A Play by Play of the Southern Excursion

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent this past week on an excursion to the south of Morocco. We left on Sunday and drove to Fez where we spent the afternoon sightseeing and walking through the medina. We had a guide show us around, which was very necessary since Fez’s medina is the largest and most complex in the country. The streets are incredibly skinny (photo below) and within minutes of entering, I was completely turned around. From Fez we drove to Azrou, where we spent the night in a very nice hotel. My friend JP and I stayed up until 1:30 to watch the 49ers/Seahawks game (he can watch NFL games on his computer and the hotel had wifi!) but decided to turn it off because there was a rain delay…it was very disappointing.

The next day we woke up and drove to Merzouga, a rural town on the very edge of the Sahara desert. From there, we loaded into 4WD vehicles and headed out into the Sahara. The drivers were crazy; zig-zagging, skidding, and racing each other for the duration of the 25 minute drive. When we got out of the vehicles we found ourselves at a resort nestled among the Saharan sand dunes. We quickly unloaded our stuff and hopped onto camels, which took us even further out into the desert to watch the sunset. Watching the sun set from the top of a sand dune in the Moroccan desert, with camels lounging by our side…it’s as good as it sounds. As a group, we probably took over 2,000 photographs and, as a result, we now all have too many Facebook profile picture options than we know what to do with. After watching the sunset, we rode the camels back to the resort where we were met by a group of Senegalese musicians. We danced around a bonfire (and took more pictures) with the other resort goers before enjoying a beautiful, buffet dinner. The rest of the night was spent hanging out on the sand dunes, listening to music and enjoying the stunning array of starts above our heads.

The next day we said sad goodbyes to the desert and drove to Ouarzazate, a small city located almost directly in the middle of Morocco. We spent the night at a dormitory for girls who are attending school (high school or University) in the city. We got to meet and talk with the students staying there and many of my group mates (including myself) will be writing about this experience for our second assignment for class. On Wednesday we drove to Marrakesh, the tourism capital of the country. In Marrakesh, the group was let free to explore on our own. Some friends and I went to a beautiful garden, walked around the main square, had McDonalds for dinner and ended the night playing poker at the casino. Everyone was exhausted Thursday morning but we rallied and were on the bus driving to Essaouria at 8 am. Essaouria is a beautiful, seaside city that reminds one a lot of smaller cities along the Central/Southern Californian coast (SLO, Pismo Beach, Santa Barbara). We stopped on the way at a female-run co-op that made and sold argon oil products. We had seafood for lunch, napped in the afternoon, and played soccer on the beach at sunset.

On Friday we drove to the seaside city of El Jadida, which is about an hour south of Casablanca and is a lot like Essaouria. The group had lunch here and was given the option to stay in El Jadida for another night if they so pleased. 6 friends and I decided to stay. The owner of the restaurant had an apartment in a great part of town that he rented to us for a good price. We spent the afternoon on the beach, swimming and sunbathing and enjoying the warm coastal breeze. We made dinner at the apartment (spaghetti and pesto sauce) and then split up for the night. JP, Julian, Ishan, and I went to a club, which had one area for Arabian club music, one area for American club music, and one area for traditional Moroccan music, we talked to people, had a few drinks and danced before heading back to the apartment for a good nights sleep. All in all, the southern excursion was amazing and I’m so happy I had the chance to have such a vast array of experiences. 

Below, there is a link to the blog of a kid on my trip who has posted his beautiful photos of the excursion. Under his blurb about JP, he posted the address of JP's photo blog, which I haven't looked at but I'm sure it's beautiful as well. I'll look through my few photos and see if there are any good ones and post them in the coming days!

Mark's blog: http://beyondthepalisades.tumblr.com/