Its time for Africa...

Atlas Mountains

While Scotland was an instant hit, my Spring Break in Morocco was without question the most interesting cultural experience in my life thus far.  In retrospect, I don't think I mentally prepared myself for the fact that traveling to an Islamic country might present cultural differences of which I should be cognizant.  To me, Morocco sounded like another tourist destination. Of course there is a lot of tourism in Morocco but it is infinitely more...
I must admit to being in complete shock when I got off of the plane in Marrakesh (probably had something to do with us neglecting to look up the address of our hostel...or even how to get into the city itself).  After wandering from one shady alley to the next for a few hours, we finally found our destination and were greeted by the meowing of stray cats, scent of warm mint tea and the heavy smoke of shisha. While obviously a youth hostel in Marrakesh is not a stay at a Ritz-Carlton (but lets be real, my idea of fun is sleeping in the woods anyways), the staff was exceptionally helpful and made sure to explain how daily life in Marrakesh plays out.  That is to say, they explained to us how to haggle for a taxi ride (fare meters don't exist in Morocco).

 One of the most amazing things about Marrakesh was the generally relaxed nature of people, crowds gathered around snake charmers in the square, all of the shop owners in the Souks wander about chatting with their fellow shopkeepers and friends, there is absolutely no sense of urgency about anything....order a tajine or some cous cous at a restaurant and you might get it...an hour later....after the waiter is done shooting the breeze with the guy running the jewelry shop across the street and maybe running an errand for his mother.

Harem time

But really, I'm not complaining because that cous cous is so delicious I would wait an eternity or at least the entire length of all of the Godfather movies.  After filling up on amazing cous cous and getting lost in the souks of Marrakesh on the first day (where I bought some crazy harem pants to fulfill a life long dream of making my own MC Hammer fan video....kidding), we decided to get back to nature and explore a bit of the scenery of Morocco. The Atlas Mountains were incredible, there is positively no way for me to describe the view we were able to see. We drove through Berber villages, up mountains and down into desert valleys, the diversity of the landscape was beyond impressive. 

Rainbow over the Atlas Mountains

Perhaps my favorite part of our day trip into the Mountains and Ourzazate (Moroccan Hollywood) was when we Rocked that Casbah, the Sharif may not have liked it....but I sure did.  Apart from the fact that I don't think our guide was really a guide at all, but a mere random guy off the street looking to make a few bucks off of some westerners who wanted to see where Gladiator was filmed, our visit into this UNESCO world heritage site was smashing. I've always loved the Clash song, but I never really knew what a Casbah was (as a child I thought they were singing Cat Box) so it was interesting to finally put the song to reality.

Casbah and questionable tour guide

All in all it was a fantastic if not eye opening experience for me, I often forgot the luxuries that I have been provided with growing up as a western woman. However, from the snake charmers, to the man that sold us 4 kilos of dried fruit and almonds to our first Casbah experience....Morocco was an adventure that I won't soon forget.