Weekend Trip: Marrakech, Morocco, Day 3

While still in California we were proposing clever titles for blog posts ("No Spain, no gain" having already been used in an email, as well as "Spain in the neck." My two personal bests). We planned that if we visited Marrakech near the holiday season, we would use... wait for it....

"Morocckin' around the Christmas Tree."

We scheduled our trip just a month too early to use that gem, but Lindsay insists that we still have to include it. And now, on to day three of our North African adventure...

After a fresh, delicious, gorgeous breakfast on the roof of the hotel (scones just like my mom's!), we got ready for the iconic Arabian experience: riding camels through the desert. A van picked us up and took us an hour's drive outside the city, along bumpy dirt roads into the hills.

The sand dunes of the Sahara are 5 hours' drive - the landscape of these hills is dry and rocky, with patches of green oasis from mountain snow run-off.

We had expected a Berber lunch in a tent - we had pictured sitting on the floor with goats, not a white tablecloth and goblets!

Beef tagine with poached pears, prunes and apricots, and couscous with lots of cinnamon and nuts

This lunch was a "grab the positive and hold on tight!!" experience -  the food was good but we were swarmed by flies, and the hot sun and drive time and down time not knowing what was happening was taking a toll on everyone's mood. Oh, and Stone had just fallen while running over the loose gravelly rocks and so he had cried hard for a few minutes and then whined for an hour or so. :)

After lunch we were directed to a path, which we walked, somewhat confused.... until we saw these camels and their leaders waiting for us! Lindsay was the first to mount. They stand up with their back legs first, pitching you forward abruptly, and then their front rises and you're up quite high above the ground.

Both girls successfully atop their camel, whom they named "Cookie Flower."

My camel stood up, grunting and bellowing in protest, before I had my leg over the other side! Sophie was literally holding onto her hat, knowing she was about to join me on this testy one.

And the trek begins! Erik had my phone (camera) in the front, with Stone in front of him, then Soph and I in the middle, and the big girls in the back.

Miles and miles and miles of brown hills, with a background of the Atlas Mountains. Our French concierge Pierre had called the landscape "breathtaking." So... is he crazy or are we? We talked about our different perspectives - Pierre had grown up in France, so it was awe-inspiring because it was new to him. We see landscape like this every time we drive between California and Utah, so to us it's nothing remarkable. It was wonderful to again be woken up to the magic of the every day - to realize that someone would find Winnemucca Nevada "breathtaking"ly beautiful gave us the option to find it that way as well!

And then look at those interesting buildings.

As we got closer we saw that it is a village - there are power lines running in, and we saw a group of kids at a school in the distance, and a woman beating her rugs with a stick.

Note the rearrangement of riders: the saddle was torquing Erik's knees terribly so he had to dismount and walk alongside. So he gave Stone to Lucy and Lindsay (reluctantly) rode alone.

After awhile we were all getting saddle-sore and weary of hanging on for dear life as the camels bumpily descended steep hills, and I was starting to hear murmus of "how much longer?" Inspired by the road-trip-evoking landscape, we began some rounds of family singing. The camel leaders' astonished smiles indicated that maybe we were the first group to ever sing "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea" while on a Moroccan Camel Trek.

Near the end, Stone followed his Daddy's example and needed to run.

I made everyone climb back up at the end so we could get a picture for the Christmas card - this is the only picture of about 10 that shows everyone's faces (our guy was a better camel trekker than photographer).

View of the place we ate lunch

Stone sharing a secret with his best friend, Sophie

A nomadic Berber woman leading her cows to water

Walking back to the car to pick us up after our excursion. We asked him to take us straight to a place we'd read about that had play grounds for kids... which ended up being inside a modern shopping mall.

We ate at the food court and both people-watched and were the objects of people-watching. We were the only tourists in the mall and attracted a lot of attention. For the first time in my life, I felt exposed and immodest in my cap-sleeves and bermuda shorts! :)

Erik took the big girls around to some stores while I took Sophie and Stone into the playground area. They quickly disappeared into the play structure area (kind of like "The Jungle" at home). I sat on a chair and just watched the people. This was one of the most fascinating parts of the trip for me - since we weren't in a tourist area, I got to see the most authentic and unguarded moments of the way modern Moroccans interact with their families. Watching the mothers carrying sleeping babies, the fathers holding their kids' hands, siblings helping each other, parents chatting together, scolding kids, checking email on their phones when their kids were busy... I was overwhelmed with the connection of all humanity and of course, being me, was soon wiping tears from my face as the phrase repeated in my mind, "we're all the same." 

Ok, we're all the same in some ways, but we are not all the same in, for example, our driving laws. This was the only taxi available to get back to the hotel. I have my four children basically sitting on boxes in the back of some guy's van. I know my parents and Erik's parents are reading this and looking at their grandchildren's faces thinking "AMY!!!! What are you doing???!!!" I'm sorry!!! At least you know we got home fine - all's well that ends well, right?

We returned to the hotel to a most-welcome shower, got the kids into their PJ's and tucked them in... and then I actually put on a dress and did my hair, and the babysitter showed up so that Erik and I could go out! Pierre had recommended what he called a beautiful place, in what had been the camel stable hundreds of years ago, and he said they had a Moroccan menu and a French menu. He ordered a driver for us and we hopped in, giddy to be alone on a real date.

So... the driver is taking us through narrow, congested streets that get increasingly darker and dirtier...

This is not the neighborhood where we pictured a nice French restaurant... Um... driver, did Pierre tell you where to go? He doesn't speak English.

Suddenly the car stops and the driver says "here!" by some guy's vegetable cart, in the middle of rowdy teenage boys on scooters. It's like a scene out of Indiana Jones. Then startlingly, a face appears in our car window - it's a tall swarthy man in a dark robe and a fez, carrying a lantern. "Come, come!! I take you to restaurant!!" No one speaks English, so we hold hands, laugh, and head out. I have never been so grateful for Erik's height, CrossFit muscles and "don't mess with me" face. We followed him deeper into the neighborhood.

And deeper and darker

Until we arrived here!! At the restaurant. Apparently the restaurant sends these guides out to the main street to lead in tourists, because it is impossible (and intimidating) to find. The guy handed us his lantern and took a fuzzy picture of us.

And it was glorious!!! Quiet, fancy but not crazy expensive, delicious food.

We ended the day hand in hand, calm and clean, savoring every bit of apple-pear tart and pistachio creme brulee.