Morocco
Here is the details from my trip to Morocco, or muereccos, this past week I am taking these entries directly from my journal that kept for those days so enjoy!
OCTOBER 30th
I am writing this on our tour bus as we are watching men in green uniforms grab our director, Quique, and escort him into white one room shacks that remind me of rooms in movies that prisioners of war would be taken to be questioned and/or tortured. We have been sitting here for about 2.5 hours and are not allowed to leave the bus for fear of losing someone or causing a bigger scene at the border then needed, right now we are a huge tour bus sitting in the road waiting to cross the border filled with over 100 American students anxious to cross the border, yeah we definately are causing a scene.
Earlier this morning we gathered student from all European ISA programs together at the bullring to travel on two tour buses to Angier (about 2 hours from Sevilla) loaded a ferry and sailed to Ceuta (about 1.5 hours) and then drove about 15 minutes and are now sitting at the ¨dirty border¨.
The reason it is taking us so long here at the border is this morning two girls studying in Valencia were leaving their hotel (Becquer) and were jumped by two Spanish men on their way to meet the group at the bullring. They tried to be very vague on the details but what I could get from the rumors these two girls were walking from the hotel and two men followed them and when they were right around the corner from the bull ring one man took one girl´s purse and the other punched the man he dropped the first girl´s purse. He then pulled a knife on this second girl which made her back off and he grabbed her purse and ran. Problem with this is that the girl lost her credit cards, money, keys, and of course her passport! I heard a rumor that Quique had to bribe around 400 euros to the Moroccan guards to let her into the country without a passport.
Ok activities that are occuring around us as we are sitting here on the border, and reasons they call this the dirty border. This area is the spanish territory and is surrounded by a white fence that has metal spikes facing outward. Moroccan men are sitting on the hill next to this fence dropping ropes down between the spikes and below other men are hooking packages to the ropes and then pulling them into morroco over the fence. The guards were turning a blind eye to the activity and at times men were walking up to the guards and shaking their hands a whole bunch (wink wink). Another thing a older car was entering Morocco was stopped and the guards unloaded the trunk. It was filled with liters of orange pop and there was a huge pile of orange pops in the middle of the road and some started rolling away. The car left all of these orange pops and the guards and other random people standing around were packing these in bags and wondering around the border drinking them.
We finally got across the border stopped for a potty break then drove through the mountains to our hotel in Fes. I was a little motion sick by the time we got there (it was 8pm at night). On the way we passed through a town that was exactly like american towns with sidewalks, lawns, and houses that had spaces in between them. It was neat. I guess it is a college town with students from Europe and the US that study in English and French. The woods around it had monkeys in the trees but we didn´t see them.
OCTOBER 31st
Breakfast included freshly squeezed orange juice and sweet biscuits and some kind of potato crepe which we watched the lady make. Interesting thing about hotels in Morocco is that the toilet is in it´s own seperate room ( I couldn´t find it the whole first night because I just assumed that door led to a closet or the next room my roommate had to show me it this morning) and the budwah (that is definately incorrectly spelled sorry) is in the bathroom with the shower and sink.
We started our tour with a trip to the royal palace, I was not really amazed by it but some of our group did. Then a tour of the medina. Now let me explain the medina it is a huge marketplace that is long narrow streets surrounded by with shops on either side, and shady looking side streets. It is very easy to get lost here, or even get kidnapped! Also we constantly got moved to the sides of the streets to make way for donkeys loaded with carpets, or other supplies. When I say moved I mean pushed to the sides of the street and then crammed together to make room for the donkeys as these cobblestone streets are extremely thin let me explain this better I could stand in the middle of all the streets and with my arms outstretched touch the buildings on either side. With directors constantly moving us in a group with one guide in front and another in back we moved to certain shops that had deals with the guides, so of course we stopped in these places.
Our first stop was at a carpet shop which was two stories and really pretty. We were sat down in a big room while a guy described Moroccan rugs to us and his wife and others served us this amazing mint tea. It was fun to watch kids in our group bargain for the carpets, as the men kept grabbing them and escorting them to back rooms that had even more rugs (they were all a lot alike) most of the students got screwed as they weren´t that good at bargaining. We then moved around the streets to a pharmacy.
The pharmacy was a whole lot neater then I actually expected. They had a natural solution for mascara, another for lipstick, a really soft lotion, frankenscense and mhyr fragrances, a massage oil that was used on one of the guys in the group for a massage that looked (and he later described as) amazing, a bag of leaves for the mint tea, opium and tons of other random herbs and mixtures. These two men sold a whole lot of merchandise to us!
