Marrakesh, Morocco

When I graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1980 I had planned to do some travelling first and then start my career. At that time I had not been overseas at all and for some reason I zeroed in on Morocco as a place I wanted to visit. Mike Bykowski encouraged me to do the travelling and then come to work at Standard Plating, but The Boeing Company was not as flexible and I chose to go to the Pacific Northwest.

Years later, Barbara and I were in Madrid and we decided to go down to Gibraltar and then over to Morocco for a day trip. We took a night train and when we woke up we found we had been diverted due to flooding and never made it to Morocco on that trip.

Finally, 39 years after the first attempt, on the third try I made it. Thanks to the annual family reunion of the ARC Group, which was held this year at the fabulous Barrière Le Naoura Hôtel & Ryads in Marrakesh.

The hotel is situated in the heart of the old city, just a few blocks from the Souks. The rooms were amazing as was the food. As usual for these events there was not a moment to relax if you were a participant, although Barbara got plenty of pool time while we had our meetings. In the evenings we had a number of events, with the highlight being the camel trek we did on Thursday afternoon.

The first outing was to the Garden of Yves St. Laurent. It is a public garden left to the people of the world by one of Marrakesh's most famous citizens. The Love poster from 1992, the year we got married, is an annual thing that Yves did for 60 years. He would then reproduce them for his Christmas cards.

After the garden we walked through narrow roads to a "typical Moroccan restaurant". We first went to the roof to have drinks and conversation before going downstairs to an incredible lamb dinner cooked in a Tajine (not shown) with all kinds of interesting openers and a crispy yogurt and pomegranate covered dessert. The spices were just amazing. We knew we liked Moroccan seasoning but you have to be there to really experience it. Victoria sure took to Barbara, but then again she is a very sociable young lady.

Wednesday was a full day of meetings but we did go out and walk through the souks to do some shopping. The streets are crazier than Chiang Mai with motorbikes working through crowds of people in very narrow streets. It was interesting and we found one of the gifts we had been tasked to find.

Jason, who is watching Wurstchen and the keets wanted us to bring him a bottle opener from the Souks of Marrakesh. It was not as easy as it sounds, but we did find one based on the hand of Fatima. Everything is negotiated there and the vendor started at 250 dinars ($25) and settled for 40 dinars.

Later I saw the same opener and not telling the vendor that I already had one he tried to sell it to me for 800 dinars. I showed him the one I had bought and when I told him what I paid he immediately said he would buy it from me for 50. He was really persistent but I didn't sell. I think they are probably worth about 5 dinars, but either he had to save face or he thought I was lying to him that I got it for "only" 40 dinars. I'll choose to believe the latter.

Also notice in the pictures below, there are a lot of cats in Morocco, at least in Marrakesh. Not so many soi dogs but lots of cats. You'll see one little kitten that fell asleep on a piece of pottery that he was probably drinking from. The older one, sitting on the bike, got really close to snagging a piece of lamb from the butcher. Marrakesh is modern but also very traditional. Barbara saw a horse and rider waiting at a stop light. You see a lot of donkey carts mingled in with the cars and some people apparently still use their camels for transportation.

We had dinner at Cafe Arabe, another rooftop restaurant, but one that served us European food. We had pizza, pasta from Italy and as a nod to the Germans in the group, Schnitzel. They were serving a very nice wine, which we drank a lot of.

The last day was the big one. We ended our meeting in the morning, then had another very nice lunch at the hotel. At 3 pm we loaded up the vans and drove what must have only been an hour, but felt much longer. We were out of the city and on some very terribly pot holed roads dodging motorbikes and at one point a big truck full of trees.

Finally we arrived at a reservoir that was partially filled. From here we could see the Atlas mountains including the second highest peak in Africa. It is called Toubkal and is 4,167 meters or 13,671 feet in elevation.

A couple comments on the camel rides. The head scarf called a tagelmust was put on me by my good friend K.C. Lee from Korea. I may have been unique to have a Korean tied tagelmust because a Moroccan guy tied K.C.'s, Barbara's and most every one else.

Second, we had really nice camels. The one behind me in the camel train was super cuddly. For the whole trip he or she was nuzzling my leg. It must have been a young one because the hair on its head was really soft.

Barbara's camel had a problem at the start. His rope was tied to his leg and had gone across his neck. When he stood up it pulled his neck down and he panicked. Thanks to some good handlers and cool head by Barbara she was not thrown off. The handler however, may have gotten a concussion. When he freed the camel it's head came back and hit the man. That's why he is holding his head in his hands in the picture.

The last picture in the group shows a man selling jewelry. He was the most persistent sales guy we'd ever seen. We are all sales people in the group so we had to admire how he was going to close the sale but he had only two points to negotiate with quantity and price. He just kept cutting his price and throwing more stuff into it. It worked too. Siumara took pity on him and bought four bracelets for 100 dinars or about $10, because she felt he really needed the money for his family. I saw him high five the van drivers after the sale. I'm not convinced he did it for his family, I think he just made a profit at that low price by starting very high.

Sheep and goats grazing with the Atlas mountains in the background.

After camel the camel trekking we loaded back into the vans and drove to an even more remote site to have dinner in the desert under the stars. It was great finish.

And Barbara finished the night with a belly dance

The tent party went late as usual for the last night. We got up early on Friday, packed our bags, had breakfast and caught the 9 am shuttle to the airport. On Sunday at noon we arrived back home.

Before we came home we had some Pad Ka Pao and Thai iced tea. We enjoyed the Italian, Portuguese and Moroccan food, but we missed our Thai food.

Good thing we did too. When we got back to our old house the power was off. The main circuit breaker was tripped at some point while we were gone and our refrigerator had a horrible smell coming out of it.

Oh well, it's moving day so one less thing to move. The Nugents are in motion once again. Next stop San Pa Pao.