We then got a taxi to the old town center, just outside a cafe. Here we were met by Ali, one of our hostel hosts. He walked us to the hostel which is good because we would never have been able to find it on our own in the maze-like streets and its unassuming entrance. When we got in, we sat down and had our first taste of mint tea which is very popular in Morocco. They jokingly refer to it as "Berber Whiskey." Zora, another hostel hostess took out a map and circled all the places worth seeing during our stay. After we were done with introductions, the three of us decided to look for a place to withdraw money. Ali pointed us in the direction of Prance Street. We also decided to wander for a bit, and ended up checking out the biggest mosque, and the large town square with all its merchants. Here's the mosque:
Here's the little alleyway that led to our hostel to give you an idea of its location:
Behind the mosque there was a fire ant hole which was pretty cool:
I also snapped a picture of this dosing feline. The city is just rife with stray cats:
After becoming acquainted with the town center, we decided to head back to the hostel, however, not before I dumbly decided to respond to a snake charmer when he said "hi." Even though he ripped me off, I got some great pictures, so in a sense, I guess it was worth it:
After resting at the hostel, we decided to head back to the square since at night it turns into a huge outdoor restaurant with various stations trying to sell you on their food. The funny thing is they all have the exact same menu and more or less the exact same prices. So more than anything else, people end up eating at the place with the nicest/funniest/whatever-est waiter that harasses them. I typically ended up getting chicken or beef kebab, sometimes with a mixed salad and potato pancakes. It was also customary to get a loaf of bread and sometimes olives also came with the meal. Here's a picture of the square with the mosque looming large in the background:
The next morning we got up, ate breakfast, and then head out to see the sights of the old town, getting incredibly lost along the way. We didn't mind though because we saw cool parts of the town that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. After employing the services of a young lad, who we apparently gave "naussing" as a tip, we found the Madressa we were looking for. It was simple, but nice nonetheless. There was some cool light to play with, such as the sun shining through the ceilings:
We then went to a museum that had old Moroccan artifacts on display, along with a photo exhibition of portraits of Berbers. Right next to the museum was a ruin of some sort of significance, but we had no idea of what exactly. It was alright. To be honest, the main attraction of Marrakech is the atmosphere. Walking down claustrophobic alleyways with the scent of spices, butcher shops, and bakeries mingled with horse manure, a cacophony of merchants hawking their wares and heckling you if you decline, dodging weaving mopeds all the while....it might not read that well, but it's actually very fun. Not to mention the joys of haggling. In Marrakesh you haggle over just about everything besides food and beverage. Taxis and shops among other things and places are fair game for haggling. I managed to get a pretty nifty souvenir for 30 euro. I digress though. After the ruins, or whatever they were, we walked to the complete opposite side of town to see some sort of very unimpressive palace, and the Jewish section of town. Here's a rare sight, you won't see very often, a banana flower in bloom, I count my blessings:
We also went to some tombs, but they weren't anything special to say the least. As usual, we took our late afternoon nap after this, and then got up to go to the square for dinner and walk around some more at night. The next day we took an excursion to the Atlas Mountains with other people from our hostel. It was a short drive, only about an hour or so. We started with a traditional Berber breakfast in a Berber village. It consisted of freshly made bread with honey and olive oil and Berber tea made with freshly picked mint leaves. Here's a picture of me squinting from the sun on the balcony of the house. Also, in the background is another small village:
Here are some pictures of what we ate. That's sugar:
Bread:
After we ate, we drove a bit further up the road where there was a wide shoulder with some camels leashed to the ground. Everyone got their chance to ride, but unfortunately it was a short ride, and we were all tied to one another, so I felt like I was riding a pony at a county fair or something. Plus, there was the camel owner who was walking at the front of the line holding the lead camel's harness. It was still fun nonetheless. Here's a pick of a camel:
We continued on from here deeper into the mountains and decided to stop at the side of a small river/stream to walk across a rickety bridge made out of branches. Here's a picture I took looking down at the bridge beneath my feet:
After walking across the bridge and back, we got back in the van and headed for the waterfalls. It was a little hike into the groove of the mountain before we reached the waterfalls at the "top." It wasn't really the top of the mountain, but it was as far as people typically go, or at least tourists:
After descending the mountain, we headed back the way we came and stopped at a hotel/restaurant. We had traditional Moroccan food for lunch such as tajine, couscous, bread of course, mixed salad, cookies, and oranges. I also witnessed a pretty cool sight: the rising of the moon behind the Atlas Mountains in daylight:
This concluded our day trip, but there was still plenty of time left in the day. We went back to the hostel, I showered, and then got dinner in the square as usual. Here is a picture of one of the food stalls at night:
It was the Seljuk's birthday so we went out at night to a bar called "Coutoure" or something along those lines. The way the Moroccans pronounced it made it sound like its name was "Cold War" and that's actually how we referred to it for a while. It was quite an experience since almost every woman at the bar was a prostitute. How did we know this? Well, apparently it's common knowledge. They did look like prostitutes too. The scene was basically a bunch of middle-aged Moroccan or Frenchmen with nothing going for themselves, treating a prostitute to drinks and hookah, with paying for their "services" their ultimate end for the night. Well, the bar closed at 1 am, so we migrated from there to a club located underneath a Casino named Teatro. It was another experience in and of itself. a single beer cost 90 dirham or about 9 euro! Needless to say, I did not drink. This made the incredibly loud techno and house music a bit more difficult to stomach than usual. It was still fun though because I got in some great people watching. Like this guy:
He was like the Moroccan form of Technoviking. We left after a couple hours and went back to the hostel to sleep so we could get up relatively early and get some stuff done before our flight to Paris in the evening the next day. I used this time in the morning to secure the souvenirs I spoke of before. That ended our much too short of a stay in Marrakesh, and Morocco in general. We bid "La Casa del Sol" a bittersweet adieu and left for the airport in the afternoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment