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Archive for May, 2006

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Marrakech

Thursday, May 4th, 2006

We spent out three days in Marrakech shopping and eating, and doing a lot of both. The whole place continued to be crazy busy, packed with people trying to sell you anything and everything, a guy we saw even had a table covered with teeth…
Eating every night in the square was great, such amazing food. Its was great staying right on the edge of the main square because when it go a bit overwhelming, which was often, we could go back and hide in our room and drop off our bags of stuff we kept buying. Luckily for me Mum can take some stuff home so I brought a few bigger things. Also got lots of jewerellery and some great rip off dvd’s.

We did the super touristy thing one day and went and saw a palace and these tombs. In the tombs were about a million people so we didnt actually see much because we couldnt be bothered waiting in lines. At one point we tried to go some away from the main square but it was so hard trying to catch a taxi, they were all full and it was a bit stressful so we gave up that idea. We all got henna done on on our hands and feet, got photos with snakes, tried to take photos of some of the performers but they were a bit crazy about the whole money thing and one guys got super angry so from then on I was too scared to take photos! You hav to get used to people harrassing you every second, its far worse than anywhere else Ive been, but you do get used to it and once you get passe dthat its fun.

We did spend heaps of time in the markets which really did go on forever, we never did see the end of them. It was a hard work as they tried to over charge you crazy amounts, like everything started at 250 (about 50 nzd) dirhams, henna, bags, shoes, scarves. A necklace I got for 60 dirhams they guy originally tried to charge me 350! i guess they might as well try but it just got ridicul;us when you clearly knew it wasnt worth that much. But we still got cool stuff for pretty cheap!

Caught a train back to Casablanca and stayed with Bahias’ family last night and tonight were catching an overnight train to a much quieter place in the mountains then off to Spain! Spending a lot of money so it will be supermarket food from now on. Marrakech was awesome though, all the things I wanted to do here, very full on and intense but really fun!

Posted in e. Morocco | 1 Comment »

through Morocco

Monday, May 1st, 2006

This is only our 5th day here in Morocoo but we’ve already done so much! Our first day in Casablanca we had cous cous for lunch with all the family, in a big shared plate, really good. Apparently that’s what you do on Fridays, eat cous cous…

Had a walk around the 3rd biggest mosque in the world which was very impressive then walked along the sea side to a cafe. There is definitely a lot of men here, everyone looks at us, and every guy says hello, follows you, gives you things, its not really threatening just tiring. the keyboards here are totally whack so excuse spelling mistakes. We had amazing soup for dinner and of course lots of super tasty mint tea. It was a very early start the next morning as we drove with Bahias to Essaouira, about 5 hours down the coast. We pretty much had our own tour guide for a few days which was great!

We stopped along the way for breakfast and to see some towns, all have really old buildings and very, much like how you would imagine it.  Essaouira is beautiful, right on the beach. We happened to be travelling in a long weekend so there were heaps of people around. In the middle of the city is the old part, surrounding by a big wall full of ongoing narrow streets filled with amazing things to buy and eat. around the top of the wall are all the old canons from back in the day. Really beautiful, busy and exciting but saving the shopping for Marrakech. Bahias had rented a apartment for us for the night really close to the beach, spent a bit of the afternoon not doing much, still tired from the 5am start that morning. In the evening we went and had seafood for tea, there are heaps of these little makeshift restaurants they set up along the wharf and for about 12 dollars you get a huge plate of the freshest seafood ever- prawns, fish, squid, crab…. super good.

The next morning before heading off to Marrakech we went camel riding along the beach, they are they hugest animals ever and I thought I was going to die, mum and Sarita of course laughed at me the whole time as I hung on for dear life. It was actually kind of cool, and got some cool photos.

Another long drive to Marrakech and had lunch in the mountains, because of the holiday there were so many people there but it was still nice, sat by the river and they brought these big plates of veges and chicken with bread. As you do in Morocco we were eating with our hands and not to be super western but some cutlery would have been helpful for these super hot and juicy veges…but we got through it and of course I made a huge mess. Another drive back into Marrakesh, we were all pretty tired by then, it was so hot and so busy. Because we were staying at Bahais friends that night and she wasn’t home we got our selves together and went off to the Medina and the big market square. It was totally crazy, first of all about a million people, and the whole square is full of musicians, acrobats, snake charmers, tarot card readers and beggers. It was all on. Mum spent heaps of money on buying all these little bags full of nuts and figs, and we brought fresh orange juice of the hundreds of juice stands, it was so cool, just what I wanted to be doing here. For dinner there are heaps of food stalls with heaps of fresh veges and kebabs, sheeps heads if you want them. We had an amazing dinner with bread and all the vegetables sitting surrounded by thousands of people. Totally awesome, its not really cheaps here but not really expensive but we do need to be careful about spending so much money on alll this amazing food.


After tea and fighting the traffic we went out to this big place which puts of Moroccan shows and food for tourists, It was like Moroccan Disney land, not my idea of getting involved in culture but it was pretty cool, had this big show thing with horses and all the guys doing tricks on them, belly dancing, camels, fireworks and dancing. Lots of tourists, lots of Moroccan tourists though so not so bad. Everyone here speaks about 5 languages, mostly French tourists as French is pretty widely spoken, but all the guys in the markets speak every language there is! Bahias went back down to Casablanca today so we are staying in a hostel right on the edge of the Medina with a terrace over looking everything, spent heaps of time this morning in the markets, buying heaps of beautiful stuff, I’m going to run out of room in my bag soon! It;s all fantastic, crazy and busy, just what we wanted! off to do more shopping and eating today and just spend time in this crazy city.

on the camels:

Posted in e. Morocco, Travel, Videos | 1 Comment »

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