12/30 through 12/31 – Lisbon - Happy New Year!

We got into Lisbon around dinner time, went to pick up our keys at the hostel’s front desk, met Keri (a Georgia friend of Pete, Carline and Johns…she is such a sweetheart and so much fun…I was happy she was able to meet up with us) then headed to our first meal in Portugal –a Chinese Buffet. We had been traveling all day and all looked like it…everywhere we went seem to be a little too fancy for our appearance. (Speaking of food I forgot to post a picture of the brains that were displayed as a choice of meat in the restaurant where we ate in Casablanca – bon appétit!) The food at the Chinese Buffet was delicious and was a nice change from the couscous, bread and olives. The next day we had breakfast sitting outside on the sidewalk watching everyone walk by then split up; those who hadn’t been to Lisbon before went site seeing and Caroline and I went on a hunt for our New Years Eve outfits. Caroline found a bunch of cute and warm clothes and I found the leggings/pants that I’ll be wearing for all future New Year Eves until every last sequin falls off –yes sequins…they’re FABULOUS! We walked down to the main square had a nice New Years Eve dinner then walked through the streets of Barrio Alto with the rest of Lisbon –the streets were packed…It was a lot of fun. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast then headed to the train station to catch our train to Porto.

12/27 through 12/29/ - Marrakesh

At the Marrakesh bus station we spent some time researching places to stay. A cab driver who was hanging out at the station noticed we weren’t having any luck (a lot of visitors for the holidays made it difficult to find what we were looking for -he noticed all of our attempts of calling places). He suggested a riad that was close to the area where we wanted to stay (Riad Ammssaffan).

• We split up into two taxies; one couldn’t hold all of us plus our luggage. Driving in Marrakesh is CRAZY! There are no dividing lines on the road and there are just as many mopeds carrying multiple people as there are cars. In-between the cars and mopeds were donkeys pulling carts full of various building materials. The cabs were weaving in and out of the traffic barely missing the others on the road. I closed my eyes and prayed we wouldn’t hit anyone or have anyone run into us! We almost made it free and clear, but right when we pulled into the medina, BANG a moped crashed into the back of us! The driver of the moped seemed to be OK and just threw a dirty look at our taxi driver and rode off.

• We pulled up to Riad Ammssaffan and went inside to make sure it was somewhere we wanted to stay. The place was really nice and looked like something out of a movie. The rooms were the nicest we’ve seen since we’ve started to trip (and were $40 a night!). It would take too much time to describe all details, so hopefully the video will upload on to my blog site. Just like every other city we’ve visited in Morocco, we were immediately asked to please sit, relax and enjoy some mint tea. The tea served in this riad tasted kind of like spearmint –it was really good and probably my favorite so far.

• Our favorite part of Marrakesh was the “big square” which was in the Medina. In the day, the big square is packed with people selling fresh orange and grapefruit juice (which is SO good), snake charmers, women applying henna tattoos, people with monkeys, acrobats and mopeds full of people zipping through all the chaos. The square is outlined with restaurants that have rooftop decks where we ate most of our meals watching the locals and tourist enjoy the activities. At night, the square has pretty much the same stuff going on except about 30-50 make-shift little restaurants we set up –rows and rows of them selling snail soup, BBQ goat faces, kabobs, etc. We only made it to the night time restaurants one time and had fish, olives, bread and steak kabobs –all of it was very good.

• The path to the big square is lined with hundreds of souks each selling something different. Some sold babooshes (leather Moroccan slippers), scarves, carpets, t-shirts, knives, jewelry, strange meats, leather bags, jedi robes…sometimes the souk owners were making their products right in front of their shops and all for a “big welcome price.” Our first day in Marrakesh Caroline and I decided to go shopping and leave the boys to have their own first day experience. EVERYTHING in morocco is a negotiated price (hotels, cab rides, clothes, etc.). The first thing we bought (3 shirts) we negotiated them from 800 Durham to 150 Durham (about $13). The negotiation turned out to be the same routine each time: they give you a ridiculous price, they laugh at your first price and then sometimes you agree on a price and sometimes they let you walk out of their shop. If they really want you to buy something they’ll chase after you after you’ve left thier shop and say things like “scuse me, scuse me, OK, you have for your price.” There were a few times were they got angry with our price; truthfully, the negotiating got to be pretty exhausting and we ended up buying things from the few souks that had prices on their items (we found about 3 of these places). After our day of shopping we headed through the medina to our riad to meet up with the boys. The medina alleys all look the same so it was easy to get lost….we were unsure if our last turn was a left or right. We took the wrong turn and soon realized it when nothing looked familiar. On our way back to the “right” path, we ran into the boys who took the other wrong turn. After laughing about our mishap we heard about the boys’ afternoon.

