Adventures of the Loik ~ Holl Family: March 2014

Dear Family and Friends,
We spent the past 9 days in Morocco, which is a country in the northwest of Africa just south of Spain. It is approximately 446,550 km² in area, which is about the size of California. The population is 33 million. In Morocco the official language is Arabic and many people speak one of the three types of Berber and/or French. Some younger people also speak English.

Present day Morocco has been inhabited by humans for at least 160,000 years. Morocco was one of the first places evidence of Homo sapiens was found. The Berbers (one of the earliest ethnic groups in Morocco) and the Saami people from Scandinavia are closely related, which suggests early hunters and gatherers from Spain and France colonized these areas after the last ice age. The Romans ruled the area from approximately 146 B.C. to 250 A.D. The Arabs and Islam arrived in Morocco in 622 A.D. Between 800-1850 there were lots of dynasties and wars so there were a lot of fortresses built, and we saw a bunch of them. The strongest of those dynasties controlled parts of southern Spain. From 1850-1950 Spain and France ruled parts of Morocco. Morocco got independence in 1956.

99% of Moroccans are Muslim. Muslims are expected to pray five times a day, so there were a lot of mosques. Muslims can’t have pictures of Allah (god), animals, and people so they decorate the mosques with mosaics of plants and stars. During Ramadan (holy month), Muslims do not eat, drink, or smoke during the daytime. Most women wear head scarves so that men besides their husband can’t see them and for a long time women were not educated. Women’s rights have become more equal recently. Education only became mandatory 10 years ago.

The flag of Morocco is shown below. The green represents hope, love, joy and is the color of Islam. The red stands for bravery, valor, strength, and hardiness.

Map of our travels through Morocco

The first day we arrived in Fez, Morocco and took a walking tour of the city. Fez feels like a maze when you are walking through the medina (old part of the city with a wall around it). They use donkeys and mules to transport goods because the streets are so narrow (often less than 5 feet wide). There are very few windows on the outside of houses as the buildings face inward to a central courtyard. There are 500 mosques in the medina and we saw a few. Non-Muslims cannot go into mosques unless they are no longer used. We visited the last manual tannery, which is located in Fez. The tannery was founded in the 12^th century. It takes three weeks for one leather skin to be dyed and then dried. They use natural dyes to dye the leather. We saw artists who make fancy woodwork and who hand sew the robes people wear. I saw 33 cats on the first day (we hardly see any in Sant Cugat), but there were no dogs because people think they kick up angels.

On the second day we visited Volubilis which is a city that is left from when the Romans ruled. 15,000 people lived in Volubilis during the Roman era. In Volubilis we saw mosaics that were 2,000 years old and still intact. In Meknes (a city near Fez) we went into a former mosque and a granary. We also saw them pounding silver thread into metal to make jewelry.

The intricate mosaics, stucco, and wood painting typical of the many mosques we visited.

One of the 2000-yr old floor mosaics at Volubilis

On the third day we drove 7 hours up and over the middle Atlas Mountains which are a mix of steppe meadows and dry forest, which is dominated by oaks, cedars, junipers, and pines. The Atlas Mountains are located in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and are 2,400 miles long. In the mountains we saw Barbary apes, which were very tame, and I fed some of them (other people were doing it too). We went through the high steppes that had snow and I was the first person from my family to throw a snowball in Africa. We saw lots of feral sheepdogs along the road; they wait for tourist buses and try to get free food. We followed a desert river where they grow dates. In Morocco they grow over 25 kinds of dates.

At the end of the day, we got to the edge of the Sahara Desert, where we climbed up some of the smaller dunes which was fun because where I live there are small dunes, but you can’t climb up them. The Sahara Desert takes up 10% of Africa. 25% of the Sahara Desert is dunes, and some dunes can get up to 500 ft. The Sahara Desert is the 3^rd largest desert in the world after Antarctica, and the Arctic. The annual rainfall is about 2.5 cm a year.

Barbary ape in Atlas Mountains

Panorama of landscape in Middle Atlas mountains ~2000 m

Panorama of landscape typical east of Atlas Mountains at edge of desert along a riparian oasis.

The next day we went to a small town and heard Berber music. Then we went to the site of old lead mines. After that, we went to a house of a nomad which was by itself in the middle of the desert (see photo). Their house is more like a few tents than an actual house. We played soccer with the nomad kid that lived there. He was 7 years old and doesn’t go to school and doesn’t get to play with other children (besides visitors) because there are only a few other tents nearby and there aren’t any other children.

In the late afternoon we rode camels to a camp in the middle of the dunes. When we got there we climbed up a giant dune to watch the sunset. That night after dinner, we hung out round the fire and we learned how to drum with our Berber hosts. We woke up early in the morning to climb up the dune and watch the sunrise. Then we came back on the camels and drove to first to Todra Gorge and then to Dades Gorge, which are canyons in the desert. Then we walked along the river in Dades Gorge and looked at the crops. The next day we visited old towns and fortresses where they filmed Hollywood movies such as Lawrence of Arabia.

Playing soccer at nomad house in middle of the desert

Giraffe and Travis on camel ride

Dunes at sunset.

Travis gets training so he can go play on West Cliff

Ait Benhaddou - one of the many kasbahs (fortresses) from the 10th-14th centuries

We drove back over the High Atlas Mountains towards Marrakech and saw lots of amazing scenery. We went over a pass that was 2200 m. At the bottom we saw how women processed Argon nuts (which are nuts kind of like almonds), to make soaps, lotions, cosmetics, and butter (kind of like peanut butter). Then we arrived in Marrakech where we went to the main square. The main square had lots of different shops and crafts. My dad got a picture with the snake charmers. There were also a lot of orange/lemonade/grape juice stands.

In Marrakesh we visited more mosques and the large market where they sell many things such as, tassels, rugs, magic boxes, spices, and rugs. We went to a place where they made dyes for wool, cotton, and cactus silk. After that we went to Jardin Majorelle (a garden). The garden had mostly succulent plants in it. The last day we went to a cooking class where we learned how to make Moroccan soup, vegetarian and lamb tagine (the national dish of Morocco, kind of like a casserole), and Moroccan bread. The food was very good.

Total cat count for trip: 129

Total dog count trip: 112

CATS WIN!

Travis (writer), Karen (photos and editor), Michael (maps & birthday boy - March 12)

P.S. If you can't see the details in the photos, you can click on them and they will enlarge.