Camels, Monkeys, Fez, Roman Ruins.

 I am terribly sorry about my sporadical blogging, of late. The internet has been iffy to say the least. Although, strangely everyone in Morocco owns and heavily uses a cell phone, internets has not really caught on yet. It's in some places, but it's still pretty rare. So I find that I am an entire week late on updates. In my life a week of silence can mean hundreds of unsung escapades. I am thinking that I will have to paraphrase... Highlights, baby, highlights.

Sooooo, the desert. Mostly sand... a few Camels, some palm trees. Big surprise right?
We arrived at a hotel that appeared for all the world to be a red clay castle, but upon further inspection turned out to be a fully functional and very comfortable lodging establishment. With a grand view of the Sahara and all inclusive Camel excursions. After consuming a customary cup of mint tea, we were given the choice of spending the night at the hotel and leaving for the oasis come daybreak, or leaving that night and riding the Camel train under the cover of moonlight and the flicker of stars. Being the Claus family we chose the moonlit voyage, naturally. The full moon was spectacular sitting astride a Camel lovingly christened "Shakira". We rolled up to camp just in time for dinner and drum and dancing show. They tried to teach me how to hold a beat and sufficed to say it didn't really work. We slumbered that night in tent constructed of Camel Hair fabric.... It smelt a little funny. Sunrise the next day turned the dunes a deep shade of blood red, that later petered out into a golden rose, almost as if the sun was blushing. We set out across the dunes once again, this time our destination was the camp of a family of nomads close to the Algerian boarder. We had breakfast with their family, shielded from the wind and dust by more woven Camel Hair.
Interesting fun fact! Camels main purpose in Morocco is to provide meat. Very few of the Camels born in Morocco will actually be used for riding. They like to eat them. I had a Camel burger in Fez, it was quite scrumptious... although it did possess a bit of a Camel smell undertone... I just tried not to think about it.

We left the nomads and the Camels, in favor of finding a breed of Monkey found solely in the Atlas Mountains. They are very friendly, even in the most wild areas, although they can cause a bit of a nuisance because of how curious they are. They get into EVERYTHING. You have to lock your card doors and batten down all of the hatches. If it can be opened and might possibly contain food- they will have it opened and be enjoying whatever tasty tidbit they could find. Whether it is edible or not is beside the point. We fed them Apples and Bananas, they will take them strait out of your hand. They were great fun.

After our fun with Monkeys, we ventured on, to one of the oldest cities in Morocco. Fez. Our guide, Mark, lives there with his wife and two daughters. His home is in the middle of the oldest part of the city.  Called the Medina, which really just means city center. It is full of shops and cafes. Selling everything from Moroccan leather shoes to live chickens. There is also a humungous tannery right in the center. It smells absolutely foul. There are hundreds of round tubs full of narsty smelling gunky water in various stages of filth. Now, I feel that it is important to specify that I was witnessing all of this and smelling the noxious scents from about four stories above the action. Men walk around down there barefoot and shirtless amidst the tubs of rotting animal flesh, boiled into a delightful soup. Creme of decaying sheep skin. New flavor from Cambels. Yummy.

We based out of Fez for a couple of days. We visited some roman ruins and such. Pretty interesting.

Then we drove out towards Casablanca. Which was fun to see, but definitely not as nice as eveyone thinks. It is a huge city, full of stinking factories and tall sky scrapers. Though we did stop by Rick's Cafe (a remake, because the movie was filmed in Hollywood.) that was very fun to see. But we hightailed it out of the city and on to beach. The clean beach that is.

We stayed overnight at a small beach town a little was up from the famous town of Esowera. It was a very nice stop, simple sandy beaches, not many people, beautiful breakwaters. We did not stay there for long though, we had a plane to catch. We drove back to Marrakech and left for spain the next morning. Which is where I am writing this from- Spain! I am with Arturo and Elisa! To those of you who know them you know how exciting that is. To those of you who don't, just know that if you knew them, you would be jealous. ;)

Our camp in the Sahara.

Ben watching the sunrise. 

My Camel, Shakira. She was a sweety. 

Some serious Camel riders. 

Our Camel train.  

This one is a little blurry. But I want to show a picture of Mark, our guide. He is the one on the right... If you couldn't tell. This is the nomad camp where we had breakfast. 

Monkey on my bag. Eating a Banana. 

It's all fun and games until they start climbing up your leg... 

They were very dainty when taking food from your hand. 

This guy got in a serious fight. His nose is all split open. 

The Medina in Fez. 

Medina wears. 

This is the Old City in Fez. To the left on the bottom of the picture you can see the tannery. All of the brown tubs. And the skins hanging above. 

My Camel Burger in Fez. Clock Cafe. Really cool place. 

Roman Ruins. 

Roman party place. Back in the day this would be filled with water and you could just chill out away from the heat with your favorite friends. 

Beautiful displays in the Meat Market. 

We definitely got a box of these. Though, some of them are not as good as they look... 

Loving the sunshine and the beach.