An Amazing Trip

This week is our school's Spring Break - and it included an amazing road trip with four other great friends. Brief word list summary: five days, laughing, stalling (stick shift newbies with a bad clutch), movie sets, quading, tajine, tajine, tajine, camels, sand dunes, desert, ninja, snow-capped mountains, cedar forest with apes, lasagna, meeting new people, and getting to know others better.

Ok... here's the more detailed description with some pictures. :)

We left town on Saturday morning and headed south towards our first destination: a desert town that is basically like the local Hollywood. Films like Gladiator, Ben Hur (the new one), the Nativity, the Kingdom of Heaven, among others were all filmed there. When we first arrived most of the sets were closed for the day, so we wondered around the town and headed to bed after the long drive. The next morning three of us headed out for a 4x4 (or quading) adventure. After dealing with a little car mishap, we jumped on quads venturing out to the set of Gladiator, a Kasbah (a former fortress with cool architecture - now a village), Mecca, Mecca and Jerusalem, both sets from the Kingdom of Heaven. All these sets are just placed pretty much in the middle of no where - it's like we just stumbled across them in our quads. After that amazing experience the five of us all regrouped and explored some more movie sets and took some fun pictures.









The girls in the backseat.









The set for Gladiator.









Yup, that's us on the quads!









The guys in front of the Kasbah.









Mecca Movie Set










Next we headed out to our next destination - some gorgeous gorges (har har har). It was dark when we arrived so we enjoyed dinner and a game of Settlers and the next morning explored the gorges. They were beautiful - and a great place for climbers. Maybe some day I'll become a good climber and come back. ;)









Our group on a "gorges" rock.








Climbing around in the Gorges.








After leaving the Gorges we headed to the desert! Upon arriving in the little desert town we met our guide, unloaded all what we wanted for the night, wrapped up our heads in turbans, and plopped ourselves onto five lucky camels. After a little more than an hour on the camels we stopped at our camp. We explored the sand dunes, took pictures, and then ate dinner. After dinner we played in the sand dunes a little more - it's incredible because you can practically swim down the dunes. In the morning we woke up in just enough time to see the sun rising over the dunes. An incredible sight!







Self pic on the camel!
















Riding camels!



















Our camp at the bottom of a dune.













Sunrise over the dunes.












Taking in the beauty.









Breakfast in our tent before getting back on the camels.











Group picture on the camels.



After arriving back from the dunes we packed up again, did a little souvenir shopping, and chatted a bit with the manager of the camel trek business. He was an interesting man to talk to - with CUTE daughters. He shared about his experience working with troubled youth in the city and his desire to make a difference. We were able to find a commonality in the belief that we must share what we have and give to others - when we leave this world we will not take away money or power, so it's important we do what can to leave this world in a better place. He expressed his desire to have doctors and other people from the US, Canada, Europe, etc. come to help many of the local people. He said many of them even need simple things like such as eye medication. Another need was help with digging wells, as water shortage is a problem as well. He gave me his contact information so that if I had any contacts or knew of people that could come help I could connect them with him. Anyone have any ideas or want to help?? Send me an e-mail or let me know...

We had two more days and one night left on our trip. We headed up north towards a smaller mountain town where one of our friends grew up. The drive from the desert to the town was INCREDIBLE. After leaving sand dunes, we soon come across land formations similar to those in the Southwest USA - it kind of reminded me of the grand canyon area. Within an hour or so we were driving through rolling hills with snow capped mountains in the background. Arriving into her town we found ourselves driving the forest and hills. Such diverse landscape over such a small distance! Our first destination in the town was the Hamam - which is basically a public bathing area. I LOVE IT - which may be surprising for those of you that know me well... haha! You feel so clean and this was necessary after being covered in sand. Feeling refreshed we headed to our next in-town destination. We ate and spent the night at a friend's place of one of my friends with us. She was so hospitable and made an amazing chicken tajine for us. Finished off with couscous with powdered sugar and mint tea, of course. She had just completed her marriage papers that day and we also had the privilege of meeting her husband. They will have the wedding ceremony this summer, and she seemed quite excited. It is not an arranged marriage, but still different then marriage back home. Her husband moved into town near the beginning of the year, noticed her, asked about her, and came by the house to ask for her hand in marriage. She had learned about him, and was pleased with him, and so told her father that yes, she would like to marry him. Although I couldn't communicate much because of the language barrier (she spoke some English, but mostly the local Arabic dialect) it was still fun to meet her and see her excited about the up coming wedding.... there's a good chance I'll be at the wedding this summer!









Snowy mountain about three hours out of the desert.




The next morning we went for a walk up into the hills and woods. Arriving at the top we found ourselves smiling at the small apes in the trees. Apes in the wild! In cedar trees?? Who would have thought?? After making our way back to our car we packed up and headed out. On the way home we stopped in the capital city and enjoyed LASAGNA and McDonald's ice cream - so cultural, I know. ;) We arrived home just as it was getting dark. It was so hard to believe the trip was done. (Unfortunately my camera had some sand stuck in the lens area after the desert and I was not able to get it working until we got home - so I couldn't take many more pictures after the desert... so I guess you'll just have to imagine... SORRY!)

This trip was amazing for so many reasons. First, it was just so neat to see so much diversity in landscape. We have such an amazing Creator, and so neat that He would bless us by giving us such a beautiful and diverse world to live in!! Also, it was just more time of learning and experiencing more of the country that I have been brought to. The past month has been a trying time here leading to frustration. It was great to get away from it all for a little bit, and interact with some of the people of the country and with new friends here. It blows my mind that I can be here with all these incredible experiences and meeting incredible people.