I’m adding two entries here because of the way the blog works I want the entries to be chronological and it just easier to do it this way.

Wow! It’s so hard to remember what I did in the order that I did them and now I’m trying to write about my time. It seems that so much of what I’ve done has ended up becoming one big day in the van traveling around Morocco. I’ll do my best though to weed through it and give it some order.

Midelt

After leaving Fes we headed to our next big adventure riding camels in the Sahara, but before we get there we will have about three nights at smaller stops. The first was a one-night stop at a town called Midelt. I say town, but to be honest, I don’t really remember much of a town, I remember a very picturesque farming village where we stopped for the night. Our tour leader took us out for an evening walk to a gorge about 5 km away. I really enjoy walking and when you’re in a new area, everything is just interesting. The people you pass, the mud buildings, the mosques all seem to be interesting. At one point there was a donkey that was loaded with so many sticks that all you could see of the animal was its legs, just a bundle of sticks walking along. There was also a progression of about 12 women walking into town, you could see them from a distance walking in single file, all very brightly dressed. Some of us were speculating that they were coming in for the night to visit friends, or maybe to go to the mosque.

Along the way to Midelt, we stopped at a place where monkeys ran free. Although I can’t seem to spell the type of monkeys they were, it sounds like miccack (and spell check isn’t helping). They were everywhere and they roamed where they wanted. I had seen shows where the same kind of monkeys in India will attack people and steal cameras, watches, and even break into homes, so the fact that these were well behaved was kind of nice.

The gorge

The next night we spent on the outskirts of the small town, Erg Chebbi. This was kind of surreal in some ways. We made our way through the town until we ended on a very narrow road. The road was packed with cars and people everywhere, there was a riverbed, with a small creek running on one side and on the other was a huge cliff. There was another cliff on the far side of the river bed as well. Anyway we made our way through the cars and came up to a couple of hotels on the farside of the riverbed. So strange, there was a creek with a board as a makeshift bridge, a dry riverbed, then the hotels. What happens when the water really starts to flow, do they close the hotels? Regardless it was beautiful. The cliffs on either side rose probably 100 meters, but maybe even higher. Except for a small sliver of sun everything was in the shade.

After we got settled we headed out for about a 10km walk through a valley not far away. The area was what you might imagine Vietnam to be like. It was very green, different crops growing in every useable space, the irrigation was done by either blocking a stream or opening it. Each plot of land was marked by small mud fences that looked like rice paddies like Vietnam. According to our guide, each farmer has a day or time that they can divert the water to their own crops. It was a long walk but very relaxing wandering our way along watching the farmers groom their crops and donkeys hauling other crops out. I haven’t mentioned it, but donkeys are big here, I mean really big, they’re everywhere you look doing much of the hauling.

After our walk we headed back to the hotel for dinner… which I might add I didn’t eat. I was still feeling bad and the thought of eating was the furthest thing from my mind.

Today was a day to relax, at least that was the plan. After yesterday’s hectic trek through the honeycombs of the souk, it was something that I was really looking forward to. Getting up late, about 8 this morning, my first stop was to get a bit of breakfast. There was one break-off of the group that was going to a spa about 70 kilometers away and the rest of the group was going to stay here and do “whatever.” I was part of the “whatever” group. After breakfast the remaining four of us went for a swim in the pool, then headed for lunch in a café a little ways away from the hotel.

The café is well known for being a backpackers haven, a necessary stop for any true backpacker… least that’s the feeling that I got while we were there. To get to the café, we had to go through a souk very much like the one that we went to yesterday, but not as big, and not as crowded. It was nearly perfect. There weren’t as many people as the day before so I didn’t feel as if I was being rushed, and enough people to make the experience feel like a normal souk. It was really idyllic just wandering along looking through the shops and taking our time… plus I had the added prestige of being one guy with three women… always a nice thing ☺

The café was pretty cool, there was a total hostel feel to it, a feeling that I don’t know if I can actually explain, but if you’ve travelled using hostels you know when you’re in a good hostel if it has kind of a relaxed, hippie feel. This café had it. I ended up having a camel burger.  The camel burger was mentioned in Lonely Planet, and I felt that I just had to try it.

We headed out to see the mosque that I had been to earlier. Kind of a let down in some ways, but since I saw more of it today than I did on Saturday, I enjoyed myself. It’s kind of difficult to really describe the inside, except possible to say that it is very ornate and opulent. It’s huge too.

After our trip to the mosque we went back to the hotel and then hurried to catch our train to Menkes. It was one of the best train rides I’d been on in a while, maybe the best of all times. I spent most of the time just talking to the people that I’m touring with. It really makes all the difference when you’ve go people to talk to. At one point I heard a girl yelling for the train to stop, I mean really yelling, and I look out to see that she is caught half in the train with her bag outside… or was it her bag was in and she was outside… anyway, the next thing I see is the conductor rushes into our cabin and pulls down on the emergency stop. The train stops pushing my backpack that was in an overhead bin out. The backpack fell about a meter hitting a girl in the head and leg. I saw the back fall right before it hit the girl but I was so stunned that I didn’t have time to do anything. I felt so bad, my backpack weighs about 40 pounds, and the girl wasn’t prepared for it. She was cool about it, saying that she was okay and all, but she had a scratch on her leg and was obviously in pain.

