Day 42 and 43: Morocco

We had to be ready and on the bus by 8:00. Molly and I made the decision to not shower, which probably was also a terrible life choice. We rolled out of bed, threw on clothes, and ran to get some breakfast. 

It turns out breakfast was just an assortment was bread. Literally bread. There wasn't even anything to put on the bread. Just bread. 

I grabbed some pieces and we headed to the bus. 

More driving. We drove 4 and a half hours until lunch. This consisted mostly of sleeping, and some awakeness. Remember when I said that choosing to sit at the very back of the bus was a terrible life choice? This was the moment that made it that way. The air conditioning was not very powerful. And I think it had gotten even worse from the day before. I fell asleep with my arms crossed and woke up with them completely covered in sweat. It was impossible to get comfortable because there was even less leg room. I found that sitting sideways was my best bet. 

That wasn't a very fun bus ride. We didn't complain at all though, we just sucked it up and took it. What made it even more exciting was that we were driving through the High Atlas Mountains. So the road was crazy windy and we were swaying back and forth dramatically the whole way. We would stop periodically to take pictures at some of the more scenic spots.

We got to lunch around 12:30. It was at this beautiful place. I think it was a hotel and restaurant. The majority of it was outside, with the eating areas covered. They had a gorgeous pool surrounded by palm trees. It was like a paradise. Our meal was in a similar format, we came to find that all meals were basically the same. 

We started with bread, then has the interesting salad thing that was made up of the same components just served all on one giant plate. Then we had meat brought to us in a tajine, this time it was veal and a lot of dates. Dessert was a giant fruit plate with the same delicious melon and weird unripe oranges. And we were given bottles of water. 

It was hear that we all bought our turbans. We were encouraged to buy them because, one: they wanted our business and wanted us to spend money and two: they are actually fantastic protection from the sun and sand while riding a camel. It was basically just a large scrap of fabric that I bought for 12 dollars. But then we were taught how to tie the turban, which is a skill I am totally going to use in real life. 

This is how to do it: 

1. Tie a knot towards one end of the scarf
2. Place it over your head with the knot at the base of your neck and the rest of the fabric coming out your forehead. 
3. Wrap the fabric around your head, and tuck it in. 
4. Untie the knot at the base of your neck. You can use the extra fabric as protection from the wind by putting it across your nose and tucking it in, or you can just leave it draping around your neck. 

It was cool to see the different ways that people would tie them. You could twist it as your wrapped it or not, some left the knot tied, some just wrapped it around their head so that the top of their head wasn't covered and then left the access hanging down their back. 

People were also buying robes and pants and just decking themselves out for the camel trek. This was the last place that we were going to stop before we got to the camels, so we all spent our money in their store. 

When we first sat down to lunch, we were told that we wouldn’t be leaving until 4 o'clock. Some people decided to walk to town because we had so much time to kill. We ended up not having that much time. Like I said in my last post, they liked to tell us one time and it was almost never accurate. We ended up getting back on the busses around 2:30. All five of the people that went into town were on our bus. So while two of the busses turned right to head to the camel trek, we turned left to try and find them. Cody was with them when they decided to leave and watched them walk that direction. He said it out loud but I don't know if he actually had any influence on the way we went. We drove around town and didn't see them in any of the places that they could have logically walked to. Apparently Mo knows things because he directed the bus back to where we are and went to other direction and found them almost immediately. Apparently they had gotten in a car with people who told them they had turbans for sale. 

Oh man, Mo was mad. Note: Don't piss off Mo. He yelled at them for being so stupid and then had us all write down his phone number. Cody was laughing because we found them in the opposite direction he had said to go. Then he said this, "I don't know if I should laugh or not. I got a lot of emotions going on. I still can't get over that I'm going on a ship around the world." 

That pretty much sums it up. 

It was an hour and a half ride to the place where we actually got on the camels. On the way there we were on a two way road that was only big enough for one car. So basically we would drive straight at other vehicles until one of us swerved to the side. It got interesting a few times. 

When we got to the camels we all piled out of the bus. Molly had to pee again and when she asked Mo if there was a bathroom he looked her dead in the eye and told her to squat behind a bush. 

