Morocco- Where Dreams are Made and Broken

I don’t even know where to begin for this blog post. The stories and emotions are all over the place for this trip; the beginning of our spring break. I guess I’ll just start from the beginning.

Yasin, Ryan and I had a 2:40 flight out of Stansted. We were taking Ryanair, which none of us had ever taken before. They are very strict about their 1 bag limit and their 10kg limit. So, me having a backpack and a 13kg carryon, I had to check my bag for 35 Euros. You weren’t even allowed a personal item on the plane which was such BS, but whatever. Getting on a Ryanair plane is like a stampede; there is no assigned seating so when the gate opens, everybody legit runs to the gate to try and get a ‘good seat’, not like there is a good one. I’m looking out the window and I see people getting off the plane we’re about to board. Yes, Ryanair boards their planes 10 minutes after their passengers get off.

It was about a 4 hour flight to Agadir in Morocco. Where we were going is very southern on the coast so it took a little longer once we flew into the county to actually fly into our city. Flying over Morocco was very cool though, we flew over mountain ranges and we sang ‘Waka Waka’ the entire 40 minutes as soon as we passed the African boarder. Once we landed in Agadir at around 6pm, the temperature was almost 70 degrees F. At boarder control, Yasin and I both got stopped asking if we were Arabic and where our father’s origins were from. As we continued walking through the airport, there was another scan system to see if you were smuggling money. Yasin and I get stopped asking how much Dirham we have on us, us both quivering at the sight of the huge gun he has wrapped around his body, but the guy tells Ryan to keep going, saying ‘I see nothing I see nothing’. It was quite amusing. Once we get through that debacle, we see a guy holding a sign with ‘Surf Berbere’, which was our hostel on it, standing at the exit.  Apparently the hostel we were staying at was unknowingly a surf camp and one of the instructors had gone home to London for a week and was waiting to get picked up, so we ended up going home with him. The hostel was about 45 minutes outside Agadir, and the instructor Matt is telling us about the exotic places he’s been to and how he ended up teaching surf lessons in Morocco. When we get to the hostel, we realized we were sent by a guardian angel to bring us there. We would have NEVER have found it by ourselves; once dropped off by a taxi, we had to walk through a maze to get to it. After the labyrinth, however, it was so worth it. We had to walk on the oceans rocks to get to our hostel. It was absolutely mind blowingly beautiful. At the hostel, we are greeted by an Australian surf bum who checks us in and asks if we want dinner. We put our stuff down in our dorm and go outside to hear a chatter of Brits and Australians. The yoga instructor there gave us places to go in Agadir for the following day, but we told her we wanted to go out clubbing that night. One of the cooks there (who was actually Moroccan), Rakim, heard us say we wanted to go out clubbing, and asked if he could take us out. Us in our loud American ways said ‘sure!’ and he told us that by 10:30 we would head out. While waiting, we got to talk to the fellow Brits saying in the hostel and the instructors as well. One of the instructors, Tom, was only 20 years old and had been in Morocco teaching surf lessons for over 3 years! They were all drinking, smoking shisha, and had interesting stories to tell about their lives. They were also making fun of us for wanting to go out. Matt said ‘go to Dreams’ (one of the clubs in Agadir) ‘it’s where Dreams are made…and broken’. That soon became the quote of the night. At 10:30, Rakim came, looking fly, and off we went to Agadir for our big night in the city. When we got into the taxi, he told us he loves to make music. All of a sudden, this BOOM of techno music came on and we all started rocking out. After a few minutes, dirty lyrics such as ‘Put it to my lips, it better be big’ (yes all these lyrics were in English) started to come on. We think that Morocco needs a sexual revolution, not a political one.

                Rakim told us we were going to 2 places, one chill place first and then a club. He took us to the ‘British pub’ and we all started laughing. It was full of nicely dressed people, a DJ, had a pool table, and a karaoke machine DJ. Now, if they had pubs like this in London, I’d be at one almost every night. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. Some of the golden gems being sung on karaoke (in English mind you) were Faith, Zombie, Aicha (in French). Don’t  recognize any of these titles? Don’t worry. They had an entire American book of music featuring Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Brittnay, Madonna, Mombo #5, Bet Midler,

One lady even had a black sparkly prom dress like thing on. In the bathroom, I ran into a Sweedish girl who thought I was British, and invited me to her table at another club called Stuff N’ Tell. Clearly, we didn’t go there. We’re classier than that. (Rakim later told us that Stuff N’ Tell was more expensive than the club we were going to).

After a couple of hours of soaking in the Moroccan culture, being completely sober, it was time to head to the club. Now, being in a third world country, I wasn’t expecting anything fancy. Rakim took us to the front of ‘Actors’, shook the bouncers hand, and we were let in. Rakim then turns to us once were in and goes ‘just to let you guys know, it’s about 200 Dirham just to get in. (that’s about $25), which for them is about 3 days worth of food. Inside was the most unreal club. I have pictures and videos to do it justice because I don’t even know if I can begin to describe it. If anyone in London has been to Whiskey Mist, take that and multiply it by 100. Most of the people inside were foreigners and what seemed to be higher class Moroccans. After 3 hours of dancing and some of the best DJ-ing I’ve heard to date, we called it a night. When we got back to the hostel, Yasin’s stuff had been moved off of her bed and onto the floor and there was a boy sleeping in her bed. So, we had to ‘snuggle’ on the top bunk of a bed with 7 other boys in the dorm.

