It's Christmas Eve and I'm here in Málaga with Mom, Dad, Christopher and Olivia, it's been great having them come visit, we've had great weather and have spent the first few days walking around so I can show them my favorite parts of the city, (as they recover from jetlag!) I wanted to write a blog post talking about my trip to Morocco, now that I have some free time after the semester ended, and show you some pictures from one of the most incredible trips of my life!
Our journey started early, as we met at 4:30 am to drive to a place where we could cross by ferry to Ceuta, a protectorate of Spain located in Morocco. Once we arrived in Morocco, it was off on our tour bus to Casablanca, where we spent our first night. Along the way we made stops at some notable landmarks, and stopped for a couscous lunch (the first of many couscous feasts of the trip).
The next day we headed off to Marrakech, where we spent a few nights. The city was unbelievable, totally overwhelming/beautiful/scary/amazing at the same time. While in Marrakech, we stopped at a series of mosques and palaces, and also went several times to the famous Sook, an enormous market selling everything you could possibly imagine, along with snake charmers, monkeys, and henna artists. In Morocco, everything you buy is through bartering, which was quite a challenge to get used to. You even have to bargain for a bottle of water! But it was an amazing experience to see the market, one afternoon we had tea up on the roof of a restaurant to watch the sun set, and as it was setting, the call for prayer rang out from the surrounding mosques, which was really amazing to see and hear.
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| The Sook at sunset |
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| Gardens outside a mosque |
Our next stop was in a city near where we would embark on camels the next morning, and our hotel was wild. We ate a late lunch outside watching the sun set, and then spent the night drumming, singing and dancing with a group of performers from the hotel.
Next stop: Sahara desert. We arrived at the desert so excited for our camel ride and the night in the desert, and it was an absolutely unbelievable experience.
Once we arrived, some of us decided to hike up a dune to watch the sunset, which was much harder than expected, since every step you just sink into the deep sand, but once we got to the top and watched the sun go down, it made everything so worth it.
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| The view of our camp from the top of the dune |
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| Climbing down the dune |
On our way back to Spain we made several other stops along the way, where we saw more mosques, palaces, and historical sites. On the ferry back to Málaga we were all amazed at the week we had just spent in Morocco, it's still hard to believe how much we saw and how lucky we were to have the experience that we did. It was an unbelievable experience, and I'm so grateful for those who helped me make this trip a reality!
Un besito,
Sarah
