Morocco

O M G. I don’t know if there are even words to describe this place. And by this place I mean Marrakech. We sadly only got to visit one city in Morocco but it was amazing.

Amazing but overwhelming at the same time.

First of all, they do not have Uber, Lyft, or Bolt. Only taxi or an app called “Indrive” that was like a taxi because you still could only pay cash. And yes they would not give you change.

This is the first time I saw Murphy during the semester and I got to meet her friends. Yuna was the latest to arrive at the airport so we waited for her. We took a taxi to our Airbnb (kinda) they had to drop us off super far away because the streets get really narrow and are inaccessible by car. Murphy almost got backed into by a taxi, fortunately, she survived.

Our Airbnb host didn’t answer us for a while so we went to get lunch (fortunately also right across the street so we didn’t have to lug our bags all over the place). Dare I say the best meal we had the whole time we were there.

Chicken Tagine

Seriously so good. It was this fall apart chicken with the most flavorful broth every. This was lowkey one of the only options we had at all the restaurants but it was so good so we didn’t care.

We only had Friday and Saturday because we left early Sunday morning.

Friday afternoon we went to the town square and were on the hunt for something called a “pashmina.” I think. It was quite controversial when I made a Tiktok about it being called a pashmina. Anyways a pashmina is a type of headscarf and we wanted to get one for our camel ride through the desert on that Saturday.

Ummmm. First of all. I was scared.

Monkeys, snakes, scary store owners, birds, idek what else. There was so much going on in that square and I couldn’t tell if I loved it or hated it. I could tell Murphy hated it lol.

My Papa David died the Wednesday of that week so I was pretty sad and decided I wanted to get a henna of an eagle feather to see if I would maybe want a permanent tattoo of it.

Eagle feather henna

Henna is a bit of a stretch considering it didn’t last a day. This is also very different than the picture I showed the lady. Also she used a needle (hopefully not a hypodermic one) to pipe out the batter and that should have been red flag #1.

After shopping (I got a flower vase, bracelets, the pashmina, linen pants, earrings, and the henna). BTW I am an AMAZING bargainer and that might’ve been my favorite part of the trip. Since I knew I didn’t need anything it was super easy to not care if I walked away with nothing.

Anyway after that, we walked around the town and saw a couple of sites, saw some sad mistreated horses and donkeys, had an amazing crepe, and ate Tagine again.

Saturday finally rolls around and I am SO EXCITED. We booked an excursion to the Afagay desert to ride camels and 4-wheelers. I’m not going to lie, the camel ride was a little underwhelming. Tell me why I thought we would be galloping. Camels walk VERY SLOW if you didn’t know. Watching their feet squish was super fun though. The 4 wheelers were amazing though. My helmet unfortunately did not have a visor so the rain was pelting me in the eyes but I survived. I am a survivor. It was so fun. This was one of the times when I really wished Sam was there to experience it with me. I knew he would have loved it.

After our excursion we were served dinner with a show. Dinner was SO good omg, (tagine again along with a salad and bread and fruit.) The show made me cry. My Papa David loved music and his culture and the show reminded me of him so much. I knew he would’ve loved it and I was just imagining him sitting beside me while I was there.

Anyway that was basically the whole trip. We finished the night with the Bee Movie and went to bed.

I had to wake up super early and take a taxi to the airport (spoiler I didn’t get any change in return even though we already agreed on a price.) But other than that it was such a magical trip and if you get the chance to go you need to take it.

This trip really opened my eyes to how beautiful different cultures are. It showed me that in every part of the world, there are so many different things and cultures and you don’t have to be or look a certain way to be beautiful. No matter where you go there will always be an “it” way to look or an “aesthetic” but they’re all different and you can’t fit into all of the boxes.

I felt like before this trip I made a lot of assumptions and grouped things and cultures together. I hate admitting that, but I feel like I really got to learn first hand that just because some things look alike doesn’t mean they’ll be anything alike. It really helped build my confidence and showed me that all I can be is myself and that is just going to have to be good enough.

Bye, love you

Emma