Titrit and Izza Do Morocco

After a flash flood, a parasite, and an attack by a henna painter with a syringe amidst a sea of Moroccan hustlers, Isabel and I couldn't help but feel a little like we were escaping while crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangier back to Algeciras last Thursday. And that´s only the beginning...

We flew into Marrakesh on the 29th and were elated to have fresh Moroccan stamps in Arabic on our passports. After getting marginally ripped off by a taxi driver we arrived in the city proper and enjoyed some coffee while planning our next move. Snake charmers, fruit salesmen, henna painters and carpet sellers all had begun to fill the streets and set up shop by the mid-morning hour; it was quite enchanting. During the day we wandered the streets, checked out an old mosque (from the outside only, non-Muslims are not permitted inside), visited some ornate old tombs and did a bit of haggling of our own in the souks or markets in the old city. We ate couscous and drank mint tea and just enjoyed the smoggy metropolis of Marrakesh. In the evening we wandered around the main square and looked at all of the things for sale. Camel leather, jewelry, spices, roosters, goats, and carpets were up for the bidding- "Small shop, small price" was the sales pitch. At some point in the evening a henna artist tried to get me to purchase her craft. I humored her and looked at her pictures and then politely declined. Not accepting no for an answer, she whipped out a syringe full of henna and grabbed my hand. I tried to recoil but she held fast and plunged the syringe toward my hand, stopping just short of piercing the skin, and squeezed its contents onto my hand. I almost flipped out but held it together long enough to tell her to get the henna off my hand immediately! Fortunately she got the hint and she cleaned it off and left me be.

After Marrakesh, we took a beautiful bus trip over the Atlas Mountains to get to the desert where we would get to ride our lovely camels. On one of the bus breaks we met a Berber friend who excitedly announced to us that he was marrying an American girl on January 4. He was quite friendly and we ended up spending the evening with him in his town on the way out to the dunes in Merzouga. He even gave us the Berber names- I was Titrit (Star) and Isabel was Izza, and we met all of the young men in the town, most of whom were drunk and just wanted to meet the foreign girls. They were all non-threateningly friendly, however, so it wasn't a problem. Our friend, who spoke no less than 5 languages fluently and quite a few others conversationally, also told us that not only was his fiancé a Peace Corps Volunteer, but that they were getting married explicitly for his green card. Just going the extra mile for her country at the risk of jail time? Maybe she thought that passing out condoms and teaching English wasn´t enough of a contribution. We wanted to the wedding, but a trip to Casablanca just didn't fit into the itinerary.

Reaching the dunes in Merzouga turned out to be quite a feat. The first day we took a 7 hour bus to Ouzarzate and then another 3 hours to Boulame Dadas. From there we spent the night and then waited for a 7:30 am bus that we were worried we were going to miss because we were locked into our hostel in the morning and nobody woke up to let us out until we banged on the door for 20 minutes. Of course, the bus never came so we ended up befriending a French couple who were also waiting and taking a 2 1/2 hr taxi ride across the desert together that had us arrive to Merzouga around 1:00 pm. I was overjoyed when the taxi had to stop in the middle of the road because of camel crossing.

Once in Merzouga, we got ourselves signed up for a New Year's Eve camel tour in the dunes with an overnight stay in the desert in Berber tents and waited to see what the night would bring. We departed at 4ish pm and had a gaggle of Spaniards on our tour who turned out to be a lot of fun. They even brought champagne and the traditional 12 grapes per person that they eat at midnight in Spain (one for every stroke of the clock) and they were happy to share with us. My camel happened to be particularly gassy on the way out, but fortunately I was the leader of the camel train during my camel's musical presentation so I didn't have to smell him. This was by far my favorite part of our trip and I even got to go sandboarding in the dunes in the evening before our bonfire that was complete with African drums and Berber singing. Plus we got to wake up New Year's Day to the serene sounds of camels farting and munching on grass!

We left Merzouga the following evening on a freezing-cold overnight bus for Fez. We arrived at 4:30 in the morning and waited it out in the train station until it was light enough to meander the streets. The old city was straight out of a scene from Aladdin with markets and winding streets full of men making carpets, tanning leather and selling camel paraphernalia of every kind. We got lost in the labyrinth of over 4,900 dirt and cobblestone streets and had to ask directions a couple of times to find our way out. We also visited a sweet arms museum that had old canons, crazy medieval weapons of death and haunting yet lovely, bejeweled and ivory-paneled rifles and knifes. In Fez we met up with Adam, a friend of mine from the program Spain, and were quite happy to have his company in the patriarchy that is Morocco. I'm pretty sure Fez is where I picked up my other friend too, a parasite that made the rest of the trip a lot more interesting.

From Fez, we went to Meknes to see some ruins of the Roman Empire called Volubulis. That was especially interesting and beautiful until it started to rain. And rain it did. We sought refuge in our hostel until the rain ceased long enough to get some dinner and return to the hostel. The following day we decided to take a bus up to the coast to a town just south of Tangier called Assilah. But the rains came down and the floods came up causing the bus trip to be much more of an adventure than intended. For starters the bus was packed full, leaving Isabel, Adam and I in all different parts of the bus. Once we hit the flood plains we thought for sure that as the bus pressed forward through the foot or so of water on the ground that our bags that were stored under the bus would be inundated with the muddy slosh. Locals were running around barefoot and in shorts and we passed a small, shoeless family standing on the side of the road smiling and waving at the bus. Amazingly, after a relatively short delay, we continued on and made it to Assilah a bit later than anticipated, but with dry baggage and feet. There was even a rainbow to greet us.

In Assilah I spent a lot of time in the hostel trying to recover but I ventured out long enough to enjoy the beautiful little city and the ocean (which was actually quite filthy). The weather was crisp so there was no sun-bathing or swimming but it was nice to relax after being in the busy cities of Fez and Meknes.

That was the end of our stay in Morocco with the exception of the time it took to taxi to Tangier and ferry out of there! The ferry from Tangier to Algeciras was fast and uneventful- much to my merriment the sea was calm enough and the barge was large enough for me to make it across without having to hang my head over the side of the ship.

From Algeciras we visited Gibraltar before heading back to Madrid, which was fantastic. A monkey even jumped on my head! We got to tour the inside of the rock and see more canons and hear tales about the battles seen there. The monkeys were really nuts, eating out of peoples' hands and jumping on cars. As it is a British possession, we dined on fish and chips for lunch- quite the treat after weeks of couscous and vegetables. It was a delightful way to end our journey.