Happy Easter

Oh, that was yesterday. Been a while since I’ve had time and connection to post. Quick update, as don’t know next time I’ll be online….

Headed out Monday to Fes to overnight before heading off to pick up cousin Arne’s daughter Lisa in Casablanca. Met her at the plane on Tues afternoon, w/o luggage-it was left in Paris on her connecting flight from Ireland. The flight it was coming in on was coming in too late for us to get transport out of the airport, so we headed into downtown Casablanca for the night. Fresh wood-fired pizza and a walk in the fresh air was great tonic. Back to the airport to dash thru the airport and p/u luggage, all in about 10 minutes, in time to make the train to Fes and on to Ribat El Kheir by 4pm. It helps when you buy out all 6 seats in a taxi so it goes right away.

Two days in Ribat El Kheir-showed her the sights, visited the Coop women, ran around trying to set up arrangements for a cooking show filming (that has since been cancelled), and dinner w/Fatima and her family. Fun.

Then we headed back up to Fes so she could see my favorite city. Walked all over the old medina, lunch w/friends, henna on the hands and found Easter Eggs (more later). Success!

We then met up w/7 others for the overnight bus to Erfoud, where we met up w/3 others (all PCVs except Lindsay). Hamd’s brother tracked us down about 10:30am and we headed out to Merzouga in the 4x4’s for our desert camel trek in the Sahara. One and ½ hour camel ride is enough, I’m here to tell you. They fed/tea’d us, we ate Easter candy, we slept, climbed the dunes, took tons of phots and headed out after sunrise over the Sahara.

We’re now back in Erfoud waiting transit. Original plan was to go to Tinjdad w/Jon and Joy and stay at Dan's, but Joy is sick and has to go to a clinic in Errachidia to get checked out. Change of plans-we’ll head straight to Boulmane Dades and the gorges tonight. The guys we trekked the Saraha with are heading to Ourzazzate tonight and have offered to give us a ride-in their zwin 4x4’s to-much better option than the typical bus and taxi transits. Lindsay and I will go see the infamous Dades gorges before heading on to Marrakech, where we’ll be for 3 days before she takes off.

Whew. That’s it for now.