Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve last written, and we’ve been back at sea for a few days now, but I still haven’t written anything about Morocco yet. It’s because I’m both very busy with finals and essays, and the simple fact that I’m still not sure how to put into words what I experienced.
I wanted to just write a nice satire about my experience, but I don’t think I can handle it. I’ve had three essays due in the last two days, and I have my Global final coming up, which I haven’t been studying for at all. It’s a lose-lose situation. But. Before I bog you down with the dirty, hand-cramped details, I want to at least bullet-point Morocco. Bullets won’t do it justice, but I’ll give it my best shot.
Morocco (in the most truthful of bullet-points I can possibly muster)
Ø I purchased an SAS trip to Marrakech, the Sahara desert, and the Atlas Mountains for the entirety of Morocco…this was my first mistake. I should have stuck with planning, or lack thereof, my own adventures…
Ø This trip consisted of about 192.4 SAS students/faculty/lifelong learners, which ended up being one of the biggest trips during this entire voyage. With an amazon group like this, something is bound to happen, right? I tried to mentally prepare myself…
Ø We all got split up between 14 different vans, and I placed myself in a group full of, well, to put it mildly, a few SASholes.
Ø During the 3.5 hour drive to Marrakech, we realized that a) our van seemed to lack air-conditioning… and the windows in our van did not seem to push out like other van windows did.
Ø Our driver blasted the Moroccan tunes, which I loved, but grew to hate because I think he played the same song over and over and over and over and over.
Ø Our group quickly resorted to singing Girl Scout songs and 100 bottles of beer in the van...and Billy got everyone to agree on the group name of “Hot Fez”. Shall I explain the joke? Fez is a city in Morocco, and it’s a take after the movie “Hot Fuzz”. Better?
Ø I felt like I was back on an elementary school field trip, which was actually kind of amusing. There were fifteen of us in this stuffy, cramped van belting out 90’s songs like no one was watching, and then making up a chant and count off for our newly acquired group… We would each say our number (I was 12), and then we would chant, “Hot Fez, Hot Fez, ya ya ya…” and then we would do the South African catcall… it was the most absurd, obnoxious, hilarious, tiresome thing I’ve encountered in a long time. And everyone participated, which was a miracle in and of itself.
Ø We arrived to Marrakech for lunch, and proceeded to eat lunch, which I did not eat much of. I was still getting over my Traveler’s Diarrhea.
Ø Then all 192ish of us checked into this hotel, which we thought would be amazing based on the really nice, marbled lobby and beautiful architecture.
Ø And then we got to our rooms. Michelle and I’s room was not that bad, actually. Our bathroom was extremely grungy, but that was about it. Emily and Lindsey and Paul came bursting into our room after about ten minutes, and they were all yelling and laughing about something. Apparently, Emily’s bed had blood stains in it (we saw pictures of proof), and their toilet would not flush, which I found quite humorous.
Ø Paul was having a nervous breakdown because of the heat and exhaustion, and he ended up laughing so hard that he grabbed a hold of our curtains and ripped them right from the window, which we all went into hysterics about. It was one big hysterics-fest, filled with sweat and tears and uncontrollable giggling.
Ø Then all the SASer’s met in the lobby to go to a “Fantasia folk show with dinner”. It was laughable. We went to this really nice palace-like place, which said it was the “Disney of Morocco”. Then we watched the horse “show” which consisted of men in tights galloping on the horses and firing off their guns. I think by the time the show was over, I was deaf and stupid.
Ø We went back to the hotel, and slept off the gun shots and ridiculous men.
Ø Michelle’s alarm went off at 5:45AM the following morning, and I rose to take a shower in the grimy bathroom, and when I got out, I think I might have felt dirtier than before I got in.
Ø It was going to take a rough 7.5 hours to drive from Marrakech to the Sahara… which we all dreaded because no one could switch vans. Which meant only one thing to Hot Fez; no air-conditioning in the pure desert heat for most of the day.
Ø We all switched seats off and on and tried to limit our Ipod consumption because we knew we would all run out of music battery before this trip was over.
Ø I ended up sprawled like a starfish on the luggage in the back, just to stretch out my legs. People took turns laying in the dirty aisle way of the van…
Ø We looked inside the other vans during our lunch break, and our eyes widened when we saw that every other van felt icy cold from the air conditioning, and had enough leg room between each row of seats to completely sprawl out, as needed. We also found out that many of the other vans were not filled to full passenger capacity… some only carried 7 or so people, when we had the smallest, smelliest van that carried 15 people, not including the driver. I think we all wanted to bawl and start a riot by this point.
Ø We ate lunch in the middle of nowhere at this restaurant that was hotter than our van, which made me want to lie down and die.
Ø We stopped at a rest stop sort of place that was part creepy diner, part snack stand because our van had to use the bathroom. So I waited and waited and waited and waited in line for my turn because I had to go so very bad and finally burst through the wooden door with urgency as soon as the last person came out.
Ø … it was like something out of a backwoods horror flick. There was no toilet, only a hole. So, out of panic and exhaustion, I ripped off my pants completely and tried to pee in the hole. This did not work at all. I have never wished to be a boy before, but at that moment, I wanted nothing more. I waddled out of the wooden stall, and asked to borrow someone’s hand sanitizer to not only clean my hands, but my legs and feet as well. It was the epitome of disgusting.
