Connor's Blog

We were up early because we had an Atlas Mountains tour booked for 9. This morning though, had amazingly crispy French toast in store, a perfect start to what we hoped would be a perfect day. At 9 we were guided to a Toyota Land Cruiser 4x4. We set out through the outskirts of Marrakech towards the Ourika Valley. The land there was green and fertile and had a stream running through it. Walking across a log bridge we got to our first rest spot. A week prior there had been a flash flood and there was clay everywhere and was still wet. While the adults sipped mint tea Jenny and I waded through the stream bare foot, cracking rocks in search of geodes, the hollow rocks containing gems. As we entered the car I asked Dad when we would go off-roading. Little did we know that the remainder of the trip was off-roading. We drove up the cliff, with Mom coincidentally on the cliff side as we drove the green faded and the red clay mountains began. Mixed into the mountainside were mud hut villages, camouflaging into the hills. These images appeared to be 1000's of years old, only the satellite dishes gave away that we were in the present. We drove over beautiful valleys and by snow capped mountains. We drove past Mount Toubkal, the tallest point in Morocco at 4167 meters. As we passed little towns, young children would run up to the car, our driver had a bag of wrapped sweets for them. As lunch approached, we stopped in Asni, a small village where we ate. There was tajine, kebabs, and kefta. While the adults sipped wine, I enjoyed the pool, Jenny wasn't as big of a fan due to the cold water. We paid the bill and set off for Kasbah Tamadot, the resort owned by Richard Branson. We enjoyed the newspapers and cold drinks there for a little while before setting off for the Kik valley. We then went from clay to sand in a matter of minutes. The Kik valley was a desert! Sand dunes as far as the eye could see. We were awestruck and were mesmerized. Amazingly we saw camels. Not that we were not expecting to see camels in the desert but we were happy they were not tourist ride camels. At first we kept our distance, 6 feet or so, then closer and closer and finally we petted them. We were taking several photos and Uncle Mark was admiring the camel when it attempted to "kiss" him. We were laughing very hard all the way home. Some of the parts of the desert were where the movies gladiator, Alexander, and Babylon were filmed.

Jenny's Blog

Two-legged Skinny Things (from the perspective of a one-hump camel)

Every now and then those two-legged skinny things come walking up and pay my owner to see me. The ones we saw that day were a little bit different than most two legged things. They arrived in a Toyota Landcruiser, ran up the embankment and came running over to me. They were taking pictures, they were taking video of my best friend and they kept asking, "is he dead?" Didn't they know he was just sleeping. How stupid are these things. After a little while they calmed down with the video taping, but the pictures kept flashing. At first the dad tried to pet me, I would have bit him but I couldn't reach him fast enough. Now for the pics. First the dad, then the dad with the daughter, then the dad with the daughter and the son, then the whole family. Finally this really skinny two-legged thing came walking up beside me and put his hand on my back. Now I am thinking, get your hand off of my back. Of course, the two-legged skinny thing didn't understand camel. It was useless. He looked, I looked back at him. He moved in for a kiss on the nose, and I responded in the international language of "bite me". And I tried to bite him. Seems that two-legged skinny thing was not so stupid and very fast. They were howling. After a while they decided it wasn't that funny. They packed up their cameras and returned to their truck not before paying my owner for the privilege of taking my picture.