Time to explore the Atlantic coast of Morocco! This weekend we went to Asilah, a small beach town south of Tangier. It is known for art, and beautiful beaches. Every year this is a mural competition, where artists from around the world come to paint beautiful murals on the white washed walls of the old Medina. We were a little early for the competition, but there were still murals up on the walls from the previous years, and we ran into some artists who were preparing their mural for the coming competition.
But first, we made our way to Paradise beach on the back of a mule cart. It took about 30 minutes on the back of the cart where the seven of us girls held onto each other for dear life trying not to fall off as the mule roughly pulled us over rocks and gravel. As we got closer to the beach, the rocky ground turned to sand, and we began to enjoy the cool salty air brush softly against our faces.
When we arrived, we were struck by the empty beach. It was so large, and only began filling up towards the afternoon when Moroccans from Tangier came down on the train to enjoy the beach for a half day and then made their way back in the evening.
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Us girls before we jumped into the water...
living young, and wild, and free! |
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Emma and her nutella... the perfect beach snack.
(We easily finished that entire baguette,
can never get enough "hubs", bread, here!) |
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| The really cute beach shack where we hid from the intense sun. |
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| Got to have the camels on the beach! |
We went for a walk to explore the stone caverns on the far edge of the beach and ran into greenish/bluish Moroccans. At first I thought it was a form of natural sunscreen, but as the number of blue people increased we realized the greenish mud was coming from the rock crevasses. When we went to investigate, some of the Moroccans eagerly summoned us to the top and began covering us with the mud. I started with a face mask, and then proceeded to prove my Michigan pride... Moroccan style.
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My face felt so good after I washed the dry mud off my face!
Very refreshing! |
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| GO BLUE! |
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| I wasn't quite as hard core as some of the Moroccans... |
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Addie, Emma and I stopped for some tea that evening...
quite sun kissed! |
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| Out to dinner! Trying the read the Arabic menus! |
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| Party in the hostel on the roof top terrace! |
The Second day, Sunday, before we got on the train back to Fez, we went and explored the murals, and I bartered for hours for a piece of art that I hope to decorate my dorm room wall with in the fall.
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| Addie, posing with one of the murals. |
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| Another mural... loving the blue theme! |
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| Old, Portuguese ramparts, protecting the city from invaders. |
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| One of the artists being interviewed. |
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| At an art gallery... |
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Posing with the Danish curator and artist who has made
Asilah her home. |
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Posing with Muhammad (the shop keeper) who I shared a cup of tea with,
while trying to negotiate a good price for the painting I eventually bought. |
It was a wonderful weekend, and it was difficult to leave such a calm and peaceful place. However, things quickly became hectic on our way back to Fez... but that should be expected, traveling anywhere in Morocco is always an adventure.
We had a large group of friends from our school who went on this trip with us to Asilah, and it was sometimes hard to coordinate things. To get back we pretty much all decided to meet at the train station and hope we all make it on time. I was busy bargaining for my painting and left it up to the last minute to ask for my final price. So my friends went ahead and brought my stuff with them to the train station so I could meet them directly there. When Muhammad finally secured my painting with a last piece of tape, I thanked my new friend, and ran to find a taxi. I made it in time and went to the counter to buy my train ticket only to find that the computer had broken, and they were hand writing all the tickets. I got my ticket and ran to the other side of track just as we heard the toot from the incoming train. We prepared to face the crazy crowd as we all rushed the doors of the train to try and find a place to sit. We were not well equipped to face the natives, and misjudged which direction to turn once on the train. We got stuck in the narrow passage way where we had to wait until the next stop when people would get off. It was very hot, and after about two stops (about an hour and half of standing) we had to change to another even hotter train where at least we were able to find some seats. This is us waiting in the narrow passage way of the first train... deceivingly happy.
