Brazilian Birthday Shenanigans: Brazil pt 1

Our time in Rio made every second of those 14 days worth it. Although my birthday really is the 12th, we started celebrating before the first day of port because all of my friends had different plans for most of Brazil. Basically I milked my 21st birthday as much as possible, because after all, you only turn 21 once and why not celebrate it for an entire week?

The Highlights:

Day -1 Nov 7: Fancy Dining with all my faves

Day 1 Nov 8: snooze fest of a field lab, penthouse party in Copacabana

Day 2 Nov 9: acai deliciousness, climbing a mountain and dying, Christ the Redeemer, friends

Day 3 Nov 10: literally flying over rio (hang gliding) hippie market, girls night out

Day 4 Nov 11: heading into the AMAZON ….. To be continued

The deets:

Day -1 (last day of the 14 day voyage)

The birthday began with fancy dining onboard the MV. To those who don’t know, the best meal you will have all of Semester at Sea is fancy dining on the ship. You reserve a table ahead of time with your friends, agree to pay 30$, and eat in a separate room with linen napkins, champagne, and all that rigmarole. My friends and I had not done anything so civilized in a while, well actually probably since beginning the voyage. I almost didn’t recognize them all cleaned up after 14 days at sea letting appearances slide toward shambles. Here’s a pic of everyone at the table:

Here’s a shot of a few of the crew looking pretty snappy if I do say so myself.

The food was also amazing. Five courses and dessert.  Take a look!

I absolutely loved this meal because it was all of my favorite people together with good food to boot. We all couldn’t stop smiling the entire meal. It was also interesting to walk around the ship afterwards because people literally didn’t recognize me with straightened hair looking like a functioning human, let alone a real girl for once. (I usually stick to a messy bun, sweats, and a t-shirt onboard)

Day 1:

Unfortunately I had a field lab the first day, but luckily it was my last one. It was for finance class… joy of joys. Anyway, we headed off to the US Consulate to hear speeches from two SMEs on Brazilian economy – a US Commerce Service representative and a State Department Officer.  We were pleasantly surprised with how interesting it was and it helped us to get a quick take on the intricate and highly nuanced system of government in Brazil.

Then we set off to lunch at Cais Do Oriente, a fabulous steakhouse. It was a beautiful restaurant:

Here we were served my second best meal on SAS, more steak!!

We also got to try the Brazilian soda Guaraná – a sweeter version of ginger ale.

After such a large lunch, everyone wanted to pass out for a decent nap, but sadly we had to do that during our third stop of the lab the Brazilian Development Bank. To be honest, I can’t recall much because it was more of a 2 hr power nap than anything, but they sent us the 75 billion slide power point, so I will definitely be reading that as soon as possible. I just love finance.

Finally, we were free!! My friend Aidan and I set off to go meet the owner of the penthouse we had rented out for the night to throw a huge birthday party for myself and a fellow SASer. We had a bit of apprehension because Airbnbs are notoriously hit and miss, but as soon as we arrived, all my fears were assuaged. The house was beyond fantastic. 6 bedrooms. 12th floor. View of Christ the Redeemer from the balcony. 1 block from Copacabana beach. 5 seconds from a grocery store. Really chill host who even offered to share his food and alcohol. It could not have worked out any better.

We claimed rooms and then headed to grab a quick meal at a ‘by the kilogram’ restaurant a block away called 686. It was quite a random assortment of food, but really good.

Then we met up with everyone back and the house and enjoyed a fabulous night. I had SO much fun and everyone I love on SAS made it over to at least stop by. I can safely call it the best birthday party ever.

Day 2:

The next morning we woke up surprisingly early and bee-lined for a café with acai. If you don’t know what that is, you’re missing out. After two years in Los Angeles, I have become quite familiar with the Amazonian berry and the much-crazed acai Bowls at various juice bars, but let me tell you, acai in Brazil is the real deal. Nekter and Pressed have nothing on Brazilian asci. It was delicious. Here’s a pic before I put fruit and granola on it.

They make a smoothie like dish with the berries and you can add granola and fruit as well. We found that almost every café on the street carried acai, so this was just my first of many times tasting it in Brazil.

