some of you didn't know that!) ha (done with my little tangent). (since we're on the topic of annoying ignorance...EVERYONE in spain thought i was dominican. no. brazilian. no. african (and yes, just from the continent, not even a specific country). no. everyone seemed shocked to learn that there are americans that look like myself. things that make you go hmmm...)

The following day we decided to see what Casablanca had to offer...let's just say in our very humble opinion...it wasn't much (i'd recommend skipping the city altogether!), but at least we didn't expect much...We walked the city aimlessly and found the third largest mosque in the world, Hassan II Mosque. Here are some pics from Casablanca:

We wanted to go into the mosque and since we pretty much look the part, we were let in - even though apparently you had to be Muslim to get in where we went (oops)...when we got there a lady harassed us a little and then once she realized we weren't Muslim (hence, why we weren't washing up to pray) she booted us...

Two cute little gentlemen that just came from the Mosque...looked like they were enjoying the view.

Here is the souk which is the commercial area or market area.

(I wasn't kidding about the tangerines...they're everywhere! I hope you like them if you plan on visiting because they come with every meal - either as fresh squeezed juice or for dessert.)

Here's the view of Casablanca from the rooftop of our hostel-hotel

Later that afternoon we headed to the train station and were off to Fes for Christmas!! The train ride to Fes was for the most part pleasant. I usually don't consider 5 hour train rides pleasant but we picked a good car to sit in...the foreigner car. We sat between an American couple and a Catalan couple (from catalonia, the northern region of spain). We were so obviously NOT Moroccan that a guy who had his seat taken in another car opted not to sit in our car after several lost in translation moments (between myself and the moroccan lady sitting beside me, who later informed me that she LOVES oprah & grey's anatomy) trying to communicate his situation with us. The one local (this was after my new found friend left) who came into our car knew what he was doing when he sat down with us. His name was Abdel (pronounced Abdul) (one of the various Abdel's you'll meet along our journey). He was gracious enough to give us pointers on where to go, what to do in Fes, and what to look out for. He told us about his family owning several hotels and running travel services around Morocco. He told us we should go to the desert to meet his camel Jimmy Hendrix (when we inquired further about this interestingly named camel of his, we learned he has another one named Bob Marley - go figure!). He told us that we should get a guide in Fes since the streets there are confusing, and I had already planned to do this (trusty sign #1). He recommended someone and before we knew it... Abdel was a permanent fixture in our Moroccan lives (we spoke with him just about every day). When we got off the train I was skeptical, but Crys was open-minded and took his info. He ended up getting us a cab and had it take us to our first riad, which we never would've found on our own (trusty sign #2). We felt comfortable with Abdel after this small life saving event of getting us to the hotel, that we agreed to have him set us up with a guide for the following day (which he assured us would cost 220-250 dirham).

This is the area where the garden in our riad once stood. It was a really nice place with amazing architecture and really sweet staff.

The room ended up being a loft, so this is Crys on the first level showing how happy she is that our room is dope!!!! (all credit goes to allison, who booked - and planned - everything. i'm thinking of pawning her off as a trip planner/travel agent and taking a cut of the profits.)

(this is my ... look at the rock on my finger...do I look like I want to be your third wife?! NO face)
As I said...I was determined not to get "got" on this trip in anyway shape or form. I know that two young, attractive women on a trip without men in Morocco without either French or Arabic is a bit "risky," so Crys and I concocted this little story about how we were traveling for the holidays and were sisters that were meeting our husbands in the next city we were going to (we never actually had to tell the full story. just lied and told everyone we were sisters (which people usually think we are anyway). no one ever asked if we were married, so my "wedding band" only lasted 2 days or so.). To make sure our stories were air tight, and believable we each wore one of my rings...this is us practicing our "sorry, too-late-check-out-the-ring face"

"my husband is waiting for me in ... Okay?"

(please excuse this unflattering photo. thanks allison!)

Christmas Day in Fes
Christmas morning our guide came to our riad to meet us bright and early. As we walked through the medina to get to the city entrance we ran into our guide's friend who told us that Crystal looked just like his daughter. he asked to have a picture taken with his bint (daughter). He could've at least opened his eyes for this shot but he was a little sweetie.

