Stay Humble and Be Kind: May 2016

oh. my. goodness. Morocco was INCREDIBLE. We did a 5 day 4 night tour/excursion through a company called Viaje En Marruecos and it was only €150 for everything that we did!! (Flights, lunches and souvenirs were separate)

*this is a lengthy post full of loads of pictures*

**Humans featured: American Female (Self), Brazilian Man (Rodolfo), Korean Female (Hoona), Brazilian Female (Jessyca), and Brazilian Bearded Man (Sidney) who was traveling solo... so we made him hang out with us. teehee

Day One:
It was a 3hr 20min flight from Dublin to Marrakesh. We arrived, were picked up and taken to our hotel, which had the vibe of something like from the Mummy! It was pretty nice. We were a 5min walk from the main square, so we went and changed our Euros to Durhams (1 euro = 10.8 dh) and walked around.

Lighting in our room

I have no idea how to pose with portraits on a super long couch...

One of the hotel workers saw us posing with the pictures and came and gave us his robe and fez (hat).... in which I also did not know what to do. hah

There were TONS of Orange Juice stations and it was only 4dh soooo we HAD to try some. All the guys at each station is calling out to you as you walk by and like, how are we supposed to choose which one to try?! We finally picked one and IT WAS SO GOOD! Freshly squeezed and poured before our eyes and it was wonderful. And the guy even gave us a refill.. for freeeeeeee!!!!

We went back to the hotel, had dinner, and went to sleep.

Our hotel!

Day Two:
4:30ish am-- we were woken up by people praying! The mosque across the street has large speakers on top and let me tell you--they work.
We woke up again later, had breakfast, and went out to our bus/car/van thing ready to embark on our journey!

Breakfast consisted of different breads, 1 glass of OJ, coffee or tea, and a yogurt.

Our view of the mosque as we ate breakfast.

Fact: This mosque was built in the 12 century and there is a law that states nothing can be taller than this mosque. And so... there are no buildings that are taller than this mosque. And the mosque isn't that tall either.

Our hotel during the day. Don't let the outside fool you. Its HUGE on the inside.

We set off for the Dades Gorges. Passing through Tizi-n-Tishka in the high Atlas Mountains and then we stopped for lunch at a typical restaurant. I could not believe all the random houses or villages that we passed while driving through the mountains. Like... where do they get their food? And so many other questions I have. I could not imagine how it would be to live there. We asked our waiter at lunch if he likes it there and he said "would you like to leave your mother?" We answered no. And he said, "well neither would I. Here, where I live, is like my mother. I like it here and I would not like to leave her." Seeing all of the houses/villages/lifestyles was very enlightening and eye opening. You've always heard and seen pictures or movies about places like this but actually seeing it for yourself right before your eyes changes everything.

Stopped here for a pee break

I liked these doors in this door

Do you see the meat just hanging there?!

ooooh Camels just chillin

Entrance to the restuarant

The chicken with almonds with pretty tasty

Bread. They give us bread for everything and for every meal

Dessert consisted of oranges with cinnamon on them and apples

After lunch we walked across the street to the UNESCO World heritage Site of Ait Ben Haddou. There are still 8 families that live here! All the other families moved across the river for a more developed lifestyle. This place is the location of several films including Gladiator, Prince of Persian, Game of Thrones, The Mummy, and many more, but most importantly What a Girl Wants! teehee.

There it is!

We had to cross 2 rivers to get across!!

I never know what to do with my hands...

... or my legs....

The fellow in the green robe was our guide. He speaks 6 different languages fluently! This is where we learned that pretty much everybody speaks at least 4 different languages and often know more than that. Amazing!!

IT'S SO COOOOOOL

This guy paints with homemade paints and it drys clear. But when you put fire under it, everything shows up!! They used this to deliver secret messages waaaay back in the day.

We have no idea what this said. But our guess is that it says to not take pictures of this sign.

All throughout there are things to buy. Smart people I tell ya.

Taking in the view. with a new addition to my best friend group. Cute.

I should do my hair like this more often

Some wild doggies

Recognize this drink??

