…And the bathrooms/showers were not great...so no one took showers that night--which made the 10 hour bus ride back awful. On the way was just as bad, because we went thru the Atlas Mountains and people were bus sick, and a young boy ate a prickly pear from a vendor on the side of the road and the poor kid must have vomited 5 times.
We drove all the way to a sand dune, where I dropped my camera trying to scoop sand into a water bottle, and now the zoom feature doesn't work :( As we pulled up in the bus, we were surrounded by men trying to sell scarves and get us to pay for camel rides...they climbed and followed us all the way up the dunes! It was so annoying-- they don't take no for an answer!
After the nomad camp we rode camels. Five were tied together and I was with a little girl and her mom, Lauren, Caroline and Katherine. I named my camel Leche (milk) because he was white, and Katherine named hers Mocha, because he was chocolate colored; together we made a Starbucks coffee!
We finally head back to Marrakech, and were turned free for the night. Lauren, Caroline, Nancy (Lauren’s roomie) and I went to the market that night, and there must have been a billion people there! They must have been on "Spain time"!
Nancy was a bit scared by an overly mean vendor, but Caroline bought 3 Moroccan rugs! The next day, our tour guide, Omar, took us around the Souks (market vendors?) and I ended up bartering for a carpet!
We finally made it home (to the ship!) and everyone could not have been happier to get a shower and food (my ATM card would not work, so I didn't get dinner the night before or lunch earlier in the day). The line to get back on the ship was ridiculous though, because everyone was getting back from trips, and security has to check all our bags. I was happy to be "home" and I immediately met up with Jocelyn, Evergreen and Laura, whom I had actually kinda missed!
The next day, the 4 of us and Katherine went to visit a mosque in Casablanca and attempted the marketplace. We ate our last Moroccan meal (couscous and mint tea!) then headed back to the ship, where we played cards and watched as we sailed away from Morocco.