Crys with her Moroccan baba (dad)

This country has more olives than you've ever seen in your life + a variety unlike any other you'll probably ever encounter. These are also served everywhere you go, and a bowl of various olives is on every table (kind of like how we serve bread at restaurants, they serve olives)...

This is inside of the dormitories that used to house students who were studying at the Qur'anic school in Fes

(fes is the cultural, spiritual, religious & artistic capitol of morocco. back in the day, moroccans from other parts of the country traveled to fes to study the teachings of the qur'an.)

The wood work is beautiful

This is where the imam (religious leader in the Islamic faith who leads the prayer) sits.

cute little old lady who was hanging out inside the old school yard

one of the hundreds of mosques in the city that sits behind this old dormitory.

The architecture + beauty of every piece of wood and stone in Morocco is amazing, this is just one example

I love old cars...and so I took a moment to take a picture of this one, and also because I like that the license plates have all numbers and one letter in Arabic in the middle...And I'm not sure if you can see it but this is the Alif/A

Here were are midway through our tour of Fes in front of the King's palace in Fes. The actual palace we weren't allowed to photograph though...

Beautiful door to the palace

(we met the guy who did all the chiseling on these huge doors at the palace. he's pretty much THE chisel dude of morocco, and has photos in his shop with american presidents, along with a letter from hill clinton herself. pretty cool.)

After doing a walking tour we hopped in the car and went to an area outside of the various medinas so that we could see them from afar...

(this is actually an outdoor mosque. they use it for one particular muslim holiday, which unfortunately i can't remember.) pssst it's...Ramadan (kind of a big deal ;))

One of our next stops was to see how the pottery is made and designed in Morocco...the work that we saw performed was amazing. Really takes patience and talent to be able to do the work that these men do.

Here's one of the several kilns where they fire the clay

(because of the smoke, you can see this factory from clear across the city.)

This gentleman was painting the tiles that had been fired.

One more example of the detail + patience it takes to create these pieces of art.

The end result...

Crystal could not get over this guy. She took several pictures of him. The hat that this gentleman is wearing is called a Fez. The city that we were in on this leg of the trip is called FES, which in Arabic is more like Fehs, but many times you'll find things that spell Fes with a z. Our amazing guide Haj - or Rachid baba, as we called him - informed us that the hat that this man is wearing, which is of turkish origin, is called a Fez...so don't get it mixed up! Either way, he was thrilled to spin his little hat around a million times so Crystal could get her picture.

(and as i quickly learned, you can't snap a photo without being forced to fork over a few dirhams.)

These donkeys and their owners took up most of the streets. One thing I love about Africa and Latin America...if there is ever a traffic jam, it's likely that it's because of a donkey. (does that donkey only have 3 legs?!) why yes, i do believe it does! So precious!

One of the many stops on our guided tour of Fes was to a tannery, which is the place where leather goods become leather goods. This is the view from the store into the tanneries where they are dying the leather, and stripping the leather of hair etc. (quick tidbit of information...yellow leather is dyed with saffron, and mimosa and it goes through a slightly different process, so yellow leather tends to be more expensive.) hmm interesting factoid; so when you go to Crystal's house and see a yellow leather ottoman/seat, know that it was expensive when you sit on it +be gentle. :)

Here is one example of the end product...lovely purses. also, bc we're so cute + bc the owner was so impressed with my beginner Arabic skillz (and that we bought a lot of stuff) he gave us each a few free wallets. --really cute, but kinda stinky like pigeon poo. Yes, I said pigeon poo bc part of the process of leather garment making is creating this ammonia to take all the hair off of the skins and they soak the skin in a concoction that is made with pigeon poo. So if you are around either of us and we smell funny...it's the pigeon poo on the leather, not either of us, guaranteed.

here's another example...and you know that I had to make a purchase. This was my "which one should I get?" look. Follow my right hand...that's mine! The green one. The guy in the tannery schooled us a bit on the process and the different types of leather. My seat is made of camel and the beautiful burnt yellow color one Crystal got is made of sheep leather. (camel is the most expensive type of leather, then sheep, followed by goat and cow.)

These babouche slippers are traditional Moroccan sheep and camel leather slippers. I bought a pair of yellow ones because I'm partial to yellow, but traditionally men wear the yellow non-embroidered babouches and women wear the more detailed colorful ones. These are worn both inside and outside of the house and there are a million styles and colors.

I really thought this picture of this young boy washing up before prayer was beautiful as is the design of the mosque itself...