We drove again enjoying the beautiful natural landscapes and historical monuments of Taourirt Kasbah in Ourzazate, Skoura and the Valley of the Roses, famous for its annual Festival of Roses. We also passed through the Berber villages of El Kelaa des M'Gouna and Boumalene du Dades where we stayed the night.

Taourirt Kasbah in Ouarzazate. Quarzazete is considered the great door of the desert.

Now in this palace, lived _____(I forgot his name). And he had like 40 wives! There about 300 rooms and there is currently a small group of villagers who still live here. Pretttty neat, eh?

This guy was hilarious!!!!! Apparently he's been in several movies that were filmed here and he said that he's not a fan of Brad Pitt... but looooves Angelina Jolie!

We stopped for another pee break and across the street was this festival going on.

We had no idea what was going on. Men holding rifles on horses would move forward, the horses would dance, then they would charge to the other end of the field and they would shoot the guns and everybody would clap!

Passing through parts of these mountains, I was like "what theee... am I back home??"

So this is through Dades Gorge and they call this formation of rocks Monkey Fingers or God's Fingers.

I saved her from falling off! I know, I know. I'm like a hero

When we arrived to our hotel, they gave everyone tea and biscuits.

Dinner was at 10pm... but we didn't get to eat till like 11 because it was taking foreverrrrrrrr. They gave us lamb soup? (nobody really knew what it was) And then they brought us couscous and chicken. Desert was a slice of watermelon.

Check out our giant wooden spoons. It covered my mouth AND nose and was surprisingly difficult to use.
And no, I was not a fan of the soup.

We went to sleep right after dinner. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Day 3: (I know. It's only day 3!!)
Breakfast was at 7am and it consisted of bread (surprise!) and orange juice (YES!) and coffee and hard boiled eggs.

The view from our room window. We're literally in the middle of the mountains

Our hotel entrance.

Across the road from the hotel entrance

Within 5 minutes we stopped to take some quick pics from this view. It was super windy so everybody ran back to the car within like 2 minutes.

So now we're on our way to the desert! We made a few pit stops on the way including a view of what I believe is the city of Tinghir....

We were dancing to music!

Our driver, Hussan, was dancing too! (we were his favorite)

...Another location to view the city...

Now... I really don't know what is happening here... and I don't know who the woman in blue is.

Hussan, our driver, bought this rose heart when we were passing through the Valley of the Roses.

We made another stop at Todgha Gorges, which is a apparently pretty famous and rock climbers like to go here. (Again, it reminded me of Moab or Zions and such)

We continued on and eventually stopped at this shop to buy our turbans and/or anything else we so desired. *This is where I got my pants and turban featured later in the desert* (I'm upset that I didn't get a picture of the the place... or the name. waaah!!) They also gave us FREE henna! M'Barak, the main owner of the tour company, told us that he would give it to us for free because it is all natural henna. The henna that is offered in the main square in Marrakesh and almost all other locations uses chemicals that can cause rashes and stuff. What a nice man.

With our driver, Hussan!

We then drove up the road a little bit and stopped for lunch.

This was Hoona's lunch. It was like an omelette with cheese. And of course bread. I had spaghetti. And dessert consisted of..... apple slices and orange slices with a weird chocolate sauce....

Hoona wrote my name in Korean... with the weird chocolate sauce!

After lunch we drover foreverrrrrrrrrrrrr towards the desert. It literally looked like the drive to Vegas... it was weird.
Once we reached the beginning of the sand dunes, we drove maybe 10 minutes and were met by 3 different vehicles. It was this gang and they wouldn't let us through unless we paid them!!!

Just kidding. We got out and got to ride on top of the vehicles!!!! So fun! One car stayed on the pathway but the car I was on went off onto the sand and was going crazy!! It was a good time.

They took us to a Hotel in Merzouga (The most dreamiest hotel in the middle of the Sahara Desert that you will ever find). Here we spend 2 hours. And yes, we got to use the pool.

