Henna and Erfoud! …and mosquitoes…
By Jen Lewis
I swear if I counted the mosquito bites on my body, they would total over 100. I'm not kidding. Sleeping on the roof in Marrakech, being near the water in Essaouira, and a shower that water sits in in Fes have done me in! One morning I woke up and I had ten mosquito bites on the top of my left shoulder alone. It's been ridiculous! I need to go into town and find some B vitamin (is that the one, mum?)… does that make them stay away? I need help! Or bug spray!
SO henna party yesterday was fun, and I got it on my right hand and my left leg. I need to learn how to do it, because I just love how it looks! After I come back home I want to have some friends over for Moroccan mint tea, served traditionally, henna, picture-looking and story-telling! Anyone in?
Here are some pics from the party!
After the henna party was over, Daniella and I got shawarma with two of her friends, and then headed back to the apartment to sleep!
The Road to Erfoud
We woke up around seven, cleaned up around the apartment and headed off to meet with our tour group. It's a group of kids from a university in Michigan that are touring Morocco as a cultural experience! Their next leg matched up with ours, so we combined teams!
This next part consists of a trip to Erfoud (where we are now), and then a camel ride into the desert and a night camping out there! We left Fes around 10 in the morning, and it's 830 at night now. Ridiculously long bus ride. But we're at a beautiful hotel (Kasbah Tizimi hotel), with a pool (forgot the swimsuit), and a ton of mosquitoes.
The group is really fun—they all have a bunch of different majors, so it was fun chatting with them and learning about them. Hannah is a music major who teaches piano; Dani is joining the Peace Corps once she graduates in December. There's a psychology minor, a youth leadership major and all sorts of others. It's a great group!
So now we're here—we just had a huge dinner and we're going to go get some sleep pretty soon. Daniella and I both forgot our swimsuits, so we went out to just sit by the pool… and discovered all the mosquitoes. I think I got bit at least three times before I booked it back to my air conditioned room. Daniella followed closely behind.
That's basically it! There were some fun pics from the drive, so those are below… otherwise, you'll hear from me after we get back from our camping trip!
Sooooooo, we got to see some monkeys today... and a big lion! That was carved by a German prisoner of war, after the last lion in Morocco was shot, during WWII. (according to legend!)
Cute li'l baby monkey!
We stopped at an oasis that came out of nowhere... and was really, really windy!
Here's another picture of the oasis! SO many palm trees! Too bad we didn't get to go down there and look around.