Here it comes...rugs, rugs, and rip offs

One of the places that Haj, our tour guide, took us to was a rug co-op. When we enter we are greeted by a friendly robust man who talks a mile a minute. What do you think his name is...Abdul! yes, you guessed it. Well before we got completely railroaded, we got a tour of the place. Another really nice Moroccan guy took us to see how the rugs are made and what type of work goes into them...

Here I am working the loom but really I was just in awe that they could create different patterns all from tearing little tiny pieces of the fabric off of this loom. I only tried to do it once, I didn't want to destroy their livelihood and put one wrong piece of fabric in their pattern. (we later learned however, that the carpet we unskilled tourists get to work on is solely for our amusement and never actually gets sold.)

Here's Crys on the other side working the loom as well.

After we get the brief tour and are given a lovely glass of Moroccan tea (did we mention yet, that you're served mint tea an average of 8-10 times a day? every time you walk into a store, you're offered tea. at restaurants you're served tea. at hotels, you have tea upon your arrival (and departure). i mean we were served tea in the middle of the market, where it seems there's no place to even make the tea. i had more mint tea in my 10 days in morocco than i've had in my 25 years of life!) we get the schpeel on Berber carpets, their history, the women who make them, and how so many Americans and foreigners go to this co-op to buy these rugs from him and sell them at auctions in their own countries. Before we know it...we're each buying a rug! Yeah, not just one rug that we can share but one each. I loved the story about the history of my rug and it's some older technique and blah blah blah...and I'm a sucker for a good rug so I sucked it up and forked over the credit card. (i, however, am NOT a sucker for a good rug. but i did get suckered into buying a good rug.)
We really didn't want to buy anything, and we knew we couldn't afford anything, but somehow Abdul sucked us in. Crystal woke up in the middle of the night with nightmares about the rug (this is not a dramatic exaggeration. that was the worst night i've had in a while.) and we were depressed the whole rest of the day over the rug purchases; but we've decided that our children will take those rugs with them to college, they will have sleep-overs on those rugs, they will hear stories of how when we were poor graduate students, and poor young businesswomen (that'd be me!), we sacrificed to buy these rugs...and that they should never be this stupid!

Here's my "crap we're getting ripped off" face!

Later, as we walked the streets we came upon a man calmly sitting in the souk shucking if you can call it that...sparrows. The little red things you see on this blue plastic are the bodies of the sparrows and all around him on the ground are their feathers...

The story I didn't tell you was that Abdel (the first one, from the train ride to Fes) tried to pull one over on the kids, and told us that the guide would cost us no more than 250 dirham for the whole day. When we finally discussed the price with Haj he pretty much laughed in our faces at that price, and told us that we were going to have to pay him 400 Dirham for the day for his services and for transportation. If you know me, you know that I was beyond pissed. I'm always skeptical of set-ups like this - "I have a friend...great for you...good deal" - and then you always end up screwed!!!! I was sick, and not in the mood for shenanigans but we finally cut a deal with Haj. (basically, allison gave him a really hard time, so i softened him up a bit when she was in the pharmacy buying her medicine.)

I'm so glad that we ended up working something out with him because he was amazing to spend the day with. he took us all over, and even though he took us to pretty much get screwed out of all our money on only our third day in the country (this is a reference to the common practice of tour guides taking their tourists/customers to just about every shop in town, where they are then bombarded by aggressive salesmen, overwhelmed by glass after glass of mint tea, and almost never come out empty-handed.)...he did it with a smile, a big heart + at a discounted price. His name is really Rachid (which he claims is the arabic translation or version of Richard) but everyone calls him Haj, because he has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is the fifth pillar of Islam. Every Muslim who is financially capable of making this journey to Mecca is expected to do so once in a lifetime; and those who return with that spiritual growth and maturity are sometimes respectfully referred to as haj.

After we toured around all day, Haj invited us to his home to have a meal since we didn't get to eat all day when we were out sightseeing (for the record, allison was a bit weary about visiting this stranger's home. and as the more financially concerned of the two, i reminded her that we'd be able to eat a FREE home-cooked meal, instead of having to go out and buy food. as a further point of persuasion, i also convinced her that we'd be able to visit the home of a local, meet his family, and have a true cultural experience. between my slick talking, and allison's never-ending interest in "cultural experiences," we found ourselves in Haj's home, meeting his lovely family, eating his delicious food, and with a few extra dirhams in our pockets. score!).