We were told to either leave our luggage on the bus, put it in the jeep that would follow the camels, or, if it wasn't too heavy, hang it on your camels saddle. We were then told to choose a camel. 

What. 

Wait. 

Choose a camel? 

Am I not going to get an introduction, a camel riding lesson, tips for not fall off,  a safety message? 

Nope. Choose a camel. 

They were roped together in groups of two, three, or four and each group was lead by their owners. They all rented out their camels to be used for this and then came with us and handled them on their own. 

Just imagine 92 camels all in one place. That's a lot of freakin camels. 

We got on the camels while they were sitting down. He had me sit on my camel, I kept my back pack on my back, which ended up being a bad idea because it made my shirt ride up. Once all four of us were on our camels he had them each stand up in turn. Camels stand up but first, which was a surprise. And they are very tall. The saddles are cool though, and made me feel really secure. It was basically a hunk of fabric, held together in the front by a metal handle that stuck up in the air, that sandwiched the hump. A rope went around the camels belly, neck and tail. You could see the hump between the fabric. Then,  they just threw some blanket rugs over the top and that is what you sat on. That sounds really uncomfortable but if you situated your butt between the back of the camels hump and the end of the saddle there was a nice little divot that was really comfortable. I barely hung on the entire time. I felt more comfortable on the camel than I have ever been on a horse. Mostly because I didn't feel like I was going to slide off sideways.

I have lots of videos of the camel trek, which lasted a little over an hour, but they are all very shaky so it makes it interesting for them to watch. 

The camel trek was much less organized then I thought it would be, but not in a bad way. I imagined it as all of the camels walking together in a perfect line. But no, when all of the camels in your line were ready they would go. They would lead them in basically the same direction but there wasn't a specific path. Some camel lines would pass others, at times we would just be going along in a giant pack, a camels head would be right by your foot. 

Oh that reminds me, we weren't riding camels. Camels have two humps. We were riding dromedaries. Camel works for me. 

Molly struggled, like she always does. I have a video of her struggling which I will keep forever and play when I am sad. She originally started sitting way up close to the handle and the guy actually stopped to readjust her toward the back. This put her really far away from the handle, basically falling off the back. She was hanging on for dear life when her turban came undone and flew right in front of her face. But she was too scared to let go so she rode for about 5 minutes with it completely covering her face. I was mean to laugh but it was hilarious. 

She was eventually told to scoot farther forward and that helped but when I asked her how she liked her camel trek when we got off the response was a forceful, "No. I was like falling off the whole time." 

We camel trekked to a nomad camp. The camp was clearly a permanent settlement, there were cement bathrooms and showers, but none of us cared, we were going to be sleeping over night in the desert. 

The main area of the camp was set up in a circle with the main dining tent on one side and all of the sleeping tents around it. In the middle was a bond fire area and a section of huge comfy pillows and rugs to lay on. The bathroom was just outside the circle. The girls got to sleep in the tents in the main circle while the guys had to sleep in a separate section that was outside the circle on the opposite side of the bathroom. The girls tents had doors and real beds and light while the boys tents had just mattresses on the ground, flaps for doors and minimal electricity. We think that maybe there were too many of us for the circle section so they just set up the other tents and called it the "boys section."

The bathrooms were pretty normal, there were two sides but there was no indication which side was supposed to be girls and which side was boys so we basically just made it communal.

I immediately ditched my shoes. The sand was gloriously soft and not too hot. They served us hot tea when we arrived. It was green mint tea and was ok tasting but it was not enjoyable to drink a hot beverage after riding a camel in the desert. And the jeep that was carrying the water got stuck in a sand dune. Fantastic

After we drank our tea and picked our tents we all climbed up the sand dunes to watch the sunset. That was all the exercise I was going to need for weeks. Walking up multiple sand dunes in bare feet was exhausting. The view from the top was incredible, and definitely worth the climb. We all spread out on the dune and took photos and videos as we watched the sun sink below the horizon. The sky was all reds and yellow, it was completely incredible to be sitting on a sand dune in the middle of the sahara desert in Africa, watching the sun set. It was one of those surreal moments that we had to keep reminding ourselves was happening. 

After the sun was gone I ran, and partially slid, back down the sand dune to get water. 

