AND NOW for an actual update on Morocco when I’m not completely exhausted and angry:
Morocco is…WARM. Like really, really warm. I’m out in the desert right now and it feels like an absolutely perfect summer day, even though it’s February.
Marrakech was an interesting city. It was overwhelming, but also exciting. I saw snake charmers and acrobats and people with monkeys in the Medina (but I didn’t watch them because I didn’t want to pay them). I saw tons of cats, most of them sick, lots of homeless people, lots of poverty. Women in the square yelling to you so they could give you henna tattoos. Getting lost and immediately swarmed with men trying to “give you directions.”
After two days, I was ready to leave. I had done all the stuff I wanted to do in the city, and I knew I would be in a similar but bigger city in Fez. More importantly, I was anxious to get to the desert. Aside from the few issues I had, people in Morocco have been lovely. For example: I decided pretty last minute that I wanted to take the bus to Merzouga, like the night before. I casually mentioned this to the hostel guys, assuming I would just buy a ticket online. NOPE. You have to go to the station, which is in the New City – about an hour’s walk away. Also I had just come from there. And since there’s only one bus a day, it often sells out, and you can’t just get it at the station in the morning. Luckily, one of the guys offered to drive out there on his motorbike and pick one up for me. Like. What?! Who does that? It was so so so nice of him, and I was able to get on the bus the next morning.
I took a $2 cab to the bus station after a quick haggling session (they refused to turn on the meter, but like, whatever, two bucks). The bus ride was…long. And not fun. I mean, I’ve had worse. But it was thirteen hours, from 8:30am until 9:30pm. Not the best way to spend an entire day. It passed mostly without incident, until we actually arrived in Merzouga.
My hostel wasn’t on the GPS, but I had vague directions from Hostelworld. The town is tiny, basically just one street, and I knew it should be somewhere on the street. But of course, as soon as I disembarked, several guys approached me and tried to “help” me. It was nighttime, I was lost and alone in a strange city in the middle of nowhere. I just wanted them to leave me alone, let me get my bearings, and figure my shit out. Instead, I had to start power-walking the second I grabbed my bag from under the bus, without even looking at my phone, just to get away from these guys.
Most of them gave up after a minute or so, after I refused to tell them where I was going and insisted that I didn’t need or want their help and ignored them. But one guy would NOT leave me alone. He followed me all the way down the street, despite my EMPHATIC protests of “I’m fine,” “I’m good,” “I don’t need your help,” etc, etc. But he kept responding with “You look angry!” At first I was like, nope, just annoyed, because I’m sick of you guys doing this to me constantly! But that didn’t work, he continued to get more and more pushy, and the next time he was like “you look angry!” I turned around and FLIPPED out on him. I was literally yelling at him, my impatience and anger driven by sheer exhaustion. “YEAH, I AM. LEAVE ME ALONE. STOP FOLLOWING ME. I DO NOT WANT YOUR HELP. DO NOT SPEAK TO ME. GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!”
That shut him up.
I had to ask several restaurants and shop owners, but I eventually found my hostel (it wasn’t hard, I’m just dumb.) And it’s SO NICE HERE. I can’t get over it. It’s just this one guy running the place, and he’s incredible. He made us tea and gave us cookies while we and the one volunteer hung out and talked for a little while before bed. Today, he made us a delicious breakfast with more tea, we’ve been talking and lounging in the sun, and I’m lying here writing while he and the volunteer are digging a pool. Tonight we are going to make dinner and he said he might take me on his motorbike to a cute area about 20 km away. Plus, they have opium tea here. I’m so relaxed and happy, happy to have no agenda at all today because there is really not a whole lot to do here. And a cat named Desert lives here and he loves me.
Tomorrow, there will be a few more people here and we will be riding camels into the desert (I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS DON’T GET ME STARTED.) But until then, I’m just reading, writing, working on my websites, and loving life.