Oh Morocco, You have charmed me with your eyes!

I just got home! It was an interminable trip. Starting with a night long bus ride, an eight hour ferry ride, wasting a day in Spain, flying to London and staying the night and finally a three hour train and short cab ride to my little flat here in Exe. And was it worth it you ask?? Yes!

I love Morocco. It was so beautiful and interesting and different and I feel like I have too much to say about it to write it concisely or interestingly. I guess I want to break down a lot of misconceptions about Morocco as well. It didn't feel dangerous at all, women are really not that horribly oppressed and it isn't burning hot all the time. There!

It was my first experience visiting a muslim country and I can't imagine a more positive way to see it. While women dress conservatively wearing long frumpy kaftans and scarves over their hair they also work many diverse jobs, attend universities and get degrees and ride mopeds. They are the back bone of their families and actually some dress more scandalously or 'western' then Jess or I. I feel like in some backwards ways they have less messed up body images then western women. Because they dont show very much skin in public they dont seem to worry about being fat or thin or obsessing over the tiny minute things that we do. Instead when they go to the Hamam for a bath they all sit together half-naked scrubbing each other down and chatting perfectly free. Much freer then me. It was a revelation.

The hospitality of Moroccans was a revelation as well. At first Jess and I just didnt know how to react. When you meet someone on the street it's hard to accept an invitation in for tea. But we got used to it and met many many kind people. Old women shared thier food with us on buses and made sure we drank enough water, if we were travelling with men they wouldnt let us pay for our lunch no matter how much we insisted and asked nothing in return. We also attracted alot of attention just from the way we looked. We didnt feel the need to cover our heads, and sometimes in small towns not a single person we passed on the street wouldnt yell something out like "oh, les ghazelles! tres belles! francais??" but if you ignore it no harm seems to come. I can admit that it did get annoying at times. Someone offered a few camels and carpets to marry me and one guy chased Jess down the street saying "But wait! You have charmed me with your eyes!". But it always ended with us laughing about it, another funny story. If anyone ever is in need of a quickie husband Morocco is the place to go! In the end the hassling sort of chipped at our patience, but the hospitality just kept filling our hearts over and over again and made you forget anything bad.

We explored everywhere- the ancient medival markets and souks of fes, the famous Djeema el Fna of Marrakesh with snake charmers, story tellers and monkeys, the big cities of Rabat and Casablanca and the small beach towns of Essaouira and Agadir. Probably the highlight of our trip was going to the desert though. We spent Christmas day on a camel trek in the Sahara and our guides were around our age and lots of fun to hang out with. We slept in a berber tent and ate fresh Moroccan salads. The day before we took a long bike ride through the country side and date palmeries. Many people still spoke Berber dialects and I have to say it was probably the most intact indegenous people I have been lucky enough to meet. It was cold though, especially at night! I had to buy myself a giant wool sweater since I didnt pack warm enough clothes.

Despite all that I missed home and thought of you guys alot. I hope lots of eggnog was drunk on my behalf. Let me know how it all went- I can write emails again now that im back with the qwerty key board!

And i posted lots of pictures with more in depth discriptions.

Love Caitlin