more travels from africa

3.22.09
after a very long traveling day i met up with kory in the casablanca airport. our planes actually parked right next to each other and i found him sitting down and filling out his customs form - i actually had to stand there for a second before he looked up and saw me :) customs in morocco was a bit confusing - more so for the customs official than me. he could not understand why i'd written on my form that i had come from ghana - after a few fruitless minutes of me trying to explain he frustratingly crossed out ghana and wrote in rome (where i had connected through). we navigated our way successfully into the city and found a hotel. the next morning we did a LOT of walking and saw the sights of casablanca - including lunch at rick's cafe (from the movie) and a tour of the mosque. on thursday we headed to marrakesh - though first we had a slight misadventure. we got to the train station in plenty of time for our 10:50 train and boarded the train on the correct platform when it pulled in about 20 minutes early. however, we got a bit concerned when it left about 15 minutes ahead of schedule and we quickly realized we were somehow on a train headed for the airport. luckily, and oddly enough, we rode the same train back to the casablanca train station where we found a cafe and hung out till the 12:50 train. marrakesh was a pleasant change from casablanca - much more tourist friendly and easier to navigate (especially if you don't speak french or arabic). we got pulled in by a snake 'charmer' (though the snakes never really moved) and got our pictures taken holding snakes and with snakes around our necks. we wandered through the medina and at dinner on a terrace overlooking the square. the next day we took a tour to the base of the atlas mountains where we saw the largest waterfall in morocco. it was nice to see the countryside and get out of the city for a bit. now we are in rabat staying with some friends and will head to tangier on wednesday. hope you are all doing well, more to come on my (our) continued adventures!

here is a link to my web album with some more of my pics from ghana...
http://picasaweb.google.com/marykay.alexander/GhanaPictures#