Moroccan Adventures
Hi guys!
And just like that, the semester is ending and I've taken my last weekend trip. I saved the absolute best for last though :)) Sorry this blog is a few days late, I've been simultaneously packing, studying, and crossing some last minute things off my bucket list before I come home in 5 days.
On Thursday night, my friends Jamie, Riley and I jumped on a 3 hour plane ride to Marrakech, Morocco. After going through a crazy amount of screenings, passport checks, and customs procedures (they're so thorough about who they let in/out of their country), we made our way to our hostel. Just the 15 drive from the airport to the main square was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The strangest mix of first, second, and third world countries exist in this city. We shared the road with buses, BMWs, carts being pulled by donkeys, Maseratis, fathers on motorcycles with 2 children hanging on the front and back, mopeds, and people on bikes. We got dropped off in the main square around 12 AM, which was still bustling with locals, vendors, beggars, donkeys, monkeys, snake charmers, local musicians, bright lights, and children. Talk about being over stimulated, I couldn't take it all in fast enough.
Morocco is called the "Red City," and there's a law in place that every street-facing wall within the city walls must be painted a shade of red, or else your water and electricity will be turned off. We walked through the narrow streets filled with people and vendors selling purses, shoes, rugs, food, jewelry, trinkets, people riding motorcycles through the crowds, and locals yelling out at us "welcome spice girls!" (we're still not sure why the Moroccan men yell this at women). The walk to our Riad (their name for hostel/hotel) was about a 5 minute walk from the main square. We arrived to a very simple door and were buzzed in and walked in to the most beautiful lobby. We later learned that Morocco is known for keeping their buildings and outside doors very modest, but inside is where all the beauty is. There were 4 other girls in our hostel room when we got there, 2 of them studying in Rome, 1 in Florence, and 1 in Prague.
The next morning we woke up relatively early since we had a full day ahead of us. We met our guides in the lobby around 7:45 after grabbing some coffee. Cody, one of our guides, lives in Florence and is coming up on 12 months working for the Bus2Alps travel company. It was his 6th time on the Morocco Trip. Marci, our other guide, is from South Africa but moved to Morocco permanently 10 years ago after falling in love with the country while on vacation.
We loaded onto the bus and headed out towards the Ourika Valley at the base of the Atlas Mountain range. Our first stop of the day was to a Berber Village to have traditional tea with a local Berber family. Believe it or not, Berber history goes back to prehistoric times. They’ve been around for at least 4000 years in Northern Africa. They fought against the Romans, Arab, and French invaders and have managed to preserve their own language and culture. They since have converted to Islam, but were primarily Christian or Jewish prior to their conversion.
We were welcomed into one of their homes and sat in a large open room with a dirt floor and palm grove 'ceiling' while the women made us traditional Moroccan mint tea. Every meal in Morocco is served with this mint tea, and they also take time out of their day (similar to a siesta) for tea and snacks. The younger girls cooked us bread and served it with honey, home made butter, and fresh pressed olive oil. We learned about some history of the Berber people, and also about their lifestyle. I found out that when a woman is pregnant, everyone in the town throws a baby shower and gives the woman sugar so if she and her family should ever fall on hard times, they can trade the sugar for money. It was here that our guide Marci explained to us that Moroccan people are incredibly kind, generous, and friendly people. Everyone helps each other out and they also love sharing their culture, religion, and lifestyle with foreigners. I had a beautiful henna done free handed by one of the girls, and she wrote my name in Arabic which was really sweet!
After our tea time, we jumped back on the bus and rode further into the hills to where our camels were waiting for us!!!! THE COOLEST EXPERIENCE EVER! We were told to bring scarves with us, and the camel man tied them around our heads for us. While its not necessary for tourists or foreigners to wear a headscarf in Morocco, it is respectful to the locals and they do appreciate it (like I mentioned, they love sharing their culture and lifestyle with people who are visiting. Not cultural misaproporation whatsoever). We rode the camels single file through the hills for about 30 minutes before heading back to our bus. Camels are incredibly uncomfortable to sit on, if you think horses are bad, these are even worse. There were some baby camels too who tagged along with their mamas and rode alongside of us. Similar to the way that dogs have personalities, the camels did too. It was hysterical watching them interact with us and each other.
