And aren't you lucky, it won't be about nothing!
I just had the luxury of Spring Break pass me by in 10 days, 10 hectic at first, later relaxing days.
Morroco is not like Europe. First theres the big thing of it not being in Europe. That's a start. Eerily enough, French was spoken quite readily there. And it was that dichotomy that plagued my mind for the first half of my spring break trip.
v v *insert relative picture here* v v
We wound our way through the streets, or alleyways if you prefer much more accurate description; alleyways so thick with vendors of cheap and useless crap that you couldn't breathe.
Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to imply that Morroco was filled with cheap and useless crap or that Morroco in anyway is cheap or useless. But it occured to me sometime after the "ninja henna artist" of the main square branded my hand with a scorpion against my will and demanded payment from first me then (after I lied about the contents of my wallet) my friend, that tourism is a vicious creature.
After I first realised that the woman was simply poor and needed money, my orange burning scorpion of anger became the orange burning scorpion of shame. And what better place to have it than on the back of my hand.
Perfect. (ps: it has since faded away)
Anyway, after the shame of myself set in for not having helped a poor, fellow human being I became ashamed of my company and our purposes for being in Morroco. To what? To "visit"? This led to me realising that our tourism was making the situation worse and flooding these markets with the cheap and useless crap that I was despising.
And then I started thinking about America and what it was doing in the Middle East and it went downhill from there.
But I refuse to get political right now.
We also saw a lovely 14th century university and I snagged a couple of nice pictures (at least I thought so)
^ ^ (this one is actually from a nearby museum) ^ ^
Saturday we took a 2 and a half hour taxi ride up into the mountains. At least I say they were mountains. Apparently my midwest mind makes anything that stretches up over the horizon a mountain.
Anyway, we ejected ourselves from the car to stumble about in the dirt and grassy fields, following a non-talkative guide down to the side of a sheer drop-off. The upshot was that there happened to be a river that had the same guide. Lovely scenery to be sure but the thing that grabbed me most was my usual deep and unstoppable urge to jump into the water miles below my feet. Don't ask me why, I'm not suicidal although it would most likely have been suicide. I really need to supress the urge by going skydiving. Did I say supress? I meant impress.
Yeah I know that wasn't funny, but do you think I care? Who's the one writing this shit?? ME! BACK OFF!
*ahem*
Anyway, we then were tricked into paying a shite-load for a crappy meal and took another 2 and a half hour ride back into the smog-den that was Merrakesh. I have to take a second and salute our taxi driver at being incredibly patient (one of our party had a coughing fit lasting the entire trip), incredibly nice (he stopped at a town and suggested she get water), and incredibly self-sacrificing (upon our arrival in Merrakesh we stopped at a Morrocan roundabout [read: a big open space that cars randomly drive through] where he met what I assumed to be his family. I assume such because he picked up and hugged the little boy that ran at him and kissed the woman holding the hand of the little girl. Or maybe I'm making that up; is public kissing allowed in Islam? Anyway, I gathered from hand gestures, mood, facial expression, and tone of voice that they wanted him to go do something with them but he had to finish working, meaning finish helping us [yeah, I know, that's a lot to gather from hand gestures, mood, etc. but what can I say? I'm brilliant]. And then he even took us to the train station which was added on after he was supposed to have been done with us).
Serious props, dude.
Anyway, the train took us to Tangiers where we caught a ferry across the fabled Straights of Gibralter. The weather sucked.
Spain's weather did not, thankfully. The last 4 or 5 days (I forget!) were spent mainly in playing cards (with a deck that only had 48 cards and had "clubs, coins, swords, and cups" for suits), swimming in the warm pool / freezing beach, and lazing about as good springbreakers should.
And then a lovely trip back to Heathrow complete with flight delays, cancellations, subsequent face-eating, and lost luggage completed the journey.
Don't worry, I got the luggage back the next day.
And everything has returned to normalcy, ugh.
I can't wait to get home.