Bin El Oui-Dam That's a Steep Hill With a lot of Rocks... (Get it? Because the lake is actually a dam..)

Hello,blog-a-verse. It's been way too long, as the excitement of going to Spain, food poisoning, midterms, and now perhaps the harshest sinus infection I've ever had all took advantage of my expertise in procrastinating. Before I recount my amzaing weekend in Spain, I just want to make a short note on my wonderful weekend at Bin El Ouidane a few weekends ago. Mostly to crop some pictures together and brag about the miniature Grand Canyon I got to visit while I was there.

As anyone may imagine, traveling in another country is amazing! I really can't explain how much I love this experience solely for the opportunity it has given me to see and do so much. However, there are also downsides with this. Questions like: "How much is the cab driver going to try to charge me for this ride simply because he can tell I'm not Moroccan," or "Where is [insert huge attraction all tourists want to see]?" There are also a lot of concerns in traveling like, are we definitely going to make it to the train station on time, where should we stay, what will we eat? So, when there is a trip scheduled where I have to do minimal planning such as what am I packing to wear for the weekend, I take the opportunity to let my wanderlust soar with little concern for details. That's why I decided to go on the Bin El Ouidane trip. We would be staying at a five-star resort, hiking, having meals, visiting an amazigh village to have tea and bread all for around $120. Try to find an experience like that in America for that price.

So scooping up the great deal, I got really excited to leave AUI for the entire weekend instead of just a day, and boarded a bus headed for Bin El Ouidane on a Friday afternoon. After several stops to get out and stretch, because charter buses don't offer that much leg room in Morocco as in America, and around four hours of riding through the Moroccan countryside, which is probably the most diverse place I've ever seen, we finally came to the base of a mountain, that our bus made calculated turns up in the dark. It's probably good that it was nighttime and I was distracted trying to figure out what a random string of lights trailing down the mountain was. FYI, it was a water line leading to a power factory, which I should not have been so fascinated by. Eventually, we made our way over the mountain, and to our resort, where dinner was waiting for us since we were about an hour and a half late (right on time for Morocco!).

After dinner, I was so exhausted, I just wanted to go to my room and sleep for hours. Of course, not being in America means that dinner is much later,and I didn't crawl into my bed until around 1:30. Luckily, I had a huge, fluffy white blanket I threatened to bring back to AUI all weekend.

The next day, we were suppose to meet for a hike, but being in Morocco, the meeting was much later than planned, so I spent time taking pictures of the resort because I'm artsy.

 Finally, we went down to the lake, and got on our boat for the day. It was kind of hazy starting off, but it made for wonderful pictures, nonetheless.

Then, our boat entered a cove, pulled up next to this wall of rocks, and everyone started to get off the boat. I looked up at the wall of rocks and back at my friend, and said, "Is this the 'casual, light, relaxing walk' they were talking about?" Having no idea what was happening, I walked off the small ramp, probably about six inches wide, and landed on slippery rocks. Knowing I had tomove, I tried finding the best path to climb up the wall without falling, cutting myself, and sliding all the way down into the lake, as everyone else was also having trouble.

 I embraced my inner mountain goat, and remembered everything I had ever learned about walking on the sides of hills from hiking in Yellowstone, the Smokies, and just throughout Appalachia in general. As I got to near the top, making room for everyone else getting off the boat, I looked back down and was impressed with how far up I actually went. At this point, I thought maybe this was just a photo opp, as there was no way that anyone was walking all the way up (look at the picture above). And I was right! Partially... We didn't walk up the side of the rocky hill, but on it, so going right in the picture above. It took a lot of planning-making sure to put your feet in the right place, etc. The whole time, I was having flashbacks of the Hobbit when the crew is walking through the mountains, and then all of the sudden they come alive and begin throwing boulders at each other. That was me. I was Bilbo, and I was sure at any moment, I was going to slip and fall, rolling all the way down the side of the hill, and into the lake.

After conquring the side of the hill, we came to a much easier path, that wound through a small valley, and up a hill to the house we were meeting at to have tea and bread.

The tea was served in these beautiful little glasses, in the typical Moroccan style. You have to take the tea pot, and raise it pretty high in order to get the bubbles on top. The Moroccan students we were with told us while we were admiring their skill of actually making it into the glass (as I would miserably poor it all over the table, try to correct it, pour it in someone's lap, then just drop the pot all together, splashing tea all over the room and soaking my feet) that generally, if there aren't bubbles on top, people will pour the tea back into the pot and pour it themselves again. Bubbles are important. But really, I love these glasses, and I will be more upset with myself than anything if I do not get a set before I leave.

 Behind the home where we had our tea and bread was this beautiful view and some ruins of other buildings. No idea what they were. But the views were mesmerizing nonetheless.

This view reminded me so much of the Breaks. I find it so interesting how I can travel to so many different places, and still be pulled back to places I've been before. It kind of makes me feel at home although I'm far away. Like the road that we took to get up to our resort reminded me of Twelve O'Clock knob, and I could just imagine myself thinking about going over the edge the entire time, thinking back to the night I thoughtlessly went up there while it was super foggy and hated my judgement more and more with every turn.

After scaling the rock hill again, where I got two beautiful gashes on the back of my heels from stepping on rocks that dug into my skin (I haven't had the best luck with footwear, and definitely need a pedicure), we got back on the boat. We exited the quaint little cove, and made our way to an island, where tables had been set up for us, and food was being grilled.

While we were eating, one of the many stray dogs I've seen in Morocco came over to where we were sitting. Obviously, this dog had been mistreated by people before, probably hit or shooed away after being found trying to get whatever scraps of food it could find at nearby homes. We would give it food that it would devour immediately, but would run away each time we got close to it. It reminded me so much of my little cousin's dog, Sophie (or Sophia or Sophina, depending on what day it is and what Kara's story for naming the dog is).

After lunch, we headed back to the resort, where we had free time until dinner much later that night. To occupy the time, I decided to go swimming, again without a swimsuit, because I'm an idiot and left mine in America... So here's a picture of me being super cute with my Moroccan besties:

Aren't we adorbs?

This picture depicts what the resort was like a little better. It's the area between the rooms. Walking out into this little garden made it seem so exotic, just what you would expect in Morocco.

Later in the evening, we also had an amazigh band perform traditional Berber songs for us. We were all forced to dance pretty much, until they started getting more into the performance and were putting on a show kind of, which was really confusing for all of the English speakers. Later during dinner, they also crashed the meal to play, where it got really noisy very quickly.

After dinner, which was a very loose interpretation of a buffet, where you shoved everyone to get the food you wanted, some other Americans and I piled into a room and made a huge cuddle puddle to watch Divergent, which I assume made theater debuts while I was in Slovakia, because I didn't even realize it was a thing. 

The next morning, we went to a waterfall, which is apparently a pretty big tourist attraction. I didn't understand, because it kind of just looked like a man-made fountain, but hey, it was pretty cool. I got to see a guy with a pet monkey and I wasn't forced onto a horse, so that was new.

And because these are just pretty awesome pictures that don't really have a story:

This is the road that reminded me of Twelve O'Clock. Just kind of felt like I should be gripping onto my seat more tightly and yelling at Kyle...

FYI, that's the water pipe that wasn't going to give me any sleep until I found out what it was