Exhausted from the sleepless night on the train and the African suns increasing morning heat (the sun rose around 5 am!) we were instantly re-energized by the cabbies fighting viciously over our service, again we paid 40 dirham for a ride to the medina. Zipping our way around donkey carts, and multiple person on singular motorbikes, through intersections with no traffic lights or laws, and around traffic circles that were so packed with people and vehicles and animals that I felt like I was in a school of strange loud fish! After nearly running over half the population of Marrakech our taxi pulled into the Djema El Fnaa, a huge irregular shaped market place, where he proceeded to try to run over the other half of the population of Marrakech! Tossing us our bags he pointed us down an alley that was supposedly where our hotel was located, and drove off, as he pulled away I sear I saw his car horn smoking! Walking through the alley with our gear it was quickly becoming obvious that this wasn’t the right place, at about that time a little barefoot guy asked us where we were staying and started hustling us down another alley. At our hotel, I attempted check into our rooms. Apparently they hadn’t our reservation nor a clue as to what I was saying. After haggling with what appeared to be the retarded boy running the front desk we got rooms. While I fought over room prices, Tuomas, the traveller from Finland who we met in torremolinos and decided to join us, was trying to get rid of our unofficial guide who had been joined by a whole slew of unofficial friends who were campaigning for us to pay him more (plus their cut). “my friend” they said “look at his feet, no shoes, he is poor. You have shoes, give him more!” neither side was giving in and things were becoming ugly whilst our guide sat in a char, hobbit-ish feet on display looking sad, when the retarded boy at the desk told them all to get lost. In our rooms I divided up the toilet paper I stole from a storage cabinet on the boat, which proved to be the smarted thing I have ever done in my entire life! After a quick rest, we bolted our belongings to our steel framed beds and steeped out into the streets, a potentially dangerous and most exciting thing!
The streets of the medina (old city centre) are long and narrow, guarded on both sides by old rickety buildings full of shops that sell ceramic, drums, wooden African goods, jewellery, coaster, fur covered sandals, knock off shoes, spices, pirated cds and dvds, real leopard skins, live turtles and chameleons, leather bags, and various kinds of suspiciously cooked and prepared foods. All the streets are covered over with tattered and sun bleached fabric and the shop keepers sit on tiny stools talking to each other waiting for tourists to stumble by so they can entice them with offers: “My friend, special price for you! Come look! Buy 1 get 2!” and they would leap off their stools into the shop and would start banging on their drums, shovelling theirs spices, trying on their hats, or whatever they could to get you to enter their shop. If it meant a sale I bet the ceramics shopkeeper would even smash plate or two! We walked the streets of the medina for several hours, we took turns haggling over gifts fro friends, clothes, and cigarettes (interestingly cigarettes can be bought by the pack or by the cigarette, can’t afford a whole pack? Buy half of one!) Slowly neglected sleep began to over come us and on the way back to our hotel we stopped at one of the million orange juice stands for a fresh squeezed treat. The orange ice sellers are like taxi drivers in that they fight over you. The trick is to stand between two stands and whoever shouted and curses the filthiest and loudest will most likely give you the best deal. So then you start haggling him down on his price. While you’re haggling the other orange juice seller will yell horrible obscenities at you for betraying and using him. Now the standard price for the world freshest and tastiest orange juice is 4 dirham (about 40 cents) and they will usually lower their price to 2 for 5 dirham that about 25 cents apiece and is good. But if you are a good haggler and are planning to drink many oj’s you should invest the time to get the price down to 2 dirham apiece .at that price I usually drink about 5 or 6 glasses. While drinking them you might notice the vendor laughing. I still haven’t figured out if this is because he mixed in local bacteria water, or used his left hand to make the juice (left equals unclean, the wiping hand, because they don’t have toilet paper in morocco) or if he just finds it funny that a white boy is a good haggler and went through all the trouble just to save a few pennies. Either way, its deliocious and fun!
At the hotel we took a 4 hour nap to escape the heat of the day. Feeling refreshed we went to the marketplace for one of the greatest spectacles in the world. Up high on a restaurant terrace we ordered mint tea and watched the madness below. Amongst the thousands who filled the marked place in the quickly cooling African night were men with monkeys, snake charmers, colorfully dressed water seller, delivery men with flatbed donkey cards, dancing musicians, flute players, acrobats with drummers, and coolest of all, story tellers. There were hundreds of carts set up that sold many kinds of nuts, spices, mint tea, orange juice and soda pop. For food there were giant witches pots full of boiling snails, tables covered with bare skinned boiled sheep’s head with eyeballs intact, and my favorite: portable buffets. These buffets displayed colorfully platters of fish, calamari, chicken, shrimp, sauces, salads, potatoes vegetables, spiced olives, rice, couscous, soups and many different kinds of kabobs and sausages. A big fat woman sat up at the top of the cart commanding the army of servers, cleaners, and cook, and occasionally cussing out beggars who were bothering her dinners. My friend drew, josh, tuomas, and I ate many different dishes washed down with a spicy sauce and coke in glass bottles! For about 3 bucks apiece we ate like kings! After dinner we walked back to our hotel, in the hotel tea salon there are many embroidered couches where all the travelers sit and relax and enjoy delicious steaming hot mint tea and shesha from hookahs. My friends and I enjoyed several teas and green apple shesha. After several hours we decided since this was our only night in Marrakech and we wanted to try everything we went back out for a second dinner! This time we got chicken couscous because it fun to say! Royally full and kind of ashamed that we were about to burst while young beggars were coming by our table asking for cigarettes or change, we went back to our hostel and listened to the eerie call to prayer that rang out over the desert night then went to sleep. That night was one of the most amazing nights of sleep I have ever had, many many wonderful and strange dreams of exotic worlds inspired from the very fairy tale land I was in!
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