We walked up the road on the mountain and found a path that jutted into the shade, continuing upward. My stomach rolled in pain, and the sweat stained my shirt as my bag grew heavier. How much longer, we asked the guide. Only a few more miles, he replied, smiling. I swallowed my groan and looked at my friend Joe, who did the same.

A few minutes later, we came to another road, bathed in sunlight on its brown and orange desert sand. The transit van, which brought us here, sat parked and ready for us, and I realized the guide was making a joke about the remaining distance. Joe and I, along with about eight or so other tourists, climbed into the van, exhausted yet fulfilled. I sat in the same spot as I did on the drive there and rested my eyes and head for the hour or so journey back. With my stomach still aching, yet my mind satisfied, I smiled and thought to myself how I just climbed a mountain in Africa with food poisoning.

Permanent ink and labyrinths

The hike happened on our only full day in Marrakech. When we arrived, Joe and I found ourselves confused yet not lost. After landing at the airport, having flown from Madrid, where both of us had been living for some months, we waited in the long lines at customs and currency exchange and figured out how to get a cab to the city.

Figuring out how to communicate with the cab driver proved difficult, though exciting. We do not speak Arabic, Berber, or French, and the driver spoke no English or Spanish and did not understand the address on Apple Maps. Despite all this confusion, the driver started towards the city center before even knowing our intended destination.

When he dropped us off, we still had to walk a few blocks to find the tattoo parlor, though we didn't mind. Having planned to get tattoos here, because why the hell not, we both did a good bit of research to find a good shop. The tattoo experience proved quite eye-opening. I knew there existed an international crowd in Morocco, though, having been to Tangier a few months earlier, I figured most of it lived there. However, after meeting the Eastern Europeans who ran the parlor, who played a rock playlist consisting mostly of the Rolling Stones and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I realized that Marrakech holds a large global crowd as well.

The shop itself seemed very much like the ones I've been to in the United States. This surprised me because, for some reason, I just figured it would be different somehow. I rested on the couch and talked with one of the employees about what to do in this city. She assumed Joe and I would be staying in the more modernized section of the city that has clubs and supermarkets, but we actually were staying within the historic medina district.

After getting our tattoos, we began to walk the mile and a half to our hostel. At some point, the city did change; everything became narrow, red, and chaotic. Crowds appeared, and we realized the increased density indicated open markets, or souks. The sun beat down on everyone beautifully as we all weaved between each other, and loud music screamed over everyone from all sides. We found a place to grab some lunch, and despite it tasting amazing, I do believe this is where I contracted the food poisoning that tormented me the following day. Yet, I didn't know what my fate held, so I continued to enjoy myself as we found our way to the hostel.

The hostel itself sat close to the Jemaa el-Fna, the historic marketplace and main square of the city. As we walked closer toward the hostel, we grew closer to the city center. The streets became as narrow as sidewalks as we searched between buildings, happy to have escaped the sun. Motorbikes zipped passed us, constantly filling the air with the smell of gasoline. One of the streets held vendors on either side, some selling seemingly authentic Moroccan goods or food, and some selling tourist trap souvenirs.

We rang the doorbell at the hostel, and a smiling attendant led us in and helped us through the sign-in process. The building itself unraveled much like the functioning chaos of the city streets. Through the maze of the building, we found our way to the roof, where our bedroom sat. Stray cats roamed the rooftop, and we were warned to keep the door closed so the cats would not enter and possibly spread fleas on our bed linens. Smiling, we both enjoyed how new an experience this proved for both of us.

Jemaa el-Fna and our British bunkmates

The market area itself grew more chaotic the longer we explored it. Tourists, such as ourselves, were easy to spot. Many times, Moroccan men would approach us to sell us hashish, which we denied, considering its illegal status. Before arriving, I researched the customs and some laws so as not to appear disrespectful. We both knew not to wear attire showing our shoulders, even as men. Furthermore, neither of us sought out alcohol nor smoked cigarettes in public areas. The music, much like earlier, resounded throughout the air. Men with leashed monkeys tried to get us to pay to hold them, and almost every vendor beckoned us into his shop.

Eventually, as it grew dark, we found a spot for food with the help of a local, whom we tipped for his generosity. Joe and I ate the same dish, and, considering he did not get food poisoning like me the following day, I later deduced that this meal was not the culprit of my illness. Cats walked between our legs as we ate and looked down from the restaurant's patio, seeing how darkness did not lessen the crowds in the souk.

Arriving back at the hostel exhausted and in need of our beds, we found two young men in the four-bed room as well. We all talked and got to know each other, and were grateful for our respective welcomes. Our two new friends came from Britain and recently graduated from what they call college, which is the U.S. equivalent of high school. Throughout our discussion, we talked about our nations' differences and similarities and laughed about our use of different slang. After some time, we all decided to sleep.

The rest of the hike day

At 3 a.m., I awoke with a terrible stomachache. I visited the bathroom multiple times throughout the night, and later in the morning, I still seethed in discomfort. The hostel provided breakfast, so I enjoyed coffee and the few bites of food I could stomach. We met our guides along with other travelers in the Jemaa el-Fna, and after exchanging names, we climbed into the van and began our journey.

Some five minutes into the ride brought us outside the city and towards the rocky and dusty terrain of the Agafay Desert. I watched through a tinted window as the large and small rocks stretched across the ground, the ground which was spotted with sparse green plants and grasses, and eventually began to grow hills.

Our first stop took us to a spot where we drank mint tea and learned about Moroccan culture before riding camels. Yes, a very touristy thing to do, yet nonetheless a great, fun, and relatively inexpensive experience.

The hike came next. We arrived at a village near the base of a mountain in the Atlas range. Here, the desert spread out behind us, as we were slightly elevated, but as we worked our way up the mountain on a designated path that led us through a village or two, trees blocked most of our view downward. We came upon a waterfall with a vendor that kept soft drinks chilled in its pools, and eventually, we entered another village, where we all gathered into one of the guide's homes and enjoyed a traditional Moroccan meal together.

As a group, we did not hike the entire mountain, but we did hike most of it. We ate our meal on a patio that looked out onto a valley and other mountains in the range, and I reminisced on the experience I just had. Near the beginning of the hike, one of the guides, a devout Muslim, spotted an injured bee struggling on the path. He gently picked up the insect and placed it on a small wall, saying, "Life without is no life" in his broken yet understandable English. On face value, this statement seems redundant of itself, though I knew he meant more than that; he saw how the value of a single bee's life connects to the life of everyone and everything, let alone himself. I found beauty in this claim and kept it in my mind throughout the hike. And, at this point, I now return to the beginning of my story.

The rest of the evening involved conversations with fellow travelers at our hostel. Sleep brought morning quickly to us, so we headed back to the airport in much the same fashion as we had come from it. Arriving back to the loud and modern noises of Madrid seemed both refreshing and sad, as it marked the completion of a journey, yet also the end of one. My time in Marrakech still stands out as a distinct and important event in my life. I've written this piece not because I'm wholly unique in having gone there, because I'm not; it's a major international tourist hub. I wrote this because it has been exactly a year since I've been there, despite feeling like yesterday.

I remember the comfort of the couch in the tattoo parlor, the dripping AC unit in the hostel bedroom, and the stuffy van the guides drove us in. I remember the smell of the camels and the aches in my stomach and the taste of the mint tea. I remember it all, and because of that, I know it was a great trip, and I hope to return again someday to enjoy the splendors and toils of another journey.