Dans le pays des Berbers
Well, Christmas day was strange to say the least. It's always bizarre to spend Christmas day in a Muslim country. To be quite honest, we spent the first few hours of our Christmas day in the Casablanca airport as our flight to Marrakesh was delayed by 2 hours but God listened to our prayers and our luggage arrived safe and sound in Marrakesh. Then, exhausted, we had to haggle our way to downtown Morocco as the Taxi Drivers tried in vain to make us pay an exhorbitant amount to drive 5km. We finally arrived at our hotel, a 5 minute walk from Djeena El Fna, the main square in Marrakesh at around 3:00 AM.
On Christmas day, we relaxed in the Medina of Marrakesh. We visited a few palaces, the Saadien Tombs, made our way through the souks (market in arabic... Marrakesh has one of the most famous souk in the world... very impressive!). We also ate BBQ in the Djeena El Fna (an experience in itself). The main square has a circus of activity including snake charmers (Jess is mortified of snakes, so we had to move quickly when we walked next to them).
We decided to do a 3-day tour of the South of Morocco along with Latitia, Jess's friend in town for the holidays. We left on the 26th, early in the morning and got to see beautiful mountain landscape (along with snow covered tops, yes you read right!), breath-taking gorges, amazing dishes, mostly traditional Berber dishes, and got to sleep in the Sahara desert.
Unfortunately, Jess' stomach pain acted up on her on the second day of the trip. It was the most painful day of the entire trip for her and made us consider finding a way back to civilization (most of the South of Morocco is rural and finding a doctor can be problematic). She toughed out the day though and we slept at the Inn in the desert instead of in the tent in the dunes next to the Sahara desert. We didn't get to do the camel ride but we did get a good nights sleep. The stars in the desert are amazing. This was by far our favourite part of the trip. Jess was also feeling much better the next day although her stomach is still quite sensible and she needs to eat (we have both lost weight on this trip but Jess' weight loss is starting to become a bit worrying).
Oh, I almost forgot to write this little adventure down. Ahmed, our Berber bus driver (we were in a mini bus with 13 others tourists), got us through the mountain range between Ouarzazate and Marrakesh climbing up to 2600 metres and going back down to 400 metres in Marrakesh. To make his job harder, he had to drive in the dark, in the fog, in a snow storm mixed with rain (and I'm sure there was freezing rain in there) with a severe lack of safety on the road considering they were both narrow and treacherous and lacked the adaquate guard rails (considering that there was a 300-400 metre drop next to the road. Jess and I were in the front (I acted as translator for the tour as Ahmed only spoke French, Arabic and Berber). It was a very scary experience, and I hope never to repeat it. We had to help a car along the way that was hanging off the cliff. Had the car rolled over, the occupants would have surely died (only to be found the next day at the bottom of the mountain!)
So, we are back in sunny Marrakesh. We are going to play it by ear today and decide what to do next due to Jessica's health. One of the tourists in our mini bus was a family doctor from New Zealand. She helped us out by naming a few drugs we could try to help her stomach problems. (for your information, a doctors prescription in a developing country is not necessary to obtain any type of drug. Need penicillin? No problem. And it cost a fraction of the costs in Canada!).
De retour du pays des Berbers!
On Christmas day, we relaxed in the Medina of Marrakesh. We visited a few palaces, the Saadien Tombs, made our way through the souks (market in arabic... Marrakesh has one of the most famous souk in the world... very impressive!). We also ate BBQ in the Djeena El Fna (an experience in itself). The main square has a circus of activity including snake charmers (Jess is mortified of snakes, so we had to move quickly when we walked next to them).
We decided to do a 3-day tour of the South of Morocco along with Latitia, Jess's friend in town for the holidays. We left on the 26th, early in the morning and got to see beautiful mountain landscape (along with snow covered tops, yes you read right!), breath-taking gorges, amazing dishes, mostly traditional Berber dishes, and got to sleep in the Sahara desert.
Unfortunately, Jess' stomach pain acted up on her on the second day of the trip. It was the most painful day of the entire trip for her and made us consider finding a way back to civilization (most of the South of Morocco is rural and finding a doctor can be problematic). She toughed out the day though and we slept at the Inn in the desert instead of in the tent in the dunes next to the Sahara desert. We didn't get to do the camel ride but we did get a good nights sleep. The stars in the desert are amazing. This was by far our favourite part of the trip. Jess was also feeling much better the next day although her stomach is still quite sensible and she needs to eat (we have both lost weight on this trip but Jess' weight loss is starting to become a bit worrying).
Oh, I almost forgot to write this little adventure down. Ahmed, our Berber bus driver (we were in a mini bus with 13 others tourists), got us through the mountain range between Ouarzazate and Marrakesh climbing up to 2600 metres and going back down to 400 metres in Marrakesh. To make his job harder, he had to drive in the dark, in the fog, in a snow storm mixed with rain (and I'm sure there was freezing rain in there) with a severe lack of safety on the road considering they were both narrow and treacherous and lacked the adaquate guard rails (considering that there was a 300-400 metre drop next to the road. Jess and I were in the front (I acted as translator for the tour as Ahmed only spoke French, Arabic and Berber). It was a very scary experience, and I hope never to repeat it. We had to help a car along the way that was hanging off the cliff. Had the car rolled over, the occupants would have surely died (only to be found the next day at the bottom of the mountain!)
So, we are back in sunny Marrakesh. We are going to play it by ear today and decide what to do next due to Jessica's health. One of the tourists in our mini bus was a family doctor from New Zealand. She helped us out by naming a few drugs we could try to help her stomach problems. (for your information, a doctors prescription in a developing country is not necessary to obtain any type of drug. Need penicillin? No problem. And it cost a fraction of the costs in Canada!).
De retour du pays des Berbers!
posted by Serge LeVert-Chiasson at
4:19 AM
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