Trip of a Lifetime Our 10 month journey around the world.

Marrakesh - Morocco July 16th - 18th
 
We arrived by train after 8 hours.  A quick petite taxi and a 5 minute walk in the now 42 deg weather, but we survived it all and arrived at our place down a small alley.  It looked like another hole in the wall but after entering the front door we were welcomed into a very nice courtyard with a splash pool right in the middle.  Our room was nicely decorated an it had AC that worked thank god.  Our first day out we decided to venture into the Medina.  It is crazy confusing all the small streets looked the same. We tried to find the sights but decided to enrolee the help of one of the locals (AKA Guilds).  There are dozens of local kids that are constantly asking “Where you going” as they will guild you there for a fee..  Our  “guild” took us to the Museum the Mosk and the ruins.  He kept at us to go see the tannery so even know we were hungry and it was 45 deg know at 11:00am we ventured on.  We arrived at the tanneries where they make the leather an was greeted by another kid that would be our tour guild there.  He handed us some mint and said it was for the smell..  “OK” we said and headed in..  Almost immediately the stench of rotting cow hides hit you like a slap in the face.  The mint wasn’t going to over power the smell but we continued on as he told us all but the process half in English and half in French that we didn’t understand.  After about 10 minutes we said that is enough and got shown to the leather shop of course and sat down for some tea and for then to hawk there wears on us..  I looked and then politely said NO THANKS!!! And off we went.  We paid kid that gave us the tour. And headed off for lunch.  It was still very hot so we headed back to our place, well what we thought was back to our place and ended up wandering the streets for another hour in the maze of buildings finally stumbling upon a street we new and made it back.  That night we would go to the open air market a 20 minute walk from our place.  This time I will bring the GPS so we don’t get lost again..  We made it down to the market and had dinner before the crazy people, the magicians, and the weird and wild shows would start. After an hour or two we decided we had enough and headed back home.  I looked at the GPS and found that it hadn’t locked onto the satellites and we where on our own.  Left at the Coke machine right at the clock tower and then strait to our place so we thought.  After 50 minutes of walking we decided to ask a local and again the tour was on.  Like a mouse in a maze looking for the cheese the kid led us right to our place without a single wrong turn.  It is amazing that they can navigate the streets so well.  The next day we caught a cab to the Majorel garden.  A garden that was 80 year old and was said is place of rare individual expression. We got dropped off at the market again for dinner this time I had marked home with the GPS so there will be no getting lost..  I played with the snake charmer and his snakes and we watched a few of the other games and side show acts before heading off..  GPS time  here we go. Yes we did make it but even with the GPS we made a small detour a quick shortcut through an ale and we were back on track and home.  You could seriously get lost in there for weeks and I am pretty sure half the people that ever go missing in Morocco are just lost in the Marrakesh Medina. Off to the bus station for a 3 hour ride to Essaouire in the morning.