As we were walking the people were going to the mosque because it was time for prayer. The women go in a different way then the men. Anyways, what I wanted to write was that as we were walking a man on the corner by the mosque flashed us. He opened up his coat and I saw briefly that he was exposing himself. I don't know if he had pants on or not. It certainly gave me the creeps. We kept walking, but unfortunately, we were going to have to walk by that way. Luckily, he was not there.
Laurie and I sat in a small cafe. She had tea and I didn't have anything. We wrote over notes while sitting there. After tea it was late enough for the food places to be open so we went and got the same thing as yesterday.
November 19, 2003
I woke up this morning with buyer's regret. If I was in the US, I could return everything I just bought. I tell you those salemen were very smooth. The ceramic place didn't pressure, but the rug place did. Oh well, there isn't anything I can do about it now.
Now I have to go to the post office and mail the ceramic items home which will by quite a bit. Next time, I hope I am a little smarter. I guess it's because it's Christmas time.
The rest of the day we just traveled by train to Marrakech. The train left at 11:00 a.m. and we didn't arrive until 7:00 p.m. It was a long ride and very crowded. We can't use the Eurail here so we are purchasing 2nd class tickets. I also didn't have anything good to read so it was boring, hot, and long. We had people in our compartment most of the time. About 5:30 a man came by selling food. The men in our compartment bought food. After they bought it they kept looking at their watch because they aren't suppose to eat until a certain time because of Ramadan. Laurie and I started eating before, I felt a little guilty.
We finally got to Marrakech. Right away we felt more comfortable being here. We walked to the hotel and got a room.
Afterwards a woman who signed us in told us about a 4 day trip out to the desert. It sounded exciting and we signed up. At first there were only 4 of us and then another couple came. That was good because it made the price cheaper. The first people were two French girls from Paris and the other was a couple from New Zealand. We are leaving at 7:00 a.m. It sounds exciting and I am looking forward to it. It certainly will be different.
After we settled all of that and found some used books at the hotel we had dinner. It was late by the time we got back to the room. We still had to sort our stuff because we were leaving most of our stuff there.
November 20, 2003
This morning at 5:00 I could hear a loud speaker outside. Apparently it was calling people to prayer. At 5:30 they had the mosque prayer over the loud speaker. I think it was coming from nearby.
Laurie and I got up at 5:30. I woke up our next door neighbor Callan and Angela. They were the couple from New Zealand that were going on the trip. Once we were ready, Laurie and I went downstairs for breakfast. We had heard that they serve breakfast from 5 a.m. on. When we went down all the lights were off and there wasn't any one around. We found some lights and saw that food was set out, so we helped oursleves.
We were ready for 7:00, we just had to wake the guy sleeping on the couch. We wanted to put our stuff in storage.
We were all at the agency ready to go. Our guide was Abraham and we were going in a Land Rover. So we set off.
It wasn't long before we could see the mountains with the tops covered with snow. It was beautiful. This is the High Atlas Mountain range. We had the mountains in the distance and the plains in front of us. Some areas looked like the Grand Canyon area with the colors.
We made some stops at a few roadside shops to use the bathrooms. They were all selling pottery and onyx and other items.
We went by areas where they filmed movies like "The Mummy", "Lawrence of Arabia", and "Black Hawk Down".
We then stopped. We went through an old casbar which is like a large family complex. The family usually shares the dwelling, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, and the rest.
We then went for lunch. I had a delicious meat cooked on a skewer over the grill and then a bowl of vegetables in a stew like sauce and rice. This is called tajine. They also serve Berber bread. Berber bread is made by the Berber people who are a Moroccan race. Morocco is also made of Arabs. They are both Muslim.
We got back in the car and continued driving until it was time for our camel ride to our tent out in the plains. It was about 5:15 when we started riding. We were to go for about 2 hours. We had to stop because our guide had to stop and pray.
It got dark while we were riding and the ride was very uncomfortable. I don't know how the guides know where to go. It was dark and they didn't use head lamps. I was wondering if they really knew where we were going. We could see lights but they never seemed to get any closer. I almost asked if I could get off the camel and walk.
We finally arrived and they ushered us into the tent and served us tea. The stars were so brilliant and the temperature was comfortable.
