Cascades d'Ouzoud

This past weekend I took my second journey through the Atlas mountains, though thankfully it was a much less nauseating ride than the last time.  But being prepared to travel through the curved road made it a much better journey.  Rather than the desert, the destination this time was the Cascades d'Ouzoud. We booked our journey through a private travel company who provided us with transport to the falls.  We ended up hiring a guide, though we said we were going to make it on our own.  It ended up being the best decision, as he showed us the smaller waterfall and took us to see some monkeys.

Here is the small waterfall

and a monkey

As expected, the big waterfall was the best of the attractions and had a very calming affect after the stress of living in the Rabat medina.  Even though it was less of a hike than we originally set out to do, we were so in awe of the waterfall that we were not bothered.

Because we had spent the night in Marrakech for the second time, we went to see the Jardin Majorelle in the morning before we headed out.  It was well worth the trip to see everything.  As gorgeous as the plants were, the architecture that accompanied them made the garden ever more beautiful.

One of the most redeeming parts of the trip, however, happened just as we were leaving the garden at the very end of our trip.  We needed to get to the train station and so we inquired about the prices of the taxis right outside this obvious tourist trap.  We were directed immediately to a taxi without notice of the price.  we asked him in Arabic and he quoted us the outrageous but standard tourist price.  We refused it and left, all in arabic, and heard behind us, as we were walking out, the taxi drivers yelling at each other that we spoke arabic, and therefore were not going to pay that huge price.  We walked away laughing and found a metered cab at about a third of the price.