Saturday August 11 - back to the usa...

It is barely Saturday when the alarm goes off at 3am. I am awake for some reason and we manage to finish packing, shower, have a bit of breakfast (we feel sorry for the poor man who had to bring it to the room at 330am). Our ride is prompt at 415am, and it is a short trip to the airport. As Mark predicted the airport is pretty shut down – all of the parking lots are closed off and so the driver has to leave us at the street. By some miracle he pulls out a luggage cart – thank goodness considering what our bags weigh. We make it over to the door only to be told we need to go to Terminal One. Pleased to have one more chance for an Urban Trek we walk back through the empty parking lot, down a long road of construction and around to the doorway for Terminal One. This is where the action is – lots of people pushing and maneuvering to get into the best position in line. As soon as it settles another counter opens and everyone in the back of the line charges to be first in the new line. The lines never moves and it just takes a long time to finally check in. We finally make it to the gate (where we can’t buy water because they won’t take USD and we have no dirhams left), then onto the plane and fast asleep in our seats.

We are currently sitting in the beloved Casablanca Airport where we have a 4 hour layover…. Guess its time for some very expensive chips...

Friday August 10 – flying solo

Steven and Sam presumably made it off at 4am; Frank, Gladys and Mallory leave for Spain at 11 so we have breakfast together (I am afraid to eat anything still) After we say goodbye and Frank has refilled my Imodium stash, Mark takes Mira, Leo and I off on an Urban Trek – we walk from the hotel to the medina to finish our shopping. Crossing the street is an interesting experience – it seems the cars and mopeds actually speed up as they approach us in the middle of the road making it a real challenge to get across. But we do, several times. First stop is the rug shop, then deeper into the souk back where we were yesterday, to finish what we started… I think about an hour is all one can take before feeling confused here! Our cab ride back – just my family of 3 since it is all a cab can hold, and Mark is walking back to his house – is an experience in itself. Mark carefully instructs us to not pay the driver anything unless he turns the timer on, and it should cost about 10 dirham. The driver refuses to turn his timer on, if fact signals to us to get out (presumably if we don’t like it) and says he wants 20 dirham for the ride. In the end I tell him to drive on; we get to the hotel and pay him 15 dirham which is all I have. I expected him to have a fit but he shrugged and drove away. Hm.

The rest of the day – hot, sunny, lunch by the pool and then a scuffle over lounge chairs with a French couple and the pool boy. After showers Mira and I go for henna tattoos, then we meet with Mark for a farewell beer. Dinner is room service! And bed is early.

Thursday August 9 – into Marrakech

Today: Overslept, had been up all night anyways as the Imodium seems to wear off about 2am. It is grey and raining; Everyone says they have never seen a rainy day in August. We have a second guide today, a Moroccan woman named Naim who speaks little English, but is very pleasant and willing to learn new words. After a ride into the medina – the old city – we begin our walk. We visit the Bahia Palace, and the burial place of kings. We stop by the Rrad – a bed and breakfast – that Naim manages for a French couple and get to see a more traditional kind of accommodation while enjoying a cup of mint tea in a dry place! We visit a community oven where families who don’t have one bring their bread for baking. Then on to the Medersa, a traditional Islam boarding school for boys, no longer used. The rooms are very small, but slept 4 in each. The tile work is beautiful in all of these places, and the doors and ceilings are magnificent cedar creations.

Lunch is Italian food – pizza even! – but I am still afraid to eat. The afternoon we explore the souks – long narrow dark alleys full of every kind of craft and item you could dream of. This is where a second guide really comes in handy because one wrong turn and we would probably never find out way back! In one spot there is a heap of twisted metal – the iron workers nest – next to a lovely arranged shop of metal lanterns. In the leather souk the smell is pretty bad; in the jewelry souk there is both junky stuff and beautiful silver. It is not always easy to tell the difference and the sincerity with which the sellers promise it is the very real thing at the very best price is astounding. A familiar chant: A small shop with a small price. There are shoes and bags and clothing and housewares and it is so overwhelming! It is easy to lose track of what you want and just become enveloped in all the possibilities. We visit a ‘pharmacy’ of spices, and a shop full of beautiful handmade djellabahs (but no one buys one!). We finally make it out to the big square where taxis zip through aimlessly and snake charmers draw crowds with their pythons and vipers. There are also monkeys, and one man with a table full of human teeth and a few examples of the dentures he could make for you. You can buy food or fresh squeezed orange juice. Sometimes there are acrobats but we don’t see any. We wind our way through and back to the van for the ride to the hotel, tired from a long and fascinating day.

A nice hotel dinner after which the adults retire, and the kids gather for a last evening’s hanging out. I hear that it didn’t break up until after 11 – and Sam had to be up at 3!

Wednesday August 8 -return to Marrakech

A miscellaneous photo....

