Our time in Essaouira was up and our next destination was Marrakesh. We had been looking forward to that moment and we had to work really hard to get tickets for a bus since all of them seemed to be full on the date we wanted to travel.
Sometimes in life you have to make a decision in a split second and sometimes the decision ends up being the right one. When I was packing our things I saw a big roll of brown tape that we used to seal the boxes we mail to ourselves with souvenirs and momentos and I still don’t know why I decided to put it in my day pack.
An hour later, we were finally leaving Essaouira, sitting in a bus that was pretty nasty, old and dirty when all of a sudden we hear a “thunk”! Someone threw a rock at one of the side windows and the huge piece of glass was shuttered into thousands of pieces. We couldn’t travel like that for the next 5 hours. We handed out the roll of tape and our Swiss army knife and they patched up the whole window. Yes, we continued to travel and we actually made it to Marrakesh.
We had already decided that we would try to do as much as possible to meet with locals and get to see the real Morocco. We contacted Ahmed, a super cool guy from the south of the country that is currently living in Marrakesh doing a Master in Politics. Ahmed will be a friend forever, not only did he open up his beautiful house to us but he also introduced us to his friends, and we saw Morocco from the eyes of a chef, a taxi driver, a waiter, a tourist guide and a future politician. The experience was extremely rich.
A friend of mine from Napa had some friends in Marrakesh that she suggested we meet and Ahmed helped us arrange transport to visit Kati and James, an extremely interesting English couple who has been living in Morocco for quite a few years. James has lived in Africa for most of his life and we benefited from great stories while tasting a delicious typical English meal with awesome Moroccan wine and good company.
Djemaa el-Fna is the square that we found ourselves going back to over and over again. This square is one of the main tourists’ spots, where you can find the souq and its shops with snake charmers, Tarrot Card Readers, henna tattooists, carriage drivers and so much more during the day. At night, a huge cloud of smoke and steam covers the square giving it a special ambiance while hundreds of shop owners and chefs cook all sorts of meals, from snails to sheep heads, from b-b-q to sandwiches. Djemaa el- Fna was the last stop of a special route of taxis that would take us from Ahmed’s place. We traveled with the locals in Mercedes Benz taxis from the 70s as you hop on and off and one day we can say that we experienced something we still have a hard time believing. On our way back after another long day of visiting the city we took a taxi carrying 5kg of fruit. When we got off the taxi took off with our fruit. A couple of days later, when we approached the taxi station to catch one on our way home, another driver asked if we had left something behind, the fruit was in his trunk! The city of Marrakesh gives taxi drivers a “trust license” and it seems very common for people to get their belongings back. This gave us a lot of respect for the way they deal with tourism in this city.
Besides the square we visited amazing places such as the Palais Bahia, les Jardin Marjorelle, the Medersa (theological college) Ali ben Youssef, Musee Marrakesh and so much more.
While we stayed in Marrakesh, the city had its “Eid ul-Adha” (sacrifice feast) in which every family slaughters a sheep following the Islam tradition of when Mohammed offered his own son to be sacrificed but God exchange him for a sheep. About a week before the date, we started seeing sheep everywhere being sold and taken in the back of scooters or pick-up’s and men with big rotating stones that would charge a few bucks to sharpen the biggest knifes I’ve ever seen. We knew they had their days counted! The night before “the day” the whole town seemed to be screaming “baaah, baaah” and I felt so bad for them. We woke up the next morning to hear just a few more screams, but most people had already done their job. Pools of blood painted the town a deep red, and people had stains in their clothes. The town smelled as a gigantic barbecue. We couldn’t eat sheep after the night of loud cries we had gone through.
The buildings we saw, the museums, the gardens, everything was beautiful in Marrakesh. Most of all, we had some great experiences by meeting locals and we got to experience it in depth. The only downside was that it was very very cold while we were there and we were having a hard time adjusting to winter time. The promise of snow tempted us and we decided to leave Marrakesh in the direction of Azrou, in the mountains.
