Marrakech!!

I am now back on the ship after the last 3 days in Marrakech!  Marrakech is much smaller than Casablanca but has more of what you would think of as Moroccan culture than Casablanca which is pretty European in style.  We left at 8:00am from the ship for the 3.5 hour drive to Marrakech.  I slept on and off catching some of the scenery which was pretty deserted (not as much as Egypt though) with scattered Berber villages.  Berbers are the native ethnicities of Morocco and there are 3 main tribes from which all native Moroccans pretty much descend from.  Marrakech lies on the edge of the Atlas Mountains which creates some beautiful scenery as you get closer to the city because the mountains get larger and larger in the background.

The first thing we did after the drive was stop for lunch at Le Palais de Jbilates which was a really pretty Moroccan restaurant.  We had “salads” to start which are not at all like American salads.  They have lots of bread and then a huge plate in the middle of the table that had lots of different spreads on it.  The center of the plate was rice and it was arranged like a wheel so you could spin the plate around to get the different spreads that you wanted.  There were like 6 or 7 different spreads I think, including bean, tomato, apricot, and some more that I have no idea what they were, but they were all delicious!  Then they bring out little appetizer things that were like rolls of fried cheese (their version of a cheese stick sort of) and a triangle shaped fried piece that was full of beef and tasted like taco.  For the main course we had couscous with vegetables, beef, and lamb.  The meat was especially juicy and delicious, the couscous doesn’t really have flavor because you are supposed to put a sauce on it but I am boring and like plain things so I thought it was yummy all by itself!  For dessert we had watermelon and a Moroccan cookie which has a nutty taste and is really dry and crumbly.  Then we had some mint tea which is so good!  Sometimes it can have a little too much mint in it and it kind of tastes like you are drinking toothpaste even though it is just water, but if you add some sugar to it, it is very refreshing.

After lunch we drove about 20 min to reach the Palm Groves, which is just a large palmary, for camel riding.  They had 4 trains of 10 camels each for our bus and the trains followed one after the other for our trek through the groves.  Before we left they gave us all blue turbans so we all looked so authentic for our camel riding.  Then we rode around on the camels for about 40 min before getting off at a Berber house in the groves.  The camels were so fun to ride at the beginning because we were all excited but then they definitely started to hurt my butt after a while.  When we got to the Berber house we got a little tour before sitting on the floor cushions and listening to them play music and dance a little.  They also served us mint tea which was delicious but not as refreshing because we were so hot from camel riding.  After relaxing there for a little bit we got back on our camels for the 40 min ride back.  It was getting hot because it was the middle of the afternoon so the ride back was pretty tiring, but the camels were so cute!  They were linked together so closely that the camel behind mine had its head right next to my leg.  The girl behind me named her camel Indy and I pet him a lot and we became friends even though he slobbered all over my foot sometimes.

After the camel riding we went to Hotel Imperial Plaza to check in.  It was a cute hotel but the power went out right after we got there which was kind of annoying since we were all hot from the camel riding.  I took like a 2 hour nap and then we went to dinner at the hotel at 8:00pm which was a buffet but not as much variety as there have been at other hotels.  After dinner we went up to the roof of the hotel where they had a pool and bar and hung out there with people from the trip and played cards for a few hours before going to bed.

Our second day in Marrakech we left after breakfast at 8:00am for a full day of touring the city.  Breakfast didn’t have very much variety but was more Moroccan and I had their version of pancakes and syrup which was pretty good but the syrup was not as sweet as ours.  First we went to the Koutoubia mosque and looked around the outside and took some pictures.  The mosques always have the super high minarets as the highest points in the city so the mosque is always an iconic building of whatever city it is in.  Then we went to the Saadian tombs which were old tombs beautifully decorated with tiles in the Islamic style that were preserved somehow because when people came to destroy the city they were afraid to mess with the graves.  It was just a small little garden area with some graves outside with just a decorated tile slab the size of a coffin while the more important people had entire rooms decorated above their graves.  Then we had some free time for shopping at a giant store in the medina (old city in the center).  That took a while because they had like one cash register for the entire bus to buy stuff.  Next we went to Bahia palace which was a really pretty palace that is supposedly similar to the Alhambra.  It definitely reminded of Spain because both palaces have the Islamic colors and tiles.  Then we went for lunch at another beautiful Moroccan restaurant called Palais Chahramane.  We had the same “salads” as the first restaurant with bread and all the spreads.  Then for our appetizers we had triangle pieces of chicken with rice that was fried.  Our main dish was beef tangine which was just beef and veggies in a sauce with rice on the side.  I loved the rice because it was kind of sweet and the beef was juicy and delicious too!

After lunch we went to a Berber pharmacy which is a place that sells spices and herbal remedies.  They explained all of the spices to us and let us smell all of them before giving people time to buy what they wanted which took a really long time again because there was only one cash register.  Then we finally went to the main attraction of Marrakech – Djemma El-Fna!  This is a huge square that has shopping, food, and everything you could want.  The center is filled with snake charmers and people playing music also some people that had monkeys.  The monkeys looked so sad because they were kept in tiny little boxes and were getting yanked around on their leashes.  We had about 40 min to walk around the square before we had to meet back at the bus.  We took the bus back to the hotel and had another nap before catching our bus back to the square at 8:30pm.

Djemma El-Fna at nighttime was a whole other sight to be seen and was incredible!  There were just people everywhere and was the most crowded place I have seen in all of my travels.  First of all, Andrea and I went to the McDonalds near the square for dinner.  The hotel buffet was even more lacking than the night before so we decided to hit up the McDonalds.  It turned out to be a great experience because it was the most crowded McDonalds I have ever seen in my life and they don’t really stand in lines, it is just a free for all mob to get to the front.  The place is also so crowded with people eating inside and out that there were at least 4 security guards patrolling around the McDonalds.  We also saw a man there feeding fries to his pet baby monkey – it was just a ridiculous sight to see.  Then we went back to the square and walked around, shopped, and people watched.  The snake charmers aren’t there at night but it is still full of ladies giving henna (I got another design on my left ankle and my name written in Arabic on my wrist), people playing music, and fortune tellers and stuff.  There was more food stands open and fresh squeezed orange juice stands everywhere since they don’t really have alcohol.  The shops in the square started shutting down around midnight and then we wandered through the various groups playing music on our way out.  We took a taxi back to the hotel around 12:30am and then went to bed after a great night!

This morning they served the exact same breakfast and then we had to be on the bus at 8:30pm to head back to the ship.  We had a 4 hour ride back to the ship and I was back on by 1:00pm.  We ate lunch on the ship and then I have just been relaxing the rest of the day because there wasn’t really anything to do quickly that was close to the port.  Overall I thought Morocco was really great – it was hard to follow up the amazing Egypt trip but Morocco did a pretty good job.  When we were in Marrakech I really felt like it looked exactly like in does at Epcot center with the colors and everything.  Morocco was also great because everything was written in French and Arabic and people spoke some French so it was easier to communicate since some of French is similar to Spanish.

We have now officially left Casablanca and are headed across the Atlantic for Norfolk.  It is such a bittersweet feeling to be done with the last port because I had been looking forward to going all these places for so long and now it is over, but I am also so excited to get back to the USA and see everyone again!  It will definitely be an interesting 9 days with finals and everyone being so antsy to get home.