You Shouldn't Drink and Drive Camels

In the nights leading up to our final port, we had a shipboard auction to help raise money for the scholarship fund. Everyone had number paddles and only four had stars on the back, which meant you got a free prize. I was one of those four! Woohoo, the prize was small, a thermos from Greece, but still awesome! Also, we had movie nights where Casablanca played. I watched it three times! I love that movie, and we were right around the corner from porting in Casablanca. Again, our first morning I woke up early and headed to the starboard side of the fifth deck dining room to get on my SAS trip. I had a lot of friends going on the trip so I was very excited. The morning was horrendously unplanned though and it took about four hours to finally get on the busses. There were 7 tour guides for 200 students, spread throughout 16 minibuses. My bus had a lot of the same people from my Egypt trip, so I was excited to hang out with them again. We spent 4 hours driving to Marrakech and stopped about 3 times along the way, each stop lasted a minimum of 30 minutes. It was kind of frustrating. After we finally got to Marrakech we had lunch in the main square and then had free time to go shopping. I got a sweet awesome CD of Arabic and French hip hop that I have been listening to religiously. That night we went to a Horse Fantasia which was fun, but kind of disappointing. The cool part lasted about 20 minutes of the 4 hour experience and was the riding tricks the horse riders did. They did handstands, jumped from one side to the other while the horses were galloping, it was crazy!

The next morning we had a 6 a.m. wake up call to drive to Zagora. Zagora was 8 hours away, not including stops. My bus leaders could possibly have been the most annoying couple I have ever met. The woman in particular was rude and fulfilled the typical Asian stereotype. I didn’t let this stop me from having a good time, it just made it more difficult. When we finally reached Zagora, we were informed that the nomads didn’t have enough camels for all of us, so we could only trek half way and then switch with people walking. Let me just say, it is the Sahara, walking in sand is difficult, especially in 130 degree heat. We finally reached the Nomad village after about 45 minutes and riding the camel was awesome! Walking really wasn’t all that bad. The village was so cool, and the Nomads immediately welcomed us with folklore dancing and singing. I got to dance with them multiple times! At 9 p.m. we had a delicious nomad dinner that resembled pot roast. It was scrumptious! Dessert was fresh watermelon that was incredible. After eating, Audrey and I laid out on the carpets around the campfire, and looked at the stars. I have never seen so many. It was so cool since we were away from all life forms and lights for hundreds of miles. The tents were very nice, each with 7 mattresses, which I was not expecting. Around 1 a.m. things started to go downhill. I was rudely awakened by a group of about 15 “SASholes” who were extremely drunk and running around, screaming, like idiots. Long story short, they were incredibly rude, offended the nomads so much that they actually left their tents and went and slept out in the dessert, a fight broke out, and eventually broke a tent beyond repair. It was so embarrassing for me and everyone affiliated with SAS because of them.

The next day we had a camel trek back to the busses. Let me just say, camels are much higher up than you think and they are like riding a really rocky horse. It was so much fun! I named mine Lila. When we made it back to Marrakech we were all excited to get off of the bus. Audrey and I went back to the market and bought some awesome souvenirs and presents. It was our last night in a foreign country, so we were a little bummed and still excited to come home. It was definitely an interesting trip, and although there were a lot of negatives out of my control, I loved Morocco! I would go back without a second thought. 

The next morning we went to the grocery story and stocked up for our 9 day trek across the Atlantic, back to America. It is really bittersweet, but I will wrap it all up soon! We made it back safely and now its time to head home!