just call me lawrence of arabia

September 3-6, 2011 (Morocco)

so clearly since you're reading this, we can establish the fact that i'm alive and breathing, though to be quite honest that was a little touch and go there for a while. morocco has to be the scariest place i have ever been in my life. since i've never actually been out of the country, i've never been to a muslim country. WTF. i know i'm supposed to be tolerant and understanding of different cultures, but i was in no way, shape, or form ready for what morocco threw in my face. i'll tell you more about my feelings and assessment of morocco tomorrow, but it definitely wasn't anything like it was on real housewives of new jersey.

so on the first day, we woke up pretty early because we had to be up at the glazier lounge by 8 to meet for our tour. it was so crazy to look out the window and see LAND. and by land, i mean the port which basically just looked like long beach with all the cargo ships everywhere. brewer and i both did the casablanca city orientation which took us all over the place. i was surprised to see that casablanca was a pretty big, modern-ish city. the first place we went was the central market which was mostly vegetables and meat. there were kittens EVERYWHERE! everyone was obsessed with them... until we saw kittens hanging in the meat racks skinned and ready to purchase for dinner. that was lovely. the next stop was hassan II mosque. stop reading this right now and google the mosque. it was seriously the most beautiful building i've ever seen in my life. it's the 3rd biggest mosque in the world, and cost a measly $8 billion dollars to build. it was kind of ridiculous though because within eyesight of the mosque is some of the poorest areas of casablanca. other sights we got to see included one of the king's palaces and the only catholic church that is still in use. and SURPRISE... another french city. why didn't someone tell me to study french at some point in my life!? i could definitely see the french influence in all the architecture of the buildings in casablanca, left over from when morocco was a french protectorate. eventually we got back to the ship around 1:30 after we did a little shopping. after regrouping for a little, maddy and i met up with michael and cassie and we went to habus for a little. habus is a section of casablanca where the palace is and there are a bunch of cute markets. we shopped around for a little bit, and sat to have some mint tea. though i'm not a huge tea person, mint tea is what morocco is famous for and it was actually pretty good. we had to go to an atm and ended up getting followed by a man for a while, but we just went back to the markets and lost him. then we headed back to the ship and all walked to rick's cafe (from the movie casablanca). we sat at the bar and had some drinks before dinner. i ordered a martini cus i figured i had to get gin because it's a gin joint... but it was disgusting haha. we ended up having dinner there, along with what seemed like everyone else from sas. it was really fun, and i even got to hear the pianist play "as time goes by." we called it quits around 11 and walked back to the ship with a group of people.

the next morning, we woke up at 4:45 because we had to meet at the entrance to the port at 5:30. mind you, the entrance to the port is a 30 minute walk. and thus begins the bus ride/trip from hell. the goal of this trip was a camel trek in the sahara desert. about 100 sas kids signed up for the trip, and miraculously everyone was on time to the buses for us to head out. we left casablanca around 6ish and 3 hours later, we arrived in marrakesh for a bathroom break and to get some breakfast. then another 3 hours in the bus through the atlas mountains until we arrive at a berber village. the drive kind of reminded me of driving to palm springs down the side of the mountain... but this time i was on a bus with 50 college students, going down a sketchy road at like 80 miles an hour. nice and safe. the berber people are like the indigenous people of morocco, who mixed with the people that took over in the past, like the french, spanish, and portugese. the berbers mostly live in the atlas mountains now, and we passed probably 100 villages. it was INSANE seeing how these people live. their houses were no more than mud huts, but no matter what there was a mosque that was infinitely nicer that all the other buildings in every village. i was really impressed by how the people managed to survive in that climate. we saw a lot of people herding huge groups of sheep on the sides of the mountains and there was a lot of agriculture going on which i was impressed with. anyways, we got to one of the little villages and went to a restaurant to have lunch. i had chicken tajine which is a traditional moroccan meal consisting of chicken, vegetables, olives, and couscous. it was delicious, though a little overpriced. it was 80 dirham for the food and a coke... which works out to only be $10 USD, but still. after some people shopped for a little bit, we got back on the bus for... wait... ANOTHER three hours to ouarzazetes for ANOTHER bathroom break. we seriously stopped five thousand times for no reason. when we got on the bus this time, we were like "okay, this has to be our last stretch." boy were we wrong. another three hours later and we stop at this random buildling in the middle of nowhere. "yayyy, we're finally here." jokes. not even close. another bathroom break. at this point, people are starting to be like "WTF!?!" we were 4 hours behind our itinerary and the sun is beginning to set. we were supposed to be doing a sunset camel trek... but the sun is gone like 15 minutes after we get back on the bus again for our next leg of the trip. this is when shit starts to hit the fan. after our 12th hour on the bus, one of the girls we were sitting next to goes up and asks the driver how much longer... "oh 10 minutes, the camels are right around the corner." jokes again, another hour goes by. people start to lose it at this point. some girl gets on the phone with semester at sea asking them what we should do. based on our location, the sas people told us to "turn around immediately." we were 50 km from the algerian border... so naturally the next thought was "shit, we're all going to be sold to the algerian sex traders." but hey, we're a bunch of american college kids and nothing can phase us, right? so did we turn around? NO WAY! another like half hour goes by and we pull off the road cus people are seriously about to mutiny and turn the bus around. we were minutes away from calling the us consolate to report us being kidnapped. mind you, this is like a 15+ hour journey we're all on together. then we look out the window.... CAMELS!!!!!!! so we all get off the bus for the last time (thank you Jesus). a bunch of the girls wanted to just turn around, but we agree to wait for the other bus to catch up with us to make a final decision. but before the bus even made it there, half of the people were already on camels ready to trek into the night. final consensus is we all paid to ride camels and we were finally there... so we all got on our camels and off we road into the sahara desert, led by guys who didn't speak any english at all. keep in mind, it is like 10:30 at night at this point and everyone is convinced we're going to become algerian sex slaves. but once we were on our camels it was AWESOME. it was a half moon and it was SO bright so we could see fairly well. maddy, duggan, brian, and myself got on a caravan and rode into the night. though it was supposed to be a sunset ride, the moonlit camel ride was breathtaking. about 45 minutes later we arrived at our camp... in the middle of the desert. and lets be real here... riding a camel is torture. all those history books with pictures of egyptians on camels looking all majestic are dirty lies. there is no graceful way to ride a camel. i currently have bruises where no one should ever have bruises. our camp was really cool though. there were about 20 tent-cabin things in a square shape with a fire pit in the middle and a dining tent at each end. everyone claimed their cabins and we finally got dinner, which consisted of bread, bean & rice soup, chicken tajine again, and yellow melon. the dinner was REALLY good... though maybe because we all had just survived a billion hour journey together. then they lit the fire pit and the drums came out. other sas kids were playing drums and stuff until some of the berber people grabbed them and gave us a concert for a while which was amazing. even though we couldn't understand anything that they were saying, listening/watching traditional moroccan music fireside in the middle of the sahara was crazy cool. and let's take a minute to discuss the stars. if you know me, you should know just how obsessed i am with the moon, the stars, and really just the sky in general. the sky that night was out of control. the milky way was completely visible, as were a couple planets, and we saw like a million shooting stars. this guy overheard brewer and i talking about it, and it turns out he's a physics major who has spent a lot of time doing astronomical research. helloooo new best friend. but actually, i think he is our new best friend. his name is will and we all drug our mattresses out of our tents and the three of us slept under the stars. and by "slept" i mean we stayed up talking until 4 in the morning and took a little nap until the sun rose at 5:45 and we all had to get up. everyone then hiked up the sand dunes surrounding our camp and took some awesome pictures of the sunrise. the sahara desert at night was seriously amazing... in the day time, no words can describe it. we all had breakfast, got our stuff together, and set off once again on our camels. this time brewer and i had our own private caravan of camels because we're divas like that. we reached the buses and started our trek back. this time the bus ride only took like 9 hours, but thanks to will and his melatonin, brewer and i literally slept the entire bus ride. all of a sudden we wake up and we're in marrakesh, the final destination of this crazy journey. so our guide walks us to our hostel. oh wait, down one sketchy alley to an even sketchier alley to an even sketchier alley, down the sketchiest alley and there's our hostel! greatttttt. but the hostel ended up being really nice, and since cassie set up the whole trip, her room was comped and brew & i got to stay with her.

