So, we started out our second day in Morocco with breakfast in the hotel, which was pretty good –the coffee was good, and of course the orange juice and oranges were awesome. The whole SAS group checked out of the hotel and boarded the bus. We had a pretty far drive, which was about two hours, to the Berber villages in the Atlas Mountains. The Berbers are like the native people of Morocco who still live a pretty rural lifestyle in the foothills of the mountains. The mountains were absolutely beautiful –most either covered with greenery or some in the far distance capped with snow. It threatened to rain early on during our drive, but cleared and the view from the bus was gorgeous. It was so cool to see the little towns amid the huge mountains. Many of the ramshackle homes are near rivers fed by melting snow in the mountains and they’re dangerously close to it. The guide mentioned a flood that killed over 300 people, as I recall, a few years ago.
We stopped at one of the small homes to see their working water-powered grist mill and small home. The mill was quite ingenious, rolling along easily with the power of the rushing water beneath it. The house however, also had a little store attached with various curiosities native to Morocco.
Our next stop was another Berber home where we were demonstrated the way to properly create and drink mint tea, one of the most popular drinks in Morocco. Again, the home was pretty modest, despite a pretty large area to accommodate all the people stopping for tea, built on a beautiful hillside in the mountains with an attached stable for a few animals and a traditional steam bath chamber, a hammam (in lieu of showering).
Once we left the mountains and the villages, we headed back toward Marrakesh and stopped at a school set up by some sort of charitable French organization. The school was called Terre Des Jeunes Marrakesh, after the organization sponsoring it. A few of the leaders of the school took us for a tour of the small building, which was rather modern, despite how cold the temperature was on the inside. Most of the students had gone home for lunch, so we weren’t able to interact with them, but their drawings and artwork were all over the walls. The school teaches underprivileged kids and encourages them to take up a trade. Students ranged in age from grade school age up to college age. The head of the school explained that the students even take classes in physics. The school also had a computer room with about 6 computers and a large central room with a small library and many more of the kids’art projects. The school also emphasized recycling, from posters on the wall and bins near the entrance. The students had also made art from used plastic bottles that looked like tall plants with red flowers –it was cute. I wish we had been able to interact with the students and spend more time asking questions about the school. It was a nice visit.
Afterwards we ate lunch at a Moroccan restaurant near the market and ventured back out for a short time to test our bartering skills –I found out that mine aren’t very good. Then, we took the three hour bus trip back to Casablanca, returning to the ship just in time for dinner.
I stayed on the ship for the rest of the night, and my final day in Morocco began when I woke up a few times during the early morning hours with a terrible stomach ache. But, I wasn’t going to let that stop me from enjoying my final day in Casablanca! I skipped breakfast and instead drank some electrolyte-infused powder. As I was walking out of the port, I actually began to feel better and just as I was noticing that, I slipped and fell while crossing over a little median. Ugh. I got a little dirt on my jacket, pants, purse and all over my hand, but I recovered.
Along with a group of about a dozen other people, I wanted to go see the Hassan II Mosque, the second largest mosque in the world and the largest landmark in Casablanca. Some of the people in the group thought it would be fine just to walk there, since the mosque’s minaret is easily visible from where we were. It still seemed kind of far and we wanted to make it to the 10 a.m. tour, so two other girls and I took a short cab ride to the giant landmark instead.
The minaret is 600 feet tall and the inside of the mosque holds over 200,000 people. The floor is heated and the ceiling retracts. There are about a dozen huge chandeliers that weigh something ridiculous (I can’t remember the exact amount). Two-thirds of the entire building is built over the water on the coast. There are 41 absolution fountains in the bottom floor of the place. It was aaammmazing! (Grr for not being able to show you pictures!)
During the mosque tour, I noticed that one of the SASers from Penn State, Colin, and a few of his friends were in the tour and asked if I could tag along with whatever they were up to. They were off to lunch next, which sounded like a good idea to me. One of the girls needed some more money, so we wandered for a bit to find an ATM, then we were going to try and eat one final Moroccan meal at a restaurant. We tried to walk for a bit and find a nice place, but ended up deciding to get two taxis (because there were six of us) to take us all to Rick’s Café.
Now, for those of you who don’t know, Rick’s Café was the setting for most of the famous film Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. However, the movie was shot entirely on a Hollywood set so, there is no real Rick’s Café from that time period. This café was actually built in 2004. But, the simple fact of being able to say you’ve been there is still pretty cool. They had a small lunch menu including cheeseburgers, steak and fish, as well as a few Moroccan dishes. I was glad that I was feeling better than the morning and was able to eat lunch. The setting was all very well done with plates and salt and pepper shakers embellished with the restaurant’s name. There was a piano further back near the bar and an upstairs dining area as well. It was funny, but not totally surprising, that there were a lot of SAS people there, and, one of the staff members (the A.V. guy) had arranged to play guitar and sing during lunch that day. He sat near the piano and played “As Time Goes By,”of course, a few other songs from the era and others like “Summertime”and a pretty cool rendition of “Stairway to Heaven.”
After lunch, Colin and his friend Spencer stayed behind to use the free wi-fi at Rick’s and the other girls and I decided we wanted to do a little shopping. We got into a taxi (that was dumping more SAS kids off at Rick’s, haha) and one of the girls actually recognized the driver from the day before. He was really nice and accommodating with us –the other girls wanted to buy scarves, so he took us to a pretty big store with just about everything and they bought a few things. Then, I mentioned that I wanted to buy some Moroccan music and, (after a bit of time struggling to communicate) the driver took us to a bootleg music stand. On our way there we also stopped in a place where he knew we could buy stamps (for postcards). One of the girls even stopped at another one of the small stands and the driver, Aziz, helped her barter a bit for some bracelets. We went back to the taxi, but the girls wanted to continue shopping. We split the cab fare and I said I just wanted to go back to the ship (since I was back to not feeling very good again). So, Aziz brought me back within about 100 feet of the gangway. He was really a very congenial and helpful man, so I gave him the fare and told him to spend it on his 12 kids (whom he had mentioned earlier) and he surprisingly gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek!
So, Morocco ended with a pleasant experience, even though I wasn’t feeling well. The ship wasn’t set to leave until 8 p.m. and I got back at about 3 p.m., so I played a game of Scrabble with some students I came across passing through the lounge. The worst part of the evening, however, was when we left the port at about 8 p.m. The captain warned us that there would be rough waters, just as there had been when we arrived in Casablanca. So, I tried to find a stationery place in the middle of the ship, playing cards with a few people, but the rocking made my already upset stomach worse. People were sliding all over the place, trying to have fun with it, but I think a few got a little too goofy, as I heard (and have since seen) and got hurt (I’ve seen two or three people with wrist braces, etc.).
Since then we have been at sea –yesterday we stopped for a few hours in the harbor of Dakar, Sengal to refuel. The scenery was pretty awesome while we sat on the ship and ate lunch and dinner. We watched the sun set there and shortly after set off.
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