I’m taking a little break from telling you about my Morocco trip to telling you about life now. It’s been COLD and the good thing is that today gets above freezing so more of this snow should melt. Snow: it’s great at first and then it is annoying and you just want to wear normal shoes.
We got about 8 inches of snow last weekend, and it was a “snow day weekend” where everything was canceled, and it was pretty nice to just hang out at home. I didn’t even leave the house for 3 days, and that literally means, didn’t step outside. Louie took a walk over to Forest Park and took some nice pictures, but I didn’t want to get cold and wet.
The front yard, taken from upstairs. Louie was a champion and shoveled it all. Well, the walks.Art Hill at Forest Park, where people go sledding.
It’s another busy teaching semester: at first when I was setting up my college students I thought I was at a lower number of hours than last semester, and was fairly happy about that as I have too many students, and then in the last two days of drop/add period I got 3 more hour long students and now I’m actually higher than last semester by 30 minutes with one more student. I got everybody scheduled fairly well, but my Thursday starts very early…but we are already 3 weeks in so only 11-12 weeks left to go (every student is supposed to get 14 lessons, so some have gotten 3 and others only 2).
Vegetable Thali dish at Himalayan Yeti. SO MUCH FOOD.Coming out of Jazz St Louis the other night, what a pretty scene!
There’s been some time for fun: we’ve done a few Jazz Stl shows, we saw a hilarious play at Upstream Theater. We’ve eaten some dinners out just the two of us and also with friends. We did a jazz brunch with a friend yesterday, and we’ve watched a bunch of good TV shows. I’ve spent some time making decisions on our Japan trip in May, and planning some other trips further down the pipeline.
And some performing too: last weekend a concert got canceled but we managed to schedule the entire chorale and orchestra to yesterday! That meant yesterday was a double concert, one with the Metropolitan Orchestra of St Louis, which was especially fun as a student of mine got to play with us too. And then the American Kantorei concert, all Bach Cantatas. Louie and I ended the night hanging out in front of the fireplace chatting.
The cats have been keeping warm the best way they know how: by sitting directly on top of the radiators. It’s adorable.
Note: It’s hard to pretend like life is normal as our country is run by a fascist government. And even worse, is knowing that many people in the country don’t see it, or WORSE, see it and agree that it is great. Every day brings new horrors in the news, children being kept in detention centers, the Epstein files and seeing that apparently almost everybody in the current admin/regime is a sexual predator, the government shutting down and the democrats being more concerned about sending money to Israel who is committing a genocide, the threat of nuclear war with Iran and other countries, the president stealing money from Venezuela and trying to loot the treasury even more, taking money from all the businesses, foreign countries, etc. And seeing people being gassed in the street, murdered in the street by ICE and by police, every day. Journalists and comedians being arrested and sued for exercising their free speech. I could go on for a long time.
I find it’s hard to cope. What do we do? We just keep on keeping on, right? And trying to find joy in our lives amongst the pain and suffering.
Let’s continue the recap of my trip: Morocco Uncovered (with Intrepid). I took this trip in December/January. For previous posts (I recommend you at least skim them!) look at the following.
Day 9: I woke up and got ready for the morning’s activity, which was a hike through the valley. Breakfast was in the “cave room” in the hotel, which I forgot to get a picture of. We had Moroccan doughnuts with various jams, yogurt, fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee, and maybe hard boiled eggs?
We would not be riding on the van at all today, which was very exciting to know…the van is fine, but we had spent a lot of time in it over the previous two days, to and from the desert.
We met our guide (who also worked at the hotel, everybody here seemed to have multiple roles) and headed out through the village into the mountains.
No shortage of doors in this village either. We got to see some goats! And the man there was our guide, just an fyi.I didn’t take this photo or I wouldn’t have been it in, haha.
The mountains reminded me of Utah, particularly Capitol Reef Park. Our hike was pretty easy, but I watched my feet. I just wore sneakers, since I had decided not to pack hiking shoes for one hike, and found it was fine. The dirt would stain shoes a bit, so if you are taking this same trip, keep that in mind.
We walked through the valley, and then got to a river with a bridge over it…the river was flowing pretty well but the bridge was just a log.
After that we headed up to the top of a mountain to view the village from above. We could see snow covered mountains in the distance.
Snow covered mountains, do you see them?
Then we walked back down along the river and finally back to our gite.
The Amazigh Flag
We had a short amount of time to clean up and then all met for lunch on the roof terrace. We ate berber omelets, cooked salads, chicken skewers and fries.