after a much deserved and needed shower, we all got ready and decided to venture out into the market. seriously the scariest place of my life. there were thousands of people there, all grabbing and touching you trying to get you to stop at their given stand. we settled at one place where we all ate dinner. i had the potato cakes. while we were eating dinner, we heard/saw a full on muslim woman bitch fight. so scary, so after dinner we collectively decided to go back to the hostel to regroup a little bit. nobody was expecting how intense the market was so we decided to go find a bar instead. oh wait, our hostel and the market were right across the street from a giant mosque. which means there wasn't alcohol anywhere near us. we eventually found this really cool bar like 2 miles away from our hostel called "gossip" where the sangria, sex on the beach, and wine was flowing. it was the first time in a few days that everyone could take a deep breath and relax for a second which was really nice. we were there for like 3 hours until closing, and so at about 2 in the morning we decided to head back to our hostel since we'd had such a long few days. oh wait. all of a sudden we think we're walking home and we end up VIP at this nightclub called "silver." one second we're walking to bed, the next we walk past the line to get in, get whisked up the vip lounge, and have free bottle service all night. for the win. at this point, we're all pretty drunk and we left the club like an hour later. cassie, james, maddy, and i were all ready to kill anybody in sight in order for a sarah's burrito at that point. moroccan lamb brain is NOT the same drunk food as a nice greasy burrito. so we got back to the hostel and slept for about 3 hours. when we woke up, some of the girls wanted to go to the market but it turned out it didn't open until 2pm. so we all rallied together and took taxis to the train station. we got on the 9am train back to casablanca, which was supposed to only take 2.5 hours... yeah we didn't get there until 1pm. we all decided to get 2nd class tickets to save some money which was an experience all to itself. there was a group of about 10 of us, then it was just a bunch of everyday moroccan citizens. though nobody spoke english, it was really cool seeing everyone living their normal lives. when we finally got to casablanca, james, maddy, cassie, and i walked to habus to do a little shopping. i ended up getting postcards and a pair of Jesus sandals which i'm currently wearing and will probably be wearing for the rest of my life. the walk was a little miserable because it was so hot, but the market was really nice. after that, maddy, james, & i got a taxi to the post office so we could buy stamps for our postcards. turns out, no one spoke english there, but we were saved by the wife of one of the sas professors who is a native moroccan. then we roamed back to the ship so we didn't get any dock time.

currently back on the ship and the captain just announced that we're getting ready to leave morocco and begin our journey to our next port, ghana. hopefully ghana isn't as scary as morocco was, but i think now that we have our first port under our belt we'll all be better prepared for what's to come. our trek is already getting known on the ship as the trek who got lost. we're famous! at least there were 100 of us... if there were any less, it would have been SUPER scary. the tour company is called "trek morocco" and that is exactly what we did. though it was a little touch and go there for a while, and we were all borderline convinced we were going to become algerian sex slaves, the moonlit camel ride and the night beneath the stars in the middle of the sahara was something i will never forget. and now all of us will have this story to tell for the rest of our lives. "hey, remember that one time we almost got sold as algerian sex slaves??" "why yes, yes i do!"