Morocco!!

Finally the day has come that I’m going to write about Morocco. And it will be in English cause maybe this way I can persuade more people to read this piece of crap blog of mine. ( Plus it was so cool everybody should be able to read it)

It started with a couple of lists. I try to do this “organizing” thing lately but I don’t get really further than these lists. 1 for what to get before going ( like how to get from the airport to…well basically anywhere), 1 to make sure I could pay my rent at the end of the month and 1 pack list.

Then… it all started! We arrived at Casablanca on the 21^st of February at 16:15. The first thing we say was this cool ass cat who was just chilling at the baggage carousel. We found out that week that the Moroccans or really love cats, or don’t know how to cut their balls off.

Anyway we planned to take a night train from Casablanca to Tanger, because everybody who had been in Morocco advised us to get the way out of Casablanca as soon as we would be able to. So we listened. We had to spent some time there though, because our train would leave at 00:45 so we wandered around the disgusting city and had our first mint tea! ( I do miss the tea, although me teeth feel less rotting)

The train was pimp.

We had our own little cabin that we shared with a Moroccan dude who told us to go to Chafchaoun if we had a chance. We arrived at 7:00 the next morning in the harbor city Tanger.

It was really awesome bedasome in de morning,because everything in the medina was still closed. It was so pretty and peacefull. We found Amar ( the pension we planned to stay at) which was a miracle and crashed for a few hours.

The city is really pretty and cool. I did have a little culture shock though, but that was the whole reason I wanted to go somewhere totally different anyway. We spent that day walking around a lot. Watched some fishers, went to the “modern” town, ate half a chicken plus fries for 3 euro(!) and ended up at the cutest little terrace on top of the city ( built on a hill) called le salon blue. It was the first place that could have been in Europe. It did my culture shock well.

 

Afterwards when we tried to get to our pension we got lost of course. Finding your way in Morocco is freakin hard. The medina’s almost never have street names and even then you end up walking in endless circles!

23-02-2011 we thought we were gonna stay another night, so we booked at a different pension across the street ( like 5 euro’s a night). But we ended up deciding to go to Chafchaoun like the dude suggested. You can’t get there by train so we took a bus ( 4 euro a person or something). Our first plan was to go a day to spain, cause we’d seen a lot of people coming from there spending a day in Morocc + BF had never been there. But after all the cheap shit we thought 75euro to spent 1 single day there was a bit too much. So at 12:00 we were in a bus to Chafchaoun.

( cute huh?! they would just be every where!)

Guess what….everything is fucking blue there! They adore the color!

Where they can reach its blue. It’s really funny and it gives the city a odd feeling. And I was very pleased with our pension cause it had a sitting toilet instead of the insane standing things I was forced to use the days before. I didn’t mind the dusty ass beds, or the dirty showers or the dirty city’s in general. I actually liked it! and found it a cool experience, but pleaaaaaaaaas let me pee on a normal toilet! I hate having to jiggle or find a window where I can throw my little piece of pee wipe paper out! The toilets there are basically a whole in the floor with a little bucket under a tap beside it. The Moroccans actually wipe their asses with their own hand! ( apparently the left one so they can eat with their right :S) I’ll walk in a sewer, camp in bushes and not shower for a few days but I’m not wiping myself with my hand. So that meant that a lot of the time I would just have to hold it up until I did find a normal toilet. Oh well

 
The city is built on one side of a mountain with a waterfall on the side of it. People were really friendly and not so pushy. We walked up to this pretty white mosque looking house that was on a hill across from the city where we had a gorgeous few. We took the goat path down. I decided I wanted a goat that week and cat and a donkey. All together on my little farm. Hahah BF wasn’t so enthusiastic about that one. We ate tagine at this terrace restaurant near our pension mostly ,cause every time we walked passed they looked very happy to see us. They made us breakfast the next morning to, where we met Job (who will reappear further along this story. Which is getting very long btw sorry!)

We walked around that night and found: people eating snailsoup (?), a hoody for me, BF got a carpet for his parents ( not really willingly) and got some history lessons from the carpet seller.

