This past weekend I went to the city known as the Blue City. It is called this because a lot of the buildings, staircases, and other structures are blue. It is known to be a breathtaking, and quiet city. It is also known for other things such as availability of drugs. There are people in the streets always asking if you want to buy marijuana. They always leave you only after you tell them no. The other thing interesting about the city is that they speak Spanish more often than French. This made me better at communicating than usual.
The drive there was long. It was about 4 and a half hours, and the taxis are pretty cramped. The one guy I was with is 6 foot 5, so he had an even worse time than I did. We got there in one piece, so I am happy.
When we arrived, we checked into the hotel and met the hotel manager. The hotel manager was this funny, rambunctious old man. He was hilarious and was an excellent form of entertainment throughout the trip. After checking into the hotel, we went to the city. A group of us left the other group to go look for some light thing. After we had found it, we joined the other part of the group and had supper. We then went back to the hotel to sleep.
The next day we did a hike to a big waterfall. It took a while to get there and then we took pictures and started back to the start of the hike. On the way back we met a member of the group that had given up but now wanted to complete the hike. We walked all the way back to the waterfall just for him. We then got lunch at the waterfall. It took an hour for the man to prepare our tajines. I spent a good portion of this time talking with our taxi driver that only speaks Arabic and some French. It took almost the whole hour for us to communicate what should take only 5 minutes, but we had fun doing it. On the way back our taxi driver challenged one of our group to race back.
He ended up getting so far ahead that he was able to hide behind a bush so that he could scare her. When we reached them neither would say who won so we could not settle our bets. Katie (the one who was in the race) told us what happened after.
When we got back, we toured the medina more.
The next day a few of us got up before the others and did this nature walk thing. It followed a man-made river through a treed area in the city. It also gave a good view of the city. We then joined the others to tour a castle that is in the middle of the city. It is pretty much a museum now. It had a prison, an overview of work being done, an excellent view of the city, and a garden in the middle. After touring the castle, we headed back to the hotel to check out, and leave.
The next post I write is going to be about computer science workshops I am involved with at the University.
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