Our plan was to meet back up with Abdel (from the Fes train) and talk about possible excursions with his company, as we headed south the next morning to the desert. MY plan was to let him know that he wasn't fooling anyone and that we knew he had been dishonest in the price he volunteered Haj to accept from us. (versus MY plan, which was not to ruffle too many feathers, and find a safe & reliable way to our next destinations.)

Here is Crys sitting between Haj baba and Abdel. Haj's family was really sweet and we felt right at home. Since I was sick he let me sleep, and had his 12 year old granddaughter bring me (mint) tea. Haj and his granddaughter cooked us a meal of kefta tajine which is just some ground up meat with a spicy berber sauce (i've since looked up the contents of "kefta," and it's a mix of the cheap cuts of beef and lamb. disclaimer: i promised myself before we left, that i would not ask questions and just eat whatever was put in front of me. i wanted to eat whatever moroccans ate, and not limit myself to my usual picky ways. kudos to me! mission accomplished, and i'm still alive.), but it was great to share that meal with him and be invited into his household.

That evening, Haj laid into Abdel in the most polite fashion and when we decided we'd do a tour with him to the desert all the way to Marrakech (this is a 4-day trip) he made sure that Abdel gave us a reasonable price. Because he tried to screw Haj ever so nicely, Haj made sure that he returned the favor. For a reasonable but still painful price, we decided to have a driver take us from Fes to the desert, and from there to Ouarzazate and then Marrakech. Good things were in store for us on our next four day car journey through Morocco. (hiring a driver is actually pretty standard - even for a 4-day journey - so please don't think for one moment that we had enough money to ride through morocco in the laps of luxury!) It was a cute little old benz though :)

The following morning we were picked up by our driver Ahmed and were driven through the mountains to the Sahara desert...along the way to the desert are snow capped mountains (those would be the high atlas mountains. and might i add, morocco's landscape was way more beautiful and exhilarating than i ever expected. we drove through the high atlas mountains to the green middle atlas mountains, and on to the desert. truly amazing) and believe it or not, apple and coconut cookie eating monkeys.

Here I am feeding one of the monkeys an apple. There were several of them out there waiting to be fed by the tourists who passed by. This one guy, we'll call him The Monkey Man, was there like he was their owner or leader or something and had handfuls of apples prepared for us to give to them. Let me tell you...they were greeeeeeeedy little guys. Especially this one really feisty, fat one. He kept trying to steal the babies' apples and would literally tap you to let you know he was waiting for you to hand him his apple.

Crystal went to the car where our driver had some delicious coconut cookies he offered each of us. She brought mine to me while I was feeding the monkeys. BAD IDEA! Before I know it, this monkey has grabbed a hold of Crystal and she's lunging MY cookie in the air to get the monkey off of her. They have a keen sense of smell and are not partial to apples...they will take whatever you've got. Crys had enough and our pants were filthy + covered in monkey hand prints, so we went back to the car where monkeys decided to follow...
Word to the wise...don't feed monkeys!

We continued on our journey and were amazed that to get to the desert we had to go through so much snow. The mountains were beautiful.

I was not wearing the most appropriate shoes for the snow but we had fun anyway.

If you ask Crys what I did most of the time we were in Morocco, she will most likely tell you that I spent most of the time spelling. I am a the equivalent of a kindergartner in Arabic so I'm amazed when I can read and understand things. (ok, picture this: arabic is everywhere. all the signs, menus, etc. are in arabic. and allison, being the devoted student she is, tried to read everything in her sight. literally. so much of my trip was spent listening to allison basically learn how to read. sounding out the letters and everything. when's the last time you spent 10 days listening to someone learn how to read??) The town that we stopped in for lunch had this phrase written in the sand and I thought it was a prime photo op and gave me something to read...

We continuously pulled off to the side of the road along our journey to take pictures of things. Sunset is always one of those things that in my opinion, is worthy of a picture...


Next stop...Errachidia, Erfoud and then 2 days in Merzouga

The first night we arrived we stayed in a really fly, Berber blue suite (if you don't know what berber blue is yet, you will know by the time you're done reading this blog).

