Day 3 in Marrakech
We had breakfast with some English girls who told us the tanneries smell sooo bad. We went, and it wasn´t that bad. We keep on getting told horror stories that we have yet to encounter-do these people want to seem worldly, or that they´ve been to battle and survived, or what? We tried getting lost, deliberately, but people sent us back towards ‘big square’. Kemal laughed this morning when we told him we wanted to go the the hammam (spa bath type place), that it´s touristic, but once we tried to get off the beaten path, we get sent right back in. It´s a bit frustrating.
The tanneries were wierd, for lack of a better word. There were little pools of different agents to make leather different textures: bird shit (I kid you not), flour, paprike, saffron. Guys would stand knee deep in this liquid to rinse and scrub hides. We learned lamb hide is smoother than sheep hide.
We walked and I saw rabbits getting skinned alive. We tried to haggle for a sheesha pipe, no dice. The merchants laughed at us and our price. Went back to the hotel for a nap. Woke up earlier than I wanted to, and literally waited for time to pass so I could shower and not sweat. We picked up our laundry and even the locals laughed when we handed over our money. We got really really ripped off. Oh well, it´s part of the experience, right?
We had a dinner of sandwich that consisted of egg, mayoish sauce, potato, tomato, onion, lettuce, cabbage, and carrot-for 10 Durham-that´s 1 Euro! As we were walking out of the sandwich shop, we saw a solo white girl who looked completely out of her mind. I wanted to make friends, but she disappeared before this could register.
We made it an early night since we had to wake up at 6 the next moring for our desert trip!
Tags: Africa
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