Dinner was not until 8:30 and again was in the same format of all of our other meals. It was becoming a trend. We sat on couches and were served bread, soup (although this one was chicken based), chicken, potatoes, and carrots served in a tajine, and melon for dessert. I could eat that melon for days though. 

We were the only table that didn't receive our bottle of water because they ran out and had to get more. This was a horrible thing because with all of us in the dining tent it was incredibly hot. People were getting up and walking outside between courses because it was so hot. 

At one point a girl at a table near ours started freaking out. She reached down and pulled a kitten from under the table. We had seen a cat earlier and apparently she had stuck her kitten there. 

After dinner we all kind of dispersed to do our own things. The main activity was star gazing. The stars were … no words… there are no words to describe the stars. There was no moon and we could see everything, including the Milky Way. 

Brian, the ships photographer, was on the trip with us and I ended up helping him take star photos the entire night. It was one of my favorite experiences. 

He borrowed Cody's tripod and we went up on a sand dune so that we were overlooking the camp. He set up the camera so that we were taking a picture of the camp at the bottom and the sky above it. It was a lot of trial and error. He had never taken star photos before so he basically just tried a bunch of stuff until it looked right. And damn, did it look right. 

Basically, you bump your ISO up really high, we were at 2000. And you set your focus to infinity. Then you choose your exposure. I learned that when you are zoomed in, you can only have the shutter open for as long as it is zoomed or else you are going to pick up the movement of the stars. We found that a 30 second exposure worked well when we were zoomed in 24. 

The pictures kept coming out a little blurry, until he figured out that hitting the button to open the shutter was causing the camera to shake. The tripod was not really meant to hold a camera of his size and we were putting it on sand. He set his camera on a three second delay and after that it was fantastic. 

When we finally got the photo of the camp the way we wanted it we tried to turn around and take a picture of the sky in the other direction. But Brian decided he needed is wide lens so we headed back down the dune. 

Now, because we were camel trekking back the next day the camels stayed over night at the camp with us. They tied their legs together so that they couldn’t get very far and then they just kind of hung out all over the dune. I mean, there were 92 of them, they were everywhere. 

Well, Brian and I were walking down the dune in the pitch black when suddenly I had a feeling. I switched the light on and there was a camel right in front of it. We both jumped so high. We were a little more careful when it came to walking in the dark after that. 

We reconvened a while later and headed back up into the dune. We found a camel and spent an excessive amount of time taking a picture of the camel with the sky. There was a giant spot light in the camp that was providing our light for the photos. Eventually it went out because of the bon fire, and we resorted to light painting with his tiny flashlight. That was the best photo, light painting made it look awesome. 

We had to stop shooting the camel when it decided to lay all the way down. I said I wanted to try doing a long exposure of the sky so we hiked our way all the way to the top of the dune where we had watched the sun set. There were other kids up there, just talking and looking at the stars. 

Brian had an epiphany for a photo and took one of a bunch of students in a line looking out at the stars. We used the flashlight to light paint them for a second or two and then they had to remain very still for the remainder of the exposure. 

The first picture was awesome, but there were too many people. So we took a group of 6 to the side and repeated the process. I would shine the light directly on them so that he could focus. Then he would hit the button and as soon as I heard the shutter open I would pass the light over the top of them briefly. They could relax when the shutter closed. The pictures were incredible. We shot four different groups this way. Then we took a picture of me all by myself. As soon as they saw us doing solo pictures everyone wanted on. 

So Brian finished the one of me, then I took one of him. And when I say one I always mean multiple of the same picture because it took some tries to get the lighting right. We then had the people that wanted solo pictures form a line and just started taking them. It was a process but it was fun, and people got very creative. The sky was gorgeous and we were also getting the light from a city in the distance. I can't wait to go and get the pictures from him. As Brian said after every picture they were 'baller'. And they were. 

When everyone got the pictures that they wanted we went and found another camel. We were in the middle of taking a 30 second exposure of one camel, in the pitch black, when the camel behind it got up and started bucking and coming right at us. Both of us kind of freaked out. Do we run? Do we stay? Will it chase us? Leave the camera? Come back for it later? The handler was right near us and went right up to it and got it to calm down and told us that it was ok. So we were able to finish the photo, but we seriously almost died via camel. 