It is probably not a good sign that I have caught on to my day / date error – now I am right on track, knowing today is Wednesday, August 8. My scrapes are healing (though something is still oozing from beneath a toe nail…) and the bright red burn on the back of my neck has now peeled off. I had to buy a new shirt in order to not wear the same thing for the zillionth time. My bag is heavier and most of it is dirty laundry (though there are some rocks too). Vacation must be winding down.

This morning we began the drive back to Marrakech, sad to say good bye to Essaouria. The ride is a combination of gazing out on other worldly landscape, and dozing off to dreamland. We make a couple of stops along the way – one a beautiful vista of Essaouira for a proper goodbye, another at a simple rest stop with clean bathrooms and cold coke (but no change – you ALWAYS need to have exact change here!). After lunch (yet another meal) we visit the Majorelle Gardens created by a 20th century French painter of the same name who came to Morocco to cure his asthma and fell in love with the place. Majorelle was the first artist to create posters to promote tourism in Morocco! The gardens were restored and renovated in the 80’s by Yves Saint Laurent who owns the property today (I think…). The gardens are beautiful but mostly full of imported plants – bamboo forests abound. The buildings are a bright deep blue, a brilliant contrast to the red required by city ordinance for all buildings in Marrakech.

Then the afternoon is whiled away by the pool, very wonderful to sit and read and doze.

Tonight is our farewell dinner – The Friedlanders have to leave at 430am to catch their plane on Friday, so we are leaving Thursday evening for a more sedate event. We drive to the medina, the old city and walk down a dark narrow alley to a renovated home, a palace if I had to name it – a gorgeous courtyard and stairs up to a terrace with tables and wonderful lighting – then up again to the rooftop where we drink the local cocktail – something with crème de menthe and a Moroccan alcohol that tastes of anise (I’m sure the equivalent to Rake and Ouzo but sorry I can’t remember the name) and some kind of juice – it was pretty interesting!! There was a musician who Mark has known for years – oh, Mark knows everyone - a man named Brahim who plays a hajouj, a four stringed instrument. With him was a man playing indescribable percussion. They played fantastic jazz! Brahim is on a Led Zeppelin album and has been around for awhile – and now he is with us on this cool beautiful night for our farewell dinner.

At the end of the set we go down a flight to the dining area and lots and lots of little tapas style dishes come out as the first course. Vegetables and little meat turnovers and pickled things and liver and even brains (Leo ate some) and olives and most everything yummy. This is when we went around the table and each person said what their favorite and least favorite part of the adventure was. Almost everyone loved the camp the best (or finally arriving there!) – the least favorite ranged from the 30 minutes prior to getting to camp to the hike up the hill to the Kasbah which was longer than anticipated. It is always interesting to hear where we struggled and where we rejoiced.

Next course – Pigeon in crepes, received with a slightly more solemn approach but almost everyone ate it! Then a lamb tajine and couscous with roasted vegetables, so delicious. Moroccan wine was being poured freely and was quite tasty. Dessert was a variety of cookies and mint tea – and then the belly dancer came out. She was quite entertaining – at the end of her performance Leo said “uh, can I change what my favorite part of the trip was?” which made everyone laugh.

This was a very good day, and a terrific farewell dinner – except I can see the sad places where we think about saying good bye. Everyone is talking about where we might go next summer, or how we might go hike the Smokies with Steven and Sam, or how Mallory will be in Boston to visit colleges… all the ways the goodbye can be shortened.

This was a very good day.

Monday Aug 6 – Essaouira

Note my shirt for which I must apologize... Leo found it in his bag and doesn't know where it came form. Anyone claim it?

This Sofitel by far has the best beds of any we’ve slept in (we all agree). Each one is an oversized twin but not quite a double and made up with a luxurious duvet, thick but light and with a crisp white cover. The staff is unendingly friendly and always agreeable even if they don’t have a clue what you’re saying, and the pool is not too cold – though the wind this afternoon could have knocked your socks off. In hopes of blocking ourselves off from the wind we moved from the pool area up a flight of stairs to the upper deck which has a low wall around it making it more protected, and hammocks as well as lounge chairs for curling up in. I can feel my muscles getting softer by the minute.

Wandering through town this morning in search of Thuia wood trinkets was a blast but I would have been helplessly lost had others not had some better sense of direction. Even though Mark says the city is laid out in a grid I could not at all follow where we were in relation to anything else. But we found all of the places we wanted to revisit from yesterday and found some new good spots too. There were lots of women offering henna tattoos, but we never seemed ready to stop and sit for one. Excellent people watching - especially as it got to be lunch time there were thousands of people milling about. Surprisingly, Mark – who is enjoying a day off – found us in the masses before drifting off to find himself some food.

Dinner last night was in an open air oceanside restaurant where most of us ate the catch of the day – something Mark called ‘Saint Pierre’ and seemed surprised we didn’t know it. Tonight we eat at the hotel and then – alas – pack up to leave in the morning for Marrakech.

