*Note: I'm breaking the chronological order of my blog by posting this before all my pictures and stuff from the trip with my family, which was the week before the Morocco trip. But I wanted to do this post first before I forget all of the many details that made this trip so ridiculous.
On Wednesday, June 10th at 5:15pm Caroline (my travel partner) and I got into a stranger's car. No, we weren't hitch-hiking, we were merely taking advantage of the German program called "Mitfahrgelegenheit" which literally translates to "with-driving-opportunity." Actually, it basically is just organized hitchhiking. If somebody's going to be driving somewhere (often on a business trip) they can post on the website where they are leaving from, what time, where they are going, and what stops they're willing to make on the way. If you want a ride, check the website, and if there's one that works you just call the driver and check to see if they still have space available. It's usually faster and much, much cheaper than the train, but of course, there's not always somebody driving to your desired destination at your desired time. So anyways, Caroline and I got in this guy's car and he drove us to Frankfurt. He was a nice guy, 50-ish, asked a few polite questions at the beginning ("where are you from, what are you doing in Tuebingen, etc.---turns out he's actually been to Spokane, who would have guessed?), and then basically left us alone for the ride. After getting dropped off at the Frankfurt train station was where the real fun started though. After grabbing some pizza we hopped on a bus to Frankfurt-Hahn airport, a secondary airport which, despite the name, is actually over 100 kilometers away from Frankfurt. So the bus ride took about an hour and 45 minutes. We arrived at the airport around 11 and made camp. You see, our flight left at 6:15 in the morning, so we had to start this adventure the night before and spend the night in the airport. Warning to all: spending the night on the floor of the Frankfurt-Hahn airport sucks. It was freezing, they never turned the lights out, and you don't even get the benefit of carpeting, just linoleum. But it didn't matter too much because we were up 5 hours later anyways going through security and boarding our plane. Finally on the way!
Getting into Morocco and going through passport control was fine, and they had some money exchange booths in the airport so we did that right away. Then we stepped outside for our first real adventure: getting a cab to town. As two european/american-looking young (probably also scared and lost-looking) girls, we were of course immediately inundated with offers of cab rides, all at extremely inflated prices. We picked one and managed to haggle it down a little bit, communicate where we needed to go, and were off. First life lesson of the trip: try to avoid roads in Morocco at all possible. There is a very (very) loose definition of the terms "lane", "oncoming traffic", and "road-worthy vehicle." It felt like a small miracle to make it to town alive. Our driver dropped us off, pointed us down a small side street (not big enough for motorized traffic) and said our hotel was down there. As we walked down the alley we were surrounded on all sides by vendors hawking their wares, musicians asking for money and bikes weaving in and out of everything. We walked and walked and still hadn't seen our hotel, but just when we were getting worried we came upon it and with relief checked-in and got some tea on the rooftop terrace. This was the point where we were looking at each other saying, "what on earth were we thinking??" The combination of sleep-deprivation and a massive change in culture was not kind to us during that first walk to the hotel.
After regrouping we headed out, determined to explore the markets Marrakech is famous for. This was where we encountered the "scottish irish susie" guy, as well as snake charmers (I stayed far away), monkey trainers who charged way too much for photos, the orange juice vendor who taught us how to say thank you in arabic and then invited us to eat dinner with his family (we politely declined---he wasn't sketchy though, I think it really was just an offer of hospitality), and the crazy henna tattoo lady who literally grabbed my hand and started drawing on it without asking me, and then demanded an outrageous sum for it. I should have immediately pulled my hand away and just left, but I got caught in a moment of weakness because I actually think henna tattoos are really interesting and I got curious. Certainly regretted that when I found out she wanted 30 euros. I offered her 10, she demanded 25, I said 12, she started screaming, I gave her 18 and told her I didn't have any more money, she took my sunglasses and said they were a "gift" for her, I took them back and ran away. What was Caroline doing this entire time? Laughing and taking pictures. Thanks, pal.
Other than that occurrence though, we actually did pretty well with handling the vendors and haggling in the shops. We both made several beautiful souvenir purchases that we were very happy with. Besides shopping we spent most of our two days there walking around, checking out the gardens and mosques (not allowed inside unfortunately), old tombs and palaces, etc. We also took a horse-drawn carriage ride around the medina, or old town walls. All the food we ate was delicious, especially the freshly-squeezed orange juice, the amazing mint tea and of course the couscous and kebabs. And so much cheaper than in Germany! Something else I found interesting about the trip was the reaction of the locals when we said we were from America. Shopkeepers and waiters would always ask where we were from and almost universally the response to our reply was "oooh, America. Barack Obama! Very good." It was funny, because I can imagine that saying "I'm from America" would have gotten quite a different reaction a few years ago. It is comforting to know that Obama does have so much goodwill in the Arab world. Even if the inhabitants of many Muslim countries still don't like America all that much, at least there's an opportunity for us to improve our image and hopefully better our relationships abroad.
