Group Excursion

So this past week, the program took us on a group excursion all around Morocco - we visited Marrakesh, Fes, Chefchaouen, and we camped one night in the Sahara.

We were in this tiny little "minivan" the entire time, so it was like one really cramped road trip with all 11 of us in this van. Needless to say we all got to know each other way too well.

Our first stop was Marrakesh, which is probably the most touristy city in Morocco. First, we went to the Marjorelle Gardens, which were really pretty and colorful, but it was sort of overrun with French and Spanish tourists so we didn't stay too long.

Next we visited the medina (the old part of the city) where we walked through the souk (below), and we visited the big square where we had some tea and saw the snake charmers and story tellers.

We also visited an old Koranic school, which had BEAUTIFUL architecture. It was so cool. My pictures don't do it justice at all. All the detail in the tile mosaics and the calligraphy was really impressive. All the emphasis on symmetry in art and the really ornate detail on everything was really interesting to see because it's so different from the western style.

On Monday we drove through the mountains on our way to the desert, which was absolutely beautiful, and also depressing when I realized that my camera was not adequate at all for capturing it. Picture this, but 180 degrees around you instead of just this. 

We stayed Monday night at this hotel in Zagora. We didn't get to see the city much because we got there in the evening and left the next morning, but here are some pictures of the hotel. It was surrounded my palm trees, which I was not used to seeing - I'm used to a couple palm trees planted in people's yards in California, or along roads, but I'd never seen palm trees growing naturally like this. Also, everything was so colorful, I loved it. 

 The next morning we stopped at a pottery village on our way to the desert. We took a tour of their town, which is built entirely underground so that it stays cool during the hot days and warm during the cold desert nights. They had a museum where they have handwritten copies of the Koran and various math and astronomy texts. It was pretty humbling and made me sort of ashamed of Western culture to see this random tribe in the middle of the Sahara have these thousand year old manuscripts about math and astronomy from a time when Europe was still in the dark ages. It was also interesting to see how they made this beautiful pottery with handmade tools and natural dyes. I don't have any pictures of the finished products but I bought a couple things, so maybe some of you will see those.

We stopped for lunch and had lunch and tea with the chief of a nomad tribe. He told us a little bit about their customs and about his life and his family. He said that he was famous for his tea, and whenever he had conventions with other tribes he would always be asked to serve the tea. He also said that he had met Bill Clinton, and had served tea to Bill Clinton in the '90s. He also said that his father, the previous cheif, had lived to be 113 and that he intended to do the same. Needless to say, this guy was really awesome.

Next, my favorite part, was camping in the Sahara! We stopped on the way and bought some turbans, (which turned out to be extremely useful in keeping the sand out of your hair and mouth). We went for a camel ride when we first got there to see the sunset, but unfortunately it was cloudy so there aren't any good sunset pics.

That night a group of singers/drummers came and did some traditional dances, and eventually made us all dance with them. We ended up staying up late singing and dancing and drumming with them, which was as awesome as it sounds.

We made friends with some of the nomad guys our age who were working at the camp, and they were impressed that we could speak a little bit of Arabic, so we talked to them in a mix of Arabic, French, and English for a while. It was sad to learn that most of them were going to school, but had to drop out and work at the camp to make money for their families. We had the probably not-so-bright idea of walking out into the Sahara away from our camp at night to see the stars because there was too much light in the camp, and our nomad friends said they could take us. So at about midnight we ended up on a dune in the middle of the desert, where we tried to keep the sand out of our mouths and where they told us some riddles in Arabic, which ended in a lot of miscommunication. It was still too cloudy to see stars, which was really sad because I had been looking forward to that a lot, but it was still absurdly awesome that we hung out with some nomad guys in the middle of the Sahara telling probably mis-translated riddles. When it was time to go, the nomad guys were joking with me that I should stay, telling me that nomad life was relaxing and fun and you got to just hang out in the desert all day and that you had no worries. This was tempting - I would love to stay a month just hanging out in the Sahara. It was definitely my favorite place I've seen so far in Morocco. We had to leave, though, to go to Fes!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Fes because I forgot to bring my camera on the tour of the medina. The medina of Fes was very very impressive, though. It's the biggest medina in Morocco, and the guide said there was something like 60 miles of streets in the medina alone. (Which does not allow any vehicles in, not even bicycles, so everyone is on foot, or on donkeys.) The Fes medina is unique in that they make most of the things they're selling right in their shops, so we saw metalworkers making tea pots, plates, and trays, we saw them washing and weaving silk, and we saw the tannery where they dye the leather and make belts, shoes, bags, etc. 

On Friday morning, we stopped at the Roman ruins of Volubilis. This was one of the Roman outposts in North Africa (which was then Mauritania I believe), where they grew olives and grapes for wine. They were there for 500 years, after the Phoenicians and before the Arabs. They left the city around the time of the decline of the Roman Empire and pulled back to Rome. The city was eventually destroyed by the Lisbon earthquake, and all of the marble in the city was stripped by the Arabs and brought to Fes(?) We saw some private houses, with what looked like used to be some very luxurious baths and private olive presses (which was a sign of wealth), we saw what used to be a temple of Jupiter, and an early Christian church. Our guide said the city existed at a time when Christianity was beginning to spread, and polytheism and monotheism both existed in the city at the same time. Most of the tile mosaics on the floors were still intact. This one right below is of dolphins, which symbolized good luck and fertility in Roman culture.

The baths in one of the bigger houses. The city was built on a hotspring, so they had warm running water all the time.

The ruins of the Temple of Jupiter. The stone thing in front is a sacrificial altar where they sacrificed animals to Jupiter.

Where a Christian temple used to be

This mosaic shows the twelve labors of Hercules - in each oval shows a different labor.

My camera died in the middle of the tour, so I didn't get pictures of some of the best mosaics. Some were really well preserved, though, with all the color in the tiles still intact.

On Friday, we made our way to Chefchaouen, a beautiful little town in the mountains. Most of the doors and windows, and some streets, were painted all different shades of blue, and it was really calm and quaint in relation to the big cities we had seen before like Marrakesh and Fes. We went on a short hike, and saw some goats and goat herders. We also came across a ram, who we underestimated, and who ended up chasing us away, which was actually a terrifying moment, but hilarious in hindsight.

 "Chefchaouen"

All in all, our trip was amazing and it was over way too quickly. I'm glad that it was planned out by the program, because we got to see things we probably would never have found on our own. I would love to spend more time in all of those places. I really can't rave about it enough - seeing all the different part of Morocco, from the desert to the mountains, in one week was so cool. It's almost depressing to be back in Rabat. It was interesting, though, how it felt like coming home to be back here. It just goes to show how you can get used to a place in one month without even realizing it.