50ºC = 122º F !!!
Far from a relaxing beach vacation, but definitely one of the most interesting!!
Upon arriving in Marrakech around 9.30pm on Thursday night, David and I wasted no time to try to catch the 12.00 CTM (supposedly the best company) night bus from Marrakech to Agdz, to meet with Imad, a CouchSurfer, at 7am. At first, we were told that the CTM busses had all been sold out and everyone was trying to sell us tickets for other companies, but then one guy who didn´t speak a word of English or Spanish gestured for us to follow him, as he made a call, wrote something in Arabic on a paper and motioned for us to get into a taxi.. The driver, who of course, also didn´t speak English stopped the taxi and we found ourselves at another CTM bus station where we were able to get a couple of the last tickets!
At first glance, the bus seemed ok- semi comfy seats, air conditioning, and a seat for everyone (this cannot be assumed in morocco!) How peaceful I thought as I fell asleep within a couple of minutes.. That didn´t last too long though. Within about an hour later, I awoke to the bus flying through the Atlas mountains, over the bumpy, swervy, nauseating street, and yes, with people vomiting. Only 1 hour at this point, with 6 more to go! I thought I´d never survive between the chances of the bus flying off the road and plunging into the mountains or with the people being sick.. Luckily, after a short while we stopped in a village for a break. Getting back on the bus, some people had bought raw meat, so now, there were also puddles of blood on the bus floor! The bus driver seemed to slow down, just a little, but it was a little better than the first couple of hours of the ride. After a night without sleep, more vomiting people and animal blood running down the bus aisle, we finally arrived in Agdz at 7am and met with Imad!
Sooo tired on Friday morning, but after chatting with Imad for a while, getting an Arabic name of ´Fatima Couscous´ from him, and figuring out our Sahara desert trip with his friend, we went around the city of Agdz, which is very close to where Babel was shot (in the mtns. btwn Ouarzazate and Agdz) and Imad said that the boy in the movie goes to one of the schools in Agdz. Very interesting! Apart from that, Agdz was well, HOT! It also has a river with a few (ok, few million!) palm trees and was very pretty! Then it was time to catch the next bus to Zagora, in the south, enroute to the desert. This bus was typical Moroccan, without airconditioning, not having seats for everyone, but it was only about 2 hours so it wasn´t too bad in the end..
Upon reaching Zagora we met a German couple and talked with them and also some other random Moroccans who invited us to their table at a restaurant while we waited for the next bus to M´Hamid, where we´d be staying in the desert. Finally the ´bus´ came, and to our surprise, it was more like a van, with 21 people, again, without enough seats, and no air conditioning, but rather little windows, that were so old they closed themselves as we drove down the road. Talk about uncomfortable! Even though it was night, it was extremely HOT heading to the Sahara and we were definitely feeling it. I felt sick by this point, but luckily I held off, though a couple others were not able to.
Finally! We arrived to the Sahara desert and this 4x4 came out of nowhere to pick us up! Listening to Puff Daddy´s ´I´ll be missing you´ while jumping the dunes with the 4x4 is something that I don´t think I´ll ever forget, especially when I hear that song haha Another rough, but more fun ride to reach the bivouacs. By this point, I was dead tired and after eating chicken tagine, which was delicious, I basically passed out, not just in a bed, but one layed out on the sand under the stars and moon!!! Absolutely beautiful!!
Saturday we woke up at what seemed like 1 in the afternoon, but was really 9am! The sun comes up sooooo early there in the Sahara (goes down extremely early too :) ) We spent the morning and hottest part of the afternoon in one of the bivouacs, drowning in pools of sweat, just eating, chatting and chilling. We met a French girl and Canadian guy there, who was very talkative and we spent a good part of the time exchanging travel stories. They then left and after I went to play in the sand dunes for a while, David and I climbed up on our camels and off we went with Imad and Omar, our Berber guide, on a camel caravan to another part of the desert, where we found the biggest dune, that we renamed ´dune jenny´ haha I then climbed that one to watch the sunset, before eating with some of the Berbers that lived there. After eating with them, we hopped back on the camels for a caravan under the stars. I can´t really say in words, but riding the camel through the desert, under 1000s of stars, feeling a soft breeze in your face, was just AMAZING!! Not a sound or care in the world. After eating some couscous that night, we went to sleep early again, under the stars and moon, to prepare for the next day.