After our camel ride, we drove into the Ourika Valley, passing about 20 different small towns that are built into the sides of mountains. There is a river that runs parallel to the road, and I learned that in the summer when temperatures can reach 120 degrees, people will leave the cities on their lunch break and come lay by/in the river. There are also hundreds of restaurants and cafes that line the river with seating in the water. It was 96 degrees while I was here, and when it was lunch time the restaurants were packed with people cooling off.
We arrived at a small town around 1 where we met our guide for the afternoon who was going to hike up the Atlas Mountains with us. The hike took about 2 hours and was straight vertical through rocky, rough terrain. It was incredible because there were restaurants and vendors along the hike who had set up shop in crevices of the mountains. We saw 4 beautiful waterfalls and had a crazy view of the entire valley from the top of the hike. It was so refreshing to be outside again, like I mentioned in my post last week, I've started to go a little crazy with the city life of Florence.
After hiking back down, we had lunch at the bank of the river at one of the many restaurants. Couscous, vegetables, and chicken are staples of a Moroccan diet, and they prepared for us just that (minus the chicken for me :) ). It was delicious!! I'm not going to lie, I was a little hesitant about how the food was going to be since their standards aren't up to ours in terms of cleanliness, but I didn't have an issue all weekend and every meal I ate was so tasty. After lunch we were served tea and for desert we had orange slices sprinkled with cinnamon, a combination I was unaware of but would highly recommend!
We took the bus back to Marrakech which was about a 2 hour drive, getting us to the hostel around 6. We showered off, changed, and went back out to the streets to wander around and check out what the vendors were selling. I was determined to get a cool purse :). We met back up with the group for dinner at 8, and walked into the main square for a sit down dinner at one of the vendor tents. Picture a farmers market vendor with tables for seating outside of their stand, that's what it looked like. As we walked up, the guys cooking started singing the Shakira song about Africa, it was hilarious. Every time someone sits down at one of the tables, they all sing the song and play their little congas and instruments. They started the meal with table olives, bread, and an incredibly spicy dipping sauce. For dinner, we were served couscous, vegetables, and everyone had a choice of lamb, chicken, or beef. After dinner, we walked to 'the cookie man' as Marci called him, who was a young vendor whose wife bakes cookies all day and then he stands and sells them in the late afternoon and evening. I didn't get any, but the deal was 5 euros for a box that you could pack as full or as little as you'd like.
We wandered around the square checking out what the other food vendors were selling. A delicacy in Morocco is snails (HARD PASS NO THANKS!!), and there were a lot of those tents selling cups and bowls of them. Fresh juice stands were also very popular, as well as stands selling almond butter, nuts, and Halaweh (a sweet middle eastern desert that can be eaten alone or broken off and spread on bread).
After wandering around, Riley and Jamie and I headed back to the hostel to hang out on the 3rd floor sun deck and catch a breeze. The clay walls of the buildings absorb all of the heat and theres never wind or air conditioning, the way the city cools off is when rain and thunderstorms pass through. I had the hardest time falling asleep because of how freaking warm it was in our room, I didn't sleep with a sheet or anything. I did have a weird realization though, aside from the flies in Morocco, I never once saw any weird bugs or mosquitos or anything.
The next morning we were up and moving again early. Our group split up, since not everyone was going ATVing (of the 23 people in our group, 21 were girls). We jumped on buses and drove about 25 minutes to a palm grove desert. The drive to the ATV place was incredibly eye opening. Once we were outside of the city walls, we drove through the slums to get to our destination. It was shocking to realize that I was seeing poverty in Africa first hand right outside of my bus window. The houses had sheet metal roofs (if they even had roofs), there were dirt fields with soccer goals made out of PVC pipe, and kids running around barefoot with barely any clothes on. Similar to any major city anywhere in the word, there is always going to be wealth within the city, but the poverty-stricken areas outside the city were like NOTHING I'd ever seen before.
We got to the ATV place and I tried to get as close to the front of the group as possible. If you've driven with me, you know I'm a very safe driver, but I have a tendency to go a little fast :-) I was seated 5th in the lineup and we were off to do a little practice run in a line around the flat areas so people who had never ridden before could get a feel for the ATV. Afterwards, we were off and moving through the palm grove hills through the dust and dirt.