The afternoon was free for us to do what we wanted, but there wasn’t much to do. I read in the sun and took a short walk around the village, but I didn’t enjoy the walk because some kids started following me and yelling out, madam, madam and I wanted to ignore them (sorry kids) but it was annoying. It was a nice afternoon though, and the weather was beautiful.
I also explored the gite and took photos.
This was the view of the restaurant from a terrace I found in the main part of the hotel.View of the main part of the guesthouse from the terrace of the restaurant.
We met in the late afternoon for henna tattoos: a young woman drew on my hand and we had more tea and snacks like the day before.
Dinner was soup and chicken couscous, with fruit for dessert: sliced oranges and pomegranates. The food here was very good.
And that was the end of the day. I went back to the room to organize my things since we would be leaving the next day, and I read after that. I finished reading the Correspondent, which was a really good book. The ending was very sad and I pretty much ugly cried through it for 20-30 minutes. I started worrying at one point that my neighbors would hear me and think something was horribly wrong, haha.
Day 8: At the desert near Merzouga: We had to wake up early for our sunrise camel ride, so obviously it was still dark when I awoke, but it wasn’t raining, yay! I got dressed and got my scarf tied around my head (I couldn’t do this myself, but all of the Moroccan guys working at the hotel knew how to do it) and when it was time, we all walked over to where the camels were hanging out.
I was pretty nervous, but it all happened pretty fast, and before I knew it, I was up on a camel!
I’m the one in the front, riding the camel.
My camel led the way up the dunes. When we got a little ways out, the guides had the camels sit back down and we all got off and took pictures and watched the sunrise. From our group, Travis and Renee walked off and then we watched as he proposed to her, which was very fun and exciting for them (she said yes!). And the guys made a little a fire to warm up.
After the sun rose a bit we got back on the camels (link goes to a video of me on the camel while it stands up, a must watch!) and headed back to the camp to finish packing up and eat breakfast.
My camel taking a little break.I’m in the front there as wellThe view from atop a camelThe camels taking a breakSun rising over the dunesWe were all a bit sleepy from having to get up early!
Sorry for the pictures being a bit out of order!
Anyway, breakfast was tasty: mostly bread/crepes with various jams, and the coffee was good.
We got loaded into the bus and headed for our next stop, which was a quick stop in Erfoud to try dates and get encouraged to buy some. They were delicious and melted in your mouth and would have bought a bunch if I could have brought them home, but I didn’t think that was allowed through customs.
We drove a long way between the anti Atlas and the high Atlas mountains. It was a beautiful drive, but far. Our itinerary said it was 7 hours of driving today. The desert is FAR away from everything else, but it was so worth it.
Cat resting at the rest stop
We made a few more stops of course: a cafe stop for bathroom and coffee, and then we had lunch at a restaurant that was in somebody’s house in a small village near Todra Gorge. We all got served plates of food and then paid a set price. I never minded this sort of thing as I knew food would be extra, but if you are hoping to really save money on food, sometimes that would mean simply having to a skip a meal or something, and the meals were overall really good! Sometimes we got to order from menus, but not always. In any case, this was a delicious meal. It was a house owned by people who were Amazigh, which are the native (pre-Arab) people of Morocco. This was probably the best lunch we had…or at least one of.
We had a delicious lunch here!The villageIs this a mule or a donkey? Now I can’t remember what I was told and I am NOT a livestock expert.
After lunch we walked along Todra Gorge. What an amazing sight to see–the road ran through it, but everybody was on foot for the most part. There were some hotels that used to be there but that had been closed down due to rock falls.
The Amazigh flagThe aforementioned closed hotels. Would be a cool place to stay, but getting killed by rockfall isn’t so cool.Did I buy another scarf? This one seemed more like an Amazigh style. Did I have a great time bargaining for it? Yes, I did.
I believe we made a grocery store stop before heading to our destination for the night, but I didn’t write that down. I didn’t buy any beer or wine, but some people did (the places don’t usually serve it, but we were told we could bring some along.) I enjoy wine, but figured I could have some time without it as well!
The last part of the drive was on a winding road through the mountains and was absolutely stunning. Our driver did a great job with the winding roads and we always felt like he was driving very safely.
A winding roadVery high elevation on the drive!
We got to the gite (guesthouse) for the night. They gave us tea and snacks first and then took us to our rooms. I got one with twin beds. This place was really neat: it was in a village called Bou Tharer in the M’Goun Valley, in a very old, very traditional looking building. We had a little time to unpack (I did some sink laundry), and then went over the restaurant building for dinner.
My room. It was nice to sleep in one and use the other for a suitcase holder, ha!Fireplace right by our dinner table. It was nice and warm this night.