This was the view from the walkway of our living quarters...in case you can't tell those are camels (yet another awesome hotel, courtesy of allison)

This was a hangout spot in front of the dining quarter

With our driver, Ahmed, our new guide Sayid, and our 4x4 driver (name unknown) we went out for the day exploring the area (read: desert).

(the 2 photos above were taken in the black desert. it's an area directly across from the desert we're all used to seeing, and apparently they dig for fossils there. no beautiful sand, just pebbles and dirt.)

One of our activities was to visit a local community of dancers from Mali and Senegal who now make up a part of the Moroccan community. They danced and played music for us. This group has played all over the world, and they have a new addition to the team who was too cute not to take pictures of. (cutie in the yellow and red hat in the middle)

After we left the dance/musical troop, we went to have tea with local berbers (berbers were the first people in morocco, and have stayed in the desert for the most part. pretty much everyone in the desert is berber, and folks in the city tend to be arabic or mixed; berbers are thought to look of more asian descent but if you don't know better, there appears to be no real distinct visual difference. also, berbers speak berber, which is only a verbal language and not written although because many berbers want their language to be an official language in morocco they have begun writing more to preserve their culture & language.). We literally just pulled up to their spot in the desert and entered their house. When we were told before that we would be having tea with a berber family, I made the mistake of thinking that they would actually be a part of it. I was wrong. The lady who made our tea, made it and left. She was not happy that we were there and was even less happy that we took pictures of her cutie little kids. This is also the time when I realized that after all the bumps in the dunes and dirt that we hit in the 4x4, I had to go to the bathroom...this was my first desert bathroom experience and boy was it unique and liberating at the same time. There were only two places to go, either behind the chicken coop or behind a mini-dune. I opted for door number 2 and headed off behind the dune. lol I know this might seem like too much information but it's wild to just be a woman, not drunk like some people do it, and just going to the bathroom outside, no trees, no nothing covering you... (you'd be happy to know that we carried toilet paper with us at ALL times.)

on our bumpy trip around the region we saw these cute little girls selling scarves in the middle of the desert... (these kids literally wait for cars to come through the area, and then they run up trying to sell you things that look like their own possessions. moroccan re-gifting i presume. valiant effort, but they'd be better off selling bottled water or lemonade or something. gosh, that sounds harsh, doesn't it? well my intentions are good...just a little advice from one poor business person to another.)

Next up we headed to ANOTHER rug place. By now we were smart enough and too poor to contribute to anybody, but we were ready to try the local delicacy of sheep pizza...We were initially told that in our excursion package we would be having camel pizza but I think because we had to negotiate our price down, we ended up with sheep instead... (they say camel is pretty tough to digest, so i was happy with the cheaper sheep meat. wow, there's a sentence i never thought would come out of my mouth.)

ummm sheep and onions...and I'm still smiling

we see the smirk Crys. she definitely had more than one piece of the sheep pizza (my second slice was after i was reminded that we had a 4 hour drive ahead of us and would not be stopping to eat. and please notice the mint tea that accompanied our meal.). I mean it wasn't Papa John's but it did the trick. It was similar to a calzone at least in the sense that it was a pocket pizza stuffed with onions and 40 spices and sheep meat...

This bright blue that you see on the wall is that Berber blue I mentioned earlier. All their kaftans (basically a dress for men) and a great deal of their pottery include this beautiful blue. This triangular shape is a berber tribal symbol. Although we didn't get a picture of it, one of the traditions in some Berber tribes is tattooing a woman's face through the different stages of her life as a sign of identification. The tattoo on their forehead marks their tribe, and their chins are marked when they are married or to show they have children. Most of the women we saw with tattoos had three tattoos and we were told if you saw that you knew it was hands off + you were too late. (as told to us by a berber man)

Here I am with Sayid (wearing his blue kaftan and his yellow slippers) after we had sheep pizza. Although there is no picture of this...Sayid was so cute listening to Crys' ipod as we drove through the desert. He loves Akon (unfortunately, i didn't have any akon on my ipod) as do all Africans, I think...I never knew Akon was so popular until I got to Morocco. It was so cute to see both Sayid and Ahmed listening to our ipods...Mariah Carey, Celine Dion (didn't have her either), and Akon were the favorites...(not to fret, I had Akon, Celine AND Mariah!)

It's almost camel riding time...

