The Man, the Myth, Marrakesh...

Oh, Marrakesh. This city in the desert started (not surprisingly) as a desert outpost and was a key stop on the sugar trade route and was made famous again by hippies in the 1960s and 1970s. There is a lot more to do here than in Fez which mainly had the medina. On Tuesday, we started at Le Jardin Marjorelle, a peaceful spot on the outskirts of the city that Yves Saint-Laurent bought and opened to the public (and where his ashes were scattered). We headed over to the Ali ben Ben Youssef Medersa which was beautiful and completely worth getting lost and being hassled by locals to get to. We also saw the Musee de Marrakesh which was an interesting attempt at a museum and the Kouba Ba'aydin (used for ablutions a long, long time ago).

Le Jardin Marjorelle

Gorgeous courtyard of the Medersa

The tiles are very similar to what we saw in Analucia

The Kouba--basically a fancy bath

And of course, my favorite part of Moroccan cities, the colorful souks...





We also did some shopping Tuesday since were waiting to get to Marrakesh so we would have less days to carry around our purchases. And man do they drive a hard bargain here--probably should have bought stuff in Chef!) We were interested in 4 necklaces at one point and the vendor started bargaining at 1100 dirham (140 USD for 4 basic, beaded necklaces!) We got him way way way lower, but it was kind of ridiculous. Then Courtney had her eye on two tunics for which the bargaining started at 850 dirham (100 USD) and we eventually got down to 140dh when we only had 140 in cash outside of our money belts (best tactic yet!) The man was especially disappointed because he had put on a show and wrapped Courtney up like Lawrence of Arabia...



All in all, we have spent two days exploring so far and I definitely have mixed feelings about Marrakesh. It is a lot more touristy than Fez and as a result, shopkeepers in the souks and hawkers in the Djemma El-Fna are a lot more aggressive (and at times just mean). I will give some examples. When we were a bit lost in the medina on Tuesday morning looking for the Medersa, we had a few faux guides follow us after we repeatedly said "no thank you" in 3 different languages and at a few points we had to raise voices which just attracts too much attention for my liking. We also had the dessert vendor in the souk who wanted us to buy 100 dirhams worth of cookies (10 USD which I would never pay at home) and got angry when we just wanted a few. Then today, there was the snake handler guy who got angry when I wouldn't pay him 10 USD for the privilege of standing 15 feet away from the snakes and using my zoom lens to take a picture (which seriously took 2 days to work up the courage to do). He even dropped the f-bomb at one point when he was angry that we only gave him a few dirham.

HOWEVER, for every extremely aggressive vendor that is reliant on tourism and has inflated expectations of what people will pay, we have met extremely genuine Marrakeshis. Yesterday after our frustrating morning, we ended up getting lunch of beans and bread from a very nice couple in the souk who barely spoke French (and who insisted on taking a picture of us there):


Then today, after greedy snake man (who eventually blocked my camera lens with his hat when we did not pay up), we got extremely lost going to the Bahia palace and were rescued by the sweetest lady who spoke zero French. We were definitely on the outskirts of the medina and the lady saw us stop to look up for street signs at an intersection (Marrakesh is not well-signed) and motioned for us to follow her. Well we ended up trailing behind her like her little ducklings for about 15 minutes and every so often she would make sure we were still there. At the end, when she brought us to the main street, she mimicked something and then stopped a man who told us she wanted our telephone number. He gave us a pen to use and we wrote it out for her and I included our names written using the Arabic alphabet (Leenzee and Koortnee) which they both got a kick out of (totally worth taking 2 years of Arabic for). We of course have no idea why she wanted our number--we still have a week in country to find out (maybe she has a son?). Here is the mama duck from afar in her leopard print jellaba:


Tomorrow, we are off on a 3 day excursion through our hotel to drive through the Atlas mountains and explore Ait Ben Haddou, Ourzazate, and the Sahara dunes. The train/bus system requires overnight buses and a few lost days in order to do it on our own, so we are springing for an excursion. Okay, we are off to get ice cream and sit in a cafe to rest up for the Djemma El-Fna at night (I will stay away from snake man!) See you in a few days!