It was funny, because we were staying here for two nights, and we were one of two groups we saw…and then we realized the other group was our exact tour but that had left the day before. Us, but from the future! The Morocco Uncovered Tour is very popular and has one that leaves almost every day–we also knew there was one behind us so we figured we would see them the next day.
Dinner was very nice: soup, lamb tagine, (bread and olives of course). Guess what dessert was: yes! Fruit! Sliced oranges, bananas, and apples. No chance of getting scurvy on this tour.
Aman serving up soup. You can see the bread bowl too, and somebody’s bottle of wine.Soup!A dinner selfie! Some decorations.
It was cozy in the room, though the walls were a bit thin. I had some internet in the room, and chatted with Louie a bit this night as well. It might have ended up just being a long distance call–my plan has phone calls for 25 cents a minute, which sounds high until you remember living pre-cell phones! Remember long distance calling? Anyway, I was never amazed to hear Louie’s voice clearly from thousands of miles away. And then I read my book until I was too tired.
Day 7: It was still dark when I headed over to breakfast. The restaurant was in a different building than we were staying: we were all staying in one building but the hotel was spread out, and there was also a campground on site. It was kind of funny to see all the RV’s. And I would be very nervous about the campground bathroom, though I have no idea. It was quite cold for any sort of tent camping for sure, I didn’t see anyone doing that but I don’t know.
The front door to the building we were all staying in.This was a screencap of my weather app, taken the night before. WINTRY MIX!?!Breakfast. Lots of sweets.
The sun was up after breakfast, sort of, and I took a few pictures of the grounds.
Another part of the hotel. There were a few other groups staying here, and they must have been in this area. Looking out the front doors. Inside the building we stayed in.Outside the building. Lots of cool vines! You can see an RV coming through as well.
It was cold, and started raining as we set out. We had a long driving day ahead of us. We were headed for Merzouga to spend a night at the desert. We made a rest stop at a cafe and I got a nice coffee with milk. I paid 5 dirhams to use the toilet, because I didn’t have smaller change.
We made a few scenic stops along the way: one was a stop at the largest palm tree oasis in Morocco and perhaps the world.
The Oasis
We stopped at a buffet for lunch and enjoyed some nice chicken, lentils, and other Moroccan specialties such as couscous.
The rain continued and made us doubt ourselves: we were heading for the desert, to ride camels, IN THE RAIN? What are the chances?
We made another stop to buy scarves (for those that wanted) for our desert ride. Of course, it wouldn’t be too dusty with the rain, but still fun. I bought a nice purple and black one for 150 dirham.
And then finally we turned off the highway, and drove along the sand for 10-15 minutes. It was very bumpy and there was no discernable road, though there must have been a route the driver was following? It was hard to tell. We got the desert camp, our home for the night, and it was still raining.
We decided as a group to postpone the camel ride until the next morning in the hopes the weather would improve. We got assigned our tents: this was the one night I had to share, so Sabine and I shared a tent. They gave us tea and snacks as well, and then we had some downtime. It was cold and rainy, and then the power and water weren’t really working–the tents had bathrooms, but you needed power for the water, so that was frustrating, as there wasn’t a non-water bathroom option.
inside the tent when the lights were on.You can see the tents on the side here, the black boxes.
We took a walk out on the dunes then as a group. The camp was set up right at the edge of the sand dunes, and it was really beautiful even in the rain.
You can tell it wasn’t raining that hard, it kept alternating between heavier and lighter rain. But not what you would expect for the desert!!
We hung around camp a bit after that, and waited for the water and power to start working again. No such luck, so we ended up walking to a nearby hotel for dinner. We were served soup, salad, chicken tagine, and of course, oranges, apples, and bananas for dessert. But we got word during dinner that the power and water were ON, and that was exciting.
After dinner our hosts plus Aman played some drums and sang around the fire. I hung out and listened for a bit as the rain had stopped, but it seemed to be starting up again and I turned in to bed. It was cold in the tent, but warm enough under the very heavy covers! Note: I finished my book that night, was reading “The Frozen People” by Elly Griffiths and really enjoyed it.
We would be up early for a sunrise camel ride! Would the rain hold out?
Every evening our guide would send a message via Whats App with all the info we needed for the next day. I thought I’d share one example today, so you can see what this day was like:
“Salam Alaikum all…Reminder of the program tomorrow. Breakfast starts 7 am. We will put our luggage down in the reception at 8:45. 9 am departure towards Midelt city.
First stop in supermarket to buy picnic lunch…Second stop in Ifran city, Switzerland of Morocco. Some free time for about 45 min to enjoy a walk in the park or just enjoy the beautiful green town, also snowy town.
