Marrakech and A Night of Firsts (but definitely not lasts)

Marrakech medina at night
Okay, so a TON happened to me the past two days and I feel like there was no real Day 2 and 3 of Morocco, just a 48 hour day. I’m on the top deck of the ship (at the end of day 3) with my friend who’s writing in his journal and this is really the first time I’ve been able to reflect on the past two days. Like I said a lot has happened and it’s going to be a long post. So I’ll try not to leave anything out but inevitably something will probably be omitted unintentionally. Btw, I’m reading this off of a cereal box I swiped from breakfast. Before I left for Marrakech, I had breakfast on the ship and my (rugby) friend had the genius idea of grabbing a couple boxes of cereal as snacks (which turned out to be a lifesaver) on the train. Anyway, I brought my school backpack w/ all my writing supplies but took out the notebooks. So the only thing I could write on was… an empty cereal box (I think I can attribute this to my years in boy scouts).
To catch up, after my first whole day, I was rushing to find a group to go with to Marrakech. The next day I had a trip to Rabat planned and I carefully weighed my options and decided Marrakech was more worthwhile (and I’m definitely glad I chose it). I wanted to stay overnight and have it overlap with my third day (which I had nothing planned-Wow, I just realized I have a lot of parenthesized sentences in my blog- you probably noticed this in my first post but its news to me) because I had nothing whatsoever planned for the rest of Morocco. So I had plenty of groups (including one of my Spain groups) going to Morocco to choose from. However, all of these were only staying for the day and I wanted to stay the night. To enlighten you, it takes about three hours to get from Casablanca to Marrakech by train.
I knew there were people on the boat that had to be staying for the night, but I couldn’t find them. Finally I went to what’s called the grafitti board which has come in handy in the past. The board is a large blank piece of paper which people can leave tips/helpful information for others, such as good/cheap restaurants or interesting sites, as well as pitch trip ideas for people who are interested. I wanted to see if anyone was staying the night in Marrakech so I started writing my message on the board. As I wrote there was a group of 4 people behind me and they were reading my note. They told me they were going to Marrakech. I asked if they were staying the night and they said yes and that they were going to buy their train tickets tomorrow. So I told my rugby friend (who if you remember I met while in line to go up to the Cadiz cathedral cupula) John that I found a group to go to Marrakech with because he mentioned he wanted to go. So the two of us met the other four people the next morning after breakfast in the main gathering area of the ship. They were all San Diego State students, including John. San Diego has over 50 students attending Semester at Sea- this is (I think) because the school used to own the SAS program. It’s amazing how everything just sort of ends up perfectly and works out as if planned ahead, although I have the idea it’s hard to go wrong when experiencing a country unless you go the road more traveled.
Anyway, we all went down the gangway with our backpacks (I packed a change of clothes, toilet kit, and water bottle) and saw we missed the shuttle out of the port which comes every hour. We were shooting for the 8:55 train to Marrakech (I’m going to call it Mkech) and ended up taking a taxi. There are 2 types of taxis in Casablanca: the petite taxi (2-3 people- I like to call it bite-sized) and the larger size which was a white Mercedes which carried 5 people or, in our case, 7 including Mr. Hakeem. The 10 minute ride was cramped, but like I said it was only a 10 minute ride. Another thing that I wanted to mention was the ease of getting a taxi in Morocco. There was a taxi waiting outside the ship, waiting for anyone (with money). Notice how I left out the word “trying” when talking about finding a taxi. In Morocco, there is no ‘trying’ to get a taxi. Before you know you need one, before you’re even in the country, even before you’re born, you have a predestined, predetermined taxi waiting for you in Morocco. A golden chariot with golden wings, silver wheels and a man named Abdul holding the reigns. Our driver, who went by Hakeem, insisted that when we come back from Mkech, “You call me, eh. I drive you around at night and give you good price. We go to club, pick up girls, and have lots of drinks and girls and dance.” As intriguing as Mr. Hakeem’s offer was, I was pretty sure I would have to skip.
