September 21 Carrie's b-day weekend

In order to celebrate Carrie’s birthday, we took three days to have some fun. Friday, we met in Essaouira with a few the other volunteers in the region (known as the Essalliance). Carrie had some packages at the post office that we even wrapped in birthday paper so it was practically like a real birthday except that we had to ask permission to go, and the guy at the post office opens your presents in front of you. Afterwards we had birthday meals of chili cheeseburgers and chocolate ice cream. Saturday and Sunday, we spent close to Agadir in a valley called Paradise Valley in a tiny town called Tifrit. The town is really only a few mud houses and three hotels. Our hotel was over-priced, but nice nonetheless. The only bummer was that the pool was empty (and we even had our bathing suits). Breakfast and dinner were included in the price of the hotel. We broke fast was a few guys from the hotel staff, which included soup, dates, cookies, chocolate, and another special desert. Afterwards, we had a nice tajine dinner. We could only eat half, so we asked the staff to save the other half for us for lunch the next day, but although they said OK, the message must have been lost, because it was nowhere to be found the next day. Both Saturday and Sunday were also spent hiking in the valley. Rare for Morocco, a perennial river flows in the valley, and is consequently green with date palms, argan trees, and other plants like red sea squill, Urginea fugax. Much of the valley and surrounding mountains are folded limestone, and the largest cave on the African continent, Wit Tamdoun (about 12 miles) is only about 15 miles away. During our hikes, we saw several caves (and did a little real caving for the first time in Morocco). I hope to find out if they have been surveyed yet. If not, maybe I have a potential mapping project.
At noon on Sunday, the horror of public transport during Ramadan made itself apparent. We waited for about an hour for a taxi to come by our hotel: no problem. The taxi took us to the town of Aourir about an hour away. In Aourir, we waited for another hour, Carrie was harassed for eating in public during Ramadan, and we finally got a transport van to take us to Tamanar, about an hour away from Aourir. In Tamanar, we waited for another hour for the taxi to fill up. It never did, but we left anyway and were taken to Smimu about 45 minutes away. We arrived in Smimu around 6:15 PM, but no taxis would leave before the drivers could break their fast at 6:50. No problem, we waited and ate askif, dates, and eggs (staples during Ramadan that are eaten at the meal which breaks fast, aptly called lfdr or breakfast). Then we waited for the taxi to fill up. 8:00 PM came, then 9:00 PM came. At 9:30 PM there was still only Carrie and I and one other person. It takes 6 people for the taxis to be full, so the taxi driver came up and said sorry, we cant go tonight, we’ll leave in the morning. “Is there a hotel in Smimu?” we asked, frustrated and tired. “No” was the reply. We ended up paying for the three empty seats which still only costed about $10.00 US, but that is a substantial portion of our daily pay, so we were at the end of our ropes. We arrived at our site around 10:15PM after about 4 hours of driving and 6 hours of waiting. All in all, it was still a fun weekend and we plan on revisiting Tifrit after Ramadan.