Then we will resume the drive. Drive along the cedar forest. Stop in a place to eat picnic. Then we continue to our hotel not far from midelt.
Once we make it there we will have some time to relax before we head to a village to have some tea with family and a 1 hour walk through the fields of apple and other crops that people grow…
Back to hotel, and dinner will be at the hotel as there isn’t a single restaurant in the area.
Thanks for your time. End of the program…see you guys tomorrow.”
Every evening we would get a detailed message like this, which was really nice and helpful. I should add that I have Tmobile which gives me internet everywhere as well as unlimited texting. We had wifi in most of the hotels, but it wasn’t always very good in the rooms.
So, how did it work out in real time, versus the plan? Let’s do the details with pictures!
I woke up and met with Barb and Graehm, as well as other later comers to breakfast. It was a fine breakfast, nothing to write home about. Then I finished packing my bags and headed to the lobby. There was an atm right across the street from the hotel so I went over to take out more cash. We took the bus to the grocery store, which was a chain brand we hadn’t tried yet, and was as always, fun. I got cheese and olives for lunch and was going to share a baguette with Sabine (the other solo woman on the trip.)
Our first stop was the town of Ifran, called the Switzerland of Morocco. It had a lot of French influences and was a skiing town, I guess? We had some time to walk around and I bought some nice roasted nuts from a vendor.
They had a giant lion statue, which reminded me of University CityYou can see the architecture is quite different from much of Morocco.
We continued our drive then, along a very snowy area. We were getting into the mountains.
Some unusual vehicles on the road.
We saw monkeys along the side of the road!
Do you see the monkey?People were pulled over and it looks like somebody had given the monkey some food. Questionable.
We stopped for a picnic lunch at a rest stop, where it was unheated, and we basically froze in a little room. It was a tossup if it was colder inside or out.
People sledding on the hills. We would drive along and then be stuck in traffic with people parking to get out and toboggan.
We got to our accommodation for the evening which was outside the town of Midelt. The rooms were old and traditional, but large!
I even had a sitting room!Outside of the hotel
After we got settled in, we got back on the van and went to visit a nearby village and apple farm. We met a man who lives there and we walked around for about an hour. The views were incredible!
I believe these are the High Atlas Mountains.The guide said this stork’s nest had been started nearly 50 years ago, and was still being used. Every year the storks would repair the nest and use it again.
The village was very rural and it really made me think about what a different life the people living there led. The man guiding us said that he had moved away for many years and lived and worked in places like Abu Dhabi, Russia, and Saudi Arabia in restaurants, and was a restaurant manager. Then when his parents needed him to he moved back home. The first year was hard but now he is happy: giving tours plus doing the orchard. He said life is simpler and better in many ways. That being said, I would not wish to live there, but it didn’t seem all bad, and especially the views were lovely. And they are near Midelt where they are many modern services.
Gotta have a cat picture!
After the walking tour we had tea and Moroccan crepes with jam and cheese. We had seen the crepes at breakfast before, but these were the best we had had by a longshot as they were hot and fresh. I didn’t get a picture of them but this link looks like the same thing.
You want to pour the tea from up very high!
We headed back to the hotel and had a little break before dinner so I went for a walk to a nearby lake.
We had dinner at the restaurant. We had ordered our dinner earlier in the day and they had it ready for us. I had a whole trout with various sides. Sabine and I split a small bottle of a Moroccan white wine, which was hmm… not my favorite but fun to have tried. I then ordered a beer afterwards which was nicer.
The gang. Our guide, Aman is on the far right. I checked the weather before going to bed and saw that it might WINTRY MIX in the morning. NOOOOO.
And then it was bedtime, on the early side as always. My room was toasty warm, so I was happy.
If you haven’t read my previous posts about my trip with Intrepid called “Morocco Uncovered” start with Day 1. But if you are caught up OR just here to read about Fes, let’s go!
Day 5: It’s fun to note that this day was January 1, New Year’s Day.
It was a more relaxing morning since we were staying in this hotel (Across Hotel and Spa, though I saw no spa) for two nights and didn’t need to check out. I went to breakfast and as usual, ran into Barb and Graehm. No fresh-squeezed orange juice at this breakfast, though the food options were fine and they had a coffee machine, which was fun.
We boarded the bus and headed to meet our tour guide. It was a very foggy morning!
Doesn’t our mini bus look handsome in the fog? If you look closely you can see the remnants of our New Year’s celebrations.
We met up outside of the Royal Palace, which you can’t go inside, but has some great doors.
The biggest door was very crowded so we took pictures of a smaller door instead. Still gorgous!
You can see up close the detailed tiles and the work that went into the doors. I’m sure no expense was spared!