I went to bed shortly after that, around 12:30. We were told that we would be woken up at 6:30 to watch the sunrise at ten after seven followed by a quick breakfast and then we would leave. 

When I got into the tent Molly was already in bed but she wasn't asleep. Once I got into bed we had a laughing fit remembering her camel struggles. We could not stop laughing. 

I slept like a rock again and ended up waking up at ten of six. I had gone to sleep in my clothes and was going to wear the same clothes that day. Roughing it, its a real thing. We weren't going to have time to shower, I guess we should have the morning before in the hotel. Oh well, we were all smelly so it didn't really make a difference. I also don't really think I wanted to shower in those showers. 

 I basically ran out of the tent and up the sand dune in order to not miss the sun rise. Let me tell you, the weirdest part of my foot hurt from running back and forth over the dune the night before. It was where my toes met my foot. So pushing off my toes to walk in the sand felt super weird. The dunes on the other side were not as high, so our view wasn't as good. And whoever told us the time of the sunrise was 7:10 was wrong, it came so much later. Although it was probably a product of us not having a clear view of the horizon. 

As soon as the sun crested the horizon someone right near me started singing The Circle of Life. I have that song, so I actually played it and it made the sunrise so much better. 

Nants ingonyama bagithi baba

Hearing The Circle of Life while watching the sun rise over Africa. It doesn't get any better than that. 

Breakfast was bread. And hard boiled eggs. How they made hard boiled eggs in the desert is beyond me. 

The morning went by very quickly. I ran to the bathroom to brush my teeth, threw some deodorant on, shoved stuff back in my bag, grabbed two pieces of bread, and chose a camel. 

I was still eating my bread when we started trekking. The trek back was nice, since it was only about 8 in the morning  it was still nice and cool out and the sun was still coming up so the desert looked beautiful. I named my camel Gregory. And then Ashley said that it sounded like he needed a second name and a number attached to that so his full name became Gregory Smith VI. 

My camel from the day before was named Abu. They clearly had actual names but we didn't know them and everyone named their camels. The guy behind me named his Bingo and kept making hilarious comments about how old he looked and how he wasn't going to make it up or down the hills. We had a good time on the camels. 

When we got back to where we originally started, the buses were waiting for us but the jeep that was carrying all of the bags was no where to be found. It got stuck in a dune. And so would have to catch up with us, so most of us had to leave the camel site without our luggage. 

Also, apparently a few guys were never woken up and emerged from their tents to find all of us gone. They had to ride back to the buses in a jeep and because of that we were running late the entire day.  

Remember when I said that the worst of the bus rides was yet to come? Yeah, this is it. We had to make it all the way back to Merrakech, the place that we ate lunch on the very first day. We started at 9:30 in the morning. And got there right before 9. 

The best part was that our air conditioning quality deteriorated even more. We were all miserable. We switched up seats, which got Molly and I out of the very back row that was on top of the engine. Even then, I was more comfortable standing because then the air was blowing directly on my face. 

The two people who ended up in those back seats complained so much we were about to punch them. It didn't help that we found out that the other bus was nice and cool. They ended up leaving those two seats open. As the day went on and the sun rose higher in the sky it just got worse and worse. We had all of the curtains on the bus closed. People were laying on the floor. At one point I poured water over my head. Molly and I rigged a contraption out of Pringles cans. We stuffed all of the remaining Pringles into one can and then punched the bottom out of the empty can. We used it to funnel the air coming out of the vent all the way down to us. Brilliant, it worked great. 

It was also at this point that we all started not feeling very good. Molly, Cody, and I had all been taking Pepto before every meal but our stomachs were still not happy with us. It didn't help that I had eaten two pieces of bread for breakfast and then at a bathroom stop got a tube of Pringles and some chocolate things. Cody shared the chocolate things with me and we both were not feeling too hot so we think it might have been those. The grocery store that we bought them from was kind of sketchy. 

Mo tried to entertain us on the ride. But his idea of entertainment was a little different from ours. At one point he went, "Let's have some fun," and then proceeded to tell us random facts about Japanese tourists. That was weird. Molly and I played a lot of car games to pass the time. We played dots and hangman in my journal, and MASH, the gave that you would play in 5th grade to determine what your future would be like. I apparently will be living in a house in Nebraska, married to Bradley Cooper with 9 kids, working as an inventor, driving a pink beetle with a kangaroo for a pet. Sounds good. At one point Mo just randomly got out of the bus and came back with so many loaves of freshly baked bread from some bakery. It was pretty good. 

