Moroccan Rockin'

I'm back on the ship for our second long stretch at sea. It's about 8 days until we reach Namibia so I have some time to settle back into life on the ship and catch up with the bloggin'.

We were supposed to refuel the ship in Gibraltar during the day between Spain and Morocco. Unfortunately, we hit rough waters and they couldn't carry out the refueling operation so our arrival in Casablanca was delayed one day. It was kind of welcome, though, because everyone was so exhausted after Spain and we could all catch up on some sleep. To keep us entertained, the ship organized a LOST premiere party (awesome episodes) and a second open mic night.

When we finally did pull in to Casablanca, the captain made a rare appearance on the loudspeaker and warned us of rough seas. We had to do some kind of sharp turn and the ship went crazy with the rocking. I was in the cafeteria and a whole bunch of dishes fell and shattered, most of the books in the library fell of the shelves, furniture was thrown around...the port lights in Casablanca would disappear over the tops of the windows, and as the ship rocked they would fall beneath our level of sight. It was exciting and only a little scary.

I had signed up for a multi-night trip to camp out in a Berber village inside the Sahara, and then spend an evening in a hotel in Marrakech. Since our stay in Morocco was shortened by one day, we had a lot of ground to cover on the first day. The distance to our camp in Ouarzazate was about a seven hour drive. Our bus (one of four) held about fifteen people, and together we shared an unforgettable ride. The driver was...well I can't say he was a bad driver. In fact he had to have been very skilled to pull off his style of driving without killing anybody. He basically drove like the devil was on his tail, pushing the gas as much as it would go, stopping for nothing, and taking every opportunity to pass even if that meant driving into headlong traffic. The funny thing is that no other driver or pedestrian seemed phased by it. People in the cities seem to pick a time to cross, and just slowly walk at a steady pace until they reach the other side. They don't bat an eye when a bus shoots by, a few centimeters from them.

Once we were out of Casablanca, the city bustle disappeared and we traveled through rolling hilly countryside. My first exposure to the African landscape was lush and green. We passed villages with stone buildings, shepherds with flocks of sheep, and travelers riding donkeys. To reach the desert, we crossed over the Atlas mountain range, which is snowy and beautiful. Our driver sped through the windy mountain roads (sometimes with guard rails, sometimes without) at the fastest possible speed without tipping the bus over. We were pushing 100 km/h. He didn't speak any english, but when he sensed that we were all white-knuckled with anxiety, he decided to calm us down with music. He had three mix CDs with panflute covers of the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and Abba. So we all sang along and tried not to think about plummeting to our doom. I've heard lots of stories about crazy drivers in other countries, but no one ever told me how fun of an experience it actually is.

We arrived in the desert after dark, and after about 20 minutes of off-road driving. The camp was situated in a little oasis with a stream and surrounded by trees. Our hosts welcomed us (in English) and sat us down for dinner. The food we had in Morocco was mostly variations on potatoes and different kinds of meat, cooked in cone-shaped pottery called tarjiins (not sure how to spell it). It was tasty. After dinner, one of the hosts announced that we would be treated to some music. I thought that sounded cool, because I had been wanting some exposure to Moroccan musical culture. I was surprised and a little disappointed to find out that the music would actually be a DJ playing American dance and hiphop. I guess that's when I figured out that our Berber village was really more of a well-disguised tourist attraction. Still, a gasoline-powered dance party in the desert is probably a once in a lifetime experience. That night we slept in tents and I was woken the next morning by the sound of unfamiliar birds.

The next day we reversed direction and headed back to spend the day in Marrakech. The city is home to one of the busiest squares in all of Africa, called Djemaa el Fna. It's just packed with merchants, craftsmen, snake charmers, acrobats, beggars, and thieves, apparently. The ship gave an extensive scare-tactics lecture about pickpockets before we arrived in Morocco, so me and everyone else were overly paranoid about being robbed...to the point where I didn't really let myself connect with anybody as deeply as I should have.

I think the techniques that the vendors use to trap customers are hilarious and fascinating. Sometimes they'll give you a “Welcome to Marrakech! Here we shake your hand!”and once you grab it they hold on to you and lead you over to their stand. Or they'll say hello, wait for you to respond, then they quickly glance behind your shoulder and shout “Look! Look! Over there!”like they've just seen the world's most shocking and exciting thing, which turns out to be their stand. Sometimes it's as simple as shouting “Obama!”and hoping you'll stop and talk. I had heard about the trick of pretending to walk away like you're not going to buy, in order to get their lowest price. They've gotten tricky about it, though. They'll let you walk really far away from their stall, but invisibly follow you for five or ten minutes as you walk down the alley, hoping that you'll turn back if you think your bluff failed. If you don't, they'll grab your shoulder in the crowd and lead you back to their stall with the lower price.

