In case you didn’t realize I posted an entry for Morocco as well so look below :)
The sail to Senegal was calm and hot. Very hot. It really felt like I was in Africa. Most of the sail was really calm as well. For the first time there wasn’t a storm. There isn’t much to write about so this entry will be short. There were more whales which were, like always, amazing. I also saw another sunfish! We celebrated Halloween during the sail. It was too rough to dress up on the real Halloween that’s why we did it late. I was a ninja (the costume was quite easy with all the turbans that were bought in Morocco). It was a lot of fun. People had to get really creative with costumes on the boat so some of them were hilarious! We had a fashion show of the costumes and then a scary movie night. We also did some fundraisers on the sail to raise money for our projects in Senegal. One of the fundraisers was an auction. Students would sign up for things, such as a 30 minute massage, or taking someone’s night watch, and then everyone would bid on them. The baking club sold a cake of choice for $120! You can probably guess what food we all miss on the ship! All three cakes that were sold at the auction went for more than a hundred dollars. It was crazy how much people will bid on things. Though I guess I’m not one to talk because I, along with a group of 6 others, bid $130 for a cake that the cook would make during the sail across the Atlantic. We didn’t get it however, someone else wanted to pay more. In the environmental club we also worked to reduce water usage on the ship in order to arrive in Senegal with a full tank of water and were successful! Well that’s it for now. I hope to get up a Senegal blog before I leave but no promises.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Morocco
So this is VERY late. Sorry.
Morocco was so much fun! I had an amazing time. This was probably my favourite port so far. So I mentioned before that we left for a four day port program. On Thursday at 6:30 in the morning, we loaded up onto buses. The group was split into two groups that the students picked so I was with most of my friends. One group was on one bus and one was on the other. We didn’t see each other again until our night in the desert because we did our routes in reverse. My bus started out by driving into a walled city named Taroudant. We stopped at a cafe here that was attached to a place that grew mandarin oranges so I had the best fresh squeezed orange juice of my life! After this we drove on and past the argan trees. Argan is a nut that the Morocans use to make oils and beauty products however the goats love eating the leaves and actually climb up these trees! It was the weirdest thing to see goats in trees.We then continued on to Zagora, a town famous for dates. This was my first real taste of Morocco. We had shore leave so we got to explore. It was incredible! There was market there with all these guys trying to sell you fruit or dates or spices. At one point someone in my group told me to get off the road. I turned around to see whey and saw a man riding a donkey laden with stuff to sell at the market! This just seemed so strange but throughout the day I kept seeing more donkeys and horses on the road! In another small town we stopped in along the way they sold tons of carpets. We went into one carpet cooperative where they were weaving the carpets at one part of the store and selling them in the other. It was in this shop that I bartered for the first time :) Can’t say I’m all that good. I actually think they ripped me off a bit! In this town I also had lunch. I tried tajine, the national dish here. You get bread that you use to scoop up the food because traditionally they don’t use utensils. Tajine normally comes in a pottery platter with a lid on top. They remove the lid and inside is meat, potatoes, carrots and other random stuff. It’s all cooked in a really good saffron sauce (saffron is grown in Morocco). They also have an omelette tajine where there are eggs, potatoes and meatballs. Our next stop on our trip was the hotel where we were staying at. It was really nice. There was a pool so a bunch of us decided to go swimming before supper. Little did we know that the pool wasn’t heated so we had a bit of a polar dip! After supper we had shore leave so we all went to explore the town. We went into a store to buy turbans for our trip to the desert. All the guys that worked at the store really kept trying to sell us other stuff so I think that they made a fortune off of our group. We were getting ready to leave the store when one of the guys that worked there pulled out an African drum and started to go at it. One of the guys in my group also knew how to play so he joined in. Pretty soon there was a big jamming session going on with people from other store coming to see. It was great! After awhile we decided to move on. We got to the next store and the store owner came out to try and get us to go in. We told him no because we had just bought so much but then one of the guys from the store we were just at ran up and said, “Hey! It’s my uncle’s store!” He then started conversing in rapid Arabic with the uncle. The uncle happily took us into his store and told us to sit on carpets. He then gave all of us tea! It was a great night.