• The boys met a man named Hammad in the grocery store. He introduced himself and after talking to them for a little while invited them to lunch to meet his wife and daughter (we read that these types of invitation are common). After gathering all the ingredients, they headed to his home where his wife cooked fresh fish and potatoes. Something they mentioned about the experience was that they didn’t eat off of plates. The meal was served on the glass coffee table and each person’s portion was eaten right off of the coffee table. The boys said Hammad’s wife was really nice and three year old daughter was adorable.

• They asked Hammad where we could go for dinner to see a belly dancing show; he offered to take us to his friends show that included dinner. Hammad picked us up that evening and we all crammed into his tiny car. He took us to his friends place to pick up VIP tickets (http://www.chateaudhakim.com/en/presentation_en.php). The place was huge and impressive…I felt really underdressed. After Hakium wrote up a VIP slip for us, we paid and soon left for the dinner show at Chez Ali (http://www.ilove-marrakesh.com/chezali/index_en.html). The food was really good (lamb, couscous & veggies and dessert). The entertainment was fun, but was kind of cheesy. We ended up naming the place Disneyland of Morocco.

• Overall I liked Marrakesh and enjoyed being in one place for a few nights. I LOVED our riad and the Moroccan feeling it provided. I’ll miss Morocco’s raw atmosphere and I really enjoyed all of our experiences, but I’m looking forward to Portugal where public affection is acceptable, prices aren’t negotiable and where toilet paper is more likely to be available than not.

On our way to Marrakesh

12/26/09 – Day 10

Today we drove from Ouarzazate to Marrakesh in a bus. We drove through a High Atlas pass, zig-zagging up and down the mountains and playing “chicken” with other busses, cars and people. Caroline and I got a front row seat…we had the first two seats on the bus. Between the death defying bus ride and the cities built into the mountains, the five hour ride went by really fast. I couldn’t stop taking pictures…the ride was beautiful.

Christmas Day

12/25/09 – Day 9

I woke up this morning to Alex saying “wake up Bec, we’re leaving.” We gathered our things and walked towards the line of camels. When the camel guide started getting everyone situated on their camels and he pointed to me and directed me towards a camel - I said “I’m walking.” The Christmas Eve ride was more nerve wracking than fun for me so I decide to spend Christmas morning walking through the Sahara desert along side the camels.

1. I thought I would feel like a sucker possibly sitting down halfway through the trek catching my breath, but I did just fine. The camels and the guide were at a pace that I felt comfortable with and I was able to walk the entire way without stopping and resting. Rather than thoughts of “I’m totally going to fall this thing” or “I wish mad camel disease would get away from me.” I was able to reminisce about our trip thus far and see some interesting things that I wouldn’t have been able to see from the camel: a dung beetle, tracks of a cat and mouse chase and capture (or a small animal and an even smaller animal) and a condom wrapper.

2. When we got back to the hotel we had a quick breakfast (bread, laughing cow cheese and olives). We were crammed into an old rickety cargo van that smelled like fuel and BO. I think there were about 16 of us in a 10-12 person van. The van was push started (which included help from one of the hotel guests!). There were two people in the driver seat…a guy sitting next to us must have seen my expression when the guy at jumped next to the driver because he said to me “Es OK, we in Africa.” It was a bumpy ride and we dropped off about 4 people along the way; it was pretty fun and definitely an unforgettable experience.

3. Just like Disneyland we were dropped off at a “family” shop to buy souvenirs. We were trying to negotiate a ride to Ouarzazate where we would stay for the night. We also wanted to stop at Todra Gorge along the way –we heard it was pretty cool, so we wanted to check out.

4. The more time I spend in Morocco, the more I have to believe that George Lucus must have spent some time here. The tan-tans sound just like camels and look pretty similar (minus the t-rex arms). The desert bar in Star Wars remind me of the night clubs we’ve been to and the Jalaba(sp?) that the locals wear are defiantly jedi robes.

5. On our way to Ouarzazate we stopped at an area where hundreds (maybe thousands) of water wells had been dug. There was nothing stabilizing the area around the wells so it we didn’t want too get close, but we were able to look down a few and check out their homemade pully and bucket they used to draw the water.