In that market, I ran into the scariest moment of the trip so far. Myself and a few friends from the trip were hovering by one of the stalls, waiting for a couple other friends to finish a purchase. The guy at the stall near us got annoyed that we weren't buying from him, and he asked where we were from. When he heard, he started a rant in broken english about how he hated Americans. He called us American terrorists and Bush-babies. Later, he demonstrated one of his machetes by swinging it towards our heads, and stopping it a few inches away from each of our throats. To his credit, he did spare the girl in our group. He played off all of his sword-swinging as a joke, but after his earlier comments I wasn't so sure. From that moment on, we were careful about who we told we were American. If they looked mean, we were Canadian.

That night our tour guides brought us to dinner at “Chez Ali,”which is sort of like the Medieval Times of Morocco. During our dinner, groups of drummers and chanters would come in and out, play and dance for a couple minutes, and leave. I was happy to hear some traditional music, but the performers didn't seem like they were happy to be playing it. Especially the female dancers. After dinner, we all moved outside to see a horse show, with some acrobatics and gun-twirling charges. The horses didn't look too well taken care of, and to add to the weirdness of the whole thing, it was choreographed to the Star Wars imperial march, the Back to the Future theme, and I Will Survive. I left Chez Ali with the same kind of disappointment as I felt after the Berber village stay. I feel like I never got the chance to experience any authentic Moroccan culture during our time there. Instead, I felt like I was looking at imitations that were crafted to meet American expectations. So my experience of my first Semester at Sea organized trip seemed to sacrifice authenticity for safety and comfort. Which might not have been a bad thing in Morocco...who knows. I just feel glad that I have some more independent travel scheduled for future ports, because my experience traveling on our own in Spain was a lot more rewarding and satisfying.

We hit more intensely rough waters on the way out of Casablanca. This time we were ready to enjoy it, so a bunch of us sat down in the main lobby of the ship and slid around with the rocking. During the worst of it, we ended up in piles three people high. It was a ton of fun and I have some great videos of it. Surprisingly, all of us in the pileup escaped without injury, but walking around the ship for the last couple days, I've noticed a broken wrist, someone on crutches, and a shoulder in a sling.

So we're getting a little battered and tired, but everyone's spirits seem to still be really high. It will be nice to have a week of classes and other normality before we reach Namibia.

That's the scoop...thanks for reading! Please don't worry. Everything is cool.

Spain

Our time in Spain ended yesterday afternoon. It was an insanely full four days so I'll just jump right in from the beginning.

Jonathan and I woke up early on Wednesday morning expecting to watch the ship pull into port. We were surprised to look out the window, though, and see city lights. We were both so relieved to see land, and anxious to explore. I was speechless but Jonathan managed a simple “We're here!”
So we ate breakfast on the ship and watched the sun rise over Cádiz. It takes a long time to release everyone from the ship so I had a couple of hours to let the anticipation build before being set loose.

Historians say that Cádiz is probably the oldest town on the Iberian Peninsula (possibly as old as 1104 BC). It's small and quiet (“quaint” might be a good word). I spent the first few hours walking with a big group, amused by the skinny alleys streets and learning how to dodge traffic. We walked through a cool public park, saw some parrots, took a route by the bay. It didn't take long to realize that it's hard to keep a 20-person group together in a new city, so I broke off along with Jonathan, a guy called Tim (also from Chapman), and a girl called Cara (from San Francisco, who goes to UC Davis). We were hungry and now it's time for the food paragraph.

Spain has got it down, foodwise. Their approach and eating schedule is snack-centric and very cool. There is only one big meal per day (lunch) and Spaniards surround it with light meals and snacking sessions throughout the day. Snacks are called “tapas” and it's normal to go from restaurant to restaurant, ordering small plates of food. All the food we had during all four days was great, even if I just put my finger down on a menu and ordered blindly. Some of my favorites: croquetas (bullet shaped breaded snacks filled with potatoes and fish or pork), fantastic cheeses, a variety of great pastas, sandwiches, breads, chocolate con churros (a common breakfast item – churros with powdered sugar, dipped in rich melted chocolate), gelato, fancy cake, tomatoey meaty cheesy garlicy explosively yummy everything. Spain's bars are family-friendly and the waiters were pretty patient with us. I will miss it all.

Cádiz has a beautiful cathedral. It's about 70 meters tall and we took the stone spiral staircase to the top of one of the bell towers and looked down on the whole city. (I got some great photos and I can't wait to show them). Nearby the cathedral is an excavation site of Roman ruins, onto which they've built glass walkways.

