Camel Trekking Like a Pro in Morocco
I had the BEST experience and a BLAST on this field program through SAS. We started at 7:30 am on a bus driving just past Marrakech (3.5 hours from Casablanca) and boy did the scenery change. It went from dull Casablanca, to what I expected Morocco to be. It felt more desert-y and full of culture. After the bus ride (which wasn’t bad at all because I slept a lot of it!) we arrived at our lunch sight. It was SO cool. It was just one big open area covered by a tent set up just for us. We had miniature seats and mini tables that we sat at and enjoyed our Moroccan meal (WAY too much food!). There was also a little area right outside the tent with cushions to sit on and drink the mint tea. By this time we are all SWEATTTYY. No air conditioning this entire trip, but I didn’t complain once.. unlike some of the other annoying people. I mean come on.. we are in the desert. Suck it up.
Following chowing down we made our way to the sight where the camels were. We got out and all the camels were making weird noises. I don’t know why, but I didn’t think camels made noises.. haha. It was kind of freaky at first and I felt super bad for the camels cause the owners were just hitting them like it was nothing :( but my camel ended up being very sweet. Sadly it didn’t have a cool name like some of the other camels—Shakira and Scooby Doo, but mine had an Arabic name I can’t remember. Holy hell though, riding a camel hurts after a while. At one point I thought I was gonna fall on my ass cause my camel slipped on the rocks a little. Boy would that have been an experience! One guy in our group actually did fall off, but he still got back on. What a trooper!
We made our way to a stop for some tea on the camels. It was a local families house and again the tea was delicious. From here, we… wait for it… we rode in the back of an old dumptruck to the nomad camp! Didn’t expect that one did you? But it was an experience and it was clean with a rug in the back of it. We made it to the nomad camp and there aren’t even words to describe it. A live group of musicians from Ghana were playing instruments, there was a fire where some of the Moroccan locals were making fresh bread, there were belly dancers, and the whole camp was set up LITERALLY in the middle of the desert. Nothing is surrounding us but plains of sand. The entertainment throughout the night would take us to join in and we would all dance with them and hold hands in a circle, everyone was smiling and laughing! The Moroccan men in the band wore fez hats, which are like the ones with propellers on the tops, but they had tassels on the top instead.. and they would spin them around.. something that my brother, Danny and I would definitely try. We ate dinner and just relaxed while soaking up the scenery. In the morning we drove in land cruisers up the Atlas Mountains. It was magnificent! Also a little frightening cause some of the roads are so narrow and rocky that if the driver moved a little to one side we could have gone crashing down the mountain. My heart just about stopped though when we were driving along and we saw a little girl running towards our car. The driver took his water bottle (it was 110 degrees at least out there) and gave it to the girl because she was crying out for water. I mean a LITTLE girl probably around five or six. I really wanted to get out of the car and give her my water too.. and a hug! We also saw some other young kids waving to us in the car and I waved back. They were precious. Making our way up the mountain we stopped for tea at another locals house. This house was amazing. It was a typical African house on the outside and we were allowed to venture in the other ‘rooms’ of the house as well. They grew their own grapes from a vine and had a beautiful view of the mountains and there was a stream running through their back yard, which was actually a fresh stream where they got their water. While I was walking around checking out the house a cow just walked in out of nowhere. It was great. Haha. I walked out of the back and near the stream where there was a flock of sheep crossing a “bridge” (it was just a narrow board of wood across the stream lifted by two small rocks). There are so many animals in Morocco! I love it. I saw sheep, goats, camels, and asses. It makes me miss my puppy! Rawr! I also saw two asses having sex. Ekk. After we drank our tea we continued on our journey to lunch. It was a gorgeous spot in the mountains. We ate up quickly and headed to our hotel in Marrakech. All of us were super excited to take a shower because we were stankkkyy. Haha. After showering we met up to go to dinner and walk around the square. I was so mad cause we had barely any time to walk around before we had our belly dancing dinner. But in that short amount of time we saw monkeys and snake charmers walking around. I was intrigued. :) The belly dancing was really cool too! After dinner we had to go back to the hotel, but we could do what we wanted. Some of my friends and I walked around Marrakech at night. It sounds unsafe, but it was perfectly safe! There really wasn’t anything there though so we just returned to the hotel. The next morning we went to a spice shop! It was so interesting. They let us try a bunch of things as well (not the spices, but some treatment and oils). The oils smelled delicious! After that we made a walk to lunch and then we headed back to Casablanca. I can’t even explain how great this trip was. I had a blast and I realized how blessed I am.
xoxo,
Em