Ø We hopped back in the van and drove to this little Berber village that actually had a grocery store. All 195ish of the SASer’s bought vodka and beer and wine by the gallon. This should have been the first clue as to how the night was going to end up, but I didn’t think much of it then.
Ø We eventually made it to the outskirts of the Sahara 4 hours after our stop at the village, and we all rolled out of the van peeved and hot and ready for a cold shower. Sand blew into my mouth and eyes the moment I stepped out, and I tried to shield them both with a head scarf of Billy’s that I had made into a nice turban. It did not work.
Ø We hopped on our camels (some rode two to a camel, including Michelle and I), and we made the 1 hour trek to our nomad camp. We passed by these random closets of houses, with five or six dirty children standing around, staring at us. I felt so awful.
Ø Our camp, once we made it there, was actually very nicely set up and pretty sweet to stay in. We were in the middle of the desert, with about 100 angry camels and 10 men in turbans and long white dresses who I assumed to be the nomads. There were about 4 rows of tents, each sleeping 6 people, with little cots for beds, a wool blanket on each.
Ø We sat on the rugs, which blanketed the sand, and watched these men sing and dance and play instruments for us in the blazing heat as the sun slowly set.
Ø We ate our dinner, kind of, and then around 10pm, none of the people in our tent (me, Emily, Paul, Eric, Alex) could keep our eyes open, so we fell into our cots and stuck immediately to the wool blankets. I felt so dirty and sticky and grimy…and the heat was a little more than unbearable. We wondered when it would get cold… so I slept with my jacket on, zipped all the way up to my neck, with my hood up in fear that things might crawl over me while I was sleeping. I am sometimes paranoid about these things. Scarabs, sand fleas…you just never know.
Ø The beating drums and singing continued until midnight, so we were all laying there talking for about two hours, thinking that now we could finally close our eyes for good.
Ø And it was a big joke, maybe the biggest joke of all, to think that we were going to sleep that night. The SAS party, apparently, had just gotten started. Just as I was about to drift off, I heard drunk girls and guys going at it in the next tent over…then people were arguing, and saying things like, “F you”, “No, F you”, and people were screaming from other tents, “Well, why don’t you both just F and get it over with already!” and I don’t think I’ve ever heard such vulgarity in my entire life more than the kind of stuff I heard that night.
Ø This continued until 5 in the morning, and the camels started mooing at 6am sharp. I opened my eyes only to realize I hadn’t slept, and I was livid. Well, as livid as I could be with the kind of urgent exhaustion I felt.
Ø We all woke up and brushed our teeth with bottled water, spitting the sand out of our mouths into the dirt. Then I changed clothes, which probably wasn’t necessary, and put on some deodorant, and Michelle and I shared a camel once again to make the hour trek back to our heat-stroke van.
Ø It was not the kind of trip I thought it was going to be, to say the least. Five students got expelled from Semester at Sea for behaving in such a drunken, vulgar manner, and they are still stuck on the ship with us, but the credits for their classes will not transfer, and it will show up on their records that they were expelled from the program. I think they certainly deserved what they got, the SASholes.
Ø After fifteen minutes of riding in the van, my Ipod died and I was left to either sleep or stare out the window into the sand dunes and dust. I opted for staring out the window, because I don’t sleep on moving vehicles very well at all.
Ø For 4 hours, I stared out the window at the winding deserts and the beautiful majesty of the Atlas Mountains, and we stopped at a small Berber store, which is where I ended up falling in love. The drum I fell in love with is an authentic African Jembe made with a camel skin top, and it plays beautifully. I bought it on the spot, and smiled for the remaining 3.5 hours back to the hotel.
Ø We all ended up switching hotel rooms because we had to check out and re-check in for a second time…and just guess which room Michelle and I ended up in because we are just that amazing? The blood-stained, non-flushing toilet room. We practically shared a bed to not have to suffer with the nastiness. It was very foul.
Ø That night, we had some free time in Marrakech to shop at the famous Bazaar. ((Side note: on the very first day in Marrakech, before we checked into our hotel the first time, I ended up getting henna done on my right hand, and I don’t think the woman who did it could have ripped me off anymore than she did. I don’t want to talk about it.)
Ø So, a bunch of us hopped in a taxi and shopped in the Bazaar until almost 1am…then we took a horse and buggy back to the hotel, which would have been relaxing had there not been 7 people shoved on each other’s laps in the 4-person fitting buggy.
Ø We woke up the next morning, and then made the 3.5 hour trek back to the ship, weary, still exhausted, and very crabby.
Well, I’m sure I left out many important details, but you get the gist of the story. It was kind of a miserable trip, and we all can laugh about it now that it’s over and we don’t have to sit in the Hot Fez van ever, ever again. Everyone who went on the trip pretty much agreed that it was both hilariously absurd and painfully awful, and the people who didn’t even go on the trip are still talking about it, re-telling stories that their friends told them, etcetera.
I guess one of the vans stopped to pick up a hitchhiker along the way to the Sahara and then dropped the hitchhiker off after an hour of confusion. I can only guess how that story got recycled on the ship. Another van passed by three dead bodies on the side of the Atlas Mountains just as the police were covering them up with white sheets. We all experienced something different, and it was certainly a bond-worthy experience.
Can I just say that I’m glad to be out of the Sahara? Good grief.
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