The next day we got up and had some more shore leave until lunch time during which we walked around some more and explored the town that we were in. We drove after that to Tamgrout, a village that sold pottery. Everyone in the village, even most of the kids, were involved in making pottery in some way or another. There was a local man who gave us a tour of the village and showed us how the pottery was made. They sit in a hole in the ground. In the hole there is a pedal that you have to turn with your foot in order to make the pottery wheel spin. He made it look so easy and he instantly made a beautiful pot, however one of the girls in our group got to try and it was a lot harder than it looked! We got to see the pottery cooperative where the community sold all of their pottery. There were beautiful pots, bowls, plates, tajines and many more. There was a guy there who was painting the designs onto the dishes using henna. It was really neat. After that we drove out the beginning of the Sahara to start our dessert trip. We got to pick our camels! Mine was white and at the very front of the group. I named him Christophe. We rode through the desert for 45 minutes and then the other half of the group rode and we walked for 45 minutes. The desert wasn’t quite what I expected. I always pictured these massive sand dunes with no trees in sight when in reality the sand dunes weren’t huge and there was a fair bit of date palms and shrubbery. This might be because I was towards the edge of the desert though. When we arrived at the Bedouin camp where we were staying for the night the sun was setting so we all ran to the top of a very large sand dune to watch the sun setting over the Sahara desert. It got cold almost immediately after the sun set so we all went back down to the camp and the Burburs (kind of like the aboriginals of Morocco, they were our guides) made us mint tea. When I say that we were staying at a camp you probably all jumped to the conclusion that there were little tents with sleeping pads and sleeping bags laid out on the sand and that we were peeing behind the sand dunes. This was not, in fact, the case. Since I’m used to roughing it while camping, I found that it was like we were staying at the five star hotel of camps! There was a large circle of tents that had carpets completely covering the floors so as to not have to walk on sand. There was a really big tent that had tables in it and that was where we ate. There was also a toilet tent further in the back that they had somehow gotten running water in. So we really weren’t camping at all. My bed was bigger than the one on the ship! We were served an amazing supper in the tent and then some of the Burburs came out with traditional instruments and drums and started performing for us! There was a belly dancer too so pretty soon everyone was up and dancing. A bonfire was started in the middle of camp so the dancing and music was moved to around the bonfire. It was so much fun! There was a dance off between guys and girls. I went stargazing after this on top of a sand dune. Stars are amazing in the desert. Almost as good as on the Churchill. I say almost because nothing can beat good old Saskatchewan stars; not even the Sahara :)
In the morning I got up at 6:30 with the rest of my tent in order to get to the top of a large sand dune so that we could watch the sun rise over the desert. It was a really magical moment. We left the camp after breakfast and rode the camels again. This time I had a curly haired camel who I named Wallace. The rest of the day was spent on the bus with a few stops along the way. Our hotel was in the middle of nowhere. Supper was really cool though. It was in this really long tent and we all sat at the same long table which was a nice change. There was a family that owned the hotel. It was the mom that cooked our food and then all the guys played music for us. The girls danced and we danced with them. It was really fun.
The next day we got up and went on a hike. We first walked around an abandoned caspa (fortified house) which I guess would be comparable to chateaux in France. It was really neat because the guide explained each of the rooms that we were in and we learnt a fair bit of Moroccan history. Next we hiked through a little village and across a river (river crossings are always interesting!) to get to the fields in which saffron was grown. We learnt about how saffron was grown and harvested. We walked back to the hotel and after a great lunch we set out on the road again. We stopped once in Tamgrout in order to go to a women’s cooperative where argan products were produced. We also went to a souk, a local market. I have never felt as claustrophobic in my life as I did at the souk. There were way too many people way too close together. I was happy when we left it. Finally after this we got back to the boat. It was so nice to be home!
Our last day in Morocco was full day shore leave in Agadir. I stayed on the boat for most of the morning to help with provisioning. In the afternoon a group of us decided to go to a hammam. We had heard about it the day before from our tour guide and were told that it was a sort of bathhouse. This wasn’t actually true. It was more like an African spa. We sat in a steam room for awhile and then got massages :) Later we went to the grocery store to stock up on junk for the sail. I’m really sorry that this blog is so late. I was hoping to get it up as soon as I got into Dakar but the internet has been really bad up to date.