I managed to make 4 friends and 4 enemies while riding. The 4 enemies? The girls I passed because they were such timid drivers and were afraid to go above 28 MPH, it was painful to drive behind them. I pulled out of line and gunned it to 58 and took the lead of the group to set the pace a little faster. Lead foot in action. I quickly got reprimanded and actually got a warning for being too reckless from the guide guys who were out riding with us, oops. If I'm going to be ATVing in Africa, you better believe I'm going to be going fast and whipping around the turns. The 4 friends I made? The guide guys, hahah. They pulled me aside at our tea break and one goes "you like to ride fast and be dangerous" and we all laughed. For the second half of the ride, I didn't ride with the rest of the group but with 2 of them off the regular trail. It was rocky, muddy, and incredibly dusty, and it was awesome. I would've been smiling the whole time had I not already been eating mud and dust.
After finishing our ride I was absolutely caked in mud and dirt, they tried to blow the dust off of us with with high pressure air machine, but it couldn't help my dirt covered body. After arriving back to our hostel, we had 30 minutes to shower off and change before we were to meet up with our group for a tour of a Moroccan Herbal shop. Moroccans are big into herbal medicine, and we had a pharmacist spend about an hour with our group explaining to us the different uses of different spices and herbs, as well as testing different lotions and oils. In addition to using spices for medicinal reasons, they also sell spices for cooking at the herbal shop. I bought a spice mix for white fish that I'm really excited to try when I get home (let's get busy on the grill dad!), and also the spices that were used in the spicy dipping sauce from my dinner the previous night! I got another henna done here by one of the sweet pharmacist ladies. She too wrote my name in Arabic (I google translated it, both times they did it correctly) on one of my fingers, and drew the most beautiful design on my hand. The henna paste she used was more permanent, and she said it should last for at least 10 days.
After our herbal shop tour, our group split up again. Riley and I, along with 3 other girls from our group, had signed up for a traditional Moroccan bath. It's only fair to mention now that Riley and I had absolutely no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We showed up to this beautiful old spa and sat in a waiting room and were served water and tea while we waited. We were then led into a creepy dark massage room and directed to strip down. After stripping down and standing there naked, Riley and I got selected first to follow these 2 naked Moroccan women into a shower room. We were directed to shower off, and then we got yanked out and COVERED in mud. From head to toe, in my hair, mud everywhere. Mind you, it's taking everything in me to not start cracking up every time Riley and I exchange a glance. The women then took these exfoliating brushes and scrubbed us down. Goodbye to the nice tan I got in Amalfi, I think she rubbed off every bit of dead skin that's been on my body since 2013. Still very much so covered in mud, Riley and I got led into a sauna and were directed to sit. So there we are, sitting, sweating, and dripping mud. Quite the scene. The other girls from our group joined us soon after in the sauna, and all of us were silently cracking up. There was no way to take any of this seriously. My skin does, however, feel the softest its felt since I was born. We rinsed off, dried off, got dressed, and Riley and I walked out with sopping wet hair into the streets of Marrakech and absolutely lost it. Like what!!?!? NOT WHAT WE WERE EXPECTING WHATSOEVER.
Since it was 98 degrees outside, our hair dried very quickly as we walked around the square. We stopped for some fresh squeezed grapefruit & guava juice from one of the stands, and as we were walking around, we got approached not once, but twice by moroccan locals who wanted to take a selfie with us. Apparently blondes and red heads are not a common occurrence here, it totally caught us off guard. It was after my hair had dried super curly that I was no longer being referred to as a 'spice girl,' but I was now Shakira. Feel free to refer to me as this when I return to the states.
Riley and I did a little more perusing of the vendors, trying to decide what we wanted to buy later that afternoon before we pulled money out of the ATM. There had been this one beautiful jewelry shop that we'd passed by a few times, and the vendor was super nice and not harassing us or calling us names. We pulled out 850 Durham (roughly 85 euros, 90 USD) and headed back to his shop. He had the most incredible beads and rings and he even made personalized stuff, I was in heaven. I'm running out of fingers for rings and space on my wrists for bracelets but I have such a hard time trying to retire any of the ones I currently wear.