I got distracted by the camels they were bringing out. hehehe

Are you ready to hear the WORST THING EVER when you're in the middle of the Sahara Desert?!?! As we were by the pool, I was taking pictures (with my phone) and Jessyca said "oooh take one with my phone". So I went and got her phone and sat down on the side of the pool and took her picture. I stood up and *PLOP*... my phone fell in!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHH Now I know you are wondering how I have all of these pictures that you've seen so far... well... I dove head first to save the pictures!!! laksjdlfkjaslodijfiaslkjflkjalskjdf
Okay. So it actually just fell onto the first step into the pool so I was able to quickly snatch it out and I ran over and took it apart and everything was surprisingly dry. *phew* BUT, everybody told me that I shouldn't use it till the next day. And I panicked cause I didn't want it to not work... so I packed it away. waaaaaaaaaaah!
So the remainder of the pictures till the next morning are all pictures that I stole from my fan club. (I made them take pics of me)

Here I am chillin' next to my phone praying that it will be okay! But look how happy I am! :)

Hoona wanted to practice her paparazzi skills

H2O

We took a small bag with us and mounted our camels! We went about 1.5 hours through the Sahara and stopped for sandboarding and to watch the sunset. Is this real life??? Yes, yes it is all true.

Nobody took a picture of me... so here is one I took of Hoona.

We continued on for another 30min and arrived to our camp. We sat around a camp fire and they brought us BREAD! and soup (I was not a fan. Maybe it was lamb soup again?) and then meat, chicken, and potatoes. That was pretty tasty. After dinner, a group of Berbers came out filled the night with their drumming music. oh. my. goodness. IT WAS AMAZING. We danced and sang around the fire alllllll night! okay, not all night, but it was for a while. There was a break and then those who wanted to moved into this big tent and continued dancing in the tent!!!!
Later, I went out beyond the camp with some others and climbed a big hill (of sand) and sat to look at the stars. Absolutely beautiful.

Day 4:
We woke up in the morning feeling like P-Diddy. teehee. No, we woke up pretty early and immediately went out to mount our camels. We got to see the sunrise as we rode back to the hotel!

The sunrise

We got to the hotel, had breakfast, and went out to our van/bus/vehicle. And started the very very very looong journey back to Marrakech. About 12 hours to be exact. *gulp*

oh.. good news.... MY PHONE WORKS! Back in business baby. So I snapped some quick pics before we left. YAY.

Don't know where this fella came from... but he was nice.

And the drive back...

This is like the Hollywood of Africa.

Utah?

I wish I had a better picture of this sunset. The ENTIRE sky was orange.

Day 5:
We went on a free tour of Marrakech! It was all in Spanish, so I translated for Hoona. The rest of them spoke Portuguese, so they got most of it.

There are a lot of cats and kitties everywhere. More so than dogs

There is a fight going on here! The guys in front of the yellow cars were angry

Now listen, right before we walked out into this courtyard... we were standing there listening to the tour guide telling us some stories and facts and other tour guide things and these two black guys came over to me and said, "can I take a picture?" I thought he meant if I could take his picture. So I said "of course!" He then comes over to me, hands his camera to his friend and I realized he wanted a picture with me!!! ahhhahahah Jessyca turned around and was in the picture with us. And then the friend traded places with the guy and we took another picture. When our tour guide was finished talking, they came over again and asked us where we were from and we asked them as well. They said they are from ____ (we couldn't understand what they said!) And we didn't know where it was... they asked if we knew _______(they mentioned some well known soccer team name) and we didn't know...and so they eventually described it as West Africa. Anyways, waaaay later we were talking about how strange it was that they wanted our picture and that's when I realized we are the ones who should have gotten our picture with them!!! We are like 98.2% sure that they were on that soccer team that they mentioned! *if you know a famous soccer team from West Africa, Let me know so we can look up the team members!!

Part of our free tour took us to this natural medicine/remedies place where the lady showed us and told us about all these natural cures and oils and stuff for nearly anything/everything. It was pretty neat. They all make it there and she sold us anything we wanted for super cheap! So... I may have gotten some zit cream stuff for Bryson's back (we'll see if it is what its all made out to be). **yes you're welcome Bryson**