around the world in 180 days

Yesterday, I couldn’t switch to an English keyboard layout and today Anna can’t. Lucky me, I guess.

Anyway, Morocco and Marrakesh are a great place to end our trip. We are staying in the Medina, a huge, walled area of the old town that is centered on the Place Djemaâ el Fna, which is the largest square on the African continent and is filled with henna tatooers, snake charmers, monkey tamers, orange juice salesmen and spice sellers during the day. At night, it comes alive, flooding with locals who come to see the jugglers and other artists and listen to the storytellers, drummers and singers. There are also tons of street stalls that serve food that smells wonderful but that we haven’t yet tried.

Behind the square is an enourmous labyrinthine marketplace, the largest we’ve ever seen, called the “souqs,” which means shops. The vendors are aggressive, but not like India and it’s almost amusing to once again see the same tactics deployed in yet another part of the world. It’s as if all the small time vendors, people who work in markets around the world, have an annual convention where they exchange tips and advice on what works and what doesn’t. “Hello, friend! Have a look! Looking is free, looking is free. I give you cheap price!”

Still, the vendors here are just a bit more remarkable. As a sort of crossroads for southern Europe, albeit dominated by France, Morocco has a large blend of languages. Most vendors speak their native Moroccan Arabic (distinct from the Arabic spoken in the Gulf and elsewhere), their colonial French, perhaps a dialect of Berber, and a smattering of English, German and Dutch. I’m wearing a hat of the FC Bayern Munchen, so a lot of vendors think we’re German. I get a lot of “Enshuldigung,” which I just ignore, same as if they speak in English. I just find it amazing that so many street vendors, who probably haven’t had as much in the way of schooling as the average American, can speak 4, 5 or 6 languages fluently.

Morocco, or at least Marrakesh, is also a great place for oranges. The trees that line the streets are orange trees, with ripening fruit hanging on them, and you can’t throw a stone without hitting an orange vendor. The oranges are some of the best I’ve ever tasted, juicy and ripe and delicious and the juice they make out of them is phenomenal as well. I want to go eat another one right now . . .

We’ve got another day in Marrakesh before we go to Essouira, a smallish resort/fishing village on the Atlantic coast, 2.5 hours by bus from here. We’ll spend 3 nights there, returning to Marrakesh on Wednesday, before our flight to Frankfurt and the end of our vacation. We have 9 days left (maybe less, if we get on an earlier flight to MSP, which is possible) and we’re both happy to be in Morocco and happy to be going home.

Tags: Marrakesh, Morocco, Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 9:09 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.