And just like that, the semester is ending and I've taken my last weekend trip. I saved the absolute best for last though :)) Sorry this blog is a few days late, I've been simultaneously packing, studying, and crossing some last minute things off my bucket list before I come home in 5 days.
On Thursday night, my friends Jamie, Riley and I jumped on a 3 hour plane ride to Marrakech, Morocco. After going through a crazy amount of screenings, passport checks, and customs procedures (they're so thorough about who they let in/out of their country), we made our way to our hostel. Just the 15 drive from the airport to the main square was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The strangest mix of first, second, and third world countries exist in this city. We shared the road with buses, BMWs, carts being pulled by donkeys, Maseratis, fathers on motorcycles with 2 children hanging on the front and back, mopeds, and people on bikes. We got dropped off in the main square around 12 AM, which was still bustling with locals, vendors, beggars, donkeys, monkeys, snake charmers, local musicians, bright lights, and children. Talk about being over stimulated, I couldn't take it all in fast enough.
Morocco is called the "Red City," and there's a law in place that every street-facing wall within the city walls must be painted a shade of red, or else your water and electricity will be turned off. We walked through the narrow streets filled with people and vendors selling purses, shoes, rugs, food, jewelry, trinkets, people riding motorcycles through the crowds, and locals yelling out at us "welcome spice girls!" (we're still not sure why the Moroccan men yell this at women). The walk to our Riad (their name for hostel/hotel) was about a 5 minute walk from the main square. We arrived to a very simple door and were buzzed in and walked in to the most beautiful lobby. We later learned that Morocco is known for keeping their buildings and outside doors very modest, but inside is where all the beauty is. There were 4 other girls in our hostel room when we got there, 2 of them studying in Rome, 1 in Florence, and 1 in Prague.
pictures from our hostel:
The next morning we woke up relatively early since we had a full day ahead of us. We met our guides in the lobby around 7:45 after grabbing some coffee. Cody, one of our guides, lives in Florence and is coming up on 12 months working for the Bus2Alps travel company. It was his 6th time on the Morocco Trip. Marci, our other guide, is from South Africa but moved to Morocco permanently 10 years ago after falling in love with the country while on vacation.
We loaded onto the bus and headed out towards the Ourika Valley at the base of the Atlas Mountain range. Our first stop of the day was to a Berber Village to have traditional tea with a local Berber family. Believe it or not, Berber history goes back to prehistoric times. They’ve been around for at least 4000 years in Northern Africa. They fought against the Romans, Arab, and French invaders and have managed to preserve their own language and culture. They since have converted to Islam, but were primarily Christian or Jewish prior to their conversion.
We were welcomed into one of their homes and sat in a large open room with a dirt floor and palm grove 'ceiling' while the women made us traditional Moroccan mint tea. Every meal in Morocco is served with this mint tea, and they also take time out of their day (similar to a siesta) for tea and snacks. The younger girls cooked us bread and served it with honey, home made butter, and fresh pressed olive oil. We learned about some history of the Berber people, and also about their lifestyle. I found out that when a woman is pregnant, everyone in the town throws a baby shower and gives the woman sugar so if she and her family should ever fall on hard times, they can trade the sugar for money. It was here that our guide Marci explained to us that Moroccan people are incredibly kind, generous, and friendly people. Everyone helps each other out and they also love sharing their culture, religion, and lifestyle with foreigners. I had a beautiful henna done free handed by one of the girls, and she wrote my name in Arabic which was really sweet!
After our tea time, we jumped back on the bus and rode further into the hills to where our camels were waiting for us!!!! THE COOLEST EXPERIENCE EVER! We were told to bring scarves with us, and the camel man tied them around our heads for us. While its not necessary for tourists or foreigners to wear a headscarf in Morocco, it is respectful to the locals and they do appreciate it (like I mentioned, they love sharing their culture and lifestyle with people who are visiting. Not cultural misaproporation whatsoever). We rode the camels single file through the hills for about 30 minutes before heading back to our bus. Camels are incredibly uncomfortable to sit on, if you think horses are bad, these are even worse. There were some baby camels too who tagged along with their mamas and rode alongside of us. Similar to the way that dogs have personalities, the camels did too. It was hysterical watching them interact with us and each other.