We then had lunch in this huge restaurant that served three courses but the best was the second that had a huge bowl of cous cous with vegetables and chicken laid on top like a pyramid.
The next shop was a leather shop that took us for a tour to see how they dyed the leather. Umm ok let me just say that was definately an experience. We were escorted up these stairs, and given mint leaves. We later learned that the mint leaves were for us to sniff to cover up the smell. The dye for the leather is made with urine so you can imagine the smell (I can guarantee it was worse then you can imagine). The site was a series of round tubs that had dyes in them and men working on the leather and with the dyes.
The last shop was a cloth shop where we looked at scarves, turbans, and galabellas. I just played with the scarves and admired the galabellas. I also learned how to tie a turban really well!
Halloween night I dressed as a baseball player with the help of another guy from the ISA Barcelona program ( yeah I dressed him up as a girl in my green skirt, black bra, and a green scarf) and went with a group to go dance. Now we weren´t allowed to leave the hotel so we went to the club under the hotel and inside we found a bellydancer a lot of guys sitting at the bar and tables drinking. What interested us was the fact that there was a lot of men and some girls that were dancing by themselves in front of these men. The girls were dressed in jeans and tight fitting shirts (normal party clothes for the US) but I knew something was going on with these girls as they just seemed to be concentrating on the older men they were dancing for. Then a group of men started dancing behind our group of four (2 girls and two guys) and one tried to dance with me and our group decided to leave. Guess where we were! Yep a Brothel!
The club was on the other side of the hotel and that was where all of the other americans were. It was there that our big group of Americans danced until 2am.
NOVEMBER 1st
Well let´s just say we spent 8 hours riding on the bus. We stopped for lunch at this small town where we saw a lot of young boys that tried to sell us reeds they had woven into camels. They were pretty poor but really nice and enthusiastic about seeing us. Our directors were friends with the owners of a hotel here so we ate a really good meal here of cous cous. I sat on the floor and watched one of the 4 year olds run around and play with people in our group.
After lunch we rode in the bus some more. Then we got to a town and it was here that we saw a line of 4 by 4 jeeps waiting to take us into the Sahara desert to our hotel. Let me just say that the ride to the hotel was great! The jeeps were extremely fun driving through the dunes in the dark with all the jeeps taking different routes to the hotel.
At the hotel we were greated by a lot of workers that were dressed in galabellas and were extremely friendly. We walked to the back of the hotel and they had a big tent set up and when you walked past this there was a wall of tents set up out of blankets. I stayed in one tent with andrea, Jessica, and Brian.
We explored finding sellers that sat outside the gates of the hotel with blankets and necklaces and fossils laid out on blankets there. Also there was younger kids (about 13 or 15) that stayed outside the gates but were loaded with goods to sell. We really got attacked when we ventured out of our tent area.
We ate dinner of a buffet of cous cous and various soups and veggies. then a band played berber music and the workers started dancing and grabbing us to dance with them. Let me just say that if you were blonde you really didn´t get to sit and watch and I was grabbed by one berber and he never lost hold of me. They dance really wierd with a lot of dead legs, and circles surrounding other individuals, and even on your knees just swaying to the music. At one point my berber guy had me in the middle of the circle of dancers on my knees and was putting the tail of his tourbon over his and my head and we were swinging back and forth to the music.
NOVEMBER 2nd
What a fun day! I got up early when I heard people walking by my tent on their way to the bathroom. Brian woke up too, so together we went on a walk through the Saharan dunes to see the beautiful sunrise. It was really pretty with the dunes surrounding us, so quiet and peaceful but then there were the berbers that were of course accompanying us. They kept trying to talk to everyone and I can´t be mad about that because they were just wanting to practice their spanish and english. On the way back to camp the two berbers we were with took us ¨berber skiing¨. There were 5 girls with us and on the high dunes they each grabbed a girls feet and pulled her down the dune. By the end there were 3 of us who hadn´t done it so one guy pulled me and another girl together (we both said he didn´t have to but he insisted).
We waited for a while then had breakfast then waited a little longer and then rode camels through the dunes to a small town. I was riding a camel with Ashley and the reason was because we were standing in a group of people looking at the camels and the berber that was going to lead those 5 grabbed me and Ashley (the only two blondes in the group) out of the group and told us we were small and needed to ride that certain camel.
The trip was fun for me but poor Ashley was in front and hurt when we went down dunes. I had to keep moving back on the saddle to give her more room (I make this sound easy but it wasn´t). Vincent and Molly were on another camel across from us and they had a blast laughing at Ashley and I because I guess we moved with the camel and were in sync. They described as us riding a bull and tried to videotape it so we could see what they were talking about but it didn´t work.
