We woke up just before the sun rose over the desert. I peeked my head out of the tent and saw that e ermine was up. Mattresses and blankets lined up outside the tents, the students were already at breakfast and taking pictures of the sunlit dunes.
Hard boiled eggs, yogurts, fruits, breads, tea and coffee. Perfect. We saddled up and were on out way by 7:30. The camels got shuffled around so, fortunately for Chris, he did not end up riding Cowboy out of the desert. We did see him leading 2 of our friends and couldn't have been more well-behaved. Hmmm...no need tho wonder why, but I'm sure it hurt Chris' feelings a little that he did not receive the same respect from Cowboy that he was giving his new passenger.
It was a beautiful night in the desert. A memory that I will stash away and re-run in my mind like an episode of "The Best In The Life And Times Of Belinda". We reached our destination where the buses were waiting for us and with precision end timing, we arrived just before the real heat of the day. We said our goodbyes to our camels and piled onto to bus for the final city of our Moroccan journey...Marrakech.
Marrakech was the prize at the end of the caravans across the Sahara so many centuries ago. The city center, The Medina, the old city was first constructed in the 10th century. It remains the heartbeat of Marrakech today. We checked into another mediocre hotel just before heading to the Medina for dinner. It is wild and chaotic a place as I'd ever seen. A huge open square surrounded by narrow alleyways of markets and restaurants. The square was so dense with people that we stayed not the outside of the massive crowd trying to make our way to the restaurant. Unbeknownst to us, the perimeter of the pedestrian crowd is also where the motorcycles, cars and horse carriages prefer to ride. It was Saigon on steroids! I knew it was overwhelming when Ben, in front of our friends, chose to hold my hand.
Thankfully, we had gat company at dinner because the meal fell short again. It might be that I just had high palate pleasing expectations for Morocco or we just failed to find the food everyone talks about as being so fabulous. Oh we'll, a reason to return. We turned in early after dinner. We only had half of the next day to tour Marrakech before heading back to the ship.
After much deliberation, we decided to return to the Medina to check out what it is like during the light of day. Much slower paced and void of the harried crowd from the night before, it seemed that we were in for a pleasant experience. We were approached my a local gentleman who offered to give us a 3 hour tour of the Medina at a "nice price". We did not have that kind of time, so we politely declined. Then he offered a one hour tour for, again, a "nice price". I wanted to see the place on our own so, Chris declined the offer again. The man looked at Chris from head to toe and barreled in again with another offer. Rudeness begets rudeness and the man finally left thoroughly disgusted by us. We ran into a friend who was being chased by and older gentleman dressed in traditional garb accusing the student of taking his picture and demanding money. She hid behind us until he gave up. Not the pleasant day I imagined. There were snake charmers and monkey trainers who we all looked at from a distance. If you showed any interest, they would hand you their animal and demand payment for the experience. We made our way through the alleyways still looking from a distance and ended up buying our souvenirs from the store keepers who did not chase us down.
We had just enough time to get back to the hotel, pick up lunch and get back on the bus for our last journey home. It started to sink in...this was our last port...the last time we'd be walking UP the gangway...where did all the time go?
We got to Casablanca around 5:00. The line was long as the crew members did their final checking of bags before boarding the MVExplorer for the last time. Their were hugs and laughter, sad pictures and silly ones. We were all feeling sentimental trying to hang on for just a little longer.
Later, I stood outside on deck 7 as they pulled in the gangway. We. Done with Morocco and on to our final port, Barcelona. I had never before experience the intense speed in which time can fly until then. I didn't want it to end.
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