By the time we got to lunch at 3:30 we were so relieved to get off the bus. Molly completely wiped out walking into the place we were eating. She fell so hard that Mo kept asking her what her name was to make sure she didn’t hit her head. 

I did not eat any of the food, I was not feeling good at all. It was in the same format as all of our other meals, except that there were chicken and beef skewers. The delicious melon was for dessert, I did eat that. 

And then I stuck my entire head in the pool. That was a good life decision. 

Excitingly, they had squat toilets there. I opted to not use them because they also had regular toilets. I am going to be waiting until squat toilets are the only option. 

Getting back on the bus I wrote this in my journal: We are all miserable. The Pepto is flowing, the advil is flowing, the tears are flowing. And we have four more hours left one the bus. 

Sadly, they threw out our Pringle can invention when they cleaned out the bus during lunch. The bus really needed it though, it was covered in water bottles. That was one of the good things, they had unlimited water available to us on the bus. 

Because we were running so late we were driving so fast on the windy roads of the Atlas mountains. We almost died going around a corner at one point the the extent that we applauded when we survived. Our driver simultaneously put us in danger and got us out of danger. 

When we finally got to Merrakech it was like Christmas morning. As we were pulling up Mo told us about the city and where we should go and how we should take a taxi back to the hotel if we decide to go out at night and that we shouldn't walk back. And then he talked about the sides of the street on the road that the hotel was on and said, "Do not go on the left side. I will not tell you why, but I know why." 

What! Ok, I am definitely not going on the left side. 

As we were checking into the hotel we were all crowded around the desk waiting for Mo to hand out the keys. Then, a guy that was also standing at the desk started  talking angrily to Mo in Arabic. Then suddenly he goes, "I'm Canadian." And Mo throws back, "And I'm American." And then they just went at it again in Arabic. We had no idea what was happening but it was getting very heated. From what I gathered later the guy was upset that Mo wouldn’t let him go in front because there was only two of them and 92 of us. Or that he thought that Mo shouldn't be able to stay at that hotel because he was Moroccan. At one point the guy stepped closer to Mo and we all took a collective step back, and they started talking about going outside. It was very tense, the guy was very angry. But Mo was a big dude and stood his ground. 

We finally got our key and made our way to our room, which was very nice compared to the hotel the first night. And the best part was that it had air conditioning! Woo!

We were given 30 minutes to get ready before we needed to be back on the bus to go to dinner. I took the fastest shower of my life which was also the most refreshing shower of my life. I did put the same exact clothes back on though. 

Our meal was no different from the other ones, except getting there required walking down some interesting streets and almost getting hit by people on motorcycles. 

We were given bread, always the same bread, the same multi-plate salad thing, meat in a tajine (this time chicken). But we didn’t get melon for dessert. We got some weird pastry thing covered in some kind of cream. Someone at our table said curdled milk which sent half the table off into a laughing fit over the word curdled. It was covered in peanuts? Or some kind of thing that I almost broke my tooth on twice. It tasted like peanuts, but it didn’t look like peanuts, and it was rock hard. I thought it was kinda good but everyone else was not enjoying it. Actually most people were falling asleep at the table. It was interesting that a 12 hour bus ride exhausts you. 

On the bus on the way back to the hotel Cody basically fell asleep on top of me, until Marshall mentioned something about going out, which woke him up a little. But he wasn't speaking coherent sentences so going out seemed like a terrible idea. Marshall told him that he needed to take a man shot to which Cody responded that he hoped that wasn't a shot to the nuts. Marshall explained: A man shot is when you snort a line of salt, take a tequila shot, squirt lime in your eye, and then take a punch to the face. 

Who comes up with this stuff? It's a real thing, I Googled it. 

Molly and I immediately went to our room when we got back to the hotel, after getting Advil from one of the trip liaisons. Our plan was to sleep and then get up and go to the market. We had the whole morning free with a meeting time of 12:30. I slept really hard again, the bed was crazy comfortable and the air conditioning was a relief.