Farewell to Fes and The Sahara

WOW it has been a while since I’ve updated! Since my last post, I finished classes in Fes, visited the Sahara desert, explored the mountain town of Chefchaouen, and am currently in Tangier, Morocco, once home to Bowles and Burroughs. There’s so much to tell, thus, I’ll cover the Sahara and Fes in this post and save Chefchaouen and Tangier for the next entry.

With the exception of Abdenebi’s class (still clocking in at 2+ hours), my last week in Fes whizzed right on by. It’s amazing how thorough, useful, and thoroughly useful the darija class was—now that I’m on the road, I’m regularly employing the restaurant and transportation vocabulary we learned last week!

It seems like it was so long ago that I set out for Morocco from North Carolina not knowing a soul, when it was really only three short weeks ago. This past week was especially fun with some friends hosting a dinner party at their apartment for our darija class, trying pastilla (a pigeon or chicken pie made with thin filo-esque pastry, almonds, cinnamon, and sugar—sadly our restaurant only had it with chicken) with Romey and Hannah, and afternoons and evenings in the ALIF gardens, chatting and joking around before heading home. My first set of goodbyes to those friends not going on the desert trip were somewhat rushed (the buses taking students on the trip to the Sahara were surprisingly on time), but a tad difficult nonetheless. However, I feel (insh’allah correctly) that the goodbyes were not for forever—honestly, most people at ALIF are or will be studying Arabic for a while yet so I wouldn’t be surprised if we run into each other again at some point in the future!

The desert trip, which started Friday afternoon and concluded Sunday evening, was a wonderful, whirlwind weekend excursion that I won’t be forgetting any time soon. The first leg of the trip was the seven-hour drive to Erfoud, where we would be staying the evening before making the final 2-hour push to Mezourga, from which we would visit the desert. The drive south was gorgeous—we passed first through farmlands, then forest, then highlands, and finally the Middle Atlas mountains, stark and beautiful, before crossing into dry desert terrain.

Our hotel for the night, Xaluca (check out http://www.xaluca.com/) was, in a word, ridiculous. Honestly it’s the kind of hotel I normally love to hate (luxury hotels that create mini-paradises within their walls have never been my cup of tea thanks to the Bahamian behemoth Atlantis), but after a long, hot bus ride (and three long, hot weeks in Fes), it was perfect. We spent the evening swimming and relaxing poolside until someone had the idea to go look at the stars at the seemingly nearby dunes. Though dunes excursion was a late-night fiasco as the dunes were much farther away then anyone reckoned. And though two friends spent the early hours of the morning lying face down in the dirt (while the farmers whose lands backed onto the hotel searched for the intruders who had the gall to waltz onto their property) once everyone was back safe and sound it ended up being a fun (albeit crazy) story.

The next morning we took off for Mezourga and arrived at the second hotel around noon. Since it was still too hot to hit the sand, it was back to the hotel pool—not quite as nice as the first place, but enjoyable nonetheless—who wouldn’t want to go swimming with dunes in the distance? The camel train left at 6:00pm, and in groups of five or so our guides led us out into what can be described most accurately as a Clip-Art esque horizon of sand and sky. (I know that sounds terrible but the placer really did look like a Windows sample background, i.e. too perfect to be real).

The two-hour trek we took to the campsite was great—I’d ridden a camel once before but for a much shorter time (plus we stayed in the camel paddock—not so scenic). I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything except for, say, a new pair of legs—I was definitely walking bowlegged when I stumbled off my beast and into the campsite!
The campsite (billed as an oasis, but really some trees and Berber tents) was at the bottom of a massive sand dune. We’d seen people climbing the dune when we were still riding up to the camp, and as soon as I had gotten some feeling back into my legs, I was ready for the ascent.

Or so I thought. Dune climbing is HARD! Twenty minutes later, sand everywhere, I made it to the top with my friends. Needless to say, the climb was totally worth it: our camp and the camels were little brown specks and you could see for miles. Plus, the way back down was almost enough for me to consider climbing the dune again: racing through the sand at top speed, it really almost felt I were going to jump out of the sand, into the air, and keep on flying.

Back in the camp dinner was waiting, and though it was good, the wind and sand flying about extinguished the candles as soon as our guides had lit them, making it difficult tell what exactly it was we were eating. It turns out that the scarves we’d been told to buy for sun protection doubled as excellent sand guards, keeping the sand out but still being partially able to see. A small group of us ended up staying up late, telling jokes and looking at the stars, falling asleep just before dawn.

An hour or so later, it was time to leave! The desert heats up quickly, so it was important we got back to the hotel before we roasted. After showers and breakfast, we set off for Fes. This last part of the trip was slightly less fun, as a handful of students weren’t feeling well, resulting in the bus taking many, many bathroom/’stomach recovery’ breaks.

We got back to Fes around 9pm, and after saying a second round of goodbyes to friends on the desert trip, I headed back to the medina to stay one last night with my host family. Since the second round of ALIF summer classes starts on Monday, I got to meet one of the next Americans staying with the al-Azims, a girl named Janina from Rutgers University who just finished studying abroad in Paris for a year. She’s very friendly, and I told her she definitely lucked out in being placed with our host family.

Saying goodbye to my host family next morning was definitely the toughest set of farewells I had to make. It’s amazing how in three short weeks, they really became a family for me, and a wonderful one at that. I’m forever grateful to them for giving me a home and a family in Fes, and I already can’t wait to visit them again someday.

Well, I tried to be concise…stay tuned for Chefchaouen and Tangier, and thanks as always for reading!