Morocco was so much fun! I had an amazing time. This was probably my favourite port so far. So I mentioned before that we left for a four day port program. On Thursday at 6:30 in the morning, we loaded up onto buses. The group was split into two groups that the students picked so I was with most of my friends. One group was on one bus and one was on the other. We didn’t see each other again until our night in the desert because we did our routes in reverse. My bus started out by driving into a walled city named Taroudant. We stopped at a cafe here that was attached to a place that grew mandarin oranges so I had the best fresh squeezed orange juice of my life! After this we drove on and past the argan trees. Argan is a nut that the Morocans use to make oils and beauty products however the goats love eating the leaves and actually climb up these trees! It was the weirdest thing to see goats in trees.We then continued on to Zagora, a town famous for dates. This was my first real taste of Morocco. We had shore leave so we got to explore. It was incredible! There was market there with all these guys trying to sell you fruit or dates or spices. At one point someone in my group told me to get off the road. I turned around to see whey and saw a man riding a donkey laden with stuff to sell at the market! This just seemed so strange but throughout the day I kept seeing more donkeys and horses on the road! In another small town we stopped in along the way they sold tons of carpets. We went into one carpet cooperative where they were weaving the carpets at one part of the store and selling them in the other. It was in this shop that I bartered for the first time :) Can’t say I’m all that good. I actually think they ripped me off a bit! In this town I also had lunch. I tried tajine, the national dish here. You get bread that you use to scoop up the food because traditionally they don’t use utensils. Tajine normally comes in a pottery platter with a lid on top. They remove the lid and inside is meat, potatoes, carrots and other random stuff. It’s all cooked in a really good saffron sauce (saffron is grown in Morocco). They also have an omelette tajine where there are eggs, potatoes and meatballs. Our next stop on our trip was the hotel where we were staying at. It was really nice. There was a pool so a bunch of us decided to go swimming before supper. Little did we know that the pool wasn’t heated so we had a bit of a polar dip! After supper we had shore leave so we all went to explore the town. We went into a store to buy turbans for our trip to the desert. All the guys that worked at the store really kept trying to sell us other stuff so I think that they made a fortune off of our group. We were getting ready to leave the store when one of the guys that worked there pulled out an African drum and started to go at it. One of the guys in my group also knew how to play so he joined in. Pretty soon there was a big jamming session going on with people from other store coming to see. It was great! After awhile we decided to move on. We got to the next store and the store owner came out to try and get us to go in. We told him no because we had just bought so much but then one of the guys from the store we were just at ran up and said, “Hey! It’s my uncle’s store!” He then started conversing in rapid Arabic with the uncle. The uncle happily took us into his store and told us to sit on carpets. He then gave all of us tea! It was a great night.
The next day we got up and had some more shore leave until lunch time during which we walked around some more and explored the town that we were in. We drove after that to Tamgrout, a village that sold pottery. Everyone in the village, even most of the kids, were involved in making pottery in some way or another. There was a local man who gave us a tour of the village and showed us how the pottery was made. They sit in a hole in the ground. In the hole there is a pedal that you have to turn with your foot in order to make the pottery wheel spin. He made it look so easy and he instantly made a beautiful pot, however one of the girls in our group got to try and it was a lot harder than it looked! We got to see the pottery cooperative where the community sold all of their pottery. There were beautiful pots, bowls, plates, tajines and many more. There was a guy there who was painting the designs onto the dishes using henna. It was really neat. After that we drove out the beginning of the Sahara to start our dessert trip. We got to pick our camels! Mine was white and at the very front of the group. I named him Christophe. We rode through the desert for 45 minutes and then the other half of the group rode and we walked for 45 minutes. The desert wasn’t quite what I expected. I always pictured these massive sand dunes with no trees in sight when in reality the sand dunes weren’t huge and there was a fair bit of date palms and shrubbery. This might be because I was towards the edge of the desert though. When we arrived at the Bedouin camp where we were staying for the night the sun was setting so we all ran to the top of a very large sand dune to watch the sun setting over the Sahara desert. It got cold almost immediately after the sun set so we all went back down to the camp and the Burburs (kind of like the aboriginals of Morocco, they were our guides) made us mint tea. When I say that we were staying at a camp you probably all jumped to the conclusion that there were little tents with sleeping pads and sleeping bags laid out on the sand and that we were peeing behind the sand dunes. This was not, in fact, the case. Since I’m used to roughing it while camping, I found that it was like we were staying at the five star hotel of camps! There was a large circle of tents that had carpets completely covering the floors so as to not have to walk on sand. There was a really big tent that had tables in it and that was where we ate. There was also a toilet tent further in the back that they had somehow gotten running water in. So we really weren’t camping at all. My bed was bigger than the one on the ship! We were served an amazing supper in the tent and then some of the Burburs came out with traditional instruments and drums and started performing for us! There was a belly dancer too so pretty soon everyone was up and dancing. A bonfire was started in the middle of camp so the dancing and music was moved to around the bonfire. It was so much fun! There was a dance off between guys and girls. I went stargazing after this on top of a sand dune. Stars are amazing in the desert. Almost as good as on the Churchill. I say almost because nothing can beat good old Saskatchewan stars; not even the Sahara :)
In the morning I got up at 6:30 with the rest of my tent in order to get to the top of a large sand dune so that we could watch the sun rise over the desert. It was a really magical moment. We left the camp after breakfast and rode the camels again. This time I had a curly haired camel who I named Wallace. The rest of the day was spent on the bus with a few stops along the way. Our hotel was in the middle of nowhere. Supper was really cool though. It was in this really long tent and we all sat at the same long table which was a nice change. There was a family that owned the hotel. It was the mom that cooked our food and then all the guys played music for us. The girls danced and we danced with them. It was really fun.
