Morocco

Morocco is a colorful, hot, deserty, African, former colony of the French. It was a total delight, but seriously hot. It hit 125 degrees one day, but we were lucky to find the local water guy in the crazy hat above. He was happy to dump cool water on the head of anyone willing to pay

Morocco grows oranges like Utah grows weeds. They even plant them as shade trees along the streets of Marrakech. The main square had dozens of orange juice stands, and we tried them all in our attempts to stay cool. We drank at least 4 glasses per day. One night that's all we had for dinner along with the dish pictured with Rusty below . . .

Kelsi accidently got a tatoo. Since Kelsi doesn't remember her high school French, we resorted to communicating with the French/Arabic speaking Moroccans by Rusty using Franco-English words in a heavy, mock-French accent. It only worked 50% of the time. The tatoo artist just didn't under stand Rusty's request for "non-permanent." It's a good thing the design is neutral and Rusty talked Kelsi out of doing the tatoo on her face like the local Berber women customarily do.

Rusty's first time trying escargot (snails). They are quite common in Morocco due to the strong French connection, and they served it up by the bowlfuls for 75 cents. However, we only shared one small bowl, which was more than enough for us!

Rusty atttempted to take a lovely picture of the old trading fort in Essaouira Morroco, but Kelsi wanted to make sure that you knew she was really there.


We enjoyed winding our way through the shops and locals in the narrow streets of Essaouira's medina (old town). The town came noisily to life with locals catching up on gab and shopping each evening just about the time we were trying to lay down to sleep!


We enjoyed several meals of fresh fish from the catch of the day. Mmmm! Kelsi's dad will be happy to hear that we have had a few amazing meals along the year journey - not always only super cheap eats. Although $20 for a meal is quite a splurge for us, that included so much seafood (shrimp, calamari, sol, sea bass, fresh sardines - only had canned before, but fresh isn't much better . . . ) plus salad, bread and a drink for both of us! We also tried sea urchin, but can't say either of us became a fan.


Essaouira is blessed with tons of wind. While not ideal for the sun bathing crowd (which we are decidedly not a part of due to our fluorescent white skin), it is excellent for windsurfing and kite surfing. Rusty decided to take kite surfing lessons for a few days.

Mastering control of the enormously powerful kite proved to be the most difficult task involved. If you are considering this sport, don't have a friend teach you! Kites can be well over $2000, and before you gain good control of it, you will definitely slam it into the ground several times, risking a totally ruinous blow-out of your friend's kite a number of times. Not to mention the fact that these kites are powerful enough to lift you up 50 feet in the air and slam you into a nearby building. Definitely a sport where it's better to be taugh by a professional while abusing their gear. Rusty researched these facts online before deciding he was definitely interested in taking lessons rather than asking his friend to teach him.

Once Rusty got adequately in control of the kite, his wake boarding experience took over, and he had no problem standing up on the board and riding around. With Rusty's newly acquired skill, Kelsi had a hard time trying to convince him not to attempt to board across the ocean to Spain. She ultimately succeeded in talking him into taking the ferry across... as you will see in our next blog.