The next morning ( 24-02-2011) we departed at 9 with the crap bus to Fes. This bus would make funny noises every time the driver tried to get up a hill/mountain. In the bus we met Tina and Matias from Slovakia. We decided to get a pension with the four of us, cause we liked each other and wanted to hear each other snore to bond. We decided to find the tannery and explore the fes’ medina. I didn’t really like the city. It was too crowded even at this time a year. And the people there were way to pushy. You really had to ignore their existence to get them to shut the fuck up. We ended up walking in circles because we were trying to avoid getting a guide. People would just point you to places without asking and the moment you follow that direction, they will follow YOU! Very annoying and tiring. You pay a guide more then you pay for your meal that you actually asked for! Of course wo got lost….again. ended up eating tagine and couscous with T&M. ( I discovered I actually like couscous) and went to the pension to read and die. ( BF was reading the dice man and I finished the sequel <- not so good as the first one btw)

25-02-2011 When we woke up we found a pack of cigarettes with a joint in it. In the package they had written:

I was really cranky that day because I got so sick of people staring and calling me names. Seriously it’s not that weird for a girl to have red hair and not dress like a tent! I wanted to punch people but figured that I would never ever win that one. The blame would probably on me for being slutty, while I was wearing wide pants and a long sleeves shirt while it was freaking 30 degrees!

BF realized soon enough I needed to get the fuck out of there so we went to Meknes.The medina in Meknes is pretty boring and small. The pensions were crap. We were used to finding a pension by blinking and the only thing we found in the first two hours were riads for 40euros a night. At the end we found one just outside of the main square there which was cute. ( Hotel Nouveau) It was a weird building. The middle circle was cut out from the roof to the bottom and didn’t have a roof! And this girl lived there who spent her days rapping. It was weird to see that in a country that is still so behind.

That night we spent most of our time walking around the new part of the city and watching the street performances on the big square. It was funny to see that they had performances I’d never seen before. Every where in Europe you see the same kind of things. Here it was totally different. People were telling stories and there was this man who brought boxing cloves and would there boys to fight each other. When we stumbled upon our hotel by accident we decided to honor our Slovakian friends by smoking there last joint. I got massively hungry and BF had trouble standing= it was fun. We ended up playing cards end eating a thousand of chocolate croissants that they sold done the street.

Bellend                                      Ron

Job                                                (I won't bore you with to many ruin photo's)

26-02-2011 the next day we decided to go and see some roman ruins. That's when we met Ron. An American fellow that had been traveling through Morocco for almost 2 weeks by himself. I found him sad but also very cool. I really hope that when I get that old nothing will stop me from doing the things I love either. At the ruins we stumbled upon Job! He just appeared! It was really weird but it made us make some friends. He knew people in Meknes via couchsurfing and we spent our night hanging out with them, getting drunk ( our first drink that whole week!), smoking shisha and talked bullshit. We ended up sleeping at their couches. 

27-02-2011 we had to get our asses back to Casablanca, so we did. The hotel we stayed at was the only one I booked in advance cause I wanted to make sure we had a place to crash near the train station. ( and that we would actually leave Meknes that day)

It was not dusty! We had our own shower! Our own toilet! Internet! A TV! It was very basic but compared to all the other places it felt like 5 stars haha. That night I got pissed of cause mister “ill drink the water without getting sick’ got sick and didn’t want proper dinner while I wanted to finish this trip with a lovely meal ( + I was starving). I ended up almost puking because of a shake that was supposed to be banana but probably had been sitting there for weeks. I just ended up eating food from pizza hut. Back at the hotel Bf went to bed while I checked my e-mail, drank tea and stuff while smoking shisha with the very nice but odd owner. 

28-02-2011 After a lush breakfast we took a petite taxi to the train station. It was sad to leave. I want to go back again and go to the south of Morocco and ride a camel and do a desert trip. I want to say hi to all the people we met and made it the best! It was a good trip!