Morocco: day 3

Marrakesh. Said to be one of the must-sees in Morocco. Knowing that we would need at some point to go visit someplace other than the beach so that we had something to tell friends and family (other than soaking up rays and bonding with washed up sea life), we decided to take the train to Marrakesh and see what the hype was all about. Our taxi to the train station turned out to be a Subaru-type looking car, dating back to prehistoric times (well...ok the 80s...) and cost us a mere 1.80 (in euros, that is). Not bad.




After grabbing our tickets, we rushed on board with the rest of the crowd hoping to find two seats together. Initially, pickins' were looking pretty slim... As it turns out, the train was divided into small rooms with one long booth bench on each wall for about 6 people to sit comfortably (3 on each). Oh course, no one had decided to tell us that there was a contest going for who could squish the most people into their little train car, which goes back to my earlier statement that pickins' were slim...in the first 5 cars that is. Obviously someone up front must have missed the memo that there was a whole second half of the train because no one seemed to care about the last 5 cars. Which is how Matt and I happily found and claimed for ourselves our very own little Moroccan train room. Sighing contently, we settled in and kicked back, preparing ourselves for the next two hours until we reached our destination.

Here Matt is enjoying a nice little devotional session in our peaceful little car.

Meanwhile, I contented myself with enjoying the scenery...

Matt still reading... Ok, it's been an hour and now I'm starting to get a little bored... Are we there yet?

My scenery has turned trashy...

Hour two: how can we entertain ourselves?

Oh the joys of sitting on your butt for hours on end... Have I mentioned that now our train has just completely stopped and we aren't moving?

I look like I'm about to devour Matt's cheek and I'm not entirely sure I'm joking either... After 45 min of not moving we are now chugging along at record pace...for a snail that is...







Hour three : no pictures exist during this time as I am too busy taping myself whining about the lack of feeling in my butt (to which I later deleted in the attempt to keep my friends)....


Hour four: Whining has reached it's full and impressive peak. Matt has long since tuned me out and now I am ranting to the cows racing us outside my window.



Last 30 minutes of the trip: Desperate to do something other than talk to cows, I convince Matt to sing praise and worship songs with me. Thus begins a half hour sing along session in both French and English (After the cows I gave up caring about whether our friends in the neighboring room were questioning my sanity or not).

Atlast....Marrakesh.





Here's the main plaza. I was hoping for a pic with the snake charmers but there were two slight problems with this: 1) they seem to think that everyone must want to touch their pet snakes and don't really ask your permission before getting up close and personal with you (which literally had me hiding behind Matt's back in self defense) and 2) before attempting to pose for a pic with Matt the guy had to go and kiss the snake and then start proclaiming that by touching Matt it would bring all kinds of healing and prosperity and other voodoo garbage, and well, that was the end of that for Matt. And that's why I took a pic of the spices instead...

It wasn't long before we decided to veer off into the souks (Arabic for market).

Cool huh?

I decided it was time to try my attempts at bargaining. Always having been the wuss of the Pickett family, I thought for sure I'd suck at it. Language wasn't a barrier because French is a national language in Morocco, but would I have the guts to succeed at this ancient Middle Eastern art? It turns out that I wasn't as bad as I would have thought.





Before I toot my own horn, I have to say that there were a few factors working in my favor: 1) the Moroccan dirham is much more inflated than the euro, so to know how many euros you are spending you have to divide by 10 (150 dirham = 15 euros). So what sounds like a lot isn't as much as you might think 2) I had been informed multiple times that Marrakesh vendors make ripping off tourists an art form 3) It turns out that I am actually a very stingy and stubborn person 4) the vendors were so aggressive that it started really annoying me and pretty soon I didn't give a crap as to what they thought of me.







Which led me to find this wall decor (pictured below on either side of the frame with pics) that I just had to try bargaining for. Well, he started with a 40 euro asking price, to which I countered 10, and both of us just about had a hernia. All I could think of was, have you never heard of Ross or TJ Maxx? (yes, less authentic but much cheaper!) As if hearing my thoughts he jumped with his own story about the hours it takes to make each sconce by hand and how you won't find better quality elsewhere. Truthfully, I did waiver. I mean, what if he really wasn't just milking me of my dirham? In the end though cheapness (I mean prudence and frugality) won out and I had my sconces for 20 total. I'll never forget his parting words (and no, I'm not lying here!): "Are you sure you weren't raised by Moroccan gypsies?" and to Matt "Hold on to her!" Ha ha, I don't think I've ever had a stranger but more touching compliment. :)

Here are the rest of our wanderings through the souks...

You tend to see some interesting things. Case in point, this display of miniature shoes. What ever do people do with shoes that are the size of their thumbs?

Or these rather stylish mannequins. I'm not sure that they've yet figured out that the fake n' bake look is so last year...

At one point during our stroll we had a little Moroccan boy approach us (twice) to inform us that the touristy place was back in the other direction. Having wanted to get off the beaten path we weren't sure what to make of his insistence. Of course when one of our wanderings took us to this dead-end and deserted alley way, light started to dawn a bit. Just as I was starting to have visions of mobbings and Ali Baba's men catching up with us we found our way back.











For a lighter and funner look at the city we decided to take a carriage ride. Here my bargaining skills only earned me a 20 cent discount... the man was like a rock, immovable. He grew on me over time though--especially when he decided to ignore the construction worker and drive around the barricade towards oncoming traffic. We thought for sure he'd go to grownup timeout when we saw the worker talking to the police and angrily motioning towards us but soon both were distracted by something else and our tour guide got away scott-free, chuckling all the while... Here's our view from the carriage...check out all the lovely patterns...complementary, wouldn't you say?

And of course the cheesy couple shot...

The pinkest bus I've ever seen... Barbie would be proud...

Not too shabby huh?

Our last stop on the trip was to wander around towards anything that looked interesting. Here's a mosque that we think is probably famous but darned it we know anything more about it other than it looked cool and good in photographs...

Something significant attached to the mosque...

Resting blistered feet in the garden...

Pretty...

Thankfully our return trip was an hour shorter than the morning's. Being pro's at the whole Moroccan train room thing we simply headed straight to the back, kicked up our feet, and took a well deserved snooze.