First Week in Morocco

Hey there All,



The past week has been busy and fun. I arrived safe and sound last thursday the 24th in Marrakesh, Morocco. Shortly after arriving in the main square i meet with Evan and our host Ahmed, who is a masters student at the local university. His house has been a great place to crash, fll of fun characters and much laughing. We contacted him through a really cool website Couchsurfing.com, which is how we plant to use through our travels. The basic idea of the project is to connect travelers with folks who are willing to offer their couch and host folks from around the world. Back in Seattle we have hosted and toured travelers, and set up events, and Evan used the site to connect with folks while he was traveling through asia earlier this year.

The first couple days were spend touring the city and meeting other Coushsurfers. We spent the first day with a surfer from Brazil, touring the never ending maze of narrow market streets. Then next evening we meet up with Evans friend Sjoukje from the Netherlands who will be traveling with us until the 13th. We then went to the meeting of the Marrakesh couch sufing group, which was about 20 or so folks. About half were local hosts, and the other half were travelers from all over. The meeting is essentially just an excuse to get together and chat about anything from language to places to travel.

In these few days we got to be good friends with our host Ahmed and his house full of great guys. He has been an amazingly generous host, opening his house and his life to the three of us, making us tea, letting us take over his room, and helping us navigate the city. This is the amazing part of couchsurfing, insted of being stuck at a hotel, we have been able to make a friend in the city, which has deepened the expereince greatly.

On Sunday the 26th we convinced (not hard) Ahmed that he wanted to come with us to do some trekking in the Atlas mountins, which he had never visited. Since it is so late in the season we were not able to go through the High Atlas, as snow is already covering the passes and the guest houses are closed. Insted we did a 4 day route out of Imlil area near the high peaks, which had some amazing views of both the high peaks and the dry flat land to the west. For the 4 nights we stayed in guest houses, or Gites, which allowed us to carry only small day packs. Ahmed was invaluable in helping to translate and get us good deals, as most of the guides and guest house owners are ruthless in trying to get as much money out of tourist as possible. Below are a few photos along the way.

Evan and Sjoukje enjoying some tea. We got a good portion of out hydration from tea along the way, so sugary and delicious.

A good potion of the walking was on narrow roads between villages. It was great to see that all ofthe illages took on the color of the soils around, on one hill a grey, with a deep red on the opposing hill.

Evan and Ahmed with the daily cloud cover building over the high peaks.


After we were done freezing in the mountins we went back to Marrakesh to spend a rainy day with our friends at Ahmeds house. Once the passes cleared today we were able to catch a 5 hour bus over the Atlas to the semi desert town of Ouarzazate, which is where numerous movies including Gladiator have been filmed. We will be spending a few days here before mking out way north to meet Hala and Adam in Fes.

Folks should send me addresses and phone numbers, as I lost the note book I wrote them in.