Morocco part quatre - the rest of the trip

Days 4-10 become a blur, with some highlights being:
-Son sports a Motley Crue shirt.
-Precious Peter asks Angie, out of the blue, "Did you dress up for Haloween?"
-we hear yet another quote proving we are on a seniors tour "I'd hate to lose my suitcase because I don't want to lose all my Chico's clothes!"

We see much more of the country and I realize at some point that the song "Arabian Nights" from the cartoon Aladdin has been steadily playing through my head the whole time. And I think this is because I expected Morocco to look like miles of sand dunes. And it does -- in the Sahara desert, if you drive an hour to see the sand dunes. But otherwise, Morocco can look like anywhere.  Desert, rivers, mountains, we even saw a random ski resort along the way that looked like it belonged more in Switzerland than Africa.

And it turns out, a lot of movies are filmed in Morocco for that reason - you can make it look like anything. Even, Aladdin, like here:

Ok, so maybe I don't look quite like Princess Jasmine....



But you gotta admit, this is an Arabian Nights kind of place

We see other beautiful scenes and stay in great Kasbahs like this one:

(where I have the second topless scrub down of my life in their spa. I never learn...)

<-----And see spices like this

eat tagines like this----->

see gates and walls like this:

And see more town squares filled with more snakes (you seriously have to start watching where you step!)  They keep them in bags and under boxes so you never know how many there are until you get too close and they try to put one on you, or make you pay money just for glancing their way:

There were also monkeys

and henna artists in the square. One monkey owner attempted to put one on my arm but I scurried away, hearing our tour guide's voice in my head saying "they may carry diseases!" I did succomb to henna though (in the end, I should've gone with the monkey, but more on that later):

And we learn various words like "Shukran" (Thank you) and "Insha'Allah" ("God-willing," used often for when people really don't want to do something -kinda like how someone in the South will say "well Lord willin' I'll get to your order before the end of the week..." It is also used as "I hope this works!" etc.)

And we end our trip back in Casablanca, where we learn the fine art of being Frogger in a real life video game of life or death through the craziest traffic ever like here:

And finally get settled onto our flight home just in time to hear the flight attendant spew out instructions in french and arabic and all we catch is "Insha'Allah..."

:\

which is a little disconcerting because I really don't like to hear "well, God willing!" from the people about to take me airborne. But thankfully we make it back safely to the U.S. and start washing out camel smell from our clothes....

Shukran Morocco! Great trip :) (....EXCEPT for all the health issues I had....which will have to be in yet another post. I promise we are almost done!)