Morocco!!

We woke up in Casablanca, Morocco, on Saturday morning, and I jumped on a city orientation tour. On the tour we went to several different places, like the fruit/flower/ everything else market, the Royal Palace, and the Hassan II Mosque. The mosque is probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to, it is the third largest in the world after the two in Saudi Arabia, and since it was completed in the early ‘90’s it is really fancy and modern compared to the other mosques I have been to. We seriously walked around there for an hour with our mouths open in amazement. There was a bathhouse there too, but it was much different than the one in Turkey and it wasn’t open for public use yet either. That tour was done around 6:30 and then a few friends and I went to a restaurant called Rock’s Café. It is modeled after the one in the movie Casablanca and was opened by an American woman who works (or worked I can’t remember) for the embassy. We met her while we were eating dinner and she knew all about SAS, having seen several voyages pass through Casablanca. Anyway, the food was good but overpriced, and after two hours of sitting there we headed back to the ship.

On Sunday I hung around the ship trying to catch up on reading and homework and get over this stupid cough I’ve had since Turkey… then I headed out in the evening to see the bazaar in Casablanca. Most everything was starting to close so we didn’t stay long, and the humidity was extremely intense! Ha ha I am so over humidity.

I spent the last two days in Morocco in Marrakech, which is about 3 hours southeast of Casablanca. I think I like this city more than Casablanca, it’s smaller and lies close to the Atlas Mountains, so it was nice to be in that kind of setting again. We did a short orientation tour of Marrakech and stopped for a long time at the old souk. Our guide walked us through the winding streets and took us to a legit Berber pharmacy where the have tons and tons of spices, teas, and naturally made products. We got a full presentation of the most popular spices and such, and then got to pick out what we wanted. Then we went to a restaurant in the souk’s square and had some amazing couscous and veggies for lunch and after that we had about 3 hours of free time before dinner. Kari and I ventured through the souk and once again tried to avoid the aggressive salesmen… we each found a few last minute souvenirs then spent the rest of the time in a café drinking Moroccan mint tea. It started raining after a while! And I hear that it rains only 20-25 days out of the year in Morocco so it was kind of cool! We met up with our tour group at 7:45 and headed to dinner. The restaurant was amazing; it was originally a traditional Moroccan house so there were several rooms of seating. We sat in the largest room that had full grown trees in the middle, kind of like a canopy and the dome in the ceiling was open which let in fresh air. It was a really unique place, and the food was fantastic. There was also a belly dance performance that was hilarious because they made some people come up and dance with them... not me though! Thank goodness!! We didn’t leave the restaurant until about 11:30 and then when we got to the hotel we discovered we were locked out and had to walk to the other side of hotel, aka the other side of the block! Once we got back to the hotel we crashed.

On the last day in Morocco, our SAS trip continued with zip lining in the Atlas Mountains… and let me just say it was a perfect ending to Semester at Sea! We drove an hour outside of Marrakech into the mountains and were dropped of pretty much on the side of the road near a couple of Berber villages. We then hiked for about 40 minutes in the crazy heat to this facility that has rope courses, trampolines, a pool, ping-pong tables, nomad tents, and several zip-lines and rope bridges. We got all harnessed up, plus gloves and helmets, (Kari said we looked like miners…”miners, not minors!”) and then began by walking across a rope bridge to another hill. One the first hill we hooked all our carabineers and safety lines onto the wire, kicked off and zipped to the next hill. It was INSANE! Ha ha we did three short lines, and then had to wait in line for the last one. I was told that the last zip line at this place is the longest in Africa, and it definitely seemed so! The guys working there said that not very many people can make it all the across, including myself. Ha ha I had to pull myself the last ten feet or so… but it was amazing!! Seriously zip-lining between hills in the mountains!!! Well we were exhausted after that, especially with the crazy heat! We ate lunch at the restaurant up there and then headed back down to the bus. The ride back to the ship took longer than expected, especially since we stopped for Magnum ice cream bars (these things are amazing and I’m pretty sure that they are not in the States at all ☹) we got back to the ship about 15 minutes after on-ship-time, but it wasn’t a problem since we were on a SAS trip!

I cannot believe that I’m on my way home right now! It’s so insane how fast this voyage has gone by… this has been an unbelievable, absolutely incredible, life changing experience. 8 countries, 4 continents, 1 summer…. Not bad!