After packing up our things at the penthouse, we set off on what ended up being quite the wild goose chase to climb to Christ the Redeemer. Three of my guy friends and I – Mark, Rory, and John (who we all call Bama because he’s from Alabama) – caught a cab from Copacabana to our hostel for the next night to drop off our bags before the hike.

As we were getting out of the cab, another one whizzed by too closely and clipped the side of ours. The other driver pulled over, got out, and proceeded to yell at us in Portuguese. From my handle of Spanish, I could understand that he wanted us to pay for the damage, although we all agreed it was not our fault. Eventually, we conveyed our apology for his erratic driving and escaped the situation with our money and our belongings in tact. We dropped off our things at the hostel – El Misti Hostel – which I would describe as passable. It provided a safe place to sleep and that is about as much as I would give it.

Then we made our way to the metro station a block down the road and bought tickets to the stop closest to the Redeemer. After arriving at that stop, we realized we were still a bit away from our final goal. We then took another cab to the bottom of the tram station that takes groups of people up to the top of the mountain.

We attempted to buy tram tickets, but learned that it was sold out until 4:00 that afternoon. We had planned on meeting up with other friends for dinner and going out that night, so we unfortunately did not have enough time to wait for that tram and hike down afterwards. After running into some other SAS kids, we learned that if we took a quick bus ride, we would end up at the trailhead to hike up the mountain, but the hike was apparently a bit difficult. Our group all agreed this would be ideal, and set off to hike. We had no idea how big of a commitment we had just made.

So far, we have several errors in judgment that I would like to highlight: 1) brining no water for a hike of questionable distance 2) blatantly ignoring the warnings of other SASers that the hike would be rather “strenuous” 3) beginning said hike in the middle of the afternoon and arguably the very hottest time of the day.

I guess all I can say here is you live and you learn. The hike ended up taking us about 1 hour and 15 minutes, which is much faster than the advertised 2 hours, but it could not have been further from a walk in the park. Most parts of it were so steep that we had to use tree roots to crawl up the “path” and one section had a long chain nailed to the wall to assist climbing up. Honestly, the word climb would probably be the more apt term to describe our experience. By the end, my legs were on the verge of giving out completely and all of us were just dripping in sweat. During one of our few rest breaks we did happen to see several small monkeys in the wild and it was really cool, if not a bit scary. They kept jumping on Rory’s GoPro, so that made me a bit nervous.

Of the several hundred people we encountered at the Christ the Redeemer viewpoint, not a single other one had attempted the climb up. At the top, we bought two bottles of water each and sat on the ground for a bit before braving the last several flights of stairs to get to the lookout point. The view took my breath away and made all the preceding events 100% worth it. Take a look:

We spent a good amount of time taking photos and marveling at the amazing views.

After a bit, we decided to head back down and luckily ran into a couple of friends who gave us their tickets for a van ride to Copacabana from the top. They had decided to hike down – the much more logical and intelligent decision relative to ours – and didn’t need the last half of their round trip tickets on the ride-share vans. Rory, Bama, Mark, & I hopped in line and caught a van shortly after to our hostel area.

We arrived after not too long and tooled around the market at the beach. After our own stench became too much, we headed to the ship to clean up, grab some free (slash already paid for) food and meet up with the rest of our friends.

That evening, we headed into Lapa, the nightlife hub of Rio and had a blast roaming around the street market underneath the Arcos do Lapa – an aqueduct- and stopping at some bars.

 (pic from google btw)

Yet again, what makes these nights so fun is the amazing people I get to spend them with. My friends and I could probably have sat on a street corner for the entire time and still had a blast. Exploring Rio was even more fun.

 

D3:

We began our last full day in Rio, with one of the most amazing things I have ever done: hang gliding! My good friend Jess had been talking about hang gliding nonstop on the 14 days at sea and she booked it for us as soon as we found wifi the first day. As we drove to the jump site, I could almost see the excitement. Everyone kept exclaiming “We are going hang gliding now!” and we all were surprisingly chipper for 9:30am after a night out.

