May 26th, 2015 | Uncategorized
Where do I even begin. The past month has been a whirlwind with the end of the school and some pretty amazing travels. Kelsey, Ashley and Caroline (my fellow scholaaaas) decided that it would be fun to take a trip together to celebrate the of the semester. We wanted to go somewhere warm and had Portugal on the mind but last minute decided to go to Marrakesh, Morocco, and oh baby am I glad we ended up there.
I’m not sure any of us knew what to expect before we got there. We all had friends who had traveled to Morocco before and had heard good (and some not so good things), but were excited nonetheless. I could probably write about the trip for days but I will try and keep it short. We did a 2 night 3 day desert tour. Once again, didn’t know what to expect and found ourselves in a van at 7am driving through the Atlas Mountains. It was a 12 hour drive but did it over two days making various stops. On our second leg we stopped at a traditional nomadic Berber village. It was a starkly different way of life than anything I had ever seen. It always astounds me that regardless of how you live or what you do you are a person and more alike than you may think. I learned that a smile acts as a universal language when there is no way to communicate with words.
When we arrived in the Sahara Desert it was straight from a movie scene and we were all singing Arabian Nights, the song from Aladdin (or at least I was). The sand dunes were exactly like you have seen in pictures. We rode camels to our campsite during sunset and let me just put this out there, camels are not very comfortable to ride as I’m sure you can imagine. The entire ride I was dying laughing because the camel was so awkward. It was mind blowing to simply be in the moment out there in the desert looking at the stars. We decided to sleep outside and made sure we were all wrapped up so no snakes would come and eat us (hahaha but for real).
We made our journey out of the desert the next day during sunrise and headed back to Marrakesh. The next day we explored the markets, which was an experience in and of itself. We found a vendor who took us to his full shop deep in the market and then guided us around. The hospitality is tremendous and even better if you buy something!
We left that night, probably for the better because the food began to disagree with our stomachs if you know what I mean, but it was absolutely amazing. I am so lucky to be able to have these experiences and if you trace it back to its origin it is because of the great game of basketball. I owe a huge shout out to Sport Changes Life for offering me once again the opportunity of a lifetime and memories I will never forget!