One mad crazy medina

Trip Start Nov 13, 2005
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Trip End Jul 13, 2006


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Monday, May 29, 2006

One short train ride to Marrekesh was all time we had to prepare ourselves for the worst. Stories of persistant touts, hotel owners, terrible taxi drivers and memories of our arrival in casablanca scared us to bits. After convincing ourselves that we were seasoned travellers and could handle anything, we left the train station in search of a taxi driver to take us to the medina (old town).

After almost 30 minutes and negotiations with at least a dozen passing taxis, we found one that would take us for a normal price. After running away from touts and pretending that we didnt speak a word of english, french or arabic, we found a nice comfortable room with a mosaic tiled wall that was definetly psychodelic.

A lunch of delicious shish kebab later, we hit the crazy winding streets of the medina, getting lost in the souks (markets) amongst the spice stalls (carved in cones as tall as me), olive stores, slippers shops, leather shops, wood carvers and henna artists. The land of touts didnt dissapont however, as shopkeeper to shopkeeper tried to lure us to view his wares. Unfortunely for them, they mistakenly believed we were japanese and blabbered on in japanese endlessly. Luckily for us we didnt understnad a word and was able to walk right on by without having to hear their stories and ranting. However after a few hours of hearing konnichiwa and ohayoo every two stalls, made samson and I actually beleive at one stage that we were Japanese and responded accordingly.

Marrakech comes alive at night when the main square buzzes alive with food stands, tea stands, orange juice men, snake charmers (apparently they sew the snakes mouth together), story tellers, singers and dancers, henna artists and hundreds and hundred of locals and tourists. The square simly keeps on buzzing and is is interesting walking around all night trying to take it all in. It is definetly morocco at its prime.

Our second day we managed to visit an old palace that has been stripped of everything but mud brick walls as well as the tomb of Saaidan. Though interesting and beautiful, the heat forced us to quickly escape back tot he crowded medina in search of some very sweet orange juice.

Absolutely loving the local food which is always tasty and plentisome. Tajines are eaten almost daily; as is mashed liver with spices and herbs and couscous. YUM
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