Sahara

Too much happened this weekend and it was too beautiful to accurately describe in words. But here is a brief summary:

On Friday afternoon, we left on a 600 km journey from Rabat to Merzouga. After a couple hours, we stopped on the side of the road and got to see wild apes. A couple people fed them peanuts, and I got close enough for a selfie:

My hair was lookin good that day, too 😎

Once we got out of Rabat, we were driving through beautiful mountains, and eventually through a plain/steppe kind of terrain.

We stopped a couple more times at gas stations and cafes, but finally made it to our hotel around 8. 

Our hotel was BEAUTIFUL- it had Berber designs all over the outside and our rooms were huge and had sitting rooms and Berber rugs and huge beds with blankets. We ate a delicious dinner of salad, chicken kebabs, French fries, potatoes with cheese on top, and melon. And bread of course.

 After dinner we went to the POOL (!) and swam around. It was so cold, quite possibly the best feeling ever after a long, hot bus ride. After the pool, Jack, Lexy, and I went up to the roof of the hotel to see the stars. We ended up bringing blankets and pillows up with us so we could sleep outside. Cameras don't do s good job of picking up stars, but here's a picture of the view before it got dark:

It was just a wide open plain. It was a little hard to fall asleep because some non-NSLI students were up there talking and laughing pretty loud, but they eventually left. The stars were beautiful and it got so quiet. The breeze was blowing and when it was dark, it was so cold. But I just curled up in my blanket and it was okay. It was a nice kind of cold.

John and me looking out into the sunset

We woke up around 5:40 the next morning, right when it was starting to get light out. Around 6:20, some other kids came up, and we watched the sun rise. It just looked like giant orange circle and it rose pretty fast. There weren't any clouds or pollution to give it cool colors, but it was still beautiful. 

We had the most delicious breakfast yet- a buffet of juice, tea, coffee, Moroccan bread, cheese, honey, jam, and scrambled eggs, the first non-hard boiled eggs yet! My new favorite thing to eat is Moroccan bread (mesmen/ragheefa) with honey and spreadable Les Enfants cheese, and a glass of mint tea. I ate a lot which was good because I wasn't hungry during the long bus ride. We spent a lot of time winding down the sides of mountains, making lots and lots of turns. 

The landscapes are so beautiful out here- so wide and open. You can see foggy silhouettes of mountains in the background and we went right in between two mountains in a little valley. I feel really out in nature here. Men are selling honey in coke bottles along the side of the road. 

It's so cool being here and seeing how simple people live. They farm or shepherd and eat the food they make, or will go into town only occasionally. And everything they have at home is hand made. 

We stopped over this oasis valley called Ziz. People bought scarves for turbans and took photos at the overlook.

We also stopped at this fossil museum because apparently fossil museums are big in desert towns? And apparently they make stones with fossils in them into plates and tables and decorative objects?? And toilets???!?!

There was a point in the drive when we switched from our nice tourist vans to these four wheel drive Chevy SUVs. Good thing we did, because we had a very bumpy ride over the desert. We went to this restaurant where we had Saharan pizza (bread with spiced chicken, onion, and eggs inside) and tea that for the first time ever wasn't mint flavored! It was gingery.

Then we listened to live Gnaoua music, which was just guys in white robes and turbans playing drums, metal castanet-type things, a stringed guitar-like instrument, and singing. 

They were really good! Muhammad and Yousef (another Qalam teacher who we call DJ Yous because he would come on our bus and jam out to Nikki Minaj and Enrique and Moroccan pop and sing on the microphone and try and get everyone to sing along and dance. He also dresses impeccably. I'm a little obsessed with him) joined the band and played along:

Muhammad was getting so into his drumming and Yousef was just dancing and jamming on the castinet things. Look how happy they are!!!!! 

After that, we took the SUVs across more bumpy sand. It felt like a crazy roller coaster safari, which reminded me of one of the bonus features in the Lion King 1 and 1/2 DVD, when you take a roller coaster across the savannah. It looked just like it.

But FINALLY we made it to our destination!! We had to wait an hour for our camels, one of the most suspense-filled hours of the trip. And because I'm evil (also because my wifi doesn't like long blog posts) I will leave you in suspense until the next blog post to find out about our camel ride!