The weather was absolutely fabulous and I could not wait to fly! After signing the forms and paying, we all split up into our guides’ cars to head up to the jump site, high on Pedra Bonita. Jess and I ended up in a car together with our two guides in the front. To call this vehicle a car is actually quite generous, as it was more of a rickety, popping engine with 4 wheels. As we headed up and up towards the jump site, my fear of jumping off a cliff quickly faded and was replaced by my fear of this sad excuse for a vehicle breaking down completely. The narrow and incredibly steep road seemed to really challenge the car as it jolted and wined upwards. We crawled up the hills, quickly passed by every single other vehicle on the road. Jess and I kept joking that we were more likely to die in the car than hang gliding.

Our fears were soon realized as the car turned toward one final steep hill.  It gave one last sputter and stopped completely. We giggled awkwardly in the back seat as our driver coasted off the road and pulled the emergency brake. Here is a shot of Jess in front of our fabulous ride:

what struggles…

As you can see, things were not going well. Luckily, there were many other guides with much more reliable cars and they came to our aid not long after we stopped.

Then there was nothing between the jump and us.

We arrived to the rest of our group already involved in a flurry of activity preparing for flight. Guides unfurled the sails of the hang glides (is that what it’s called?) and their assistants fitted the next victims with helmets and crash suits. I finally realized exactly how dangerous this activity was and how completely and utterly SOL I would be if anything went wrong.

As I stood on the takeoff ramp, I became even more acutely aware of the possibility of falling to my death.

We were all pretty amped and a little nervous, so I don’t think we fully appreciated the beauty of our vantage point.

After watching almost all of my friends successfully sprint into empty space and survive, it was my turn. My guide, Matty, kept reminding me, “Chin up, loose grip, strong woman.”

He turned to me, after we finally got strapped in and checked twice and asked, “Are we ready to fly?” Despite the butterflies flurrying in my stomach, I responded with what I would like to think was a resounding, “Hell yeah.”

We ran down the ramp for about 20 feet then the ground fell away beneath my feet. We soared over the trees and through the clouds. For the first minute, I’m pretty sure I just sat in awe with my mouth wide open. Then I began to take in the sites of the city, the favela, the beach, the park. Even the favela was beautiful. The silence while flying in the air was shocking and absolute. After the hustle and bustle of a city like Rio, the vacuum of sound was pure bliss.

We flew for about 10 incredible minutes then we came down to land on the beach to a crown of onlookers. Not one of my friends could keep a smile off of their faces for a single minute afterward. Jess was all grins for the rest of the day and so was I.

After everyone landed safely, we headed out to a market we affectionately deemed, “hippie market.” We spent a good deal of time roaming around pursuing the wide array of goods and purchasing souvenirs for loved ones back home. As evening fell, my friends Lucy and Jessy and I headed off to meet up with the group of kids that would be traveling on our Amazon riverboat excursion and the rest of our friends went in different directions for the remainder of their overland plans.

I’m going to leave it here for now, because the Amazon deserves a post all to itself. Even though these days didn’t technically encompass my real birthday, I count them all as heady contributions to the celebration. Honestly after these few days in Rio I was already ecstatic about how my birthday had turned out. Who gets to enjoy a fancy meal with some of their best friends, a mansion party, hiking Christ the Redeemer, and hang gliding for their 21^st birthday? And then I got to head into the Amazon as well! I really cannot explain how lucky I felt to have been able to experience everything that I did and I also am kind of bummed that every birthday after this will probably be a bitter disappointment. Oh well. I am obsessed with Rio and I really want to return sooner rather than later. All I can say is dear Rio, you did my 21^st birthday well.

 

Off to the Amazon to get down and dirty with nature. To be continued…

xo

 

One is Silver and the Other’s Gold: Italy

**awkwardly late post sorry about it**

Picture your best and oldest friends.  The ones that saw you when you had your fat phase or your mouth full of metal braces. The ones who were with you when you got caught sneaking out and the ones whose phones contain so much blackmail of you, your congressional dreams can never be realized.  Now picture those people with you in one of the most historic cities in Italy.  Think about exactly how amazing and unreal that could be.  Then understand that is exactly what I did for this port.