My hair was down and I didn't want to get sand all in it, and I was cold so one of the guys wrapped me up with my scarf. Two minutes later Crys was getting hers done up too as to look extra authentic on our camel ride. I love this picture! (well good, because i did it just for the photo) All she needs is to have her pinky out while she sips her shay bil na na.. (tea with mint= Moroccan whiskey)

these camels weren't ready for our donkeys... ha

(if you didn't get it the first time, take another minute...)

mount up!

Okay so the reason you'll see mainly pictures of me here is because Crystal was taking them from above where she was HIGH UP in Erg Chebbi (the highest dunes in Morocco), while I was WAY DOWN below barely breathing. So you think "ahhhh a nice camel ride through the Sahara desert." You also think that means you will be camelback the whole way. NOT the case. The camels take you to the bottom of the dunes, and then you take off your shoes and socks as to not dirty the sand, + make the trek easier for you, and walk up yourself! Just you, the dunes, and a mild heart attack --if you're like me and hate working out. Literally I'm up there huffing and puffing, and Crystal and her guide are running (it's easier that way, and the pain doesn't last as long.). It was miserable I tell you...miserable! I'd never had to work so hard to see a sunset in all of my days of sunset watching; this was ridiculous. All I could think about was the asthma I used to have as a baby, and if it could come back and attack me riiiight before I reached the top of the dunes. I was so grouchy, out of breath, and wanted to give up. I def took a few breaks but eventually made it victoriously to the top with the help of my guide + Crystal's step countdown. crys: "come on, count 'em out! Just 10, 9..." me: "seriously...stop it!"... (she was pissed. lesson learned.)

Here's one of our two guides (and by guide, she means they led the camels and pulled us up the dunes. it was actually an almost entirely silent trek, which was surprisingly pretty nice.).
He was Crystal's guy mainly.

Here's my guy in that beautiful Berber blue. He has his hands up and just said Inshallah meaning God willing...and I think he meant, "inshallah this girl will not have a heart attack in the middle of the desert because I'm too tired from having climbed up here to bury her in these dunes."

sitting on top of the world...

I love this picture of Crys watching the less than incredible sunset...you'd never know by how beautiful and peaceful this picture looks though (yeah, we were actually pretty disappointed with the sunset. not quite as amazing as we had hoped for.) the sad part is that half of what makes a sunset so beautiful half the time is the pollution in the air so I guess it's good to know that out there in the middle of nowhere there was little pollution??
(just a thought to ease the disappointment)

the world's largest sandbox
(leave it to me!)

This is what is known as Moroccan Desert Skiing...this is our guides dragging me from the top of the dunes. I thought I was going to fall over the edge or that they might attempt to throw me over the edge even, but I survived.

No hands!

She looks like she was born to do this...and she was color coordinated at the same time!
That's my girl!

That night when we got back to the lodging, where we were to stay in tents out under the stars in the desert, we had a nice dinner for four. Because it is the winter (this is actually the high season for tourism in morocco, but i guess not everyone opted to sleep outside. some folks just can't hang!), it appears that only me, Crystal and a nice couple from Colorado were brave enough to weather the cold night in the tents...that also meant that there were only four of us to enjoy our dinner and entertainment. We decided to sit together and really enjoyed each other's company... (shout out to carol and gene!)

They put on a show and made us join them. We all ended up going out to dance with them in a circle. We did a mini-Soul Train circle and each had our moment to shine. It was a really good time. (personally, i preferred sitting on the side and taking pictures. those that know me, know i'm not a dancer - berber dances or not.)

The entrance to our tent!

Early the next morning I wanted to wake up and watch the sunrise. Sunrise and sunset are my favorite times of day. The sky amazes me and its just so peaceful...usually.

Sunrise -- It's usually peaceful (when strange people aren't telling you that you should go to the dunes with them to watch the sunrise there). Not only did this fool try to tell me to go into the dunes to watch the sunrise, and that he would take me there, but he told me that the sun wasn't rising where I thought it was...I don't think you need to be an astrologist or any other type of scientist or Berber for that matter to know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and that BIG yellowy-orange thing in the distance is PROBABLY the sun...he proceeded to take out a bag of items that he made to try to sell them to me...at sunrise?!!?!?! exactly the reason sunrise is USUALLY peaceful but wasn't so much that morning...

Here were are leaving the desert as the camels kiss good-bye...

