Where to begin. A chaotic assult on the sense. That does not even begin to describe it but it will have to do ha!
After our first night we were ready to dive in and see what
Marrakesh had to throw at us, and let me tell you its pretty much
everything and anything here!
Night is when the Djemaa el-Fna (the central square in the medina,
the medina being the walled area of a city or town where you will finde
the souques, souques being stalls and vendors with clothing, food and
other nick-nacks) realy comes to life, but we will get to that in a
bit. During the day in the centre square you have the guys with their
monkeys and the snake charmers working hard to draw tourist in. Then
there are the ladies giving henna tatoos who if you are not careful
will grab your hand and start applying hena before you know that they
are even there, they are like ninjas, henna ninjas, and I almost got
taken by one! Then there are the water guys who are dressed in some
sort of outfit
I'd say is traditional but am not really sure about that, anyhow they
clang away trying to get anyones attention and when they do they poor
water out of a bag (think Davie Crocket style animal
hide/blader bag all covered in fur) into a communal brass cup. Not only
does the communal cup turn me off but you have to wonder where that
water comes from...things that make you go hmmm.
In the Medina
you always need to be on your game or you will end up with a snake
around your neck, a monkey on your shoulder, henna staining your hand
or a new pair leather shoes before you know it. . Walking through the
souques you need to either have very strong will power or just not look
into vendors stalls at all, as one look, just one little look will lead
to a whole produduction and it is almost the same
everytime...'Bonjour/Hola/Hello, come in, have a look, looking is
free!' Hahaha ya, looking is free until you walk in and then then they
hit you with the purchasing pressure. We found that we got spoken to in
Spanish quite a bit, there is a massive amount of Spanish tourist that
visit Morocco which makes sense as they are so close. And I must say it
is impressive how many languages some of the faux guides and vendors
are able to speak just from leaning it from tourist. Then there are the
transportation dangers...usually a hiss or shout of any kind means 'get
out of the way!' and you have to squish yourself even closer to the
shops and walls as either a moto bike with one to three people squashed
on, or donkey/horse drawn cart passes by.
My favorit thing to do in Marrakesh is sit up on a terrace, where
the drinks are hightly over priced (but as Zack said, your paying for
the view) and sit and watch the the madness from above. And the best
time to do this, in my opinion, is the late afternoon when you can
watch the food vendor setting up and hear the prayed being belowed over
the speakers surrounding the Medina. From above you can watch the
people at work and suss out their tactics before you head down. For
instance the snake charmers are so smooth. As soon as they spot a
unsuspecting tourist taking photos of their snakes they come around
from the side or back and slide a snake around the tourists neck and
they take their hat off their head and as they slide it onto the
tourist head who is now distracted by the snake around their neck does
not even notic that the snake charmer has taken their camer out of
their hands. The deal has been done. They get their photo taken and pay
the fee.
Eating from the food vendors can be as much of a headache as it is
pleasurable. If you head down the midle of two rows you are sure to get
shouted at and have numerous menues shoved in your face as you try and
walk. As most places sell the same thing it can be entertaining being
fought so hard over, but I must say I did hit a breaking point one
night. Thoes who know me well will know that I can get, how should I
say this, somewhat irritable when I am hungry haha. So one night were
doing our usual walk down through the mass of stalls and we made the
mistake of stoping momentarily to discuss where to go, and thats when
we got swarmed. People all around us shoving menues in our faces and
promising airconditioned seating haha, and the most delicious food! And
then the grabing began...this is where I drew my line. I threw my hands
up and said 'no touching' and stormed out of there. Zach just followd
laughing. But once you do enter your stall of choice the madness is not
over yet. As you enter the stall to take a seat the cooks and other
staff beging to clap and cheer and you start to feel so exposed and on
display, but that said it is definalty entertaining. Then once you are
seated you are not always asked what you would like but rather food is
just placed in front of you. We leaned that in restraunts little
munchies (bread and dip or olives) before your food is served is
complementary but at the vendors is not, and funny enough they neglect
to mention this when they place the food in front of you. We have
definalty eaten our fair share of Tajijs (basically a slow cooked meal)
and couscous. Some of the more interesting foods we tried have been
snail soup, and a 'mixed meat' dish. We were intreagued by the full
cooked sheep heads on the counter of one of the vendors and turns out
'mixed meat' means everything on the head choped up and plopped on your
plat...minus bones of course, and the eyeball, I saw him squeez that
out and toss it somewhwere.
As fun and exciting as the Medina
can be it also has its dark side. Not only do you see young people
tucking themselvesin with cardboard on steps of shops after they have
closed, but tourism has not necessarily had only a good affect on the
younger generation. At night the square is full of childeren running
rampid selling kleenex or cookies to tourist, some just squat in one
spot looking board, and some do not even try and sell anything but will
just wake up to tourist and tap their mouths to show that they are
hungry. And I have to tell you some of these kids are persistent. I
actually saw one kid do this mouth tapping ritual to a female tourist
at one of the food vendor tables and when she showed him her food he
grabed it and walked off. I am really torn on the begging situation. On
one side I see the kids all run to an adult whom it seems could be the
ring leader of the operation, but then you have to wonder if some of
them really have no nothing and you may be helping them. That is an
issue up for debate that I will not get into, but begging is something
that you can not avoid and it is especially bad in Marrakesh. If you go
just be prepared.
