Camels, Quads, Food... Welcome to Morocco

Well I made it to Morocco and will be here until Tuesday, to be honest I was surprised to see how industrialized the cities such as Casablanca are here. The cities while having traces of an ancient past are similarly looking to those of cities I have previously visited in both the US and abroad. It still has not hit me that I am in Africa right now and that in the matter of only a few weeks I have crossed the Atlantic and been on three continents and in four countries, it's unreal to think that this is my life.

In a matter of 24 hours we left Spain and arrived in Morocco so not much to report on ship life, but since we did arrive a day earlier than expected my friends and I were able to explore Casablanca, more directly the marketplace. That right there was a culture shock for me seeing the mass amounts of people crowd into alleys no bigger than the hallways of a Nichols Residence Hall and barter for goods ranging from designers knockoffs, wooden hand crafts, and daily necessities such as food. I haven't bought much yet due to the fact that my first trip was overwhelming, but tomorrow I plan to brave it with friends for some souvenirs and postcards (sidenote: first round of postcards for Spain and Morocco are being sent out Tuesday).

This past weekend, I headed out to Marrakesh, which is a major city for Moroccan tourism and went on a camel trek and four-wheeling through that sand groves. That was by far the best experience to date that I have had in my life, the quads were by far the best part of the days as we got to see some parts of Morocco that would have been to far if walked and not able to have a bus go through that area. The camel trek was an experience in itself I won't forget... Finally though after a long day we headed back to our hotel to chill by the pool and enjoy our fine Moroccan nightlife.

The next day we toured the city seeing, the famous palm groves that align with the cities beautiful mosque. We saw ruins of palaces and saw the great Marrakesh marketplace that was twice the size of the one in Casablanca, but also twice as overwhelming to shop in. The square the marketplace is in is the largest in Africa and was filled with henna artists, snake charmers, and even monkeys. At night a large group of around forty SASers headed off to the largest night club in all of Africa it was a lot of fun, however mostly filled with tourists over locals.

While in Morocco it was interesting to see in the cities that I visited how relaxed people were with the Muslims customs. For instance, women even of Muslim faith varied in whether they chose to cover with a veil and if covered how covered they wanted to be. A majority of the people dress in brand labels and go out to clubs. I did see few American chain restaurants such as McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and KFC and American Music was prevalent on the radios. All in all their were more similarities between our culture and that of Morocco than I was expecting to find. Right now Ramadan is finishing up here in Morocco and then as one local told us, it will be time to party.

Now for the food, I have been a picky eater my entire life and usually I am hesitant at home and on the boat to try new foods, however being here it has been a dive in experience where I don't ask questions and just eat new foods. I love olives now after trying them and at home I despised them. Fun Fact of the day: Moroccans eat their meals out of one platter with their hands, we experienced this on our camel trek when we ate a traditional Moroccan lunch with our hands and each course was phenomenal. Although I have expanded my food options, I still do not like curry so India will still be a challenge for me I for see.

Well that's basically it, Tomorrow I am going on an interior visit of the Hassan II Mosque, the largest in Morocco, Africa, and third largest in the world. Followed by lunch at Rick's Cafe (as in of the movie "Casablanca" I remembered something from class, Proko) and then trying my luck again at the marketplace. Classes resume Wednesday which should be interesting.

Later,

Ed