Two of my best friends from my hometown are studying abroad in the beautiful Florence and I got the opportunity to visit them this port!  This was exceptionally exciting because our voyage originally wasn’t routed to Italy. We had to change the Itinerary when Ebola broke out in Western Africa.  Although I still am disappointed I did not get to travel to Ghana and Senegal, I am overjoyed I got to spend a few days with two of my favorite people, Allie and Lara.

Unfortunately I had a field lab the second day, so that put a bit of a wrench in things, but it all worked out just hunky-dory anyway.

The highlights:

Day 1: Moroccan Stomach Virus (terrible), Wifi, Errands, Beach in Civitavecchia

Day 2: Field Lab to a Vineyard – wine tasting for school, The Reunion

Day 3: Sandwiches from heaven, Florence Market, Piazzale Michelangelo, Date with my Al Pal

Day 4: train to Florence and all aboard the MV

The dirty details:

D1:

I woke up bright and early as planned, ready for an entire day of being a tourist extraordinaire in Rome, but unfortunately ended up with my face in the toilet.  It appears Morocco needed to give me one more parting gift.  Besides losing a bit of weight, there was nothing glamorous about this stomach virus.  Although I was nearly in the clear, I decided to forego Rome, as I have traveled there with my family, and opted for a more restful day in our port city of Civitavecchia.

After some rest, I willed myself to head into the city in search of wifi and stumbled upon one of my guy friends already in a café.  I took care of a number of things online including course registration, booking an Amazon trip for Brazil, getting my now-monthly dose of social media, and some online banking.  Please try to understand how precious wifi is and think of us kids stuck on the MV explorer next time you do a Google search in your spare time.  I would KILL to just look something up on Google whenever I wanted… I digress.

When the rest of our friends made it back from Rome, we rendezvoused on the beach and took in the sunset with some vino tinto – minus me – stomach virus, remember?  Although I was feeling much better. One of my friends and I both had field labs, so we started to head back earlier than everyone else because we had an on-ship curfew of midnight in anticipation of the morning lab.

Honestly, we probably would not have made it back in time, save for two Italian port-security men, who offered us a ride in the security car.  During our ride back, they invited us out to the bars, but we politely declined, as we had to be back to the ship.  Thank goodness chivalry isn’t dead in Italy.

D2:

Today we headed out in our European casual for a grueling and academically stimulating field trip to a vineyard.  Yeah, sometimes I have to remind myself this is school and we have lots of real work to do. J But actually, the lab was quite interesting given the circumstances.  My Entrepreneurship course, along with a number of others, had originally planned for a Field Lab in Ghana, so my professor had to scramble to pull together something remotely related to our class in Italy.

We ended up visiting an independent publishing house, an organic olive oil factory/ farm, and a lovely vineyard.  We enjoyed delicious Italian pizza for lunch and we also got to taste some fruity red wine and freshly made olive oil.

After that, we hightailed it to the train station to head off to Florence.  We took a short train into Rome and transferred to a bullet train north to our final destination.  I had planned on meeting up with Allie – best friend ever – in the McDonald’s of the Florence train station.  My SAS friends and I got off the train and ordered some food.  As we finished, I still had seen no sign of Allie.  We gave up after a bit and decided to head to our hostel and search for wifi to contact Allie and meet up elsewhere, then I saw two familiar faces jaunting towards me.

I immediately ran across the station and embraced both of my friends, laughing with a smile from ear to ear. Even now I grin looking back on my excitement.  To my great pleasure, both Allie and my other longest friend, Lara, were there to visit me!! Originally, Lara had told me she wouldn’t be in town that weekend, so I just expected Allie.  I am not sure how to convey how amazing and out of this world this was.  Allie, Lara and I have been friends since the sixth grade. We still talk fondly of our awkward junior high fazes. To spend a weekend in Italy with them, where they live, for a stop on my travels around the world on a gigantic cruise ship, well… surreal is probably the best way to describe it.  I felt as if it all was too good to be true.

