Here's Looking At You, Morocco: Southern Excursion, Part 1

It’s been quite a week! I had planned on posting sooner, but my Internet was limited and I decided to focus on where I was instead.

On Saturday, our group loaded the bus and began our southern excursion. Our route looked like this:

We drove for around 4 hours Saturday morning, then stopped for a tour and lunch at Al Akhawayn University. Al Akhawayn means The Two Brothers’ University, referring to King of Saudi Arabia and King Hassan II. The university has an intresting story of being funded primarily by the King of Saudi Arabic who gave Morocco an endowment meant for the cleanup of an oil spill, but the cleanup became unnecessary after the wind blew the oil away (or so their story goes…). King Hassan II decided to then use the money to build something that would benefit all Moroccans and build the university. Al Akhawayn is situated in Ifrane, a small Swiss looking town. The university models the looks of the swiss town, but models American universities in every other way. Upon arrival, we received booklets advertizing the university, which boasted about a liberal arts based program, study abroad options, cafeteria style eating, and an Olympic size pool. All of their classes are in English and their curriculums are modeled after American universities like Harvard and Oberlin. It was an odd juxtaposition to be in Morocco, at a seemingly American university, in a Swiss-feeling town. After our formal tour (felt like college touring all over again) we ate lunch in their cafeteria. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving to Midelt, a small town known for its apples. We had a great dinner at the hotel and later were able to meet the owner of the hotel, who happened to also be the mayor and senator, as well as an entrepreneur of other sorts.

The next morning we drove for a few more hours and then stopped for lunch in Rissani. We wandered around the souk (market), which appeared much more authentic than any other souk I had seen. It seemed to function entirely for locals with mostly food and everyday goods, rather than a collection of souvenir trinkets made clearly for tourist sales. We then left our suitcases on the bus, grabbed our backpacks, and boarded into six different range rovers to traverse the desert. I was nervous about getting carsick on this ride, but it turned out to be so crazy that I distracted myself from carsickness.

The range rovers went across the sandy terrain in all different directions, often racing and spitting sand in every which way. I felt like I was in the middle of a car commercial. After a few minutes, the sand dunes became visible in the distance. It was another one of those moments when I had a hard time convincing myself what I was seeing was real. Just as we approached the edge of the dunes, we reached our hotel. We got out of the Rovers and immediately got on camels. It is quite a sight too see, 33 Americans riding camels into the Sahara at sunset. We rode for around a half hour and then stopped to explore the dunes ourselves, take pictures, and admire everything around us. Charley and I decided to head to our own dune to take everything in more quietly. We picked a dune that seemed within reach but as Charley put it, “I don’t have proper sand-dune-distance perception”. We made it to our chosen spot a little while later and watched the sun lower, casting new shadows over the dunes every few minutes. We weren’t there for long before it was time to ride our camels back to the hotel to make it back before dark. We sat down to a dinner of the most delicious tajine I’ve had yet, serenaded by traditional Gnawan musicians. It was a beautiful day.

My hungry camel.