left behind

Ahoy,

Our last and final port was Casablanca, Morocco. We left a few days ago. I'm in the midst of a flurry of papers and tests, but while I'm trying to stay awake in class right now...

Friends and I left for Marrakech on the first day there. We packed to stay for one night in Marrakech. The train ride was almost 4 hours long and it was deathly hot. There was no air circulation and the seats were vinyl. As we got closer, the mercury climbed. Someone had told me it had been 140 degrees recently in Marrakech. The taxis were such a hassle to deal with. It would take more than 20 minutes to negotiate something that was far from reasonable. Public transit was not something that was available to us. The buses don't stop, people just clamber on. There are these petit taxis that only let 3 people on, when there are obviously 4 seats. I hate taxis in Morocco.

We got there and found a hotel that night right on Djemma el fna. We slept on the roof terrace. The drum circles were going on until late into the night. The room was nice, but the air conditioning wasn't working. It was so nice and breezy on the roof. It even got chilly during the night. So I heard that it was up to 140 degrees in Marrakech the day before. It was dry heat, but still not fun at all. We woke up and it was hot and sunny again. Djemma el fna looks completely different during the day. It's so bright and lit up at night. The snake charmers and monkey tamers are out during the day. Storytellers and drummers come out at night.

We didn't do a lot of tourist things the next day. We rented bikes and rode around the city. It was a lot of fun to be seeing the city by bike. We arrived back to Casablanca that night on another hot 4 hour train. We went to Fez the next morning.

blaringly burnt,
JT