Amazing race in Africa (Morocco)

As a group we decided to bag touring Casablanca and get a cab to Marrakech. It’s a 3-hour trip inland. Marrakech is well known as the “Red City” This is because all of the buildings have a reddish coral façade that sparkles in the sunlight. We went to the center of the city called the Medina. This is the busiest square in Africa. (Yes I said Africa….I can’t believe my feet set foot on the African continent). In this square we found snake charmers, acrobats, musicians and dancers AKA she boys. Yes these are men dressed like women and perform. Weird!! Needless to say I was taken back by my surroundings. I was very surprised to see the women still so suppressed. I guess I didn’t think too much about this being an Arab city. So we heard the call to prayer for the first time I was totally freaked out, only because it made me think of the movie Bourne supremacy. You can hear the call of prayer in the chase scene. The people there are very forward. We of course stuck out like a sore thumb. At times I felt like people were swarming us. Anyhow, Sterling and Amanda that we were with found us a quaint hotel to spend the night in. The hotel was three stories tall and it had no roof. It had a tent like top to it and it was amazing to look through at night. You could see the stars and feel the cold air. We had a lot of time to spend in the Medina this is like a huge swap meet. Vendors were out selling goods. Jim and a fun time bartering with the shopkeepers. I pick up some frankincense and myrrh. We were welcomed back to the hotel with some native dressed dancers and musicians. They entertained us for about an hour. The music to me didn’t really have a tune. It was kind of like the song that never ends. It went on and on. I had a huge headache when they left. But it was fun to see their culture. I didn’t sleep very well that night. Not sure why but I was really nervous. The hotel fed us breakfast. We had something like a crepe, tangerines and Mint tea. They serve Mint tea with everything. We then started out to find the bus station to met the boat in Agadir. We went outside the Medina to hail a cab and apparently the cabs have territories and we upset a cab driver. Four ladies of our group got into this cab and the upset cab driver came over and sat on top of the cab while in motion. It was surreal. The guy fell off the hood and put his back against the grill of the car. The car slowed down and it was amazing he didn’t get run over. Both of the cab drivers were yelling at each other. We left to find other driver that weren’t so crazy. We got to the bus station and headed to Agadir. It was interesting to see the countryside of Morocco. There are a lot of shepherds out in the fields with their livestock. On the bus we were pulled over by the police and the bus driver got out and talked to the police. We were all looking out the bus like deer caught in the headlights. We were there roughly 15 minutes. We finally made it to Agadir and were relieved to see the ship. I was excited to take a hot shower and to get a quick nap. Well little did we know that our message back to the ship did not get related correctly. The didn’t get the part that we would meet them in Agadir. So the ship called the US embassy to search for us in Casablanca. So when we boarded the ship we were asked to go to speak with the US embassy in Agadir. They had cancelled our Visa’s in fear that someone would take them and use them for illegal purposes. YIKES!! He basically told us how lucky we were not to get and that if the police wanted to they could have put us in jail for being illegally in their country. Remember how we got pulled over….
I was so relived that we made it safely back to the ship. The embassy reinstated our Visa’s and we finished the rest of our trip.