After our camel ride, we drove into the Ourika Valley, passing about 20 different small towns that are built into the sides of mountains. There is a river that runs parallel to the road, and I learned that in the summer when temperatures can reach 120 degrees, people will leave the cities on their lunch break and come lay by/in the river. There are also hundreds of restaurants and cafes that line the river with seating in the water. It was 96 degrees while I was here, and when it was lunch time the restaurants were packed with people cooling off.
We arrived at a small town around 1 where we met our guide for the afternoon who was going to hike up the Atlas Mountains with us. The hike took about 2 hours and was straight vertical through rocky, rough terrain. It was incredible because there were restaurants and vendors along the hike who had set up shop in crevices of the mountains. We saw 4 beautiful waterfalls and had a crazy view of the entire valley from the top of the hike. It was so refreshing to be outside again, like I mentioned in my post last week, I've started to go a little crazy with the city life of Florence.
After hiking back down, we had lunch at the bank of the river at one of the many restaurants. Couscous, vegetables, and chicken are staples of a Moroccan diet, and they prepared for us just that (minus the chicken for me :) ). It was delicious!! I'm not going to lie, I was a little hesitant about how the food was going to be since their standards aren't up to ours in terms of cleanliness, but I didn't have an issue all weekend and every meal I ate was so tasty. After lunch we were served tea and for desert we had orange slices sprinkled with cinnamon, a combination I was unaware of but would highly recommend!
We took the bus back to Marrakech which was about a 2 hour drive, getting us to the hostel around 6. We showered off, changed, and went back out to the streets to wander around and check out what the vendors were selling. I was determined to get a cool purse :). We met back up with the group for dinner at 8, and walked into the main square for a sit down dinner at one of the vendor tents. Picture a farmers market vendor with tables for seating outside of their stand, that's what it looked like. As we walked up, the guys cooking started singing the Shakira song about Africa, it was hilarious. Every time someone sits down at one of the tables, they all sing the song and play their little congas and instruments. They started the meal with table olives, bread, and an incredibly spicy dipping sauce. For dinner, we were served couscous, vegetables, and everyone had a choice of lamb, chicken, or beef. After dinner, we walked to 'the cookie man' as Marci called him, who was a young vendor whose wife bakes cookies all day and then he stands and sells them in the late afternoon and evening. I didn't get any, but the deal was 5 euros for a box that you could pack as full or as little as you'd like.
We wandered around the square checking out what the other food vendors were selling. A delicacy in Morocco is snails (HARD PASS NO THANKS!!), and there were a lot of those tents selling cups and bowls of them. Fresh juice stands were also very popular, as well as stands selling almond butter, nuts, and Halaweh (a sweet middle eastern desert that can be eaten alone or broken off and spread on bread).
After wandering around, Riley and Jamie and I headed back to the hostel to hang out on the 3rd floor sun deck and catch a breeze. The clay walls of the buildings absorb all of the heat and theres never wind or air conditioning, the way the city cools off is when rain and thunderstorms pass through. I had the hardest time falling asleep because of how freaking warm it was in our room, I didn't sleep with a sheet or anything. I did have a weird realization though, aside from the flies in Morocco, I never once saw any weird bugs or mosquitos or anything.
The next morning we were up and moving again early. Our group split up, since not everyone was going ATVing (of the 23 people in our group, 21 were girls). We jumped on buses and drove about 25 minutes to a palm grove desert. The drive to the ATV place was incredibly eye opening. Once we were outside of the city walls, we drove through the slums to get to our destination. It was shocking to realize that I was seeing poverty in Africa first hand right outside of my bus window. The houses had sheet metal roofs (if they even had roofs), there were dirt fields with soccer goals made out of PVC pipe, and kids running around barefoot with barely any clothes on. Similar to any major city anywhere in the word, there is always going to be wealth within the city, but the poverty-stricken areas outside the city were like NOTHING I'd ever seen before.