Village visit

A late start today – we do not head out until 10 which gives everyone the opportunity to sleep in the a/c until we wake naturally, and lounge at the outdoor breakfast where the bees are drawn to the honey soaked pancakes delivered to the table. Last night there was a wedding going on at a neighboring hotel and the festivities –including loud cheering and banging of drums – went on until 3am. Hopefully this is the last, and not the first, of the 3 days a Moroccan wedding takes.

So we begin our walk into the village where we meet Charif, our local guide. He walks us around the village through narrow paths of olive trees and blooming oleander bushes, with the hot buzz of cicadas all around us. There are chickens and children and women and even a dog or two. These homes are adobe which only lasts about 100 years so carbon dating does not work here, but it is known this area has been populated for as long as 2,000 years. We see a very old olive press, and a much newer French game warden’s station – boar, hare, and large horned sheep are all hunted in these mountains. We are invited into a family’s home – Fatima, dressed in 3 layers of sweater and a long skirt graciously tours us through her home – 3 rooms all tidy and spotlessly clean. They have made fresh bread and mint tea for us so we settle into a sitting room. There is a choice of fantasic homemade honey or olive oil for dipping the bread. I am so hot I am soaked through my clothes, and I do not know how Fatima dresses the way she does. Mark says they wear more than we do in the summer, and less than we do in the winter. There are 6 family members living here, and two more sleeping rooms we did not look into.

After lunch at an open air restaurant, we head back to La Rosaraie for the pool and some reading. Our kids make friends with a family of kids from London and play for hours in the pool while we adults read and nap and occasionally take a dip ourselves. No one takes advantage of the spa, but this feels like such a restful, easily paced day we are all very happy. Our dinner is in the garden again. We pull out the map and mark where we trekked, about half an inch. Clearly we need a better map. Mark says it was about 30 miles, I am quite certain he is wrong and it just feels a shame to be leaving this great place!

Sat August 4 - On to Ourigane

This morning we pack up and check out of the Kasbah. Turns out everything in the minibar was included in the price of the room – quite a unique system (though no alcohol is available here; it is all coke and other various sodas and water). If this were New York they might ask if you would like a cab; At the Kasbah when you are ready to leave they ask if you would like a mule to help get your luggage down the hill. We have 3 to carry the bags for the 9 of us. At the bottom of the hill we board a van that takes us to the trail head. It is hot, so hot today I think it must be the highest temperature we’ve had – but in the end I think it’s just humidity added to the mix. Anyway we begin the climb – another one of Marks ‘gentle rises’ that leaves us panting and on the verge of heat stroke (OK I’m exaggerating slightly). Through the narrow pathways of a village there are various doorways and occasional women and children to say bonjour to. It’s very fun when there are kids who giggle helplessly when you smile or wave at them. Sometimes if they think you’re about to snap a picture they shriek and run. Photos are still a big no no.

Finally the path levels out and I can begin to catch my breath – it is distressing to not have this get any easier after all these days of trekking (hasn’t it been months now??). When we reach a large flat field of thyme and juniper trees (and some shade!) we stop for lunch. When we break like this we all tend to remove our shoes and socks – to let everything including our feet to dry out – and this is no exception. I prop my shoes behind me for a pillow and lie down, not caring at all about all the goat droppings all over the place. It feels fantastic to be in the shade and lying down!! Oh the small pleasures in life. Lunch is great as usual (have I mentioned the Pringles which are ever present and a favorite even though we all say we never eat them at home). As we are eating sure enough the herd of goats shows up with a couple of boys behind. I can never get enough of watching the goats. The rest in the shade gives us new strength – then the realization that it is all downhill from here is even better. Another two hours of scrabbling over rocks and dusty mule trails and we come to a salt mine where small pools are evaporating leaving the salt behind. Then another level 30 minutes to the road where Mark calls for the van to come pick us up. We are pretty darned tired and sweaty (though the cloud cover has saved us this afternoon for the most part). My shoes, once mossy green are now a Moroccan red from the mountain dirt. When we pile into the van Lasen and Saaid say they are unexpectedly leaving us here, and there is a sudden goodbye. They have been a great addition to our experience, and Mira gives Saaid her plastic bracelet with the saints on it to go with his Jesus hat.

The van delivers us about 10 minutes later to our hotel with its ‘bucolic rose gardens’ which it certainly has – along with tennis courts, pools, horseback riding, and spa. We’re divided between napping in our air conditioned rooms and the pool – two things that make us feel we have certainly reentered civilization – then later all meet up for dinner. The meal is served out in a garden of roses with a small fountain, a low table with beautifully embroidered tablecloth and napkins, and two firm cushions each for us to sit on. Even with our achy muscles having a hard time getting into position it’s a magical setting.After salads and tajines and orange mousse for dessert (YUM) we all head straight to bed.