The next day we got up and went on a hike. We first walked around an abandoned caspa (fortified house) which I guess would be comparable to chateaux in France. It was really neat because the guide explained each of the rooms that we were in and we learnt a fair bit of Moroccan history. Next we hiked through a little village and across a river (river crossings are always interesting!) to get to the fields in which saffron was grown. We learnt about how saffron was grown and harvested. We walked back to the hotel and after a great lunch we set out on the road again. We stopped once in Tamgrout in order to go to a women’s cooperative where argan products were produced. We also went to a souk, a local market. I have never felt as claustrophobic in my life as I did at the souk. There were way too many people way too close together. I was happy when we left it. Finally after this we got back to the boat. It was so nice to be home!
Our last day in Morocco was full day shore leave in Agadir. I stayed on the boat for most of the morning to help with provisioning. In the afternoon a group of us decided to go to a hammam. We had heard about it the day before from our tour guide and were told that it was a sort of bathhouse. This wasn’t actually true. It was more like an African spa. We sat in a steam room for awhile and then got massages :) Later we went to the grocery store to stock up on junk for the sail. I’m really sorry that this blog is so late. I was hoping to get it up as soon as I got into Dakar but the internet has been really bad up to date.
 |
| Goats in an argan tree |
 |
| Pottery in Tamgrout |
 |
| The Sahara! |
 |
| Me and Christophe |
 |
| An abandoned caspa |
Monday, November 8, 2010
Morroco is amazing
The sail to Morocco Strait of Gibraltar
Speaking of force 7s, we got some really rough weather again on the 30th. Halloween was probably the roughest day of the sail. No one dressed up because it was too much effort. And if I’m saying that Halloween was too much effort when I’m normally so hardcore about it then that means that it was rough! We were supposed to write our first day of midterms that day but because it was so rough they were postponed. So we got the day to study. The next day we had midterms even though it was still bad. The winds shifted that afternoon though so we could finally sail. We started going really fast because the wind was so strong so we furled all the sails and didn’t turn back on the motor but even then we were sailing using only the rigging and still making 6 knots! This happened when we were trying to slow down so that we wouldn’t get into port early. It was crazy how strong the wind was!
We got into Morocco Africa for the first time! We’re docked in the main commercial port so it’s about a 20 minute cab ride away from Agadir. This is too bad because we all have to catch cabs just to get into town. We got shore leave around 5:00 pm after the boat had been completely brassed and cleaned. In Africa we have to travel in groups with at least one guy. I ended up being in a group of 12 because all the guys left in one big group so there was only one guy for all 11 of us girls. It was crazy having to figure out cabs for a group this big! The cab ride into town was probably the craziest cab ride of my life! They drove so fast and the drivers kept their windows rolled down so that they could yell instructions at each other. It was so different from anything that I’m used to. Also, on the way back to the ship, we called two big cabs instead of 4 small ones. Big cabs turned out to be the same size as the small ones; they just let you squish 6 people in instead of 4! I’m leaving tomorrow for a four day port program. We’re going to go camping in the Sahara ! I can’t wait!
Italy!
