A Moroccan Birthday

Hey,

I believe that I left off having returned to Fez after our three day Tangier/Chefchaouen trip. That Friday night we went out with some of Megan's friends to a "Halloween" party. I played around with Megan's kohl before we went so my costume was a raccoon. We ended up at a newly opened lounge right in the medina. It seemed like a typical Middle Eastern expat hangout. Expensive drinks, smoky atmosphere and all. I met a lot of her friends that night. We ended up going back to her friends' house right in the medina. The place is owned by some guy that works for IBM and four of them are renting it. It's amazing! When they were referring to it as the "palace" earlier in the evening, I thought they were exaggerating. They weren't. It's a gorgeous riad, complete with rooftop terrace (with a great view of the medina), several floors, central courtyard, and beautiful mosiac tiling on all the walls. We got the tour; I photographed the whole thing. They were amused, but I think that they have probably also taken their fair share of photos. I wandered around in a mixed state of awe and envy for awhile until it was time to leave. The act of leaving itself was interesting. As we stepped outside, a typical door closed behind us. In the medina, there are thousands of doors that look exactly like it. It's amazing to think that beautiful places like that could be behind any one of them.

After one more day in Fes, I decided to pack up and head for Essaouira, which is over on the Atlantic coast. I figured that it would be a good place to settle for a couple of days and see in my 27th (28th I guess) year. Essaouira is similar to Tangier in that it's on the coast and is a port town, but it definitely isn't seedy. It's known as one of the trendier spots of Morocco where all the Europeans head in the summer. Fortunately, it's November and most of the Europeans are back in Europe. I splurged and got myself into a really nice, yet still budget accommodation for a couple of nights. The weather changed too so it was warmer and bright blue sky. I spent my time there wandering, vegging, hammam-ing, sampling the coffee and pastry shops, and just exploring. All in all, it was a fabulous birthday. I ended up heading back to Marrakech the following day to meet up with Lucie and Christina. After struggling to find a taxi (the King was in town and traffic was horrible) and then wandering the medina for awhile to find our hostel, we were finally reunited. We've decided to do a trip to the south, which includes some gorges and a desert camping trip for the next couple of days, so I'll write more later.

Katie