Cathryn Checks In!

This is Cathryn writing on an Arab keyboard which is not a qwerty keyboard so it’s slow and difficult for me and punctuation and spelling may be bad. Sorry.

I am missing Bob terribly but am otherwise happy and well and having a great time with Mackenzie and Matt: Marrakech is an astonishing place and I loved it. The sights sounds and smells are cacophonous at almost all hours of day and night: Everything, literally everything is brightly colored: Most women wear head scarves or full robes and face covers and many men wear robes though we see lots of western clothing too: Arab and Berber and French are the main languages spoken and Spanish is at least as common as English so sometimes we communicate in Spanish which is no ones first language: The souq or market in the old medina -- old walled part of town --produced feelings of serious overload and wonder at the same time:very crowded and we got lost many times and astonishing array of wonderful and gorgeous things to buy -- tapestries; leather things like shoes and purses and belts; and gorgeous metal work including lamps and dishes. All very crowded and colorful: I definitely want to return there at the end so Bob can see it:

Woke every morning at5am to the muezzin call to prayer which is beautiful and sort of haunting sounding to my unaccustomed ears, though we heard this in Zanzibar and Capetown as well: We don’t see people praying on the streets anywhere: We toured a madras or school for boys that was built in the 1500s and the royal palace and a tannery where they turn animal skins -- camel cow and goat -- into leather goods: Tile work and carvings were amazing. Tannery was extremely smelly and they gave us mint leaves to hold to our nose while walking around: Alcohol is very hard to find so we are drinking water cola and mint tea which is very lavorful sweet and delicious:

This morning we rented a small car -- black Peugeot -- and left Marrakech to drive up into the Atlas Mountains to the small village of Imlil. We will hike here for the next couple of days: Matt did the driving as I find the crazy drivers here unnerving and the road is only one lane -- when another vehicle comes toward you you have to both pull onto the shoulders of the road.

The people are almost all very kind and helpful. There are some aggressive people in the streets and shops but nowhere near the worst we saw in Tanzania in 2008. It is cold here -- no heat -- and my fingers are stiff with cold and brain tired of typing on this challenging keyboard so more later after Bob arrives Friday with our netbook: This is an amazing trip so far and I can’t wait for Bob to join us: