We woke up at 7:30 in the morning to get ready for our big excursion of the day: ATV'ing! We further angered our three roommates (quickly becoming a theme of the trip) by getting up so early and having to fuss around, but we figure it's part of the silent contract you agree to when you book a 10 person room in a youth hostel. We had some delicious moroccan pancakes with jam for breakfast and fresh-squeezed orange juice, this country's breakfast drink of choice.
We arrived at the van in the square a couple minutes later than our 8:45 pick-up, but it was fine. We drove around the medina for like 15 minutes, picking up other people, and then 20 minutes outside the city to where it instantly becomes rural and very arid. The ground isn't nearly as fertile in Marrakesh as it is around Fes.
The group for our excursion was Joe, Tash, Meredith, and I. We were part of a larger group that had about another 10 - 12 people in it, but we didn't mind. When we got to the place, we quickly paid and got suited up in attractive green body suits and mounted our ATV's. The ATV'ing part lasted about 3 hours. We got to go so fast and each had our own so it was pretty fun. We went like 40 km that morning. We drove through an oasis or two, some berber villages, and even up a big hill to look out over the countryside. It was gorgeous and a little breezy so we never got too hot. It had rained a lot the night before so it was muddy, which made it even more fun! The highlight of the morning was Tash fell off her ATV at halfway through the morning and later mistakenly retold the story as she had "wiped shit" ("wiped out" combined with "ate shit" haha). We also stopped in a berber village on the way back to the base camp to drink tea and relax for a couple minutes. It was a really fun morning and we got lots of good pictures in a goofy jump suits.
We got back at like 1:30 and walked around the main square, Jma el Fna square. Lots of street entertainers and food stalls were open and there were at least a couple thousand people in the square. Tash and I got handed some monkeys against our will and took some silly pictures with them. We got lunch at a cafe nearby and then went home to nap and recover.
After napping and showering, Tash and I walked around the medina some and met up with Ariel, Marissa, and Elle, who had spent part of the afternoon hanging out at a children's shelter and practicing their Arabic with the kids. We walked around the medina and square and I bought a Moroccan soccer jersey. Didn't do the best job haggling, but getting more experience. I practiced the walk-away technique, and it's definitely a solid go-to move.
For dinner, we went to a vegetarian restaurant called the Earth Cafe. It was decent, but some people had some really crappy food. I enjoyed mine though and have decided when I come home, I want to start eating peppers more often. There are some great vegetables out there. At the end of dinner, the power went out! We started freaking out in the small room we were in about how we would never get home, how things were worse than ever, how we were going to be accosted by strange men, but none of that happened. Instead, after waiting 15 minutes and not getting any power back, we paid and left. It turned out, one block away, they still had power! It was just like 6 or 7 blocks without power, so we were actually fine the whole time.
At 10, we decided we wanted to see the famous Marrakesh night life so we walked 20 minutes to Hotel El Saadi, a luxurious resort that looks like a 5 star rainforest that had been transplanted to the dessert. I had seen an ad for a club there called Teatro in the inflight magazine, so that's why we chose it. We didn't have our passports though, so we had to go home to get them and come back. It turned out, it didn't open till 12 anyways, so we had time to kill. We had to pay a 300 dh cover (like $35) but that included your first drink too.
The club was an eye-opening experience. Short dresses, high heels, and liters of Grey Goose were the norm, the complete opposite of our Moroccan experience thus far. There also were many more guys than girls in the club. The club was multi-storied. There was a ground floor in the middle where the bar was and lots of tables were. Then there was a second floor on the left side with the dj and dance floor. On the opposite side, there was a huge balcony with tables. Above the dance floor was another balcony with tables that served as the VIP area. Because Joe and I were with the five girls, we got into the VIP area with no problems, but he ended up being asked to leave after 5 minutes, presumably because the thought he was a Moroccan teen! We had a lot of fun all dancing together and definitely ran the dance floor, dancing on tables and bleachers and showing Moroccans how Americans break it down. Drinks were very expensive (100 dh each), so we didn't drink that much.
Despite the late hour, both groups walked home and had no trouble on the walk. We disturbed our roommates again, coming back in two waves, but we needed to sleep before our canyoning adventure the next morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment