The second largest mosque in the world. Casablanca.

Labels: Morocco, photos

I had hoped to be on the glacier tonight but I'm having a forced extended layover in Salt Lake City. I suppose that it was about time for a travel snafu. Maybe the only part of my vacation that didn't go perfectly. Hope I make it tomorrow.

Labels: Morocco

On our adventures the other day we only took Cammie's camera so you have to wait for pictures of Tafraout. In fact, you may have to wait all summer but I do promise to put them up sometime and in the meantime they should pop up on Cammie's facebook profile if you're a facebook-er.

Tafraout is more than we expected. We got here on Monday, today is Thursday and we still haven't left yet. Although I think we're planning on catching the 6pm bus back to Agadir and the Atlantic coast for a day before our Moroccan adventures draw to a close.

I don't know if Dr. Seuss ever came out to visit Tafraout but I have an inkling that he may have. That would provide a clean explanation for how he came up with all of the weirdly shaped landscapes in his illustrations. The rocks here are fantastic. The coolest ones are of a granular granite (where's one of my many geo-major friends when I need one?) and have been carved into eerie forms by the wind. It makes me suspect that some giant with a lot of sculpy made a playground for me here and then baked it into rock with the sun. (It's 40-50 here mid day... one reason we splurged $20 on a hotel with a pool.) Tuesday we went for a bike ride to the "les pierres bleues" which is artwork out in the desert by, um, I'll have to look up his name in my guidebook, Jean Verges or something. Anyway, in 1984 he came out here and painted a bunch of rocks. These are big rocks too, I think he used some 18 tons of paint. Yeah, I said tons, as in the unit of measure not just the generic term for a lot. We took a nice break scrambling around on them.

We also rode out to the Ameln Valley North of Tafraout. Here we found a sick abandoned Kasbah to explore. I don't even normally use the adjective "sick" so you know it really must have been. Dark, creepy, mud and stone and wood brick floors and walls, some intact some not. We climbed all three stories and kept telling ourselves that the only time these things collapsed was in the spring when they were heavy from moisture. At least nothing broke on us. There were old woven baskets and pottery to sift through. We felt like archeologists.

Seriously a good day out in the countryside. We were out wandering for 9 hours although that included a lot of stops for juice.

Labels: Morocco

It took us two days to get from Imelil to Tafraout. We started late and the first taxi would only take us to Ansi. So we crammed 8 of us into the taxi. I shared the middle of the front seat with a young boy. Ten minutes into the ride I saw the driver hand him a plastic bag and turned toward Cammie to look out the window while he puked. We stopped and he moved to the backseat, maybe to be by a window? I don't know, they were all speaking Berber. (In case you're counting that is five people now across the back seat.) In Ansi we had to decide whether to go back up to Marrakesh and the more frequently traveled, and hence cheaper, routes or head more directly south. After a lot of discussion and people telling us there were no buses today only tomorrow and getting practically mobbed by two or three people trying to get us to buy something/give them money we made it into a taxi that agreed to take us all the way to Taradounnt. Hey, two very forceful people shoving bracelets at you can feel like a mob when it's well over 40° and you just want to get out of town.

The road South from Ansi is touted by the Lonely Planet as "the most perilous road in Morocco." One lane paved, narrow shoulders, blind corners, abrupt edges. Don't worry mom, I only thought we were going to die twice! Actually, the time we almost drove off the road (unexpected oncoming traffic on a blind downhill corner and all that) Cammie was on the cliff side and could see how close we actually were to the edge. That was the first I'd heard Cammie swear on this trip. We stopped once for tea and so our driver could pray. I'm not sure really though how much he wanted to stop to pray and how much he just wanted a smoke. The second time we stopped just to have coffee. I don't normally drink coffee but our driver got us each a glass and due to the Moroccan tendency to put more sugar than anything else in their beverages it was actually quite tasty. The third time we stopped because there were goats climbing trees. This immediately had Cammie and I plastered to the window and laughing. So when he offered to stop to let us take some photos we quickly assented. I've never seen trees with goats climbing them before, but I guess it's a good adaptive technique since there wasn't any vegetation on the ground for them to eat. The fourth time we stopped I don't even know where we were... a bigger town that didn't look very pleasant and our driver negotiated with another driver to take us the rest of the way to Taradounnt. In Taradounnt our timing was good enough that we were on a bus headed to Agadir within half an hour. AND the bus only left 5minutes after the published departure time. I was impressed. In Agadir we found another taxi that would take us as far as Tiznit. We had a very nice Moroccan pharmacist sitting with us who helped us with our French for the duration of the ride. We stayed the night in Tiznit and finished with a 2hour excruciatingly hot taxi ride to Tafraout the next day.

Labels: Morocco

Morocco is touted as a bird watching locale. There's apparently 454 species that hang out in Morocco at some point during their travels. It makes me wish I knew my birds better but I think I will enjoy seeing them even without knowing their names.

Labels: Morocco

I loved Imelil. Probably in part because it reminded me of Wenatchee. I don't know why I have to go all the way to the High Atlas mountains of Morocco to feel like I'm back in Wenatchee. They even had apple orchards here in some of the lower, more easily watered, land. The upper and more arid part of the canyon was mostly argan & olive trees (I think at least). The apple orchards had irisis growing in them too which I imagine would be stunning if they'd been in bloom.

The small hillside village where we staid above Imelil. Most villages here are on the hillside so they can use a gravity powered water system.



I went for a walk the morning after we summited Toubkal and was completely enchanted. There was even a group of women doing laundry in the stream. If I had to wash my clothes by hand all the time I'd never get anything else done. I porbably would also have a lot fewer clothes.

Labels: Morocco, photos

Cammie bought a sweet dress thing in Tiznit. I tried one on but being slightly taller than the average Moroccan woman it was a bit too short for me.

Incidentally, Cammie went for a bike ride this morning... at seven. I was feeling not up to the challenge so I staid home and went for a shorter (although still 2 hrs) run among the rocks. I expected her back around 1. With how hot it was and on a mountain bike with and estimated 80k trip I gave her 6 hrs. Breaks you know. She wasn't back by 2pm. I got a little worried, but hey, Cammie's super resourceful and I knew she'd just been to the atm so she had plenty of cash. At four I decided that maybe I would have to rent car to drive the route she was going to ride. I decided to give her until 7 to get home before going in search. She got back at 6. I'm not sure I've ever been so happy to see someone. I imagine she'll give you the details on her blog cameron.byerley.blogspot.com one of these days.

Labels: Morocco

When I posted pictures last time my keyboard quit working half way through, so I just was working with the mouse and didn't feel like cutting & pasting to get words. Probably okay because I couldn't figure out how to get my keyboard off of the french keyboard anyway and it was slow typing. Now I'm back on an English keyboard so things should go faster. The dude sitting next to me in on his fourth beer and probably fifth cigarette so I might not stick around too long!

The pictures don't do the Toubkal area justice. It was so beautiful. The best I can describe it is that it's the kind of terrain that I would imagine for the David & Goliath Bible story. Huge rocks, steep mountains, herds of goats and sheep wandering around, hot and dry with sparse vegetation. Surprisingly there was still patches of snow in some of the creek valleys... not what I was expecting in North Africa. We caught a taxi from Marrakesh to Imelil on friday, checked into a hotel to ditch most of our stuff and hiked in to the Toubkal refuge that afternoon. I say "took a taxi" and "checked into a hotel" but you have to translate these yourself into Moroccan experiences. Not how you'd do it in the US.

When we got the the Refuge- run by the French Alpine club and way nicer than any backcountry hut I've been in before... running water and even one western style toilet instead of the ubiquitous hole-in-the-floor. They also did breakfast and dinner for you if you wanted (which we did). Arriving at the refuge was like dropping into a cosmopolitan airport hub... there were people from all over the world speaking all kinds of languages. Of course the Moroccans who worked at the refuge all spoke 5 or 6 languages. The Moroccqn capacity for language astounds me and has created a whole new definition for me about what is a reasonable number of languages to learn (more than I know now!). Spanish seemed to be the dominant language of the day and Cammie and I quickly suffocated all the French we knew by spending the entire evening visiting with the spaniards. We even got an invite to come with one of the groups to Todra Gorge for some rock climbing the next day. Well, Cammie got the invite, those blondes get all the attention. (& we didn't go.)

The next morning we impressed everyone who noticed by reaching the summit in two hours. Not actually that impressive but we seemed to be a step above the typical tourists fitness-wise. It was a long trip back down to Imelil, mostly because Cammie was sick so we had to stop a lot (Cammie's perfectly healthy at the time of writing this). But at Imelil we had our hotel (One of the Berber houses in an upper valley that rented rooms along with dinner & breakfast) and our host, or rather some mysterious women whom we didn't meet, cooked us a tagine for dinner. Probably the best tagine I'd ever had at that point. Then again, every tagine has been the best I've ever had so far.

Our next destination was Tafraout. We didn't know anyone who'd ever been there and it was far away but we decided it seemed like a place we would like.

Okay, I've been officially smoked outta here. More later.

Labels: Morocco

I tried to pick a piece off of a cactus because it looked exactly like the cactus pieces that the street vendors sell and I thought I could eat it. The cactus came to no harm and I've been picking cactus spines out of my hand ever since. I think I'll just buy one from the street vendors. You would think I would know better.

Labels: Morocco

Morocco's population is about 90% Berbers (or Imazighen, meaning free men). My (least?) favorite Berber so far in my studies is Saint Augustine. Augustine was from Algeria, Morocco's neighbor to the East. I'm not sure that I agree with all of Augustine's philosophies (& I've only even read The Confessions of) but the dude was an important figure for modern thought and has had a huge impact on our society even 1,610 years later.

Labels: Morocco

We trekked up to the highest peak in N. Africa... Djebal Toubkal.

Along the route to the Refuge there was a smattering of small huts offering spring-cooled refreshments.

Labels: Morocco, photos

If my life is going as planned I should be milling somewhere near the vicinity of Djebel Toubkal in the Atlas Mountains.

Labels: Morocco, photos

Happy Fourth of July!

Morocco gained independence from France on March 2, 1956 and from April 7, 1956. The Northern half of Morocco was controlled by Spain and, in fact, two towns on the Northern coast still are part of Spain. The Western Sahara part of the country in the South of Morocco is a little more complicated. Spain finally pulled out of Western Sahara in 1976 leaving Morocco, Mauritania and the Saharawis (the local population) to fight over it. Mauritania got beat down and the territory is currently mostly under Moroccan control but the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic would like to be recognized as self-governing.

Labels: Morocco

Wednesday afternoon we took the train to Marrakesh from Rabat. Marrakesh is quintessential Maroc... a crazy big Medina with winding streets, souks, food stalls, masses of people, and mad chaos in general.

Medina means the old town before colonization so the streets are narrow (sometimes very, like I have to stop and turn sideways when a motorbike comes through) and cobbled and the buildings are quaint and frequently crumbling. Souk means market. Our French is improving every day here, although with the Moroccans' aptitude for languages we would probably have survived on English and Spanish. We did take a tour of the Palais De la Bahia today which was a relief. We'd started with the French speaking tour but I heard spanish drifting over from another room and promptly pulled Cammie over to it.

Cammie's theme is cats... so she has a lot of pictures of cats and I'm ending up with a lot of pictures of Cammie playingwith cats.
The attention to detail in the palaces is amazing. This ceiling is carved cedar wood and full of intricate geometric patterns.

p.s. Maroc is amazing, internet is sometimes questionable. I'm trying to get photos posted but if not, I'm uploading them to facebook for safekeeping of some form so if you want more photos check there.

p.s.s. Some of my posts were pre-published while I was still in the states so the dry, informative posts are those and the rushed posts with pictures and poor grammar are published from the scene.

Labels: Morocco, photos

We still haven't found any pomogranates but there's been everything else we've been looking for. We got dragged into a spice shop. Dragged is maybe too forceful... everyone here is really nice so it's hard to turn people down but it does make the wandering experience much more pleasant than if people were more abrupt. So we started talking to this guy whose brother randomly lives in Seattle and we ended up getting 6grams of saffron from him. Then he invited us to have some mint tea with him as friends. Which we did, it was time for some sugar anyway. He spent the next half hour probably showing us his wares. I was fascinated... it was like being in ursula's cavern with jars of everthing from floor to ceiling. He told us what everything was and what it was used for. He was a good salesman. He even demonstrated the orange flower oil by giving us a mini brow massage. Of course we got sucked into buying more stuff!

Our apothecary friend
Cammie being given a "present" of a small henna tattoo despite her best protestations. I ended up with the same tattoo.

Labels: Morocco, photos

Cammie sitting cross-legged on the floor of an antique shop waiting for some mint tea.
Nothing like fresh fruit after a hot walk through the Medina.

I made it to Rabat Tuesday afternoon with absolutely no glitches in the plan. When I got to Rabat Cammie was even waiting at the airport door for me with a taxi driver she already knew. We went straight to her friend \jane's house and only got slightly lost. How deluxe! Since I'd been good about sleeping on the flights over we went straight to the Medina to check out the scene.

Morocco is everything I had hoped it would be so far... there's orange trees lining the roads like fireweed in Alaska, everything smells of spices, it's sweltering hot and full of palm trees. We almost immediately got sucked in to talking to one of the shopkeepers in an antique shop in the Medina. He was super nice and didn't even try very hard to sell us anything, he just wanted to practice his English. Wanting to practice our French, we were perfectly happy to oblige. We had a seat in his shop and drank hot mint tea. Very sugary.

We made our way out to the ocean and found ourselves in a huge cemetary. We made our way through the cemetary and across a busy street to the rocky seashore. no swimming today... we're saving the beach for later in our trip when we run out of steam.

Cammie walking into the Medina
Cammie with the Atlantic ocean in the background.

I liked the snails. The first snails I saw here were in pots of boiling water but the more I looked the more I noticed that they were crawling up everything. No wonder the street vendores are selling snail stew.

Labels: Morocco, photos

My partner in crime for these two weeks in Morocco has her own blog at

CameronByerley.blogspot.com.

Cammie's not only a better writer than I am, she's a more copious writer. So if you want more info on our Moroccan adventures you can check out her site. As a bonus, the last time she was using this blog was when we were in Peru together so you can scroll down or hit the archives for her perspective on our month in Peru in '06!

Live life, love it.

Labels: Morocco

Sometimes you just have to follow your intuition and travel a little bit. I know that I have a little (huge, actually) streak of wanderlust and that it's good for my soul to get out and explore the world. So I'm meeting up with one of my surreally amazing friends this afternoon in Rabat, Morocco! My plane gets in at 14:30 local time... it's going to be HOT after a trip to the glacier!

No ipod, no cell phone, no computer... escape from reality, yes! (Or would that be entering reality?)

Labels: Morocco