Midnight Chupacabra Attacks--Fall Break 2008

First off, just wanted to tell everyone im sorry it has been so long since my last post. As the semester comes to an end, i am finding that i a) have work b) am traveling as much as possible c) dont have enough hours in the day to complete everything...ie blogs.

Fall break started off with an overnight busride from Meknes to Rissani. We drove all night though the High Atlas mountains around hairpin turns that I literally did not think were possible to make. While other slept peacefully through this treacherous journey, my nausea kept me awake. At the time, i was extremely ill (and thinking of returning to Rabat to seek medical attention of some sort). My ridiculously bad nausea has lasted over 24 hours at this point and i didnt see an end in sight. When we arrived in Rissani at 7:00 a.m. the next morning, we took a harrowing journey via really old, broken grand taxi (you know things are bad when you are sitting in the back seat and you can feel the wind through the cracks in the seat cushion) to Merzouga. The first thing you notice about Merzouga is that there really arent any roads. It is basically a flat desolate place where you can really drive wherever you please. In the background however are 300 foot high sand dunes the color of ground ginger (but more red and less brown). It is quite stunning to say the least. Once in Merzouga, we rested for the day at Chez Francoise. It used to be this giant, gorgeous complex run by Francoise herself (she is known for her excellent cooking), but in 2006, the entire area flooded terribly and everything fell down or was severely damaged, because all the building are made out of mud and straw. As soon as we arrived at Chez Francoise, I retired to my room for the duration of the afternoon. The other girls felt just fine and went out into the dune to make sand angels and write their names in arabic in the sand and things of this nature.

Francoise's Berber workmen took pity on my weakened and miserable condition and applied some Berber medicine to my nausea. I was feeling so ill by this point, i said, what the hell, it cant make it any worse...and it will be a good story to tell. He massaged the meat between my thumb and my index finer and it was very tender and sore and so he layed me down on the couch and proceeded to massage different parts of my body, which are apparently all related in Berber traditions. These included my thumb, elbow, foot and calf. Then he squeezed upwards from my thumb to my elbow and then tied a tournaquit(sp??) around my arm. He then placed the rapidly purpling arm behind my head and put me on my side (the positioning was very important because everytime i tried to move, he sighed and moved me back to the original and very uncomfortable position) with my leg bent backwards. I lay like this for five minutes and then he came vback and removed it and told me i was better. Well, i felt better for about 30 minutes. Whether that was due to the special nausea position or the massive amount of adrenalin coursing through my body as a result of the tournquit, who am i to say. By this point, I had realized that i hadnt had anything ot drink for about 24 hours and so i decided i needed some sprite or olives, or something with electrolytes (i had been chugging water at an advanced pace for about and hour and didnt want to pull a "howard stauffer" in a place where the nearest basic pharmacy was 4o minutes drive away). I told the workman that i needed salt and he agreed. We had very different ideas as to the use as you will see. He layed me down again and proceeded with the thumb and forearm massage and then gave me a large handful of salf to hold. Not exactly what i meant, but whatever. THen he massaged me with vegetable oil and salt. Quite interesting. After that, he put another tourniquit on my arm and left me in the special position for 10 minutes. After this ordeal, he informed me that the djin (demon in arabic) was ouf of my thumb and that my nausea would go away. This time, the cure lasted several hours (mostly due to the 7 up in my opinion). This got me through the three hour camel ride into the desert.

During the evening and sunset, we trekked on camels with Hassan the camel guide. Romantic? yes....for about five minutes. My tush was incredibly sore. Worse than any horse one could possible imagine (it didnt help that i had teh youngest and most uppity...hassan called mine the 4X4 of camels...ha ha ha). The downhill was way worse than the uphill. We trekked to a Berber tent in a small oasis. Then Hassan made us a delicious tajine, but as i was extremely nauseated once again, i didnt partake. I went to sleep for a couple house on Janet's lap while Hassan told us stories about actually living in the desert and raising camels for a living.

That night, we were peacefully sleeping in our cozy Berber tent when a snarling animal ran over our heads and scratched my arm to pieces and nicked my head. Then a giant German Shepherd came gnashing its teeth and barking at the Chupacabra turned cat. For some reason, the moment the cat had run over my head, both Kristina and i turned to each other and shouted, holy shit, chupacabra (for those of you who dont know, a chupacabra is a mythical animal that lives in the southwestern united states and looks like a goat/dog/alien thing and eats cows). Im not sure why we both thought of it, but it was quite funny in the end. We promptly removed ourselves from our tent. It turned out that the Spanish tourists next tend over had brought their dog, who was attacking Mox, the camp cat. REgardless, the chupacabra attack was a highlight of our trek.

The next morning, I woke up feeling very refreshed (having slept 12 hours straight) and was feeling somewhat better. On the way out of the desert, we were caught in an absolutely astounding rainstorm (that would set the tone for the weather on the rest of the trip). We left Merzouga soaked to the bone and set out for Tinerhir.