We got to the station, bought our tickets and went out to the platform with a comfortable amount of time till the train arrived. I could spend a lot of time talking about what I saw on the train, but I’ll limit it to highlights (which include goat herders). The train ran through more parts of Casablanca before leaving the city. I got to see a few more slum sections and some apartment buildings. One thing my friend pointed out is the amount of satellite dishes affixed to the apartments. Mounted on the sides and tops of these buildings are dozens upon dozens of satellite dishes, I would assume to get better channels (I always thought Food Network was more important than standard of living…plus Giada Laurenis is hot- yes this is relevant). After exiting the city it was mostly desert (desert as in rust colored dirt and lots of rock outcroppings, not Lawrence of Arabia desert) with scattered goat/sheep herders and farming tents. Lots of cactus, which I’m pretty sure they use to mark boundaries. We crossed over an oasis which was cool. After 3 hours we finally made it to Mkech. We decided to look for a hotel first and bought maps of the local area.
The train station looked really nice and new and we found that when we left the train station, the surrounding area was also really nice (this is relatively speaking with Casablanca). The buildings and walls all had a reddish-tan color to it. There were also palm trees interspersed in the plaza area in front of the train station. We walked down Hassan II Ave. and while looking for hotels found that most of the main drag area is really nice. There are some horse taxis walking up and down the streets, giving rides.
We eventually found a hotel, dropped our stuff off, and went to the medina which was full of souks (markets). The shopping here was more leisurely than Casablanca shopping had been. We walked through and I bought an I Love Morocco shirt as well as souvenirs for those back home. I saw two separate fights in the souks, both were shop owners and both were yelling and grabbing but no punches and ended with both walking away. The markets had similar things to Casablanca’s such as jerseys, pottery, jewelry, etc. however there were more spices, oils and organic things. Its cool because there were donkeys towing carts throughout the markets. We eventually walked into the main square area where there were (you guessed it) more stalls. We walked along the perimeter and looked for a place to eat dinner. While walking I heard that distinguished snake charmers pipe and I looked over and what should I see but… a cobra. It was one of the most bizarre things I’ve encountered on my trip which really adds to the experience. Also, there were monkeys on leashes. A funny (funny now, scary then) story about this is when we first spotted them, we stopped to look (big mistake) and the guy holding the leash grabbed his monkey and started walking over to us (I think PETA would be having a conniption fit). We started walking away and the guy threw his monkey on the shoulder of one of our group. We were freaking out because we thought it had AIDS and stuff. The poor guy was pretty spooked and I don’t blame him.
We were all pretty tired and went back to the hotel and dropped off our stuff and napped for an hour. We then went back over to the square and had dinner on an elevated balcony that looked over the market. Everybody had couscous and chicken or pizza, while I tried what’s called tajine, which comes in a flat pot with a conical lid and is baked insanely hot in an oven. Inside was chicken with olives and a lemon which gave it a nice sweet taste that went really well with the countless spices in it (the Diarrhea gods must favor me because I haven’t suffered its dark hand yet, despite the risky foods I’ve had…but I know its coming). Before eating, though, there was a prayer (I’m not sure if I talked about this before, but there’s five prayer times a day) right before sunset emitted through loudspeakers on the minarets of nearby mosques. That was freaking amazing- I felt like I was on a CNN news article about Iraq, with the atmospheric chanting in the background giving you that Middle-Eastern feeling… Ya, just like CNN except without the bias. This was yet another element that added to my Moroccan experience. Sitting out on the balcony looking out on the markets with the snake charmer’s playing their hypnotic tunes in the background made a really cool, hopefully unforgettable atmosphere. What was really cool is because of Ramadan and all the fasting, after sunset the loudspeakers come on again and while I wasn’t looking, a bunch of new food stalls appeared in the middle of the square probably for everyone breaking fast.
After dinner, (Mom, close your eyes for this next part) we (myself included) wanted to find a hookah place and relax for a little bit. I was very adamant about trying hookah here. One of our deans who is kind of a campy guy, raved about two things: Hookah in Morocco and getting naked in Japan and taking a bath. I’ve been pretty set on trying it and was really just waiting for a comfortable setting. We walked past a mosque and it was stunning to see hundreds of people lined up for prayer and the Imam reciting prayers. Then they kneeled down in unison and began to pray which totally blew my mind. This was the stuff you only see in the news and to experience it in real life gave me a totally new perspective of their religion. I’m sure most people would have changed opinions of Islam if they saw they’re rituals and ceremonies.