I was awakened the next morning by gorgeous Moroccan sunlight. The window right next to my face was a very cliché Moroccan style so I just laid in bed and looked out the window a while. We decided not to take the surf lessons and just go to the beach ourselves. We had a determination to ride camels on the beach, and as soon as we got the beach, what do you know! Camels. A couple of little boys were hustling the camels and this man who looked like he was right out of Arabian nights was with them on a horse. After talking them down to 20 Dirham each for a camel ride, we hopped right on. It was so much fun, the little boys bringing our camels along the beach had the camels in the water and gallop. After our 10 minute ride, Mr. Arabian Nights himself wanted us to pay up. As we got out our 20 Dirham, he started getting angry, saying 20 Euro. We got confused, but as we started asking questions, we realized he didn’t know any English. This was a scary Arabian nights man and he just kept getting angrier and angrier. I took out the Dirham I had (Which was 200) and he grabbed it out of my band, he took 200 Dirham out of Ryans wallet, and Yasin just gave him 200. After that, the entire herd just walked away from us. We stood there in utter confusion until we realized we had just been robbed. Looking back on it, we realized it was about a $20 camel ride and we probably fed that family for almost 3 days, but still.

After that we decided to just chill on the beach. After a man with delicious homemade donuts came and offered us some about 4 times, a man from the Sahara desert came and decided to show us his handmade jewelry. He knew 5 languages: Berber, Arabic, English, French, and a ‘little bit of German’. He would sing a little tune as he would show us his jewelry; he  was one of the nicest men we met on the trip. It was such a shame we couldn’t buy anything from him, but we explained that we had just gotten robbed from the camel riders, and he was very upset for us. He even told us to go to the police, but we told him no, it was okay.

Ryan and I decided to go into the water for a bit, and then we decided to head into Agadir. We were told to go to the Sioux, which was the market, We took the bus which cost 7 Dirham (or less than $0.60), and we were soon in the middle of Agadir square. When we got off the bus we had a mission to find Suprabus, which was the bus we were taking from Agadir to Merrakesh the next day. This man came out of nowhere asking if we were going to the Sioux. When we responded yes, he told us to follow him. He was so nice, bringing us right to the Sioux, explaining that him and his brother owned a shop in the market that sold beauty products. When we got to the market, it instantly reminded me of the bazaar in Istanbul, except the floor was mud, there was vegetables and dirt everywhere, there were household items being sold such as things you would find in the Egyptian bazaar, and there were beggars everywhere. He brought us to his shop where his brother, who spoke almost perfect English, began to give us like an infomercial production of his products. I ended up buying Moroccan coffee, Berber lipstick that is so cool, it lasts you forever, and jasmine (which according to him, smells better than Chanel. I can agree). After sharing homemade mint tea with the brothers, the non-speaking English brother soon became our guide for the day. Just because! He brought us all throughout the Sioux, showing and pointing us out various things we wouldn’t have seen. He even brought us across town to the Suprabus. When we departed, he just gave us a big hug and went back to his shop. He spent almost 5 hours with us for nothing. We wouldn’t have known what to do without him.

We headed back to Surf Berber and decided to go to the pizza place that everyone said we had to try. After getting our rooms switched so we all could have a bed and an amazing shower, we headed into the little town in Talamazoo. I got chicken pizza, Yasin got a chicken Panini, and Ryan got a ham and veggie pizza. While we were leaving the restaurant, I SWORE I saw Jack Johnson eating pasta by himself. We headed back to our hostel, stuffed, chilled with the people for a bit, then headed to back. We had to get up for our bus at 5:30 to be on our bus at 7. At this point I was feeling fine, just full, but not sick at all. At around 1am, however, that all began to change. I don’t know what happened but I got the worst food poisoning of my life. Lauren who had gone to Morocco a couple of weeks before had warned me of this but I thought I was home free. The entire night I spent being sick. We got on the bus to Merrakesh and I thought I was fine, and about half an hour into our ride I knew I was going to puke. I frantically looked at the woman next to me who had a baby in her arms and suddenly puked all over the bus. She gave me toilet paper, a bag, and then perfume for my hands. The nice guy in front of me gave me gum and Arabic axe. I was so embarrassed but I felt a little bit better. About half an hour later, Yasin started to get sick as well. Ryan slept through it all. We arrived in Merrakesh 3 hours later. We were flying EasyJet to Madrid and it worked as the same was as Ryanair; everyone kind of runs to the gate. We were some of the first people on line, and the guy was yelling ‘speedy boarding?!’ and looking at us. We shook our heads no but he told us to come anyway. Clearly, we’re ballers, needing speedy boarding to be in VIP seats next to the bathroom.