Christmas Eve

12/24/09 – Day 8

Last night after our long drive from Fez we arrived in Rissani and switched from our van to a 4X4 and drove through the desert (no roads). We pasted about 5 “hotels”…all looked like castles and were far apart from each other. We finally arrived to our hotel –it looked like the others we had passed, so we were excited to retire in our “castle in the sand.” The hotel was really rustic and barely had electricity; actually around 9pm the electricity ran out and they lit candles down the hallway. We were surprised when we got in our rooms to see that the halls were painted mud and hay. There was patio/balcony above our room, so every time someone walked on it, mud dropped onto our beds  Guess who was at our place?! Khaled and the group of people he met in Fez. There are a lot of places in the Sahara where they do camel treks, so it was crazy to run into them here. Last night the people who ran the place played Atlas music (violin, tambourines and singing) and Berber drums…it was a lot of fun to listen and watch. The musicians walked around trying to get everyone up to dance…I didn’t dance, but John and Pete did. Our camel trek into the Sahara started at 4:00pm, so we had all day to explore.

Five things from today:

1. After breakfast (bread, laughing cow cheese, jam and olives) we walked to explore the sand dunes. The sand was red (I was expecting it to be beige)…the wind was blowing pretty hard, so there were a lot of cool designs in the sand. John, Pete and Alex wanted to walk up to the top of the tallest dune; Caroline and I decided that half way was good enough for us…it was really cool, but sand in the eyes was not feeling too hot on my contacts 

2. After the dunes, we ate lunch then headed to the camels. Khaled and his friends were doing a 2 day trek so we ended up going on a different route. We rode with a dad and his kids; for their Christmas gift he gave them a camel trek and trip to Morocco. SO the camels…they were all lined up and kneeling down waiting for us…the camel leader assigned people to each camel. There was one camel in the back that looked like it just ate 10 Alka-Seltzer’s…it was foaming at the mouth a lot…I hid while they were looking for someone to ride that one. I also hid while they assigned the one I named “mad camel disease”…Alex got that one and I got the one in front of it. They have you sit on top of the camel in a make shift saddle then directed the camel to stand up. Guess who came to visit me every time we stopped…the camel with mad camel disease. The first time we stopped the crazy camel came right next to my face lookin’ for some love…I immediately screamed “no, I don’t want him by me!” the camel guide just yelled “no problem…” Guess what I can check off my list and not think twice about doing again…camel riding! We rode through dunes…going up and down the sandy dunes was the most nerve wracking. While going down one of the hills john said “Caroline, I think Orson may be an only child.” At one point Pete’s camel thought we were stopping so it started kneeling down then when his came was dragged up by the rest of the group, it was tripped up on the sand…I could have sworn Pete was going to topple over with the camel and drag the rest of us down the dune…almost immediately after that I rummaged through my bag and popped a Xanex –not kidding. It was about an hour ride and after we passed two other “camps” we arrived at ours.

3. Our camp was made of a bunch of Berber blankets sewn together. When we arrived we were shown where we would sleep. There were blankets on the ground covering the sand in a space large enough for all five of us. Soon after we arrived, we were invited into a large tent that had a lamp and two small tables. We were given tea then we sat uncomfortably with the small family (that we soon named Fozzy and the overbite twins) that took the trek with us. The family spoke French and Spanish and a little English. We all did laugh together when we were reminded that John used his pajama bottoms for his turban. Our dinner was brought to us after one of our guides told us a few riddles. Dinner was chicken with potatoes, peas and carrots –it was really good.

4. After dinner we decided to play cards and invited our fellow trekkers to play along. We tried to think of a game that wouldn’t be too difficult to play with our language barrier. We decided to play Uno. As the game went on, we added rules (a 4 was draw four, 7 was skip, etc.). We also changed “uno” to rack-attack which means “joking” in Berber. Every time one of us would lay down a “draw 4” we would say Merry Christmas. It was a really fun Christmas Eve.

5. After our 4th or 5th game of Rack-Attack we retired to our tent. The holes in the “ceiling” welcomed the rain and sand into our sleeping area. I covered my face with my scarf that I was thankful I had. We stayed up for about an hour talking about various things from our favorite Christmas songs, our religious backgrounds and our childhood pets. I think my favorite story was Pete’s…he once had a guinea pig and when it died, his parents told him it died from reading the news paper that was in its cage.

on the way to the desert

12/23/09 – Day 7
Today we woke up at 7:00am and met our driver who took us on about a 9 hour drive to an area in the desert in-between the towns of Rissani and Merzouga. This trip was amazing…I’m so happy we decided to take the van instead of the bus…we were able to stop and take pictures the whole way. Our scenery ranged from lakes and rivers, snowy mountains to flat deserts. We drove through the Middle Atlas and High Atlas and ended up in the Sahara. One thing I like about traveling to new places is not knowing what to expect; everything we have seen is new and can’t be compared to an existing memory.