Gaby
Sometimes in life you have to make a decision in a split second and sometimes the decision ends up being the right one. When I was packing our things I saw a big roll of brown tape that we used to seal the boxes we mail to ourselves with souvenirs and momentos and I still don’t know why I decided to put it in my day pack.
An hour later, we were finally leaving Essaouira, sitting in a bus that was pretty nasty, old and dirty when all of a sudden we hear a “thunk”! Someone threw a rock at one of the side windows and the huge piece of glass was shuttered into thousands of pieces. We couldn’t travel like that for the next 5 hours. We handed out the roll of tape and our Swiss army knife and they patched up the whole window. Yes, we continued to travel and we actually made it to Marrakesh.
We had already decided that we would try to do as much as possible to meet with locals and get to see the real Morocco. We contacted Ahmed, a super cool guy from the south of the country that is currently living in Marrakesh doing a Master in Politics. Ahmed will be a friend forever, not only did he open up his beautiful house to us but he also introduced us to his friends, and we saw Morocco from the eyes of a chef, a taxi driver, a waiter, a tourist guide and a future politician. The experience was extremely rich.
A friend of mine from Napa had some friends in Marrakesh that she suggested we meet and Ahmed helped us arrange transport to visit Kati and James, an extremely interesting English couple who has been living in Morocco for quite a few years. James has lived in Africa for most of his life and we benefited from great stories while tasting a delicious typical English meal with awesome Moroccan wine and good company.
Djemaa el-Fna is the square that we found ourselves going back to over and over again. This square is one of the main tourists’ spots, where you can find the souq and its shops with snake charmers, Tarrot Card Readers, henna tattooists, carriage drivers and so much more during the day. At night, a huge cloud of smoke and steam covers the square giving it a special ambiance while hundreds of shop owners and chefs cook all sorts of meals, from snails to sheep heads, from b-b-q to sandwiches. Djemaa el- Fna was the last stop of a special route of taxis that would take us from Ahmed’s place. We traveled with the locals in Mercedes Benz taxis from the 70s as you hop on and off and one day we can say that we experienced something we still have a hard time believing. On our way back after another long day of visiting the city we took a taxi carrying 5kg of fruit. When we got off the taxi took off with our fruit. A couple of days later, when we approached the taxi station to catch one on our way home, another driver asked if we had left something behind, the fruit was in his trunk! The city of Marrakesh gives taxi drivers a “trust license” and it seems very common for people to get their belongings back. This gave us a lot of respect for the way they deal with tourism in this city.
Besides the square we visited amazing places such as the Palais Bahia, les Jardin Marjorelle, the Medersa (theological college) Ali ben Youssef, Musee Marrakesh and so much more.
While we stayed in Marrakesh, the city had its “Eid ul-Adha” (sacrifice feast) in which every family slaughters a sheep following the Islam tradition of when Mohammed offered his own son to be sacrificed but God exchange him for a sheep. About a week before the date, we started seeing sheep everywhere being sold and taken in the back of scooters or pick-up’s and men with big rotating stones that would charge a few bucks to sharpen the biggest knifes I’ve ever seen. We knew they had their days counted! The night before “the day” the whole town seemed to be screaming “baaah, baaah” and I felt so bad for them. We woke up the next morning to hear just a few more screams, but most people had already done their job. Pools of blood painted the town a deep red, and people had stains in their clothes. The town smelled as a gigantic barbecue. We couldn’t eat sheep after the night of loud cries we had gone through.
The buildings we saw, the museums, the gardens, everything was beautiful in Marrakesh. Most of all, we had some great experiences by meeting locals and we got to experience it in depth. The only downside was that it was very very cold while we were there and we were having a hard time adjusting to winter time. The promise of snow tempted us and we decided to leave Marrakesh in the direction of Azrou, in the mountains.
Gaby
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