Morocco

Morocco considerably exceeded my expectations, I completely loved it. Great people and great food! Huw, Ed and my friend Kiwi and I got on a train to Marrakech the first day right away. We barely made it on the train, it was swarmed with about 250 SAS students, but we got on the very last car, in the very back and ended up having to stand the whole way on and around luggage with the door open. There was a guy standing in the back with us and we got to chatting, he was around our age, had moved to Morocco with his mom about seven years ago and he asked us if we had a place to stay. In typical fashion we didn't, turns out his mom ran a Riad in the old city, so he called in and got us a giant room. The Riad was gorgeous, typical Moroccan style with a courtyard in the center completely open and then rooms and hallways surrounding in a square and a roof top terrace. Our room had 3 twin beds and a cali king and for some miraculous reason they let me have the cali king so I was spread eagle every night taking advantage of all the space!

We just wandered around that night, found a billiard bar and the Brits taught us to play Snooker, which turns out is the worst and longest game ever. Or maybe we were just really bad...

I feel like all we did was eat in Morocco, so much good food! That next morning, we were eating in the Riad and Vivienne (the guy from the train's mom) showed up and started talking with us asking what we wanted to do that day, we said go to the Atlas Mountains. Another coincidence, her husband as it turns out, was a mountain guide, so in a few hours we found ourselves in the back of Vivienne and Mohammad's Toyota like family vacation driving into the mountains. It was a gorgeous drive and we eventually had to stop because the road actually ended and we hiked in about a mile to a village and stayed the night in a Berber village in the High Atlas in Berber Valley. They were in the middle of building another house for the family (about 20+ people living there) so we "helped" a little bit but not really. We really just ate... a lot. I felt like I was going to blow up from eating about 90% of the time. We stayed out and laid out on the roof and watched the stars which was incredible and a great way to spend our last port.

We hiked out the next morning, drove to a Berber market, drove through Oreka Valley and then went back to Marrakech and we spent the evening at the HUGE market in Marrakech just watching all the people (probably 2000 +) and doing a little shopping and then it was back to the ship the next day.

I couldn't think of a better way or better people to have spent my last port with. I am really excited to return to Morocco.