Once we made to Menkes we got our room and headed out for a tour of the city. With all the cities that we’ve been to in Morocco the old part of the city is call a Medina. This was the first medina that we’d been to, so I was pretty interested in everything that we saw… later I’m sure that that will change, but for now just visualizing the history that this city had gone through was enough for me.

Our day ended with dinner and back to hotel.

It’s about 8 in the morning… actual 8 this time. I still can’t believe that I didn’t know the actual time for the last two days. Anyway, I’m scheduled to be leaving here in about forty minutes, the destination isn’t completely clear, but I do know that I will be visiting a mosque. Supposedly this mosque is one of the largest around.

I woke up to rain today, and although it’s not too cold it’s overcast and it looks as if there may be more rain today. What do I know about rain? The last time I saw rain was about five months ago, and before that it was last Summer when I experienced any real amount of precipitation. I going on history here, it looks like it may rain. :)

There’s not much to talk about, and in reality I’m doing nothing more than killing time right now. I didn’t sleep very well last night mostly because I was too lazy to turn off the air conditioner. About 4 in the morning I was shivering under the covers and still I wouldn’t turn off the AC. I mean, I would have had to get out from the blankets to turn off the refridgerator, which I eventually did. The result is that I’m kind of “out of it” this morning. So out of it that at breakfast I was going for a large scoop of scrambled eggs, and was having problems getting the eggs to come off the spoon. I finally figured out, after asking someone, that what I was scooping out of the bowl was butter. Talk about feeling dense.:)

I made the move to the new hotel today with the plan to meet up with the group that I’d be traveling with. Note that I said that in the past tense because I missed the initial meeting at 730 tonight. I can’t believe that I did something so stupid, so stupid in fact that I’m almost too embarrassed to say what it was. Okay, well when I adjusted my watch/computer to the new time zone, I guess I missed it by an hour. In other words, I came down to meet my group at 830 instead of 730. Geezzz, could I be any more dense?

Other than that the day was okay. I did a lot of walking today. I didn’t see anything that great, but I did walk through some markets, and saw lots of Casablanca. The area I’m in now, as opposed to yesterday is much better. The other hotel was in a very run down part of the city, and although I actually like that kind of atmosphere there was a sense of worry when I was walking around. This area is by no means affluent, but much less poor.

I finally put the pictures that I took yesterday on my computer and resized them, so I’ll add them today.

It’s about 7am and I’m sitting in an open café under my hotel. There is African music playing through small speakers on the wall. I’m the only person here, but outside I can hear two people talking in Arabic. The café opens to a courtyard of palm trees and some park benches. So I got into Casablanca yesterday after about two of the worst plane rides I’ve taken in the last few years. I won’t say anymore about this once I vent a little. Why do the airlines insist on treating us like cattle? They herd us from one spot to another, cram us into seats that are just large enough for our bodies, completely ignoring that our arms and legs need space too. ‘nuff said.

I got into Casablanca in a strange mood. I didn’t know what to expect or where I needed to go. That’s not exactly true, I had the address of my hotel, but I had no clue where it was, or how far it was away.  I was a little pissed at the flight that I had endured so I decided to take a taxi. The taxis are nothing more than ancient Mercedes Benz that have a small sign that suggests it’s purpose. The ride was straight out of some movie. The driver honked his horn at nearly everything that was in front of the car, he made lanes where most normal people wouldn’t imagine a lane to actually exist. He wasn’t the only one either. At one light on a four-lane road, I counted six cars just waiting for the light to change. It’s all good, and to be honest I really enjoyed my taxi ride to the hotel.

Casablanca is different than what I had expected, which is a good thing. I was told that it was more cosmopolitan than the rest of Morocco, so my thought was, was that I was going to step into another Dubai. Fortunately that wasn’t the case, and at what I’ve seen so far, there is nothing cosmopolitan about this city.

After arriving at the hotel, I headed out just to walk around to see as much as I could before I wore out. It’s four hours earlier here than Dubai, so I had to deal with a little bit of jet lag, but it wasn’t that bad. I headed towards a large mosque stopping at the beach as I got closer. The beach really wasn’t a beach but more of just a retaining wall that people (mostly kids) were jumping from into the breaking waves.

I walked for about another 2 hours slowly making my way back to the hotel. I kind of like doing this kind of sightseeing. I get to be a part of the people as I walk along.

I haven’t put the pictures that I took yesterday so I won’t add any today. I also have to change hotels so I can meet up with the tour that I’m taking, so I don’t have time to do it this morning. I got back to the hotel about 10pm (Dubai time) which was 7 here. I fell asleep shortly afterwards. Pathetic when you go to bed at 8pm… I did get up at 4 though.