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We're in Africa!
Entry 14 of 15 | show all | print this entry |
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Greetings from Morocco! Time for another update...this one is coming to you on a lazy Sunday morning from sunny Essaouira, where we've been relxing for the past few days.
We departed rainy London on Tuesday afternoon and a mere 3 hours later we were stepping off the plane into balmy 28 degrees...aaaahhh! We shared a taxi with an Aussie couple into the medina (old town) and jumped out at Djeema El Fna - the central square in the medina, and wow! It was absolutely packed with people, noise, sizzling food stalls, and crowds of people watching musicians, storytellers...we felt quite conspicuous as we tried to navigate through all this with our packs and guidebook! Found a cheap hotel right off the square and headed out to soak up some more of hubbub going on. We found out that it was the end of Ramadan, hence all the people and celebratory atmosphere. We wandered around looking at the various stalls, watched some of the entertainment, made chit-chat with the friendly locals (my rusty francais has come in handy)and had some dinner from one of the many places serving up traditional Moroccan fare, before finishing the evening with a drink at a rooftop terrace overlooking the square. A fantastic introduction to the country...
Next morning we we set off to explore the souks (markets)hoping to snap up a bargain or two. Unfortunately we didn't have a map and these souks were a bit of a tricky rabbit warren to navigate so we spent a lot of time following 'helpful' kids who showed us where to go - and gave away all our chewing gum in the process! We got talked into a 'tour' en-route of the tannery - a bad move, as it was quite disgusting - the place reeked of offal, pigeon poo (which they use to soften the leather) and I don't know what else but it almost made you retch...our 'guide'(aka some guy off the street who could speak a couple of words of english) raced us around the pools where poor men were submerged to their waists in filthy water working with the hides...and then demanded his 20 dirhams (2 euros) before dropping us off at his mate's leather shop...where the goods were beautiful, I must admit, but I had been put off by seeing the process! Plus the shopkeeper didn't seem to be much of a barterer and wasn't keen on giving me a good deal on a pouf...so we managed to escape the leather area and proceeded to wander through the labrynthine maze of stalls browsing the various goods. I managed to resist purchasing a really cute pair of pink pointy leather slippers (Cam was nagging at me "Ali, will you actually ever wear them?")and spent some time with an adorable little boy who made us smell every spice in his shop, cleared our nostrils with his special powder he put in a cloth (!) and then gave me a little terracota foot scrubber as a present - so sweet. At ne point we came around a corner and a guy shoved a poor frightened chameleon into Cam's hand...he quite likes critters like that, however I refused to hold it and not much later i made a little man nearlywet his pants laughing as I jumped a metre in the air when he waggled a wooden snake at me...it really looked real!
Anyway, after all the fun and games at the souks we visited the museum which was housed in a beautiful building and had a really pretty fountain in the middle with lots of couches around to relax in so we had a nice rest there, before heading off to spend the rest of the afternoon organising our bus tickets to Essouira for the next morning and trying to book a Sahara trip. I started feeling a bit funny later in the afternoon so went back to the hotel and crawled into bed...later that evening (and in fact all through the night until 6am the next day) I was treated to a delightful and very violent tummy bug - blergh. So there was no way i was going anywhere the next day, and poor old Cam had to entertain himself with snake charmers and the like (see the pic). By the evening I was feeling a lot better so Cam bought more bus tickets and we headed off to Essaouira bright and early the next day.
Essouira is great - a lovely, chilled out beachside town surrounded by old walls, with lots of lovely outdoor cafes, patisseries (yum), cute shops and a large sweeping beach. We've been staying in a nice hotel (where the owner, Abdul, takes great pride in saying a very enthusiastic 'Bonjour Ali!' every time he sees me (as Ali is an Arabic name people seem to enjoy finding out my name)and having been spending a lot of time in cafes, lying on the beach and wandering around admiring the views - so nice. We're back up to Marrakech in about an hour to meet up with Kim and Sam and tomorrow we are off to the desert to ride camels - yay! Hope all is good with everybody and thanks for the emails those who sent them...
More again soon! A&C xx More thumbnails ...
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