My Last Weekend of Travel

I took my last and final trip this past weekend and the destination was Marrakesh, Morocco. It was my first time in Africa, so check that continent off my list. I went with my friends Sara, Kelsey, and Ferris and I think the fact that we were all American girls made the trip a completely different experience than if there had been some guys with us.

The door to our hostel, which we somehow miraculously found by ourselves as the directions constituted something like this: turn right at the third small street past the square.

View of the market that was a couple minutes away from our hostel. At night, the whole thing would fill up with tents that were converted into restaurants and if you walked by them, there were men stationed outside holding menus and trying to drag people into their tent. It was crazy.

The seemingly endless souk, though mostly all of the stalls sold the same things.

Cart of dried fruits and nuts. Seems to be turning into a reoccurring theme in my travels, no?

Ferris and I eating at one of the tent restaurants after we got our massages (they massage your head too which is why we look so disgustingly greasy).

On Saturday we decided to take a day trip to Ourika Valley, which is about an hour outside of Marrakech. It was gorgeous.

Ferris and I at our first stop. It was just a picturesque on the side of the road thing, with Moroccan people trying to sell us stuff, but our driver told us not to buy anything.

Camels that you could ride/sit on for a small fee, along with other goods that people were selling.

Then we stopped at an herb garden (aka a Moroccan pharmacy) where we got a tour of all the plants and then we got to see how they use them. And then, of course, we got to buy all of their herbs, etc.

View from the top of the herb garden building.

There were all of these crazy looking wooden bridges crossing the river and our driver let us stop and walk on one of them. That's him standing behind me (he had to show us that it was safe first)

The four of us on the bridge.

And then we climbed a mountain! Here's a view of the town that we started in.

You can't really see it, but there were monkeys all over this ridge. Usually they live at the top of the mountain, but during the winter they have to come down to scavenge for food. A little later, we saw people hunting the monkeys and our tour guide got really mad and started yelling at them.

Waterfall number 1.

Waterfall number 2.

Then we stopped to catch our breath and grab something to drink. Our tourguide explained to us that they were really expensive (about $2) because they have to carry them up the mountain. Then we climbed that wall behind the shack. It was ridiculous, but the pictures don't do it justice.

Kelsey getting literally pulled up the mountain.

Waterfalls 3, 4, and 5.

View from our climbing up the wall.

Look at how close we were to the snowy peaks!

More of the view. It was so pretty. And on the bottom left you can see andenes, which are those terraces built on the side of the mountains to facilitate farming. The Incas used this method too.

Remember that town we started in?

Ferris and our tour guide walking across the only flat part of our journey. That peak in the background is the highest point in Northern Africa.

More of the mountains and the andenes.

Finally, we conquered the mountain and made it back down safely. One final bridge crossing.

On our way back to Marrakesh we ran into all of these crazyily dressed men who were celebrating a party/wedding that was going on. There were groups of them at town we came to and they would stop you when you tried to drive through them. There were people dressed in animal skins and it was slightly creepy when they would knock on your window.

People selling stuff on the side of the road and cactii in the background.