5 things from today:

1. We rode down in a van slightly smaller than a cargo van. The break pads were obviously non existent; every time the driver stepped on the brakes (which was often) it was a metal on metal grinding. Our driver didn’t speak English so we didn’t do a lot of communicating, but he was a really careful driver…that was comforting in the rain and on the mountains roads. Along the way we stopped for breakfast (bread, tortillas, cheese (laughing cow) and butter) and Lunch (mystery meatball sandwich).

2. Last night we read about Barbery apes; they live in Middle Atlas in forests that we traveled through on our way to the desert. Our driver stopped along the side of the road at a campsite…we drove around slowly until we spotted one. Remembering the chimp story from the US (where the lady got her face ripped off), I decided to stay in the car. While Caroline and I waited in the car, the boys fed the apes nuts that we bought last night in the medina. One ape stayed in the tree screaming (the bigger one) while a smaller one walked right up to John and Pete taking food out of their hands. I sent Alex out with my camera…he got some pretty good shots.

3. Along the way we stopped at what looked to be a river of palm trees. It was beautiful. It was a deep canyon that was filled with palm trees and homes…there were so many palm trees that they disappeared into the distance.

4. Everywhere we’ve stopped so far sells local fossils; I ended up buying a fossil necklace. While we were at the palm tree oasis, at his request, I was looking for a rock for Casey M. Guess what I found –a fossil!! I still haven’t decided if I’m going to keep it or give it to him. I’ll probably give the rock to Casey since I was sifting through them because of him…I guess I have my necklace.

5. The bathrooms…we’re out of the big city now…the toilet I used today was a hole in the ground that you squat over…it’s difficult, but I guess I’ll eventually get used to it and figure out how to best use it with out making a huge mess!

Fez - Part 2

12/22/09 – Day 6

Today we got a late start, but were still able to see a lot of Fez. Our beds in our room are pretty hard, but they aren’t too uncomfortable. We found out that they are most likely stuffed with sheep wool which would explain why there is an imprint of myself when I get out of the bed. The room gets pretty cold at night, so I’m thankful for the slipper socks I brought. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and put on my coat; we asked for an extra blanket before we went to sleep tonight so I should be OK for the rest of our time here.

Five things from today:

1. We ate breakfast/lunch at the Café Clock (in the building where the water clock structure lives). I got chicken satay over saffron rice; it was the first really spicy meal I’ve had in Morocco…I LOVED it. John ordered a camel burger and we all had a bite…now I can say that I tasted camel…it was pretty good.

2. The main feature of the day was the tannery. The tanneries are where animal skin is dyed and made into leather. The tannery we visited worked with goat, cow, camel and sheep skin. It’s a huge courtyard divided into sections for each process. The first section is for the hair and skin separation; this is where the hide is soaked in pools filled with milky white liquid; we were told it was chalk. Next was the rinsing; there is a huge wooden barrel on its side that is spun around with a hose dumping water over the skins. After the rinse the skin is sent to the pigeon poo which softens the material. Last, it is sent to separate pools filled with different colors of dye. The skin is drenched in the dye by men submerging it under water using their feet. We learned that the yellow leather is dyed using saffron (which is extremely expensive) so it’s done by hand; if I come home big pimpin’ in a yellow leather jacket, you should be impressed...yellow leather = expensive.

3. We visited Borj Nord which was once a fortress built by the Saadians to keep an eye on the locals and the marauding Beber tribes (yes I took that line from The Lonely Planet book) and has since been turned into a museum. The museum was closed, so we only got to see the outside. Since the fort overlooks Fez, we got a really nice view of the city. While we were there we stopped by the Les Mirinides -a really fancy hotel. We hung out on their patio and had pizzas. While we were on the patio the call of prayer was being played all around us in mosques below, behind and to both sides of us.

4. We’ve fallen in love with “sweeties.” They are pastries drowned with honey…we each loaded up with a box of them for our trip to the desert tomorrow!

5. Pete negotiated an all expense included trip to the Sahara for a camel trek. Our options were to take a bus to Rissani then figure out what we do when we arrived to the desert or work with a guy from our hotel who knew someone that could arrange a detailed trip for us. We decided to spend the extra money and have someone drive us in a van as opposed to a bus dropping us off. We leave first thing in the morning and are looking forward to the adventure!