The Real Morocco (Day 2)

The Real Morocco (Day 2)

So I am also a bad journal writer because I forgot to put this day in my journal. But anywho the next day after a “wonderful” night at Chez Ali, we woke up and had an interesting Moroccan Breakfast and headed to the High Atlas Mountains. So they are call them High Atlas Mountains, but we were not that high at all.

After a pit stop where we got a view of the hydroelectric dam, we put our luggage on the mules and started our trek. Within 5 minutes we hit our first major obstacle.  We were in the desert part of the region and there was this river flowing and there was no way to get around. Some girls jumped on the mules and others like me got on a small ledge and jumped across. It was kinda scary, and yes I did fall and a month later I still have the scraps on my fingers, but it is part of the adventure.

Lunch was really cool, we had it in an Olive Grove. We laid out mats and some cushions down and had salad, rice, fish, tea and something else. We continued our trek walking through some Berber villages seeing some sheep and some graves of dead people along the way.

We eventually got to the gite (basically a larger Berber house meant to accommodate tourist like us). There was one shower and a 5-person Moroccan shower steam room.  We went for the 5-person Moroccan shower steam room and it was an interesting experience. It is a great way to conserve water because there is cold running water that comes out of a faucet and water in a kettle burned by a fire. You get some hot water in a bucket and put cold water in it until it is at a good temperature then you dump it on you or another person in the room. If you want steam you put cold water into the bucket and then pour the cold water into the hot kettle.  We were in there for about 25 minutes and used the equivalent of a one-minute shower for each of us.  I wouldn’t want to do this everyday, but hey when in Morocco, do what the Moroccans do.  Now that I think about it, there is no way I could live like a Moroccan, but I am glad I had that experience.

We then had a nice dinner and the electricity went out so we spent the rest of the night in darkness. We went to sleep on these pads with a blanket and a pillow. I was kind of disgusted so I put a paper towel on the pillow so my face would not be in contact with the pillow. I doubt that did anything, but it made me feel a lot better.