Sunday morning we woke up and after breakfast we started our long journey back to Marrakech. The 2 hour walk from the bivouacs to the street was long and hard, especially with 50ºC temps and not much water! Towards the end I was really struggling, but finally, we reached a restaurant that also had a pool, which we didn´t even think twice about jumping into with our clothes on :P Shortly after I was having more trouble with nosebleeds. Must have been the xtreme temps or altitudes, but I kept getting random nosebleeds throughout the day. We definitely weren´t looking forward to the trip back to Marrakech but to our surprise we met with the German couple again at the restaurant, as they had been in the desert the previous night, and we pooled money together to hire a taxi to take us from the desert to Marrakech. Definitely more comfy, with 6 people and it was only about 7 hours instead of 10 or so.
We also had no plan before arriving Marrakech, apart from the fact that I had emailed Taher, a CouchSurfer, to say that we were coming towards the end of the trip. We called him from the road and then met with him and his friend, Marouane, once we arrived on Sunday night. They first took us to have a drink and then showed us our hostel before Marouane showed us a little bit of the old city and then took us to a posh bar called, Tanzania, with live music!! haha Definitely wasn´t along the lines of any place we thought we´d be going, but it was really cool!
Monday morning we woke up and met with Marouane and Taher again, to go around the new part of Marrakech and then to a really neat Botanical garden, owned by a French designer. After shooting a bunch of interesting photos, Marouane invited us to meet his family and visit his beautiful house, with a huge balcony, and we ended up spending several hours there talking, as his mom kept bringing us food! jeje Later in the evening, one of his friends, Amine, came to join, and the 4 of us spent the evening speaking in Span-Eng-Arab, chatting, laughing, having a nice time.
Yesterday morning we met with Marouane for breakfast and then afterwards he took us to the old part of Marrakesh where we visited the souks, or markets! Unfortunately, I already have too many things to take back to the US, so I wasn´t able to buy very much. They had sooooo many nice things, like paintings, lamps, etc, and very cheap, that I would have loved to buy, but just don´t have the space :P I did buy a little camel, as a reminder of the Sahara and in that shop, the shopowner gave me a necklace that he had made and also asked me if I wanted to work there! jeje Maybe I´ll be changing my flight for Sept jeje
Later Marouane´s mom called and invited us over for lunch- fried fish, puree, veggies, very good! We visited there a while before going to Marouane´s dad´s work- the handicraft souks! Now these things were very nice! Marouane surprised us as he had had one of the artists make each of us a picture with our names written in Arabic! Awesome gift!! We said goodbye to his dad, and then headed for our last orange juice (definitely gotta try it in Mococco, along with the tea!) with the guys before going to the airport.
Unfortunately, the flight was delayed and even more unfortunately, my stomach was not holding up very well, by this point. It had been a little questionable over the past couple of days, but last night, waiting in the airport, was the worst! Painful cramps, diarrhea, nausea.. Luckily, I made the flight back to Madrid without vomiting, but it was rough. Here´s to hoping that the stomach cures itself within a very short time and I will not have to go to the hospital..
Bueno, seeing as how we literally landed in Marrakech and said ´now what do we do?´ the trip turned out to be great!! We started out being very lucky with the guy in the bus station who sent us on a taxi in the right direction and then continued upon meeting Imad and going to the Sahara with him. Then in Marrakech, despite not meeting with Taher very much (my original CSurfer there), we ended up finding Marouane even more hospitable and nice- guess you can´t go wrong with meeting the son and family of the Moroccan Tourism Govt. Representative jeje Shokran a todos! Thanks for such a great time :)