through Morocco
Monday, May 1st, 2006This 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:
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