Once in Tinerhir we discovered, to our dismay, that the Todras gorge was closed due to flooding and that harassment in Tinerhir is definitely the worst. As a result of these two, we stayed in our hotel room and ate at tthe charming hotel restaurant. The food was marvelous and the waiter liked us so much that he came down to our room to pick us up for dinner at 8 pm sharp! (unfortunately due to the amount of harassment one receives in Morocco, we are never really sure whether men are being very kind or very creepy...kind in this instance...though he did ask for our MSN names). Of note is that he changed into a vest and wore a lot of cologne. He gave us free tea and cookies and we talked with an interesting Berber drug dealer who spoke a lot of differnt languages and a really coked out Basque kid who spoke spanish to me because i was the only one who could understand him. Unfortunately, my spanish skills have diminished so though i could understand, I couldnt speack back. Frustrating.

The next day we Grand Taxied it to Ouarzazate. We went to the Kasbah Ait Benhaddou by driving through the gorgeous Anti-Atlas Mountains. The geography and geological aspects of Morocco are incredible. I wish i knew anything about geology so I could figure out why the Atlas mountains look the way they do. Once at Ait Benhaddou (very picturesque mud kasbah on a hillside), we took a donkey a piece, and explored and h iked up to the highest part of the kasbah. Some of the floors were sagging and I kind of felt like i was going to fall through the floor. The top of the Kasbah gave a 360 degree view of the surrounding area. It was like a weird combinations of Mars, the southwest, the badlands, and the prairie.

That same day, we Grand Taxied it to the small, sleepy , saffron town of TAliouine. We stayed at this fantastic little Auberge Souktana. We were greated by this old drunk man who was wearing a blue turban and Bob Marley trackpants. He immediately served us saffron tea. It was dark orange. It smelled and tasted strongly of saffron and warmed us up on the rather chilly day. We were served a delicious lunch with the best potatoes of all time. So good. We hung out at the Auberge with short intermittant walks to the old Galoui Kasbah and to the actual town (Souktana was on the outskirts). We talked a lot with the younger man who lived and worked at the AUberge. That night we celebrated Kristina's birthday with the owners over a bottle of wine and a small cake. We talked about racism in the U.S. and the older man liked to ask us lots of rhetorical questions in very slurred, difficult-to-understand french. The next day, we went on a rather long and winding hike through several valleys back to Auberge Souktana. WE got lost a bunch of times, and wandered through the budding saffron and alfalfa fields (saffron harvest was 10 days after we left...bummer we missed it but oh well). We were helped along by lovely Berber women who didnt speak French, but really helped us anyway. We all laughed a lot and i think we made a good impression on them. AFter three house, we finally made it bakc to the Auberge in time for lunch, more saffron tea and saffron purchasing before moving on to Taroudannt.

Taroudannt is a small, bustling market twon about 1.5 hours outside Agadir. We wandered around a little bit and essentially relaxed in kind of a gross hotel. Janet and i went on a mission to the optomitrist's to find Kristina a contact case. It was fun. We found this "guide" who got us the really cheap hotel and also found us a good place to eat. It was funny because when we got to the restaurant (hours after we left our guide), the waiter told us he had been expecting us. The next day we went to the local tanneries. Kind of gross (due to the large amount of cow urine and pigeon feces used). Kind of neat. WE had tea and the propriater told us that he had seen us at the restaurant the night before. Again, the border between friendly and creeptastic is quite fine.

That afternoon we went to AGadir which was lovely and resort-like by the ocean. There were a lot of Norwegians there. It is very westernized, and i even saw some topless sunbathers (a site quite shocking after my experiences in Morocco)!! We stayed in this amazing hotel with a kitchen and stayed 8 people (the boys met us after their rather uneventful trip south). We went out to the clubs after making dinner and proceeded to lay around on the beach for two days. It was just wonderful after all the traveling. After doing nothing, most of the boys left for RAbat, but Jesse stayed behind with us girls. We went to the silver town Tiznit. Not fun. We got ripped off and conned into a ridiculously priced lunch and the silver was way not as cool as the other towns. We essentially sat around until the bus tooik us back up to Agadir.

After staying overnight in Agadir, we grabbed a bus north to Essouria. We spent another day on the hippy-relaxed beach and wandered through the cedar-wood-smelling Medina. It was lovely but i didnt get enough time there and so i intend to go back. The next day we spent traveling back to Rabat.

All-in-all, a very eventful and very wonderful fall break.

Sorry this is so long
Mags

p.s. Election night was one of the proudest moments of my life! and I am totally happy i stayed up till five am to see the entirety of Obama's speach!

pps really sorry about spelling mistakes. for some reason spell check isnt working and so now you get to see what california spelling standards have created...not a pretty site i know.