We got to the ATV place and I tried to get as close to the front of the group as possible. If you've driven with me, you know I'm a very safe driver, but I have a tendency to go a little fast :-) I was seated 5th in the lineup and we were off to do a little practice run in a line around the flat areas so people who had never ridden before could get a feel for the ATV. Afterwards, we were off and moving through the palm grove hills through the dust and dirt.
I managed to make 4 friends and 4 enemies while riding. The 4 enemies? The girls I passed because they were such timid drivers and were afraid to go above 28 MPH, it was painful to drive behind them. I pulled out of line and gunned it to 58 and took the lead of the group to set the pace a little faster. Lead foot in action. I quickly got reprimanded and actually got a warning for being too reckless from the guide guys who were out riding with us, oops. If I'm going to be ATVing in Africa, you better believe I'm going to be going fast and whipping around the turns. The 4 friends I made? The guide guys, hahah. They pulled me aside at our tea break and one goes "you like to ride fast and be dangerous" and we all laughed. For the second half of the ride, I didn't ride with the rest of the group but with 2 of them off the regular trail. It was rocky, muddy, and incredibly dusty, and it was awesome. I would've been smiling the whole time had I not already been eating mud and dust.
After finishing our ride I was absolutely caked in mud and dirt, they tried to blow the dust off of us with with high pressure air machine, but it couldn't help my dirt covered body. After arriving back to our hostel, we had 30 minutes to shower off and change before we were to meet up with our group for a tour of a Moroccan Herbal shop. Moroccans are big into herbal medicine, and we had a pharmacist spend about an hour with our group explaining to us the different uses of different spices and herbs, as well as testing different lotions and oils. In addition to using spices for medicinal reasons, they also sell spices for cooking at the herbal shop. I bought a spice mix for white fish that I'm really excited to try when I get home (let's get busy on the grill dad!), and also the spices that were used in the spicy dipping sauce from my dinner the previous night! I got another henna done here by one of the sweet pharmacist ladies. She too wrote my name in Arabic (I google translated it, both times they did it correctly) on one of my fingers, and drew the most beautiful design on my hand. The henna paste she used was more permanent, and she said it should last for at least 10 days.
After our herbal shop tour, our group split up again. Riley and I, along with 3 other girls from our group, had signed up for a traditional Moroccan bath. It's only fair to mention now that Riley and I had absolutely no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We showed up to this beautiful old spa and sat in a waiting room and were served water and tea while we waited. We were then led into a creepy dark massage room and directed to strip down. After stripping down and standing there naked, Riley and I got selected first to follow these 2 naked Moroccan women into a shower room. We were directed to shower off, and then we got yanked out and COVERED in mud. From head to toe, in my hair, mud everywhere. Mind you, it's taking everything in me to not start cracking up every time Riley and I exchange a glance. The women then took these exfoliating brushes and scrubbed us down. Goodbye to the nice tan I got in Amalfi, I think she rubbed off every bit of dead skin that's been on my body since 2013. Still very much so covered in mud, Riley and I got led into a sauna and were directed to sit. So there we are, sitting, sweating, and dripping mud. Quite the scene. The other girls from our group joined us soon after in the sauna, and all of us were silently cracking up. There was no way to take any of this seriously. My skin does, however, feel the softest its felt since I was born. We rinsed off, dried off, got dressed, and Riley and I walked out with sopping wet hair into the streets of Marrakech and absolutely lost it. Like what!!?!? NOT WHAT WE WERE EXPECTING WHATSOEVER.
Since it was 98 degrees outside, our hair dried very quickly as we walked around the square. We stopped for some fresh squeezed grapefruit & guava juice from one of the stands, and as we were walking around, we got approached not once, but twice by moroccan locals who wanted to take a selfie with us. Apparently blondes and red heads are not a common occurrence here, it totally caught us off guard. It was after my hair had dried super curly that I was no longer being referred to as a 'spice girl,' but I was now Shakira. Feel free to refer to me as this when I return to the states.
It was
around 2 PM that I witnessed something indescribable. Our guide had
told us about the 'Call to Prayer' that is done 5 times a day, but it wasn't
anything like I expected it to be. A loud voice came on over the city and
started repeating something and singing a hymn, and everyone **and I really
mean everyone** got down on their knees and started praying towards Mecca. It
was honestly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, I got
goosebumps. It didn't matter if it was a man in a nice suit or the
homeless man begging for money, everyone was on their knees. Riley and I just
stopped and watched as the city came to a pause for about 5 minutes.