We walked around town and (by this time it was dark) asked a small business owner in front of his store where to find hookah and he gave us a real local location. We went behind this nearby club and went down an escalator into an underground shopping area which sold pirated movies, PSPs, iPods, etc. and turned another corner and found a really nice hookah bar. It had trees inside and a really cool atmosphere which was complemented by the fact that it was only locals. We sat down, got cokes, and waited for the waiter to bring the 2 hookahs we ordered. When they came, my friend John went first (I was the only one in the group who hadn’t tried it before) and then passed it to me. By Mr. Clinton’s standards, I did inhale and it was really nice. I know I’m building this up in this post but really it wasn’t a huge deal to me. It was an awesome experience that I look forward to trying with my friends (and brother) back at home (again, and not just for my mom’s sake, it really was just a good experience that I thoroughly enjoyed). We actually smoked a good deal too and left after about an hour and a half. We went back to the hotel and went to bed. The hotel was really nice and the beds were comfy and green.
Day 2, the next morning we had breakfast at the hotel which was a croissant and loaf of bread and coffee. We heard about a park that had monkeys so we decided to head monkeyward (apparently that’s a word not recognized by Microsoft Word) and find the park. It was a very long walk but we got to see more of the city so no one complained. Not surprisingly, I haven’t heard anyone so far on the trip complain about walking. I was talking to someone about dinner about how I was curious to see how many miles we all walked throughout the trip. Anyway, along the way we saw some camels and we wanted to get our pictures with them but didn’t want to right them. I think I forgot to mention that the currency here in Morocco is the Dirham which 7 or 8 Dh equal 1 US dollar. We each paid 10 Dh to get on a camel and to have pictures taken. After that we continued down this incredibly long street/walkway and it finally we came to the park. It’s at a stall in the park that I bought my brother Sean a souvenir which I’m sure he’ll like. I’m sorry to say Sean that your souvenir can’t kill someone like the samurai sword from Japan you got me, but… that doesn’t mean your birthday present won’t be able to kill someone. Unfortunately knives and swords aren’t allowed onboard so I’ll have to figure something out.
Anyway, we walked through this really nice park and came to this large manmade pool of water that had some (nonfunctional) waterjets in the middle. We walked around it and focused on seeing monkeys we went into a grove of unknown trees adjacent to the pool. We walked through this area, which was monkeyless, and ended up in a neighborhood (nothing like neighborhoods in America). It was a nice morning walk so no one was disappointed we didn’t see monkeys (although it would’ve been nice). We walked through some streets in the city and got a behind the scenes look of Mkech. It’s not in the best condition but way nicer than Casablanca. After an hour of walking we finally made our way back to the train station and caught a train back to Casablanca. The way I see it, Marrakech really contributed to my Morocco experience and I am very glad I went. I’m sure it would’ve been nice had I not gone, but Casablanca (I’m not the only one who thought this) became old after the first day and kind of constricting.
When we got back to the ship, we all said goodbye. Its weird thinking of how you formed really good relationships with people in only a day and a half and then you only just see them around. As we were boarding the ship, the buses from the official Mkech/camel ride field trips on which my roommate and friend were onboard arrived at the port and the three of us met up. We all had nothing planned so after dinner someone suggested hookah and we all said yes. For my roommate it would be his first time and as a newly converted hookah smoker I convinced him to come along. The three of us walked 15 minutes out of the port to get to the main street and from there we really had no idea of where to find hookah. As we walked down the street, people saw my Morocco shirt I was wearing and said, “Ah, Morocco! I like!” We asked one guy randomly about hookah, or shisha, and he was apparently a friend of one of the Filipino crewmates and took us free (sometimes they scam you into paying for information) to a local hookah bar with low prices. Again there were no SAS students and just locals. I finally got a chance to try the mint tea Morocco is well known for and it was pretty good. We smoked for a while and talked about the trip, reflected on life, and joked around about crappy movies, namely “Manos the Hands of Fate”. And the cost of this amazing night was 40 Dh (or 5 dollars). We walked around a little bit and then made our way back to the ship. I attempted to write in my blog but I felt like Jack Nicholson’s face. I know there’s stuff I didn’t write on my cereal box but whatever, I think I covered the important stuff. One thing I wanted to mention is the number of cats that roamed around Casablanca and Marrakech. So concluding this post, Marrakech was great and really gave me a better insight of Islam and its people. I’ll save my final thoughts of Morocco for the next post. Till then, keep flossing and don’t forget to brush.