I parted ways from my SAS friends for the night, in order to fully immerse myself in the company of my old friends.  We excitedly caught each other up to date on the rest of our summers – we hadn’t seen each other since the 4^th of July – and then about current goings on in our respective study abroad programs.  I got to meet all of their roommates in their apartment and we all bonded over a bottle of wine – or several 🙂

Then, it was off to enjoy Florence, in a way only old friends can, at the local watering hole, Uncle Jimmy’s and then off to Karaoke at Red Garter.  The highlight though, was getting Nutella croissants at a Secret Bakery.  We walked into a dark alleyway and knocked on a door, from which a hand extended and traded us coins for croissants.  It was magical and amazing!  I believe there are four in Florence, but I could not tell you where or it wouldn’t be a secret would it? I can safely say this was one of my favorite nights of semester at sea.

D3:

We woke up bedraggled and exhausted, but still in awe of the fact that we were all together in Italy.  Lara had to head off to catch a plane to visit her family in England, so Allie and I spent the day shopping and exploring Florence.

We got sandwiches at the best sandwich shop in the city.  An Italian subway, but much, much better.

After tooling around the markets of Florence and getting one too many pieces of clothing at the many shops, we headed back to Allie’s apartment for a much-needed nap.  We woke up feeling refreshed and decided to head out to Piazzale Michelangelo to watch the sunset.

We made it just as the sun began to touch the horizon and the view was absolutely breathtaking.  Allie bought us a bottle of red and we sat with a few of my SAS friends that we had run into to take in the beauty of Florence as the day came to a close.  As soon as the sun dipped below the skyline, the clouds that had began to loom opened up and rain poured from above.  Everyone scattered, while Allie and I, Portlanders at heart, enjoyed the downpour and began the walk back to the city.

We enjoyed a fabulous meal at Yellow Bar.  We split a caprese salad and I got gnocchi, my favorite.

After some delicious gelato at Edoardo we met up with the rest of my SAS friends at the hostel we had booked for the evening.  We stayed at Euro Student Home, which was really a dreadful hostel, but it has a phenomenal location.

That evening we started at Shot Bar Café, where 1 euro = 1 dollar, and then headed to a club called FullUp.  Both places were quite fun and, but like most locales in Florence, overflowing with Americans and tourists.

D4:

We all woke up, to the sad feeling we get every last day of port.  Yes, we love traveling to new countries, but there are always things left to do whenever we depart.  We stopped at a café for breakfast and then Allie walked us to the train station.  Both Allie and I hate goodbyes, so we parted in front of the station.  It was bittersweet, but we both know we will see each other in December.

I’m so happy I got to see my two loving friends.  This experience made my time in Italy special in an entirely different way from other ports.  It was also so refreshing to spend time with such old friends.  I do love my SAS friends, but it is just a different bond.  I still have a hard time comprehending I actually saw Allie and Lara in Italy, while traveling with my SAS friends is a regular occurrence.   I appreciate both of these friends and I love them both differently, hence the title of this post.

That’s all for now, but stay tuned to hear about my 21^st birthday in RIO!

Ship Life 101: 14 daze at Sea

I recently realized a huge part of this experience is life on board the MV and I have not really documented anything about that – besides my great pleasure at finding it the last days of port.  So, during these 14 days at sea – which have so far been incredibly and surprisingly fun- I figured I’d give you a little insight into what makes Semester at Sea so special.

Typical Day on the MV

Every day is a bit different, but they generally consist of a few activities – as there are not endless possibilities on an 8-floor cruise ship.

Working Out:  The fitness room is small – 2 treadmills, 2 Stairmasters, a few ellipticals and some bikes – we have to sign up to use the machines a day ahead and we are technically only allowed 30 minutes on a machine.  I never sign up and just go for the mystery box workout- taking whatever machine is open.  Although sometimes running on a treadmill while there are 15 degree waves is not the best idea if you are worried about personal safety.  Other times I do fitness workout movies with friends.  I workout almost every day – as long as I still have clean clothes.  We also have an area of free weights on 7^th deck (Top Deck) that are decent as well.

These are shots of the Fitness Room and top deck weights.

Playing Soccer/Volleyball/Basketball:  I really just play soccer.  We have a SAS FC -Semester at Sea Football Club – that organized a 3 on 3 World Cup for the 14 days and my team, Yugoslavia, is currently top in our group!  The court is small, but games are really tiring because they are so fast paced.