Next up was Ouarzazate...but on the way there we stopped to see these wells that each local family has to get water...supposedly

There's a young guy sitting there in front of a well that we go up to. Crystal continues to ask in many ways how, when and if he's going to pull the bucket up. Ahmed (our driver) is so confused why she's asking this, because the well has run dry and has been for a long time. They have no access to water which is part of the conflict between Algeria and Morocco (we were near the Algerian border).
(this was actually pretty funny. they were looking at me like i was crazy for asking about the water, and when he was going to pull the bucket up, etc.)

After Crystal asked a good 12 times when he was going to bring the water up, if we could see him bring the water up, what time the water would come...it was explained to us that the water will never come, and that he just sits there so we can take pictures of him at the well, and he can make a few Dirhams off of showing us the well...yeah, thanks for nothing!
(again, money for photos.)

This is just one of our stops on the side of the road on our 8 hour journey to Ouarzazate...Although Crystal looks pretty gangster in this picture...the real reason she has this scarf around her whole face practically is because of the exhaust and fumes we were sucking in along the trip, and the dust and stuff that kicks up. It's pretty crucial stuff that polution. (no one in morocco is concerned about their carbon footprint. the pollution was unbearable at best - especially in the bigger cities.)

Here's Ahmed's speedwagon. I noticed very late in our trip that he has one of those racing seatbelts, you know the ones that have all this extra fancy stuff on them? well as soon as I noticed that, I decided for the rest of the trip - backseat or not, 8 hour rides or not - I would be wearing my seatbelt.

On the way to Ouarzazate we stopped at Dades Gorges and watched crazy europeans scale the mountains.

Did I read this like a kindergartener too? the answer is na'am which is YES in Arabic, but OBVIOUSLY it says Coca Cola...and if it wasn't water, that's what I had every single day. Moroccan Coke is different from what I understand and doesn't have all the crazy stuff our coke has in it (like the stuff that can clean a penny)...that's what I was told. Either way it was tasty.

Ouarzazate (pronounced War-zuh-zaht)

There actually isn't a great deal to do in Ouarzazate but it is known as the Hollywood of Morocco because it's the area of Morocco where several films were made. There is a big studio there where films like Babel were filmed (and gladiator, which seemed to be their big claim to fame).

The only other thing we did in Ouarzazate was go to a kasbah which was actually really cool to see. A kasbah is a walled in medina pretty much, where traditionally families would live in and share a space. Each family would have its own kasbah and your entire family lived protected inside the walls of the fortress.

Marrakech
The last 4 days we had in Morocco were spent in Marrakech which is a huge, crazy, hustle and bustle, type of city and it's really a type of chaos you don't see or experience everywhere. As soon as we arrived, the guy from the riad came out to help us get to the riad through Jamaa al Fna square which is full of craziness (cars can't fit in the medina, so this dude came to get us with his motorbike. don't know how he did it, but he got almost all of our luggage on his bike and guided us through tiny streets with lots of people and donkeys, to the quiet side street where our riad was located). It's where you'll find the snake charmers (which I hated), monkeys (which were SO dirty) sitting on people's shoulders, orange juice stands, open food markets, motor bikes, horse and buggy carriages...pretty much anything you could ever imagine is in Jamaa al Fna Square.

Here is some of the madness + randomness you will find...

still never figured out if they were for eating or to be pets

(that'd be eating, my dear)

Loved all the spices! They looked beautiful and smelled so good!

Getting this picture was a lesson for us...a picture is worth a 1,000 words and it's also at least 10 Dirham because when Crystal put some money in their hat so she could take a picture and watch the show, she didn't know that they would come back around and tell her that there was a different charge if she wanted a picture vs. watching the performance. Not only did he tell her how much she needed to pay to watch the street performance, he told her how much she put in the first time she put in the hat (this dude literally pulled out the coin i had put in, and demanded more money...BIG money. i argued with him for a bit and then walked away...without paying the extra money. everyone has a hustle, but that dude was ruthless.)...unless you have money to give everyone on your trip to Morocco, even people you don't talk to you, don't go to Morocco.

One of the things I really wanted to do while I was in Morocco was get henna done. We went to an herbal shop where the shop owner proceeded to tell us all about the different spices, herbs and cures they had for things, and we realized that it was a one stop shop...we could get a lot from this one shop, including henna...

