20.06.18
Nice relaxed start to day with us getting up late for our included brekky. Again another stellar meal and again we’re counting our super lucky stars for finding such opulent digs at such a great rate! We then spent the next four hours booking accom + activities for the rest of our time here in Morocco. Its definitely the biggest down of “doing it yourself” .. no matter what, you need to put in the time and effort if you want to have a good holiday. If you want easy, just pay someone to organise it all… but the downside, you get stuck doing things that may not be 100% your cup of tea/ staying at dives that aren’t worth a penny….
So with more than half of our day gone we finally headed out of our opulent surrounds and into the Medina itself to discover the sites and sounds of day time Marrakech. We got immediately accosted by touts selling all sorts of crap/ leading you down little alleys to “just check out the weavers and dyers that are just down this alley”. After following one dude (because I couldn’t say no) S took over the leading and started to lead us through the alleyways to see some of the sites.
First stop was to check out the old caravanserai homes, called fondouq. They have huge doorways through which you can find a small square, surrounded by little artisanal shops. In the old days they were the camel traders would stop on their way across Africa to dispose of their wares and bed down the camels for the evening. Amazing that these places are hundreds (if not thousands of years old) and are still used today to house little shops. From here we wandered our way through the souks of Marrakech (continuing to be accosted regularly) trying to make our way down to the Royal Palace.
We ended up giving up and stopping at an outdoor café for a very late lunch and a cold drink. Lunch was a chicken skewer for me and multiple skewers for S under a nice cool awning. I had a brainwave at lunch time and encouraged S to spend the afternoon looking for a public hammam that was nearby so that we could discover the “authentic” hammam experience—we’ve booked in for a western version later in the week but I’m keen to try the local type too. We had walked past quite a few during the morning but they were either for Muslim’s only or were single use Hammam’s (women at one time and men at another). The lonely planet had this particular one that was nearby that was women and men segregated (meaning we could experience at the same time but not in the same space).. so off we went. And we went and went and went!
The problem with this particular hammam is that it is in the middle of the souk area where the streets are bloody tiny and the sat nav struggles to see where we are. We walked down streets, up streets, were accosted more times than I could count. Eventually we found the mosque only to find that we couldn’t find the bloody hammam that was attached to it. By then I had had enough and so called off the “hammam finding trip” and we turned around and walked out of the labyrinth and back towards our digs. En route we found the Jardin gardens (we totally missed it in the morning when we walked past) which were a real oasis in the middle of the craziness. Behind the big façade is two huge blocks filled with water way canals and gorgeous geometric gardens (mainly made up of .. some sort of grass, lavender and fruit trees). It was pretty nice to stop for a bit, sit in the shade and just enjoy some greenery after wandering the dusty streets of Marrakech.
On a sideline note; We’ve decided that there could be a great corporate team building game around souk shopping… Drop your team in the middle of the medina with no phone and a basic map and have them work their way out of the souks to a nice hammam at the end.. Guaranteed to show the best and the worst in all people! Great way for all teams to bond and see how they cope under stress/ have them go insane if they are the Introverted type! 🙂
El Jardin was only moments from home so we arrived home tired, dirty and very ready for a nap. Dinner time rolled around and so we donned some comfy gear to head down to see the Djeema again. Tonight I was determined to find the snake charmers and see some teeth! (The Djeema is famous for having these dudes who sell fake and real, I think, teeth to people on the side of the street!)
We arrived much earlier than we had the night previous so we actually saw less of the musicians and more of the street performers. The first group we did see was the snake charmers! S started to take some photos of the snakes and immediately he had some dude over draping snakes around his head/ shoulders etc encouraging me to take photos—here goes “money for photos”.. Anyway after quite a bit of haggling (the guy originally wanted 20 dollars for the privilege) we made it away from the snake charmer guy with a slightly lighter pocket but some fun photos.
Walking around the Djeema we saw the monkeys (seemed to be real pets of the kids taking them around) they would walk around for a bit and then like a child ask to be put up on the kids shoulders.. pretty cute but a bit sad with the big chains around their necks. It would be nice to have a pet monkey though! We also saw the “dentists” or at least their mounds of teeth.. I almost described them as displays, but displays, implies they were neatly laid out with prices attached or something and these were piled up teeth on a grimy table!
We eventually decided to head up to one of the cafés overlooking the Djeema to get a good look at the square whilst the sun went down. The café owner is pretty smart, because on entry, you are required to buy a cold drink to gain access to the terrace.. at $2 a throw he is doing pretty well out of having his upstairs terrace! Views and sounds of the Djeema were more than worth it- snake charmers trilling, family groups starting to gather to play music and the dinner stalls already plying their wares to every tourist walking past.
Speaking of dinner, we had decided that we were going to test out one of the food stalls in the Djeema for dinner, so with our drinks consumed we headed down to have every tout hassle us that “his meal was the best and at a cheap price”. We ended up returning to one of the sellers who had bailed us up earlier and were given a very rowdy welcome by all the cooks and servers who were most excited that we had chosen their table. So trap for new players… the menu has a price per skewer.. I asked for a vegetable skewer and the spicy lamb skewers.. I got a skewer of each type, cous cous + vegetables (as did S although he at least asked for this).. I was thinking the bill would come to about $20 (200MAD) and so was pretty surprised when the price came to over 300MAD.. Moral to the story when eating on the Djeema; take the menu price and multiply it by 3 and that is what you will end up paying (or speak very good French and you probably will only pay twice the menu price)! 🙂