Riley and I did a little more perusing of the vendors, trying to decide what we wanted to buy later that afternoon before we pulled money out of the ATM. There had been this one beautiful jewelry shop that we'd passed by a few times, and the vendor was super nice and not harassing us or calling us names. We pulled out 850 Durham (roughly 85 euros, 90 USD) and headed back to his shop. He had the most incredible beads and rings and he even made personalized stuff, I was in heaven. I'm running out of fingers for rings and space on my wrists for bracelets but I have such a hard time trying to retire any of the ones I currently wear.
I decided
on a ring and two bracelets, one of which he was going to make customized for
me right there. Riley also got 2 customized bracelets made for her.
The guy making our jewelry was so freaking cool and we sat with him for
over an hour just listening to his life story. Born and raised in Morocco, his
dad opened up the original jewelry store in the 70s and made all the
beads and jewelry himself. His dad still works in the original store,
and he took us over to meet Aziz. It was so sweet to see how proud this
man was of his father, he even pulled out magazines that had articles featuring
his dad.
After
paying for our goodies, Riley and I met back up with Jamie and went out to
dinner at a restaurant called Cafe Arabe. It was a rooftop restaurant
with views overlooking the city. Like I mentioned earlier, Marrakech is a
weird economic mix. We were sitting in a 5 star rooftop restaurant,
and the building next to us had a 'roof' of sheet metal. It was 96 degrees
at 9 PM while we were eating and watching the
sunset, the waitress told us we'd picked up the 'Moroccan glow,'
truthfully it was just my sweat.
After
dinner, Riley and I ran out to do some last minute shopping. I finally
bought a purse that I'd had my eye on (the abroad purse count is now up to 5,
I'll never have to purchase another one haha). It's cow leather and
is stamped with a few emblems. I knew I'd never be able to buy something
like it anywhere else (and I had to spend the last of my Durham), so
I negotiated it and got it for a very good price :)
I'll
close this post with a little food for thought after visiting an Islamic
country:
It's
undeniable that in recent years, Islam and Muslims have been portrayed very
poorly because of radicals who have gone and done inhumane,
despicable things in the name of Allah. It's also important to note the
way women are treated in some Islamist countries, to be very clear I'm not
trying to defend those people's beliefs or actions in anyway. But I have to be
honest, after spending a few days in Morocco, my view on the religion
and the people has changed. The man who made my bracelets explained to us
that Islam, like Christianity, is a religion based on loving one
another. I met some of the kindest, most genuine, and most
generous individuals in Marrakech, all of which were Islamists. The man
explained to me that as a Muslim, it's hard for him to watch people use the
Quaran as a justification for their disgusting acts of violence and
misogyny, because it puts a bad taste in the mouths of those in the
western world. But to be completely fair, Southern Baptists have used the Bible
to justify their racism...There are always going to be crazy extremists
and radicals that distort messages to support their sick ideals and beliefs, it
doesn't mean that everyone is like that or agrees with them.
I'm not
one to sit here and preach to people what they should or shouldn't do
or choose to believe, but I do think everyone needs to learn to be a
little more tolerant and respectful of one another. This world is too big and
filled with too many beautiful religions, races, ideas and opinions to be
so hateful and negative all the time. I've crossed paths with some of the most
interesting individuals since coming abroad, no two of us are completely alike.
And thats the beauty of this world.
This trip
was truly one that I'll never forget. Morocco was such a different place
from anywhere else I've ever visited before, and I'm
so incredibly thankful to have had the opportunity to go.
I seriously felt safer in Marrakech than I did in Paris, if that puts into
perspective the kind of culture and people that exist there. I would love
to return someday and explore more of their beautiful country.
The last
two posts will be coming soon, one being a weekly recap and then the last post
being some closing thoughts on studying abroad. Thank you guys
for sticking around these last crazy 15 travel-filled weeks, I hope
you've enjoyed getting a little insight on my travels and adventures over
here!
xoxo,
Katie
girl
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