Good Night Marrakech (Spring Break)

2/25/15

Day 41 

Our riad comes with a free breakfast every morning, so we woke up to freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee, tea, bread, crepes with strawberry and apricot jelly, and Dannon yogurt- which is Danone here, or else it's written in Arabic. 

After breakfast, we sat in the garden and relaxed while we had wifi (since we don't have it in our room) before heading out for the first time. 

We were all feeling a mix of curiosity, excitement, and some fear of the unknown since we didn't know what to expect past the doors of our riad. We had no map and none of the streets were labeled. They also follow traffic laws even less here than in Florence, which is pretty hard to do. So crossing the highway for the first time was kind of an interesting endeavor. It was really just a free for all. On the other side, we passed a really fancy hotel and small tourist shop and suddenly, the hijabs were replaced by shorts and tank tops. We were looking to ride camels in the desert, and saw an ad for excursions in the tourist shop, so we went in and looked through a book of all the options. I definitely am coming back here before I die because every single one looks so tempting and we don't have enough time or money while we're here. The upside of traveling is that you really have no idea what's gonna happen next but the downside is that you really have no idea what's gonna happen next. If I got to redo spring break, I would've skipped Spain entirely and tried to come back later for the weekend or something and instead come straight to Tangiers, Morocco. From there, I could've caught the bus to Chefchaouen (the blue city), and then taken the night bus to Marrakech. Once I got here, I would've taken the long desert tour (3 days, 2 nights) to see the "real desert" and the Dades Gorges in the Atlas Mountains before staying in Marrakech and hiring a guide (so we could find the cool places to go and have dinner with a family) until the end of break, and maybe doing one day trip to the Ouzoud Waterfall, like we're doing now. But we had no way to know that Madrid was gonna suck and that the Blue City was even a possibility. So the plan now is to ride camels on Thursday and go to the Waterfall on Friday and then we leave Saturday night. 

We decided to look at some other places too to compare the prices of excursions before buying, but before we left, we asked where to go for food. The guy talking to us about tours sent his friend to lead us to a good restaurant. We ate at a rooftop cafe overlooking a busy street but we also had a clear view of the mountains in the distance. I even sunburn a little under the hot sun as I ate my tajine. 

After that, we walked down the street and saw lots of signs for other tour companies. We wanted to check the prices, so we went into another one and got a much better deal. This time, the guy walked us to a hammam that we wanted to go to. A hammam is an Arab spa thing kind of like a sauna but less steamy and involves different phases of cleansing. Google it because I can't describe it as well as Wikipedia can. It was nice that the tour company employees helped us navigate the city, but we couldn't help feeling a little suspicious because both the restaurant and the hammam were pretty expensive...

Apparently the main thing to do here is to go to the Jemaa el-Fna market or the souks around it, so that's what we did next! It was simultaneously exactly like I'd imagined and nothing like I'd imagined. The sellers are very aggressive and will chase you if you show any interest so that rumor was confirmed. It made shopping difficult because we could only go into stores we knew we were gonna buy from... and that was not a lot. Otherwise, we just kept walking and barely let our gaze sweep across the wares. I ended up buying a pair of the loose, patterned pants I've wanted for years and had to haggle for a decent price but I really liked that the guy never yelled at me or chased me. Since he was really patient the whole time, I took the plunge and went against what everyone warns you not to do- I bought the pants the first place I saw them. Everyone tries to rip you off (maybe because everyone is desperate for money- Morocco's job market sucks) so the only way to get the "cheap prices" everyone talks about is to play two different sellers against each other. But the biggest surprise was that you can't take pictures! Of stores! WHAT. This was a huge disappointment. Of course that didn't stop me from doing it, it just made me extra sneaky about how I did it. Also I hadn't thought about how big the souk would be, or that there would be an upstairs. Being there was so so different than looking at pictures of it online. This goes back to the main upsetting realization I've come to about taking pictures: they don't do justice to spaces and experiences. You can't know what it feels like without being there, and if you let yourself think about it for too long, taking pictures is futile. 

Although the prices were steep in the main square and at the entrance to the souk, they gradually came down as we ventured deeper. We found an interesting stand that made naan bread with tomatoes and onions inside the bread itself, grilled it and soaked it in oil, and wrapped it up. For only 5 dirham, or .50€, we had a delicious snack. 

It was my roommates birthday so we were planning on doing something special for dinner, but as the sun started to set, we realized we had to find our way back to the riad and still didn't really know where it was. Unfortunately, the night market is supposed to be really cool but we also didn't think it seemed like a good idea to stay out after dark so we started heading back. For dinner, we found a place where we got chawarma wraps for 20 dirham (2€)... although they did taste like they only cost 2€... And we didn't find anything good to bring back for dessert, so her 21st was pretty uneventful. We were all tired from a full day of exploring and trying to take it all in while staying on guard, so it wasn't the end of the world that we had to be back before dark. 

And then, our first day in Marrakech was over.