Well, I've found a decent Internet connection in MacDo, so I guess sitting here, surrounded by bad American pop music is the new norm. Some good news on the 'Net front: I can ask the Internet guy at my school if I can hook up to their network. I'm not sure if my school even has a WiFi network, but its worth a try. I'm going to see him tomorrow to ask/beg for the password. Here's to hoping...
I spent the most part of the month of February traveling because of the copious amounts of vacation time that France has. Knowing that I won't be able to profit from this after May has definitely started to sink in, so I'm taking every opportunity to see as many places as possible before my departure.
My friend Andrea (who is the assistant at the school I worked at last year) and I decided to go to Spain and Morocco. Because, we're close, it's cheap, so why not? Unfortunately, Spain is in the middle of massive rainstorms, so we were pretty drenched the whole time. We started in Granada, which was really quite lovely. The sidewalks looked like they were made out of marble. For real. The Alhambra was beautiful (although I think I liked Topkapi Palace in Istanbul better) and we ate lots of tapas. After a few days there, we made our way over to Seville. The cathedral of Seville is one of the largest in Europe (maybe the world?). I feel like my two years in Europe have been seeing a million churches and museums, but I'm not complaining. At all. We also did see a flamenco show in a bar that was pretty much some dude's empty garage, filled with tables and chairs and flowing tinto de verrano (wine and citrus-y soda mixed. Sounds disgusting, but is awesome). We also stopped in Madrid for a few days on our way back home. Andrea has a friend who is an assistant there, so he showed us around, which was super nice. He also was a curler for 15 years (oh yeah, they're Canadians), so he was actually able to explain curling to me...and it now makes sense!
After Seville, we jetted down to Africa. I'm still not over the novelty that I went to Africa. Actually, I realized that within about 4 1/2 months time-span, I will have been in 4 different continents: Asia (Turkey), Europe (duh), Africa (Morocco) and North America (again, duh). Pretty awesome. I loved Morocco, but hated Marrakech. It was big, dirty, noisy. To cross the street, you literally just walked out into the middle of the street. Chaos. Plus, every guy who passed us had some wise-ass comment about us. It wasn't upsetting and I didn't feel unsafe, it was just really, really annoying. By the end of the week, we were calling it "Merdekech" (francophones will have a good laugh at this).
However, Morocco had its redeming qualities. Essaouira, a city on the coast, provided some much needed relief from the chaos of Marrakech. Jimi Hendrix used to hang out there, so it was very chill and no one bothered us. Plus, walking along the beach made me really, really miss Lake Michigan.
Also, one of the absolute highlights of my life occurred in Morocco. All I really wanted to do was ride a camel in the desert, while listening to "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin and "Caravane" by Raphaël (yes, I have very specific travel goals). And this HAPPENED! We took a 3-day, 2-night trek out to the Sahara Desert, and it was amazing. We left Marrakech early and drove through the Atlas Mountains, which was super beautiful and full of lots of twisty, turny roads. Truly incredible sights. We stopped at an old kasbah, which has been the site of a few films like Lawrence of Arabia, Kingdom of Heaven, and Gladiator (I verified this...I watched Gladiator yesterday and saw everything). We spent the night in a hotel and ate awesome Moroccan and Berber food, like chicken tagine and this fantastic bread that tasted like pizza crust. The second day, we ventured into the Dades gorges (they were gorgeous...thanks folks, I'll be here all week), and then on to Merzouga, where our camel transport awaited us. We were led for more than and hour over the dunes, drinking in every single sight (including the Algerian border), before arriving at our overnight encampment. Andrea and I played around in the sand before our group ate dinner together. The following morning, we rode our camels back at sunrise and then drove all the way back to Marrakech.
There's no way I can accurately describe the awesomeness of this experience. The silence of the desert is like nothing I've ever heard (or maybe ever not heard?). It's calming and peaceful and quiet. The night sky is unreal. I've never, ever seen so many stars in my life. It looked like television static. I wish I could've captured it on film. Finally, we had the most awesome and bizarre guide. As we were the only girls in a group of 10, he went out of his way to make sure that we were comfortable and looked out for. Mustapha was a riot and the best addition to our really crazy group.
I easily could've done an entire week in the Sahara. I loved it. I tried uploading photos, but (big surprise) the Internet in McDonald's can't handle that. Soon, I promise!
3 comments:
That is almost EXACTLY the trip I took to Morocco a year and a half ago. I liked Marrakech though, especially Djemma el Fna (if I still remember how to spell it...). But I loved Essaouira.
i did like the djemaa el fna. except a snake charmer tried to tease me by pretending to throw a snake over our way (even though we were a good deal back). i'm terrified of snakes, so not real happy about that. it was a very cool place.
I AM JEALOUS!
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