OCTOBER 30th
I am writing this on our tour bus as we are watching men in green uniforms grab our director, Quique, and escort him into white one room shacks that remind me of rooms in movies that prisioners of war would be taken to be questioned and/or tortured. We have been sitting here for about 2.5 hours and are not allowed to leave the bus for fear of losing someone or causing a bigger scene at the border then needed, right now we are a huge tour bus sitting in the road waiting to cross the border filled with over 100 American students anxious to cross the border, yeah we definately are causing a scene.
Earlier this morning we gathered student from all European ISA programs together at the bullring to travel on two tour buses to Angier (about 2 hours from Sevilla) loaded a ferry and sailed to Ceuta (about 1.5 hours) and then drove about 15 minutes and are now sitting at the ¨dirty border¨.
The reason it is taking us so long here at the border is this morning two girls studying in Valencia were leaving their hotel (Becquer) and were jumped by two Spanish men on their way to meet the group at the bullring. They tried to be very vague on the details but what I could get from the rumors these two girls were walking from the hotel and two men followed them and when they were right around the corner from the bull ring one man took one girl´s purse and the other punched the man he dropped the first girl´s purse. He then pulled a knife on this second girl which made her back off and he grabbed her purse and ran. Problem with this is that the girl lost her credit cards, money, keys, and of course her passport! I heard a rumor that Quique had to bribe around 400 euros to the Moroccan guards to let her into the country without a passport.
Ok activities that are occuring around us as we are sitting here on the border, and reasons they call this the dirty border. This area is the spanish territory and is surrounded by a white fence that has metal spikes facing outward. Moroccan men are sitting on the hill next to this fence dropping ropes down between the spikes and below other men are hooking packages to the ropes and then pulling them into morroco over the fence. The guards were turning a blind eye to the activity and at times men were walking up to the guards and shaking their hands a whole bunch (wink wink). Another thing a older car was entering Morocco was stopped and the guards unloaded the trunk. It was filled with liters of orange pop and there was a huge pile of orange pops in the middle of the road and some started rolling away. The car left all of these orange pops and the guards and other random people standing around were packing these in bags and wondering around the border drinking them.
We finally got across the border stopped for a potty break then drove through the mountains to our hotel in Fes. I was a little motion sick by the time we got there (it was 8pm at night). On the way we passed through a town that was exactly like american towns with sidewalks, lawns, and houses that had spaces in between them. It was neat. I guess it is a college town with students from Europe and the US that study in English and French. The woods around it had monkeys in the trees but we didn´t see them.
OCTOBER 31st
Breakfast included freshly squeezed orange juice and sweet biscuits and some kind of potato crepe which we watched the lady make. Interesting thing about hotels in Morocco is that the toilet is in it´s own seperate room ( I couldn´t find it the whole first night because I just assumed that door led to a closet or the next room my roommate had to show me it this morning) and the budwah (that is definately incorrectly spelled sorry) is in the bathroom with the shower and sink.
We started our tour with a trip to the royal palace, I was not really amazed by it but some of our group did. Then a tour of the medina. Now let me explain the medina it is a huge marketplace that is long narrow streets surrounded by with shops on either side, and shady looking side streets. It is very easy to get lost here, or even get kidnapped! Also we constantly got moved to the sides of the streets to make way for donkeys loaded with carpets, or other supplies. When I say moved I mean pushed to the sides of the street and then crammed together to make room for the donkeys as these cobblestone streets are extremely thin let me explain this better I could stand in the middle of all the streets and with my arms outstretched touch the buildings on either side. With directors constantly moving us in a group with one guide in front and another in back we moved to certain shops that had deals with the guides, so of course we stopped in these places.
Our first stop was at a carpet shop which was two stories and really pretty. We were sat down in a big room while a guy described Moroccan rugs to us and his wife and others served us this amazing mint tea. It was fun to watch kids in our group bargain for the carpets, as the men kept grabbing them and escorting them to back rooms that had even more rugs (they were all a lot alike) most of the students got screwed as they weren´t that good at bargaining. We then moved around the streets to a pharmacy.
The pharmacy was a whole lot neater then I actually expected. They had a natural solution for mascara, another for lipstick, a really soft lotion, frankenscense and mhyr fragrances, a massage oil that was used on one of the guys in the group for a massage that looked (and he later described as) amazing, a bag of leaves for the mint tea, opium and tons of other random herbs and mixtures. These two men sold a whole lot of merchandise to us!
We then had lunch in this huge restaurant that served three courses but the best was the second that had a huge bowl of cous cous with vegetables and chicken laid on top like a pyramid.
