Day 2 in morocco was probably the only day we slept in even a little bit, and by that i mean we woke up at about 9 am. After a lovely breakfast with the family, we grabbed a bus back into vieux Marrakesh. mom had to run to the consolate as a favor to our future host, so dad, khalid, and i wandered around the big square. first we stopped because dad saw snakes and felt obligated to get his picture taken with them.. which of course cost us a little bit of money, and i somehow ended up with a snake around my neck too.
next up i made sure we got more of that amazing orange juice. one sip the day before and i was obsessed. the bills we had to pay for it were too large for the man to give us change, so khalid ran off to get change for us. meanwhile, we stood there. a woman came up to me and offered me henna. i said no, but seeing as i couldn't actually walk away and go anywhere else, she had me cornered. she grabbed my hand to demonstrate and there wasn't much else i could do. first she pointed out it doesn't hurt (yes, i know that), then continued the design, then asked for my name, and before i knew it, my hand was covered and my name was written in arabic as well (i am sure she did it correctly because for the rest of the trip people were reading my hand). then of course we had to pay her, even though i had tried to get out of it in the first place. i guess its all part of the experience!
when we were all together again, we headed into the souks again to say hi to saiid 2. mom took a picture of saiid 2 and i, and then decided it was some picture marriage? don't ask. it didn't make sense to me either. but i've decided my parents are wayyy to ready to be grandparents and need to stop looking at me. im only 20 people, this is not ok! haha
finally we started heading out of town to go to the mountains. on the way to finding a cab though. i ran into a couple of my eap friends! (there was a whole group going to morocco through a program, so i knew there might be a small possibility of running into people, but it was still a surprise).
the cab ride to the cascades was about an hour long i believe and gave me my first glimpse of camels.
when we finally arrived at Orika, i found more eap students! surprise again! we soon began our hike to see a waterfall. it felt kind of nice to be in nature again, or at least in much less of a city setting.
on the way back down the mountain we saw some amazing bereber (i believe they were bereber) women. every other day they hike up the mountain and bring back food for the animals, carrying it all on their backs. it's bigger than they are! and they walked faster than we did! i was so impressed.
finally, around 5pm, we got around to having lunch. i didn't think we'd even had that big a breakfast, but it was some kind of miracle breakfast since i wasn't falling over from starvation even with our hike. though i was hungry. if i haven't mentioned it enough, of course the food was delicious. my favorite part being the tomato salad.
khalid, who is a vegetarian, though solely because he dislikes the taste of meat, even decided to try some.
after tasting it, he decided to continue being a vegetarian. but you shouldn't judge the food based on his opinion lol.
and even before the food came, we got a little music while we waited!
after lunch it was time to head back to marrakesh. we wandered into the souk to see if saiid 2 was still there, and i was pretty proud of myself for recognizing the shop even though we walked right passed it without stopping since it was already closed up.
we took a collective taxi home again. and though mom's legs didn't fall asleep this time, we did have other problems. transmission problems to be more specific. which involved waiting around for awhile and eventually getting into a different cab. but hey, what can ya do?
we finally got home and were fed an excellent dinner by khalid's mom. and soon enough it was bed time since the following morning would be an early one as we headed off to the todra gorge.
it was cute though, as their mom was making sure we had enough blankets and were comfortable, she started calling me saiida. not sure what that was about, but i took it as a sign of endearment :)
i want orange juice
ReplyDeleteari, its uncle time! make some babies...
in portuguese, saida (with an accent on the i which gives about the same sound as a second i)means exit. she was probably telling you to get out.
it is soooo not uncle time. i had to figure out what you were talking about for a second though since i read your comment without reading what i wrote. and she loved me. she wouldnt kick me out! hahaha
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