We spent the rest of the first day exploring Cádiz's roads and beach area. Bob, the ship's audio/video guy, plays guitar fantastically and we heard him play with a jazz group in a bar in the evening. It was a simple day but it was exciting all the same.

Thursday was the beginning of our trip to Barcelona. It was a total fiasco every step of the way. A group of us (seven total) booked our flight and hostel together. We planned our departure for the airport  poorly and not everyone got the memo that our departure time had changed. So we stressed about finding everyone, hoping to not be late for the bus to the airport. Right when we finally got everyone together and found the right bus, it pulled away and no amount of waving and shouting would make it stop. We ended up piling into two taxis. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, but due to confusion with the online flight check-in, Taylor didn't make it on the flight. The worst part was that he was the last to try to board, so we didn't get a chance to talk to him about what he would do (since our seats were scattered throughout the flight, some of our group didn't even know he was missing until we arrived in Barcelona). I knew, and it was the worst flight ever. (Taylor ended up coming the next day, and he had a very positive attitude about the whole thing. Cool guy.) After we all got off the plane and freaked out about Taylor, we were faced with finding our hostel. After spending 40 minutes on a train which we weren't sure was the right one, we wandered around the Gothic portion of Barcelona for about 90 minutes. The hostel should have been a ten-minute walk from the train station, but we just kept on barely missing the right street. I think we asked a total of 7 people and a cop for directions but it turned out to be two French candy store owners who were able to really help.

Finally at the hostel, we dropped off our stuff and got in touch with Taylor by email. I was breathing a little easier at that point.

We spent the evening and night exploring the city and restaurant hopping. I really didn't know what to expect from Barcelona. It turns out to be a lot like New York City: busy, noisy, and awake all the time. It's funny how casually Spain seems to treat their ancient buildings. They build the modern urban stores and streets right up to their historical sites, as if a 17th century cathedral is an inconvenience that has to be accommodated. Barcelona was a little shocking after the previous day in quiet Cádiz. There was a 9-story store that puts our Wal-Marts to shame. We got back to the hostel at 12:30 a.m. after getting lost for an hour, even with a map.

Our second day in Barcelona was a lot less hectic. After breakfast at the hostel and a quick chocolate con churros, we spent some time in the Picasso museum, which was very inspiring and cool. It's one of his largest collections in the world, and along with displaying his finished works, also shows many of his sketches and sculptures. Afterwards, we took the underground metro to Park Güell, which was designed by Antoni Gaudí and is beautiful. It's worth Googling. Our time there was a very welcome breather. I recorded some audio and we finally got to just sit and take it easy for a little bit. We also met up with Taylor, who was a very welcome sight.

We took the metro to the 'Sagrada Familia', which is a breathtaking cathedral that is still under construction.  Gaudí worked on it for years until his death. His planning began in 1884, and it is scheduled to be completed in 2026. It's really impossible to describe...definitely look it up because it's magnificent.

The rest of the day was spent eating (the food is so, so good) and walking around the harbor area of town. We returned to the hostel for a quick siesta in the evening, and got to know our roommates (four English girls about our age). We traded slang words and tried to prove stereotypes wrong. We all left the hostel at around midnight, accidentally walked through a pretty sleazy part of town on the way back (I can tell you more about that in person), wandered into a nightclub on the pier, and got back to the hostel at 4:00 a.m. for a well-deserved two hours of sleep. Our train, plane, and taxis the next morning didn't give us any trouble on the way back to Cádiz. We spent our final few hours in Cádiz before boarding the ship. I actually grew really attached to Spain in only four days, and felt sad to leave. Overall, everyone there was very welcoming and gracious. Spain was probably the perfect country to visit first, because we learned a ton of lessons about traveling independently and our mistakes were without major consequences. The biggest lessons I learned were (1) partner up with a “buddy” who will look out for you and vice versa, (2) learn how to say “Excuse me” and “ship” in every language, (3) rely on people rather than maps and ticket machines to get around, and (4) heed all warnings about dangerous areas of cities, even if you've felt safe everywhere else.

Thanks for sticking with me through this massive post...I know it's a lot to take in at once, because it was a lot to take in throughout four days. Right now we're sitting in Gibraltar while the ship refuels, and planning our time in Morocco.

A side note: I feel pretty cut off from current events. If anyone has a moment, would you comment with the most important news headline you've read in the last week or so? That will help me feel like I still in touch and not too lost in this ship bubble. I'm especially interested in what Obama has been doing, whether Apple is surviving without Steve, and if anyone mentions LOST we will not be friends anymore.

Love to everyone!