The next shop was a leather shop that took us for a tour to see how they dyed the leather. Umm ok let me just say that was definately an experience. We were escorted up these stairs, and given mint leaves. We later learned that the mint leaves were for us to sniff to cover up the smell. The dye for the leather is made with urine so you can imagine the smell (I can guarantee it was worse then you can imagine). The site was a series of round tubs that had dyes in them and men working on the leather and with the dyes.
The last shop was a cloth shop where we looked at scarves, turbans, and galabellas. I just played with the scarves and admired the galabellas. I also learned how to tie a turban really well!
Halloween night I dressed as a baseball player with the help of another guy from the ISA Barcelona program ( yeah I dressed him up as a girl in my green skirt, black bra, and a green scarf) and went with a group to go dance. Now we weren´t allowed to leave the hotel so we went to the club under the hotel and inside we found a bellydancer a lot of guys sitting at the bar and tables drinking. What interested us was the fact that there was a lot of men and some girls that were dancing by themselves in front of these men. The girls were dressed in jeans and tight fitting shirts (normal party clothes for the US) but I knew something was going on with these girls as they just seemed to be concentrating on the older men they were dancing for. Then a group of men started dancing behind our group of four (2 girls and two guys) and one tried to dance with me and our group decided to leave. Guess where we were! Yep a Brothel!
The club was on the other side of the hotel and that was where all of the other americans were. It was there that our big group of Americans danced until 2am.
NOVEMBER 1st
Well let´s just say we spent 8 hours riding on the bus. We stopped for lunch at this small town where we saw a lot of young boys that tried to sell us reeds they had woven into camels. They were pretty poor but really nice and enthusiastic about seeing us. Our directors were friends with the owners of a hotel here so we ate a really good meal here of cous cous. I sat on the floor and watched one of the 4 year olds run around and play with people in our group.
After lunch we rode in the bus some more. Then we got to a town and it was here that we saw a line of 4 by 4 jeeps waiting to take us into the Sahara desert to our hotel. Let me just say that the ride to the hotel was great! The jeeps were extremely fun driving through the dunes in the dark with all the jeeps taking different routes to the hotel.
At the hotel we were greated by a lot of workers that were dressed in galabellas and were extremely friendly. We walked to the back of the hotel and they had a big tent set up and when you walked past this there was a wall of tents set up out of blankets. I stayed in one tent with andrea, Jessica, and Brian.
We explored finding sellers that sat outside the gates of the hotel with blankets and necklaces and fossils laid out on blankets there. Also there was younger kids (about 13 or 15) that stayed outside the gates but were loaded with goods to sell. We really got attacked when we ventured out of our tent area.
We ate dinner of a buffet of cous cous and various soups and veggies. then a band played berber music and the workers started dancing and grabbing us to dance with them. Let me just say that if you were blonde you really didn´t get to sit and watch and I was grabbed by one berber and he never lost hold of me. They dance really wierd with a lot of dead legs, and circles surrounding other individuals, and even on your knees just swaying to the music. At one point my berber guy had me in the middle of the circle of dancers on my knees and was putting the tail of his tourbon over his and my head and we were swinging back and forth to the music.
NOVEMBER 2nd
What a fun day! I got up early when I heard people walking by my tent on their way to the bathroom. Brian woke up too, so together we went on a walk through the Saharan dunes to see the beautiful sunrise. It was really pretty with the dunes surrounding us, so quiet and peaceful but then there were the berbers that were of course accompanying us. They kept trying to talk to everyone and I can´t be mad about that because they were just wanting to practice their spanish and english. On the way back to camp the two berbers we were with took us ¨berber skiing¨. There were 5 girls with us and on the high dunes they each grabbed a girls feet and pulled her down the dune. By the end there were 3 of us who hadn´t done it so one guy pulled me and another girl together (we both said he didn´t have to but he insisted).
We waited for a while then had breakfast then waited a little longer and then rode camels through the dunes to a small town. I was riding a camel with Ashley and the reason was because we were standing in a group of people looking at the camels and the berber that was going to lead those 5 grabbed me and Ashley (the only two blondes in the group) out of the group and told us we were small and needed to ride that certain camel.
The trip was fun for me but poor Ashley was in front and hurt when we went down dunes. I had to keep moving back on the saddle to give her more room (I make this sound easy but it wasn´t). Vincent and Molly were on another camel across from us and they had a blast laughing at Ashley and I because I guess we moved with the camel and were in sync. They described as us riding a bull and tried to videotape it so we could see what they were talking about but it didn´t work.
posted by Lauren Westling @ 10:00 AM
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