Morocco?Where the Definition of ?Family Car? is Squeezing Three People onto a Moped

We did it.  Our last port has come and gone in what seemed like a flash.  But before we all get weapy eyed that John and Mal are coming home I’ll give you the Moroccan Run Down.

We arrived in port on Saturday the 7th and headed off for a city orientation tour.  We drove around the Casablanca area and got out at a fresh market that had fruit/veggies, fresh bread, oil, fish, and, of course, meat!  One animal skinned and strung up by its hind legs was smaller than the rest…and it turned out to be cat (this represents my favorite part of the summer).  Everyone eeked and screamed while Mal and I took pictures and high fived at the thought of one less cat in the world (have I mentioned my feelings on cats?).  Then we stopped at the Palace where the King stays when he is in Casablanca (he usually lives in Rabat, the capital).  Back on the bus…next stop was the Hassan II Mosque.  (if you’d like you can google it)  This is the 3rd largest mosque in the world (behind two in Mecca and Medina) but has the tallest minaret (tall belltower-lookin-thing) at some 250+ ft high.  The mosque was finished in 2004 and was estimated at some $800 Million dollars (that’s 8 zeros and 2 commas if you’re counting) and was financed ENTIRELY by donations from Muslims all over the world.  It took 30,000 workers seven years and is complete with gold plated marble, earthquake prevention designs, heated floors, a hammam (bathing area) in the basement and, like many football stadiums, a retractable roof.  It can hold 25,000 people (given 1 square meter each) in side and another 80,000 on the grounds outside (take that Jerry Jones!)  But now that you have basically taken the tour…we’ll move on.  We got back in the bus and followed the coastline and saw the beaches, which were jam packed with people.  Then we stopped at the Souk for everyone to make their first pass at souvenirs and headed back to the ship.  Mal and I joined our other friends and walked to Rick’s Café, a replica of the restaurant in the movie Casablanca.  As far as I could tell, it was really authentic (and no, I’ve never seen the movie).

The next day, Mal and I decided to take a 3-hour train ride to Marrakesh, which is a popular area south of Casablanca.  At this point we realized we DEFINITELY are in Africa…local temperature: 45 degrees Celsius.  We did the conversion…that’s a whopping 115 degrees Fahrenheit.  (our bodies quickly turned into a leaky faucet…it was nasty)  So we grabbed a cab to the Junaa El-Fra which is a HUGE Souk (basically a Moroccan Bazaar) with a large open space for henna artists, guys with monkeys, and snake charmers (yaaaaaaay…..nooooooooo!!!!).  It was weird.  So we walked around a bit and fought off the ‘tempting’ offers to hold the snakes.  Oh Mal quickly learned to walk with her arms crossed cause this guy came up, grabbed her arm, and plopped a monkey right on her!  It was funny….she’s still scrubbing the monkey butt off her forearm.  Eventually, we decided to really get into the Souk so we walked around for a couple hours and basically got lost.  We stopped for lunch at this French-lookin café for some ‘authentic’ pizza (ha!).  Then we asked every storekeeper how to weave our way back to the center square.  We also picked up some treasures along the way…after bartering of course.  After that we were basically hosed so we decided to take the train back (hottest and longest 3 hours of my life!!!  You know its bad when the Moroccan natives think it’s hot!) 

The next day we were so burnt out we slept in and finally got up the energy to explore Casablanca a bit.  However, once you shop the Souk in Marrakesh, nothing really compares.  But we tried our best.  We came back to the ship relatively early (but still dripping sweat) to clean up and have an evening with a Moroccan family.  SAS set us up and we drove to their house.  The whole night was awesome!  They were a wealthier family in Morocco as the dad is a lawyer and they send their triplets (boy-boy-girl at 10.5 years old) to an American International school.  Their kids were awesome and spoke great English.  Even though the dad could speak some English, he would even have them translate what he would say in French and Arabic (mainly for them to practice).  So we had an awesome traditional dinner and got to talk about a lot of different cultural things with them.  It was defiantly a highlight of the entire Voyage.

The next day we walked back into Casablanca to get rid of our last Dirhams.  We found a few more souvenirs and headed back to the ship (of course….drenched in sweat!  You get the drift??) 

And for the next 11 days we will sail back to Norfolk, VA.  We have a day off today (the 11th), then 4 days of class, then the ship-wide Global Studies final exam, then a study day, then finals day, then two days to unwind before we are HOME!!!

We’ll try to get another blog out sometime in the next 11 days…I’m sure we’ll need to vent about the cramped quarters, repetitive food, and all the memories we’ve made over 2 months of traveling the Mediterranean and North Africa!

Love always,

John and Mal