Morocco with Armel and the Castellans

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The end of the quarter (half a semester) saw the dawn of some more great adventuring for me on this side of the globe.  I took the plane on Friday to Casablanca, Morocco to hang out with my best friend Armel (and his girlfriend Sarah and his family) for a week.  The Castellans have a very good family friend from Morocco named Abellah who is the master of hosting in high style.  The occasion was for the wedding of his son, Cassim.  We stayed with Abdellah’s sister Latifah in a house big enough for three families.  It had four living rooms, a swimming pool, and was a ten minute walk from the beach.  Truly luxurious.

It was the biggest wedding I had ever seen, with around 600 guests.  It was a traditional Moroccan (Muslim) wedding and was very dramatic.  No alcohol of course, but the bride and groom had many different costumes and were carried around the room severeal times by troops of men,

Throughout the first two days in Casablanca we ate enough food for a week.  There was always a lunch to go to somewhere or dinner to enjoy with a different party of the family.  I’ve never eaten so much or so well in such a short time before.  I vowed to live on bread and water when I got back to my regular student life.  This was more like the life of VIPs or Diplomats.

We left Casa for Essaoira on Monday, a beautiful town further down the coast.  It has a very pretty old town right on the water, with an active fishing industry and tons of shops lining the streets.  We made a trip to the beach the next day, and enjoyed body surfing, fine sand, and a nasty blowing wind.  I’m still finding sand in my shoes and clothes from that day.  I have vivid memories of crunch teeth.

From there we drove inland, past Marrakech, and into the Atlas Mountains.  What a change of scenery along the way.  Until just after Marrakech it was all desert, but then we saw big mountains looming in the distance.  Everything became greener, and the mountains kept getting bigger.  I think the highest ones were up to 4000 feet high.  After sleeping in a hotel in the foothils, Sarah, Armel and I went for a run in the morning.  We crossed a river and ran up into a village that didn’t have roads big enough for cars.  It was like stepping back in time, and was perhaps the richest experience of our busy trip.

Following some more driving through the mountains, we returned to Marrakech for Dinner with Abdellah and another sister of his, Sekina (at whose house we slept).  But just before dinner we managed to insert a whirlwind trip to see the big mosque, the market, and the location for the second wedding which would happen the next day.  The location was the fanciest restaurant I had ever seen.  Too bad I had to leave the next morning.  Armel and I got up befor sunrise the next day and he took me to the train station.  Three hours later I was in Casablanca airport, waiting for the pland back to Amsterdam and reflecting on the wonderful week that had passed.  But it wasn’t time for school yet. Jen would be arriving the next day!