So I don’t think that I’m really going to write all that much about the sail the Cagliari. It was only a four day sail, but it was a bit shorter because we got in early. The only really interesting thing that happened was that we got more rough weather. We had a force 7 one day. Classes were canceled and the no standing policy was implemented. For the first time I wasn’t sick so I got to spend the day avoiding homework and watching Lord of the Rings (probably the best movies to watch when you have a whole day with nothing to do). We weren’t allowed on deck to walk to the heads so we were only allowed to use the one staff toilet that was below. Not much else happened.
Italy, in case you didn’t know, was a parent port so I got to see my mom! We got in a day early (again!) therefore I didn’t think that she was in yet. I had galley so I was in the galley finishing cleaning around 8:30 when she walked in! It was amazing to see her. I gave her a tour of the ship and then I went off the ship with her. Parents are allowed to check us off of the ship for the night so I got to sleep at her B & B. It was a great sleep. The first time in over a month that my bed wasn’t moving and that it was completely quiet. My ears were ringing because of the lack of white noise. The next morning I had classes because we had missed a day of classes during the sail when it was rough so we had to make up. The afternoon though was shore leave so I just spent the day with my mom. That’s mostly what I did during this whole port. It was great for me to finally be able to relax. I missed both port programs and spent all my nights off the boat so I had a lot of time with my mom. I only returned to the boat for cleaning stations and gangway. It was an amazing four days! I felt completely recharged by the time I returned to the ship on Sunday morning. It was amazing to get to see my mom and we had lots of fun. We toured a bit. A highlight I think was a Roman Amphitheatre. We went there and bought tickets. The lady asked us if we wanted a tour so we agreed. She then proceeded to lock the gate so that no one else could enter. We had the whole place to ourselves! So my mom and I got a private tour of the amphitheatre which was cool. The food in Italy, as you all probably guessed, was incredible. I ate so much I thought that my mom would have to roll me back to the ship! Pizza, pasta, cappuccinos, tiramisu and gelato. The gelato was probably the best thing that I’ve ever eaten. I had Nutella gelato which blew my mind. It’s also interesting to see how fashionable everyone is in Italy. It’s impossible not to dress well because there aren’t any unfashionable stores. I think that both my mom and I felt underdressed everywhere. I don’t think that there’s much else for me to write about. Like I said I didn’t do too much touring, it was more of a rest port for me which was so nice. See you in Africa! Actually, by the time I get this posted I’ll probably be in Africa :)
Italy, in case you didn’t know, was a parent port so I got to see my mom! We got in a day early (again!) therefore I didn’t think that she was in yet. I had galley so I was in the galley finishing cleaning around 8:30 when she walked in! It was amazing to see her. I gave her a tour of the ship and then I went off the ship with her. Parents are allowed to check us off of the ship for the night so I got to sleep at her B & B. It was a great sleep. The first time in over a month that my bed wasn’t moving and that it was completely quiet. My ears were ringing because of the lack of white noise. The next morning I had classes because we had missed a day of classes during the sail when it was rough so we had to make up. The afternoon though was shore leave so I just spent the day with my mom. That’s mostly what I did during this whole port. It was great for me to finally be able to relax. I missed both port programs and spent all my nights off the boat so I had a lot of time with my mom. I only returned to the boat for cleaning stations and gangway. It was an amazing four days! I felt completely recharged by the time I returned to the ship on Sunday morning. It was amazing to get to see my mom and we had lots of fun. We toured a bit. A highlight I think was a Roman Amphitheatre. We went there and bought tickets. The lady asked us if we wanted a tour so we agreed. She then proceeded to lock the gate so that no one else could enter. We had the whole place to ourselves! So my mom and I got a private tour of the amphitheatre which was cool. The food in Italy, as you all probably guessed, was incredible. I ate so much I thought that my mom would have to roll me back to the ship! Pizza, pasta, cappuccinos, tiramisu and gelato. The gelato was probably the best thing that I’ve ever eaten. I had Nutella gelato which blew my mind. It’s also interesting to see how fashionable everyone is in Italy. It’s impossible not to dress well because there aren’t any unfashionable stores. I think that both my mom and I felt underdressed everywhere. I don’t think that there’s much else for me to write about. Like I said I didn’t do too much touring, it was more of a rest port for me which was so nice. See you in Africa! Actually, by the time I get this posted I’ll probably be in Africa :)
 |
| fruit market |
 |
| view from the top of a tower |
 me and mom |
 Sorlandet getting ready to leave port  |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)