Here’s a shot of our court:

Laying out:  This comprises the majority of my free time and maybe some class time…. Sorry mom!.. but this is one of the most amazing parts of the ship.  Here it is entirely acceptable to pull on a dress over your bikini and head downstairs for your hour of class, then come back up outside to your chair where you left all of your stuff.  The SAS dress code is basically as long as you’re mostly clothed, its good.  Makeup is optional, sweats are encouraged and slippers are more than appropriate.

This is a typical school day for us.

Games: We can checkout various cards and board games from the activities desk and a number of kids brought Cards Against Humanity.  Though, I’d recommend not playing Cards Against Humanity every single day because it gets old really quickly and you start to memorize the cards. Insider tip: they have an entire set of poker chips at the Activities Desk.  Although if you don’t like loosing money, I wouldn’t advise that as some kids are pretty serious about Hold ‘Em.

This is the Piano Lounge, where we hang out whenever it’s not warm enough to be outside.

Eating:  The best praise we give a meal is “This isn’t horrible.”  I think that should give you a general idea about the quality of food.  If you love pasta, starches, potatoes and mystery meat – then you’d feel right at home eating on board the MV.  I’ve started to view Balsamic, Tabasco, and A1 as food groups.  Sometimes for a change of pace, I buy food at the Top Deck bar, which is actually decent, but that can add up really fast.  Sorry wallet.

 

Our dining halls… rough life I know.

Snack Bar: I tend to hang out at the snack bar by the piano lounge, because I made friends with the crew when I had all my dock time.  It’s great to know the crew because they are really cool and can hook you up with certain things.  Sometimes I even get free hot chocolate!  ALSO: Snack Time at 10:00pm is a daily staple, as staying full with the horrid food is difficult.  Never underestimate a good PB&J sandwich.  Although I am not sure if I will ever be able to eat one again after this.

 

Hard Drive Sex: Exactly what you’re thinking.  Well… maybe not actually.  Movies and TV shows are a currency on the ship.  If you have a hard drive filled with good films, your value to the shipboard community goes up exponentially.  Who knows? It could even help you find SAS love.  Bringing ample supply is quite recommended.

Work:  I am a work-study student, so I have 2hr daily shifts in our computer lab doing IT Desk duty.  For the first few shifts, this entailed setting up people’s emails, but now it mostly is a mandatory study hour and social time.  It’s quite a chill job and I’d definitely recommend applying for it if possible to future SASers!

 

Oh and I almost forgot: Class! For that, I’d recommend downloading some iBooks – I have all of Harry Potter – or the game Peggle, which is the latest craze for students to pass time in class.  Classes are really hit or miss on the ship. Some professors require unreasonable amounts of work and some don’t give any.  No one really knows until the semester is underway.  Mine are right in the middle.  The hardest part is making myself go and actually doing the readings.

 

We also have loads of activities and events:

Movies & World Cafes:  Every night in the Union, which is the main theater/meeting room, there are ship-wide movie screenings and various talks about current events, interesting ideas, new ways of thinking, and unique cultures.

Neptune Day: When we cross the equator there is a huge celebration.  It’s totally a mystery though.  I’ll keep you posted on that – its tomorrow!

Halloween: Everyone dressed up in surprisingly clever costumes and we had a Halloween dance.  Unfortunately, it isn’t your typical raucous Halloween college party because students are limited on the amount of alcohol they can buy per night.  To combat this, a number of kids started hording wine in their water bottles so they could get a buzz going for Halloween.  Honestly I would say it wouldn’t be worth it because the dance was an hour and a half and there was no room to dance, but whatever floats your boat – hehe get it?

Friends and me on Halloween in our typical dysfunctional fashion.  I was riffraff… the rapper.  Yeah we didn’t have many resources stuck on a ship in the Atlantic, so I went with what I had.

Another thing we have to look forward to after Brazil is the Sea Olympics!  This is a day wide competition between halls with tons of invents including: hula hoop contest, tug of war, knockout, twister, relays, and much, much more.  I got elected to be a Captain of my sea (halls = seas) so I have been already working on our plan of attack with my co-captains.  Spoiler Alert: we are planning on winning.