We walked through the Jewish quarter which was nearby.
i thought this gate really showed the people of Fes just going about their daily lives.
Next we bussed to the ceramics factory, where we learned how the ceramics are made. It was very interesting, and featured men sitting in what looked to us to be very uncomfortable positions doing work for our benefit. Is this really how they work or is it a show for us to pay more for the ceramics sold there? I suspect some of both, and after the tour I did purchase a small ceramic cat ornament and a little bowl to put trinkets in, so I fell for it, ha!
Zoom in on the picture and it says “Smile, you are in Fes”.
Next we went to the Medina. We were warned not to get lost from the group as it was very hard to navigate and the streets/alleys didn’t always show up in Google Maps. One annoyance I had with the tour guide is that he was very soft spoken so as we walked through the medina unless you were right behind him you couldn’t hear anything he had to say. He was super knowledgeable, but just soft spoken. We also felt very rushed through the medina, but I know that’s part of the deal with a group tour. If we stopped for everybody to look at everything they wanted to look at we’d still be there. Hmm…that wouldn’t be so bad!
Some very narrow streets!Dates.Olives. So many!That’s olive oil in the jars in the back.Pastries. So many pastries!Smart cat, standing near a fish stand.
The medina was amazing, and I just wanted to look at stuff, but instead we walked through very quickly. We visited a madrasa there (a school) as well as seeing a University. It was not just the stores (souks) but houses, mosques, fountains, restaurants and cafes, and everything a person would need. I imagine if you lived in the medina you rarely needed to leave.
I inadvertently crashed this photo of Barb waving.
Next we walked to the tanneries where they make leather. They smelled horrible, and we were told it was much worse in summer, so I’m glad I didn’t visit then.
We were given sprigs of mint to cover the smell. I found if I shoved them into my nose and breathed deeply it almost worked.If I were the sort of person to ride a motorcycle I would want that purple jacket. Alas, I am not. Aman and our local guide (I have forgotten his name and failed to make a note of it) chatting in the leather shop. You can see that excess is the name of the game! It was overwhelming at times, but also amazing.
We were taken to a place for lunch next, which was in a really cool house.
We were all seated inside of that room.
I had chicken couscous and the food was quite tasty.
We all got impatient with how long it took though, and wanted to leave the room and get back into our sightseeing. Moroccan meals are never fast, that’s the lesson here.
After lunch I managed to take a few minutes to buy a fez: the first place I failed to talk the guy down lower, and the second place I ended up paying the same as I would have at the first place, but felt more successful because I had haggled from 130 to 100. Ha! The last stop we made for shopping was a weaving factory and I ended up buying a beautiful camel scarf (which I have worn several times already here). I had fun haggling down to 300 from 350. (I wrote that down, but I feel like I paid slightly less, but maybe I’m dreaming, or thinking of a later scarf purchase. I suppose my notes I made the day after are more accurate than my memory today).
One in the group, Travis, bought a drum and ended up playing it with this man who we encountered.
Our last stop on the tour was from the top of Fes to overlook the city. It was really neat to see where we had been.
You can see my new scarf here, as well as please note that I am wearing just a t shirt: it must have really warmed up on that day!
We ended the tour then and went back to the hotel. After a quick refresh, a few of us walked to a nearby mall to shop: I went with Steph, Alicia and Sabine. We looked around at the mall and then the grocery store, which was absolutely slammed, it was like navigating a public high school (at least, mine) in between classes. We decided to make things easy and have dinner at the food court. The whole place felt like a modern medina, which I suppose it was. I panic ordered finally, and got a burrito called the bang bang, which was chicken with cheese, fries, and a sauce. Not super healthy, but a nice change from tagine.
Moroccan Pizza Hut!
We walked home then, and we saw a van absolutely stuffed with people, and either Steph or Alicia (now I just can’t remember, forgive me!) said “Oh, that must be the basic tour.” We just died laughing. (If you have researched Intrepid trips, this is a much funnier joke, or maybe you had to be there). And then we saw this van:
I decided, no THAT’s the basic tour van. Everybody inside and the luggage tied on top.
We discovered there was a bar at the hotel, quite hidden, around behind a corner, and Sabine and Steph and I decided to have a drink. The bar smelled like smoke, but we noticed there was a little garden terrace so we sat out there. We also invited the rest of the group and Barb and Graeme joined later. I had a beer from Fez and another from Casablanca, which I preferred.
I looked up at one point and noticed this LINE of a/c units. Crazy!
It was pleasant but chilly on the terrace, and it was nice to chat and relax with a beer, one of the rare times we did that on this tour. And then that was it for the day, and I went up to bed.
