Friday, May 11, 2012

Day 47: High Atlas Hijinks


Day 5 of our 9-day trip
Plan: Dades Valley to Ait Benhaddou to Marrakesh

We left the Dades Valley at 10 because today's drive is even longer than yesterday's. We stopped on the way at a big rock for a little bit to take some scenic overlook pictures and stretch our legs. We drove through the arid countryside with the Anti-Atlas mountains on our left and the High Atlas on our right. We drove through the city of Ouarzazate on the way where there are a ton of major movie studios. 

For lunch, we stopped in Ait Benhaddou, an ancient Moroccan city that is largely intact and the shooting location for tons of American movies. We saw a list of probably 50 movies that had been filmed in Ait Benhaddou such as Gladiator, the Prince of Persia, Young Indiana Jones, and The Mummy. It's an ancient ksar, or fortified city, on hill on the banks of a dried-up river. Meredith, Elle, Marissa, Ron, Ariel, and I trekked up to the top of the city and took some pictures. You could see for miles from the top. I bought a big navy rug because this is the best region to buy rugs in Morocco. I bargained it down from 1200 to 500 and it should look good in my dorm room or house someday.

We drove for another 4 hours after lunch but it was the hardest part of the drive. We went up from the desert into the much greener High Atlas mountains. We ascended over a thousand feet on the drive and spent the whole time clutching our stomachs. It was a two lane road, mainly along the ridge line, with 180 degree switchbacks every two or three minutes. To make things worse, Moroccan trucks had no issues passing us as we drove. The drive through the mountains took over an hour and a half with no bathroom breaks because there was nowhere to pull-off. 
We got to Marrakesh just before 6. I watched episode 6 of Game of Thrones on the bus which was awesome. I also have to own up to taking a 20 minute nap on the bus which breaks my rule of not napping on the bus rides cause there's so much cool stuff to see.

For dinner, we went back to stall 117 and I had some delicious kabobs. Afterwards, we hung out at the hotel. Elle, Marissa, and I played kings on the roof of the hostel. We were planning on going out to club Silver again like we did last time, but we didn't think it was a good idea to walk all the way to the nice clubs by the time we were done playing kings. Instead, we hung out with everyone else for a little bit and fell asleep by 1:30. 



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