So that’s a little insight into some of the activities that take up my time onboard the MV.  It doesn’t seem like much, but I love every minute.  One of the best parts is really just the amount of time I get to spend with all of my friends.  I found some amazing people on the ship and I keep meeting more every day.  We stay up way to late talking for no reason and find silly ways to occupy our time.  On the ship, we have danced in the rain, played improve games, made music, gambled, learned origami, played mafia, slept under the stars, stated clubs, held grape eating contests and many, many other things.  Some people on board complain about boredom, but my parents always told me “smart people never get bored,” (to which I always responded – “Well I guess I’m dumb”) But I thus developed the ability to continually find ways to entertain myself and everyone else seems to have done the same.

After all, we’re all in the same boat here.  🙂

I’m a Nomad: Morocco (Day 2-4)

So as a continuation of my last post, we have days 2 to 4.  Lots more great things happened and I can’t wait to share them!

 

To reiterate: Highlights

Day 2: bus ride from hell and/or Disneyland, seeing actual game of thrones land, riding a CAMEL, sleeping under the stars in the Sahara dessert

Day 3: back to the camel again, back to the bus again, coolest hostel ever, bartering our brains out in the marketplace and ending the night smoking hookah under the stars

Day 4: train the way we should have done it, a little more shopping, Great Mosque, back to the MV!

 

The details:

That 7:00 am alarm came far too soon and we stumbled around on the rooftop in the still-dark night trying to find the clothes we had laid out the night before.  Our breakfast was delicious.  Our coffee had ginger and cinnamon in it and is probably one of the most delicious cups of coffee I have ever had. We also had rolls and this amazing fried flatbread fresh from the stove.

We met up with the rest of the group, which turned out to be entirely Semester at Sea students, about 80 of them.  We piled into vans to begin what we thought would be a short drive to the desert.  Nope. Not at all. We could not have been more wrong.  We had unknowingly signed up for an all day drive to Zagora, which we affectionately dubbed the fake desert or baby Sahara because of its proximity to the real Sahara Desert.  It is right on the edge, but not as far out as literally in the middle of the dunes.

Not only was the drive exorbitantly long, but it also was on the most winding, narrow, crazy, guardrail-less, and lawless roads I have ever seen.  Our drivers did not hesitate to go halfway off the narrow concrete to pass slower cars, trucks, and bikers.  We zoomed through the Moroccan countryside on the most illogically zigzagged roads you could ever imagine fearing for our lives all the while.  I tried to capture it in a picture:

We stopped about every hour and a half for breaks and to buy more water.  I probably went through 9 Liter bottles in a day – we were in the desert remember?

We stopped at an authentic Berber Village that has been used in tons of movies and TV shows, most notably Game of Thrones!  Take a look

 

Then we had a lunch of more rice and couscous (food so nice they named it twice)

and continued on our merry way.  We made another quick pit stop for water before really heading into the desert. Here’s a shot of my two best friends and I in front of some mountains.

After almost an entire day of travel, we arrived to our final destination, some pit stop a bit off of the road.  Camels sat everywhere on the sandy ground, looking tired and grumpy.  Moroccan Nomads dressed in turbans and loose dress-like outfits milled around tending to both the animals and some nervous students from our group who already had begun to mount their rides.  My friends and I began to get anxious and joked that we were happy with the trip and decided we’d rather go back to the Riad instead.

The camels seemed incredibly unhappy and just as weary as us.  After getting our bags from the back of the van, our group stood around awkwardly until one of the nomads beckoned me forward to the front most camel.  I’ll admit I was quite freaked out, but I realized there were no other options at this point.  I had already committed.  So, without much grace or ceremony, I swung my leg over the camel, tried to get situated, and let the Nomad pull the rather large animal up to standing.

The rest of our group got on as well and we set off into the Sahara as the sun began to set over the desert.  Yes, that does sound picturesque, but it was also horribly scary because we really had no idea who any of these people leading us into the desert were and we did not know how far to the camp.

Riding a camel is probably one of the least comfortable things I have done in my life, but I fortunately got the one with a much larger carpet-like saddle, so I hunkered in for the long haul.  Eventually we all got used to the fact that we were on camels and began talking with the Nomads in garbled English/Spanish/French while taking way too many pictures.