We did have one more mishap during the journey. Caroline had bought a large ceramic platter to send to her parents as a present. We were on our way to the post office to ship it when she tripped on a broken part of the sidewalk. Unfortunately, she was carrying the plate in front of her, and as I saw her fall out of the corner of my eye I thought for sure she was going to smash it. However, she managed to pull of some amazing physics-defying feat and basically do a half-barrel role in the air so that she landed on her back instead of the plate. The plate emerged unscathed and Caroline only with some bruises and a rip in her pants. The rip actually came in handy later, as you will see...
One of the coolest things we experienced was the night market. At dusk they set up tons of food booths and tables and turn a whole area into a giant al fresco restaurant. All the food is prepared right in front of you, and there's everything from chicken skewers to salad to harira (moroccan soup) to sheep's head. As it gets darker people flood the square, because that's when the party starts. Fortune tellers, henna artists, storytellers, musicians and dancers set up camp all over the square and the place is full of smoke from the cooking, the beats of the drums and the hubbub of the crowd. It was truly one of the most enchanting, dream-like things I have ever experienced (gotta watch out for those pickpockets though). I tried taking some pictures but that just couldn't capture the atmosphere and besides, people always wanted money if you took a picture of them (that was a problem throughout the entire trip). Then Caroline had the brilliant idea to conceal her camera in her pocket so only the lens was protruding from the rip and secretly film everything. It actually worked better than we expected: you can see the results below. Still pales in comparison to the reality though.
One last funny story: Caroline and I decided that we wanted to wake up early Friday morning and watch the sunrise, because our hotel had a rooftop terrace with a great view. Not really knowing when the sunrise was, we set the alarm for 4:30 to make sure we wouldn't miss it. When it went off I looked and it was still really dark outside, so we hit snooze a couple times and then finally got up at around 5 and went to the terrace. "Hmmm," we thought, "it's still surprisingly dark out. There's not even a hint of lightening around the horizon." So we sat down to wait. An hour late it was still quite dark, a bit lighter to be sure, but no sign of the sun. That's when Caroline all of a sudden exclaimed "Dammit!" She then pointed out that we had never reset our clocks upon arriving in Morocco, which is an hour behind Germany. Which means that we had been sitting on the terrace since 4 in the morning and it was still only 5. Not wanting to quit after we'd already spent all that time waiting, we dozed in the chairs until the sun actually came up. And when did that occur? 6:45. We sat on the terrace for 2 hours and 45 minutes and you want to know the worst part? The sunrise wasn't even cool! It wasn't colorful or anything, the sun just basically popped up and that was that. We felt quite the fools but had fun laughing about it.
On Saturday morning we were supposed to be at the airport by 8:15, so we got up at 7. Well, being the geniuses we are, we pulled the same move as the day before and actually got up at 6. We didn't notice until we got to the airport and happened to look at a clock that said 7:30. We felt extra idiotic for doing it again, but at least we were at the airport with plenty of time to spare! It was a very long journey back to Tuebingen: after a plane ride, a bus ride, and a train ride we finally arrived at 9:30pm, totally exhausted, but very happy to be "home" again. I can honestly say that I have no desire to go to Morocco again, at least for the next 5-10 years. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the trip and Morocco itself is so vibrant and fascinating and diverse, it was all just a little too intense and overwhelming. It was an experience that I'm glad to have had, but it was certainly stressful. Fortunately I have 2 weeks here in Tuebingen to recuperate and then off to the next destination: Barcelona!
pizza in the Frankfurt train station; rainy Frankfurt (as seen from bus on the way to airport); sleeping in the airport
views during the plane ride; grapefruit gummi bears: the most delicious things ever invented and what Caroline and I ate for breakfast every morning (over the course of 3 days we ate an entire kilo. we're aware that's disgusting)
a movie was being filmed in the airport; the courtyard of our "riad" or hotel. Riads are former private homes that are now essentially bed and breakfasts though most, like ours, have a full kitchen that does all meals. It was very nice though and only set us back 19 euros each per night.
tea on the terrace
preparing to face the sun; showing off my awesome new hat and slippers
the people who wear this costume are the water-carriers, they go around giving out water and ringing bells to announce their presence. However, I don't know how the hat comes into play; Carolne v. monkey; disinterested monkey (and yes, I know the hat is ridiculous, but they were selling them all over the place for 2 euros and I figured I could use a sun shade)
the henna fiasco (and it wasn't even well done, it washed off within 2 days)
the Koutoubia mosque
in the Koutoubia Gardens; never seen carvings on a cactus before
slippers big enough for Ian!
mountains of spices--it smelled so good; baskets; super-cool lanterns
at dinner the first night
stunning sunset the first night
the food section of the night market
transvestite dancers and games at the night market. It's apparently an ancient tradition for men to dress up as women and do a lot of booty-shaking dances.
various stages of darkness taken while waiting for the sunrise
In our caleche, or horse-drawn carriage; merging into traffic was a wee bit frightening
Pictures from around town during the carriage ride
camels!! We didn't get to ride any though, which Caroline and I both wanted to do. More pictures from the carriage ride
There's one part of town with a large population of nesting storks, don't know why
The Saadian Tombs with their population of stray cats and turtles
the interior decorations are unbelievably intricate and so beautiful
the ruins of the Baji (?) palace
our room; the hotel restaurant; sunset on the second night
Eating at the night market and having a little too much fun with our food
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