Breakfast was tasty as I ate some Moroccan crepe like bread spread with honey along with baguette pieces with butter and orange juice to drink. After breakfast, the excursion company sent a van to pick us up. We sat in the van with a British couple who were also heading to the Palmerie to ride ATV’s. We mainly talked about travel and our equal dislike towards the French and treatment we have received from them when visiting France. Matt actually had a positive opinion of the French and that they were friendly when he went to Paris. I think Matt just got lucky with who he talked to.

We then reached the site where the camels were sitting there waiting for us and some French and Moroccan tourists that made up the rest of the caravan. Before riding the camels, we had blue towels tied to our heads to form head cover cloths like a Bedouin trader would wear. The first leg of the camel ride lasted a little over an hour. I had never ridden a camel before, and it was a once in a lifetime experience to roam across the desert on one. Camels are not the fastest animals in the world, but when whipped into a frenzy they can burst in speed. Sitting on a camel after a while hurts your legs and groin region because the hump of the camel makes sit a splits like position for the whole ride. The camel riders who rode/ride on a camel’s back for days at a time across the Sahara are either really flexible or found a technique to alleviate this pain.

For a lunch break we stopped at a small rest house in the middle of the path. We saw an old traditional hammam (Turkish bath) cone and then had some tea and appetizers for lunch while resting on some low to the ground couches. Then we hopped back on the camels for another hour to finish our journey. Camel riding was a fun experience, but I doubt I will do it again.

After finding a map of the city outside of the Medina, we decided to go out to the new town for the afternoon. Our first attempt to exit the medina ended up with us walking to the entryway of a mosque. However, we ended up turning the other direction and found the exit gate. In the new town we saw some buildings, a large cemetery, and a park filled with towers. Some Moroccan oddities I saw in the new town included people hopping on and off moving buses, donkeys and camels on the highways with cars, and people arguing about their personal lives in Arabic in the park and the streets.

It was close to dinner time so we headed back to the medina to get more shish kebabs. I first haggled in the souks for a Christmas gift for my mother which I cannot say in case if she reads this. We then went to another stall and ate beef and lamb kebabs. We then went to the far north side of the square where a towering mosque stands and you can see the stripes of light and smoke that cover the stalls. After some time in the square we walked back to the riad, but got lost on the way back. It got scary as we were in some random alleys that we did not know where it connected to familiar paths. The souks were closed and the riff-raff were on the verge of coming out to cause trouble. Fortunately we got back on the main path and escaped potential dangers. We then chilled at the riad and read about Moroccan architecture before going to sleep.

On Sunday, we ate breakfast at the riad. The Marrakech airport was the only airport where I have seen gender segregated airport security. We flew back to Milan where Matt caught a train back to Rome. I was exhausted after a long weekend and made myself some food and took care of some business before going to sleep.