(ahem, mint tea in hand)

The henna lady brought out two books and showed what different types of work she could do. I picked on and she immediately closed the book. I thought..."umm do you even know which one I said?" she just pointed to her head as to say "I've got it alllll in here". I sat back and tried to relax but there wasn't even time to, because it was over quickly. I thought it was going to be a henna experience but it turns out that in less than 5 minutes I had been tattooed. The mixture burns because of the lemon juice. I sat around for an hour or so to wait for it to harden and then took it off. I wish it stayed dark but because I'm brown it kind of blended into the orangy brown of my skin. It was pretty though...it's finally completely worn off I believe...

Not only did we spend Christmas in Morocco, but we spent the new year there as well. I figured that Marrakech would be the best and liveliest place to enjoy the new year. By this time...we were BROKE. Crystal put our piddly little cents on a seriously tight budget and we scrimped together the last of our money to go to a nightclub/hookah lounge/restaurant called Montecristo. We got ourselves dolled up and headed over...and to our surprise, we found camels (real live camels) sitting at the entrance of the club, and a group there to perform as we entered (it was pretty cool). It was some greeting.

There was a live band in one of the bars and they were terrible, but we listened to them perform old 40s -50s cover songs in poor English. We had a table, and you know me...I was determined that no one was going to disturb our table experience; and then here comes little miss local prostitute (this may seem like a harsh assumption, but i'm going to go ahead and second that. sometimes you just know. you know?) who comes and sits on the edge of our lounge area and pulls out a cigarrette. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I detest cigarettes, so this trashy looking girl sitting at my table that we've just given one of our kidneys and promised our first born children for, was going to be in for it if I had to speak to her. Crystal politely asked her (in french!) not to smoke because I don't like it. It was great! Then she left to go sit at the bar and asked us to watch her purse and coat for her. I didn't realize I went to Morocco to be the coat check girl for prostitutes. THEN another hippie girl (not a prostitute, just a groupie. she was all over one of the band members.) came and sat in the very same spot and pulled out her cigarette to smoke, so Crys politely informed her that I needed her to stop. She looked so confused (because EVERYONE smokes, and unlike the states, it is very much legal to smoke inside. and non-smokers would never have the nerve or audacity to dare ask someone to stop smoking. unless of course, you're traveling with allison.) but she stopped... at least until she saw everyone else smoking, then she just tried to be slick and turn around and smoke.

We enjoyed some champagne (I had a few delicious mimosas) and we headed off to the hookah lounge.

Our hookah server who was a cute little person with two whole rows of top teeth (Crystal's observation) was smoked out of his mind. To be a little person and to smoke that much shisha (2 notes: 1. for those not familiar with shisha & hookahs, i promise it's legal. just flavored tobacco that doesn't taste or smell at all like tobacco. which brings me to ... 2. while allison despises cigarettes, she is surprisingly down for the occasional hookah. go figure!) is a bit ridiculous but it was fun until their ghetto credit card machines didn't work and they pretty much forced me to take money out of my bank account to pay them...

Crys making sure she gets every bit of that champagne that we've paid for...

We had a lovely night full of bad live music, hookahs, and camels. We followed up with a dance party in our room (like most, i boogie behind closed doors and belt it out in the shower) and a fun UNO tournament afterwards (uno is the new poker).

The following day was our last day in Morocco. We had to make sure that Crys got an "I Love Morocco" t-shirt with the last of our Dirham...mission accomplished, and then it was back to Barcelona...

Our trip to Morocco was amazing! (amazing!) We traveled a great deal through the country and met a lot of really warm people. I learned that there will always be people who will try to take advantage of you, but there will also be really amazing people who are kind hearted who will erase the nasty people from your mind, like the young Moroccan boy who ended up sharing a cab with us our last night and who walked us back to our street to make sure we got home safely because he, although younger than us, had sisters too and wouldn't want them to walk alone. Some people are a**holes, but I believe that people are genuinely good no matter what continent you're on, and I can't wait to step back onto the Motherland (mama africa, as they call it) and into another country...inshallah

As they said to us quite often, thank you very Marrakech -- thank you very much Moroccan style, we say thank you very Marrakech right back for the experience we had + for the Moroccans who helped us along the way. Although we're now extremely poor + it will be awhile before we can travel quite like this...we can't wait until the next adventure.

stay tuned...