10 years of my life or Spring Break the rest

...On to Ouarzazate we went!

The bus ride from Merzouga in the Sahara desert to Ouarzizate lasted about 7 hours if I remember correctly. We went through an amazing transformation of landscape. From dry desert sand dunes to green luscious valleys, to cold barren flats with huge snow covered mountains jutting up from behind. We struck up a conversation with a Czech boy, or should I say he struck up a conversation with us. He turned out to be an interesting guy who had lived in Alaska for 4 months as a fisherman and India for 2, we even have an invite to his place in Prague next time we're in the neighborhood. We arrive in Ouarzazate at around 4:30 and went straight to our hotel. We spent the evening walking around the small city center.

We stumbled upon a rural women's art gallery of sorts. There was everything from soap and oils, jewelry and carpets, and pottery and at great prices. We each bought something. We settled into a restaurant near our hotel for dinner and made instant friends with the waiter. He spoke barely any English so we taught him some and he taught us some Berber. Then he brought us free tea and cookies after dinner. He even walked us to our hotel after and invited us back for breakfast on him.

The next morning we learned that there was no hot water for the shower, which shouldn't have been a surprise on account of we were paying 50 dirhams the equivalent of $6 a night. Alas we would have to go one more day with sand infested hair. Our sandy selves packed up and headed to our new friends restaurant for breakfast. We enjoyed a free breakfast with our friend while looking at some pictures of his village which really were his facebook profile pictures which started to get weird when they turned into google image photos of "love" written in the sand and flower petals (romantic much?). Soon it was time for us to leave and Simo, our new friend offered to walk us to the bus station since we didn't even know the way. He mentioned something along the walk about tourist police and to say he was our friend but we payed little attention. Before we knew it we were at the bus station saying our goodbyes when two huge thug looking men approach our friend and start man handling him. He quickly gets out his ID while we stand there dumbfounded and Robin manages to tell them that he is our friend simply helping us but they basically ignore us. Long story short he was taken away to a building across the street and we were of course traumatized. Eventually Robin and I decide to intervene somehow and head to the "police" building. At that moment the two "cops" come out with Simo, get in a car, and drive away. We are all in complete shock, feeling traumatized, and quite guilty. Thus the bus ride to Agadir began this way.

(Sidenote: We have since contacted Simo and he is fine. He was simply taken back to his restaurant and given a warning. It turns out someone at the restaurant next door reported him. Competitive much?)

We arrived in Agadir after dark, got a taxi and checked into our hotel. We got some quick dinner and settled in to our hotel room. Hot showers and an english movie channel and we were in heaven.

Goodbye sand infested hair. Alas I awoke the next morning to a sandy pillow. It seems sometimes I forget that I have 3 times the amount of hair as a normal human thus it holds 3 times as much sand and takes 3 times as long to clean. After breakfast we walked to the beach and were quite surprised to find a resort laden and scanty clad leathery European covered beachfront. Everything that Morocco is not in one beach area. However at this point in our vacation and time in Morocco this is just what we needed. We hurried back to the hotel, stopping at a bookstore and fantastic buy anything store called Unipurix on the way. I then left the hotel in just a dress, no leggings! This way not sound like a big deal to you but for me, in Morocco, as a girl and a foreigner, this is a big deal. It felt strange, I sort of freaked out, then we got to the beach and I felt normal.

We spent the rest of the day sunbathing on beach lounge chairs for 20 dirhams all day. We read, we slept, we turned like sundials with the changing angle of the sun (optimal sun exposure you know?).

We took a leisurely walk down the beach at 4 and basked in the life where that was our most important appointment. That night we made an unsuccessful attempt to got to the piano bar and various other clubs but all were either deserted or too creepy to enter. We settled for the english movie channel showing another of the most terrible english movie ever made. Friday nearing the end of our Spring break saga we hit the beach early and spent the entire day baking. We payed the price after with red painful bodies. The day was beautiful, peaceful, and relaxing, just what the doctor ordered. After our daily walk along the beach we got heaping bowls of ice cream and watched the sun set over the water.

That night was the perfect culmination of our whirlwind, 10 years of my life, week. We ventured to the tourist restaurants along the ocean walkway and found one that was looked active and fun with a french lady singing.

The next three hours were a blur of insanity. There was a drunk crazy french man who was laughing and dancing and trying incessantly to kiss an Australian lady in front of her husband. Then he got dragged away by a mean looking Moroccan guy whom we assume was an undercover bodyguard. The French lady kept singing and a troop of classical Gnawa music players came and played with her. Then a magician came up and did some crazy tricks, one of which included taking a woman bra off, somehow. Then the french man was back sitting at a table with a little Moroccan boy and his mom yelling badly spoken darija loudly. Soon he and the women who got her bra taken off were up front dancing up a storm to a new band that was playing. Another man joined them who was dancing real crazy like. Meanwhile the Moroccan waiters were dancing, singing, running around being crazy and bringing us so much food. We were then brought some free tea, as usual. To top things off as we were leaving a waiter came up to us asking us how our meal was, where we are from, etc. He said he wanted to know what something in english meant that he'd heard from some American army men. He then blurts out, "Fo shizzle my fucking nizzle". We immediately start cracking up and try to tell him that it is funny, doesn't really mean anything, but has a bad word in it. He assures us that he will not say to to women then. We left feeling reassured :)

Finally came the day to return to Rabat, home sweet home. The travels were hot and painful (sunburned bodies) and I was grateful to be back home with my family by the time we finally made it. Transition back into the real world was rough, especially once Monday came. I felt like I had been gone for 10 years of my life in that one week of amazing adventures. Even though I wrote this super long blog there is no way to ever describe my Spring break 2011 to anyone, it was too zween!