The Craziness We Call Morocco

Morocco Day 1
I did not wake up to see us pull up into the port, which was very beautiful. (NOT) Casablanca has a very commercial/industrial port so we were in the middle of the cranes and gadgets and stuff.  I ate breakfast then packed my backpack for my 4 day High Atlas Mountain trek. My stuff barely fit into my backpack even with the air-tight space saver bags and stuff. I had literally just zipped up my bag when my trip’s group was called up to leave the ship first. My trip was all girls and 2 other guys.  One would think this would be heaven on earth but it really wasn’t, especially when you have no electricity or running water. (but that’s not until later.

So with our lunch in our hands we got off the ship to get a bus to catch the train.  We had to kinda hide our lunch because it was Ramadan and 98% of Moroccans/Muslims do not put anything past their lips including water and gum when the sun is out. I’ll just say Allah bless them.  Once we got on the train, which arrived 20 minutes late, we sat in our first class seats. It was air-conditioned, but that’s about it, the second-class Spain trains were much much better.  Once on-board, we could not eat our lunch because there was a non-SASer in our cabin, so we had to squeeze in another cabin to eat only in the present of SASers to make sure we do not disrespect the people practicing Ramadan.

The train ride took 4 hours (the train was moving hella slow). We got off at the Marrakech Train Station, which was beautiful, complete with a McDonalds and KFC. We took a crazy taxi ride to our hotel 5 minutes away. Our hotel was nice, with a nice view of the pool.

We exchanged some money and I got me some Moroccan dirham (their currency) and got two other people and went to the souks. Now, I thought my last taxi ride was crazy, but this time is another story so I sit down in the front seat, try to put my seatbelt on, but the driver signal to me that it doesn’t work. I was OK, this is interesting. I don’t know how we got there alive, but I have some video of it on my camera. Next task was getting out of the car because my side went out to the street. Which, is a problem, because first rule of Moroccan driving is keep moving forward until you literally have some object in your way preventing you from going further. There is no regard to lines or lights or anything. So after I opened the door to signal little motorcycles that you can’t pass by so close to the cab because I want to get out, I got out of the car and paid the cab driver 15 dirham, which is like $2-3.

Next task was to cross the street. My New Yorker side came out (believe me I didn’t know I had this side) and after standing at the curb for about 30 seconds, I said that’s it, I watched how other Moroccans crossed the street and you just have to start walking and the traffic will find its way around you. So after stopping traffic to let us 8 or so SASers cross the street, we then had to deal with the onslot of these dudes on horse-drawn carriage who wanted to give us a ride around the souks. I said no thank you so many times it was not even funny and I had to make my way through the horse shit at the same time.

If you have not figured out yet, I am experiencing sensory overload and I have not even bought anything yet.  I finally get to the middle of the huge plaza and I can take a breath and look around.

The souks were amazing, there was a huge rainstorm while we were there and we were soaking wet. But I bought some Gucci collogne for $10 and I was able to barter a Moroccan soccer jersey for my brother from 300 D’s to 90 D’s. Those bartering skills were a far cry from my getting golf clubs for $35 at the San Jose Flea Market when the asking price was $40. I would say everything I bought but then that would take the fun out of Kwanzaa/Christmas.

A few highlights of the souks was almost going into a mosque while they were preying, breaking the fast with some of the store keepers, sipping on mint tea and eating some pastries while it was pouring outside, and warding off people who wanted me to spend ALL of my money.  And o ya, I almost forgot, when we were getting a cab to go back to the hotel to change for a fantasia horse show and dinner, we walked up to the street where we saw some cabs. One guy comes up and says 30 dirham, for the three of us, me being as cheap as all get out said thanks but no thanks. Then another taxi driver overhead this and said 25 dirham, and that brought on war. Those two drivers started yelling at each other then 8 others came over and they were all yelling and hitting each other. And I was quite honored that people were fighting over who would want to drive us the few miles back to the hotel. I calmly said, “Excuse me, we are still standing here, and would like to go back to the hotel, we would like to go with the cheapest and most safe driver.” There is no such thing as safe in Morocco, so we went with the 25 dirham person.

(sorry for another long blog, I am a horrible blogger, hey but at least it is now dark outside which means September 10th is almost over, and yes I am almost a month behind, but I have kept a journal so I still remember everything that has happened)

After getting to the hotel we reconvened with the whole group (20 of us) and went to Chez Ali, the biggest touristy thing I have ever seen. It was really depressing, all of the dancers were depressed and things way over done. It was the Moroccan version of Disneyland without the smiling faces and the rides, but it did have a semi-interesting show and pretty good food. After almost getting in a bus accident we made it safely back to our hotel being able to sleep like a baby, after a wonderfully long day.