 

After an hour and a half of bumping up and down on our camels, we finally saw a circle of tents and heard the unmistakable chatter of a group of Semester at Sea students.  The campsite consisted of 8 large canvas tents circled around a bonfire with a larger dining-hall like tent.  We also had a latrine tent further away with real toilets!  I wouldn’t go as far as calling it glamping, but it could have been worse.  Here is a pic of my friend in front of the campsite.

 

I can safely assume that all of us were quite excited to dismount our steeds and get some good food in our bellies.  As the sun set, we enjoyed a lovely Moroccan dinner of vegetables, chicken, couscous, and rice.  We finished the meal with tea and went outside to watch a small performance by the nomads.  Around 6 of the them played several songs on their Moroccan drums.  A couple of us got up and danced for a bit, but we tired quickly as it had been a long day.

My friends and I decided to sleep under the stars on the side of a dune, so we grabbed our thick blankets and picked our spot. The moon was full that night, so we didn’t even need flashlights.  Our chatter died down quickly and we all fell into a deep sleep on the velvety, soft desert sand.

 

D3:

We woke up literally at the crack of dawn to the sun rising and quite cold sand.

We changed and packed our belongings, then met everyone back at camp for a quick breakfast of rolls and coffee.  We all mounted our camels and began to head back to our vans.  Most of us were a little bit sore from our ride the previous day, so it was not without a bit of grumbling, especially from the boys.

We made it back to the vans and prepared ourselves to head back the way we had came.  It was another long day of driving, with a pit stop for lunch, but we made it to Marrakech in one piece.

When we arrived, around 4 pm, my roommate and I separated from our van to meet up with another group of people with whom we had planned on staying our last night in Marrakech.  Although we did not exactly know where the hostel was, we already knew the secret to navigating the maze-like alleyways of Marrakech and after asking 3 different helpful strangers, we finally made it to Riad Dia.  Take a look at the entrance to see why it was so difficult to find.

This Riad was even better than the one we stayed at previously.  I absolutely LOVED IT.  Yet again, we opted to sleep on the roof and we found all of our friends up top.  We all took much-needed showers after two days of the desert and set off for another evening in the Marrakech Night Market.

The market was just as amazing and magical as the first night, but it was even more exciting to see a few of my friends experience it for their first time.  We all had a blast bargaining, haggling, and giving the vendors trouble, while shopping for our various family and friends – yes Mom, I did get your Christmas present.  No, I will not divulge it here!

After some more street food, we headed back to the Riad, to smoke some Hookah, enjoy more Moroccan mint tea, and then tuck in for the night.

 

D4:

We woke up early to make it to the station well before our train because we refused to ride second-class again –as we still had PTSD from the back-to-back, standing room only, 100 billion degree train ride to Marrakech.  We bucked up to the $2 more first class fare and had literally the most opposite experience ever.  The train car was roomy, air-conditioned, and it had assigned seats!  We all passed out for the 3ish hours back to Casablanca.

After arriving in Casablanca, we headed to the market to finish off our supply of Moroccan dirham.  A friend and I mustered energy from somewhere unknown and also stopped by the Hassan II Mosque to get our last bit of tourist out before boarding the MV and heading to Italy.

The mosque was absolutely gorgeous.  Honestly, I want tile like it in my future house and everywhere I ever live.

 It was also overwhelmingly large.  Here’s a shot from afar.

After we tooled around the Mosque in utter shock at its beauty, the sun began to take its toll and we decided to make our way back to our floating home for some much needed shut-eye and good food.  As we negotiated for a taxi ride, a driver decided to take my scarf and wrap my head in a turban, so that was cool.

We finally got a deal and headed back to home sweet MV.

I absolutely loved Morocco because it was such a different experience than any other port.  This port was challenging and scary, but also very fulfilling and rewarding.  We really got to test our motto of: it all works out.  And it still does.  The people were so friendly and hospitable.  I mean how many people in New York or Los Angeles would stop what they are doing to walk you where you are going when you’re lost?  The only thing I did not like would be the Moroccan stomach virus I got shortly after boarding the ship.  But, if we are focusing on the positive, at least I lost 5 lbs?

Anyway the next stop was Italy and meeting some old friends 🙂 I love this trip more and more everyday and I never want it to end.

 

xo