(December 22)
We wake up and have our breakfast as usual. We have been in Marrakech a few days. Crystal said we would own this town after 2 and I think she was right. We are waiting patiently for Amy to show up. We are still not even sure she will show up but we are hopeful. We are planning what we will do when she arrives. We think it would be best to show her the Siouk and the museums in the Siouk that we never went to. We were holding out until she came.
It is a little after 10am when all of a sudden she arrives. GREAT! We were going to send out a search party but we weren’t really even sure you were in the country. In case you forgot there was a mix us with the hostel. They didn’t have her registered until tomorrow so the fact that she came today is a surprise. So we put her stuff and take to the streets of Marrakech for one more day.
We head to the Siouk once again. We look around a little before trying to make our way to the museums. We enter the “spice square”, it bears that name now because of a certain carpet salesman. We enter the square and a man approaches us. He isn’t interested in selling carpet he wants to speak English. I think it is our friend from the other day. It is. I finally see him up close and he is gorgeous. I talk to him for a few minutes and he asks us to come back and have tea with him so he can practice English. We decide we will do that but first we want to go to the museums. He tells us how to get there and we go.
We check out a few museums and an old school. Not much to see really but we look around. After we get hungry and we start looking for a place to eat. There are several cafes in the siouk they are just hard to find. We run into a local who wants to show us a place to eat. He takes us around for a long time and then settles on a restaurant that we saw the other day. We walk inside and we realize this is a high price restaurant. We aren’t looking for that so we leave. We head back to the little square where our friend is that wants to speak English and there are some cafes there that we ponder. He jumps out from no where our little friend to make sure that we are going to come by as he is making tea. We tell him yes but first we must eat. So we eat. We take to the terrace and have some lunch.
After lunch we head over to the carpet shop to hang out with our new friend. He is from the Sahara and he is of the Berber people. We find out later most people in Morocco are Berber because those people settled here centuries ago but that no one is really still Berber apparently that race is dying out but people still claim they are Berber. Anyway he is running the family carpet business from Marrakech and his family still lives in the Sahara. He went to a university in Marrakech for English studies which is why his English is so good. We talk to him for a while and we drink mint tea. He asks us to join him for dinner so we agree that we will be back. We head to the hostel for some relax time.
That night we go to the square to have dinner. I decided that we don’t need to meet him as a group. The girls are hungry and I don’t want to make them wait to eat dinner. So we take to the square and get some Moroccon food with the masses and in the chaos. We have the usual calamari, shrimps, cous cous. A little while later a bunch of Australians join us. They came to snowboard. There were a lot of them and they were fun. We didn’t stay long because we had to meet our friend. He meets us on time and as we are walking towards his shop I release the girls to go and do what they want. They don’t want to be third wheels and I understand. I leave with Abduhl. We hang out for a few hours and talk and he gets to practice his English. He is a nice guy and very cute but we must leave tomorrow. He takes me home on his moped and that was that.
(December 23 – Marrakech to Essouria)
In the morning we get up early and take a cab to the bus station. The train station is nearby so we get our tickets to Fez for when we get done with Essouria we have to come back through Marrakech. The bus is awesome. We buy a ticket for the super bus and it is so nice. Very spacious, reclining seats with foot rests, the whole nine. The only thing that would make this bus better is if it had WIFI. It is about a two hour ride to Essouria. We sleep, we listen to our ipods, we read…. Not much going on until about half way through the ride there is some kind of protest and the street is blocked so the bus takes to off roading…why not?! We get out of that one with no time to waste.
We arrive in Essouria and we look out the window at all the locals that are waiting not so patiently for us to exit the bus. They can’t wait to show us where we are going. It is crazy. As soon as we get off and get our bags they are on us like white on rice. It is so chaotic we can’t even breath long enough to look at the map to see where we are and where we are going. Had I known I would have done this on the bus. A guy tells us he wants to show us and he doesn’t want money. So we start walking in the same direction. We enter the Medina and we have no idea where we are. We follow the guy because we have no choice. It is a ways to our hostel but we continue to follow. At each intersection he tells us that we can still follow him and that he knows where he is going and he doesn’t want money. We really have no choice but to follow him because we have no idea where we are. We finally see a sign for our hostel and we go in. We leave the man outside and we do not give him money!
The hostel is cute as the other one was and very Moroccon. The rooms are beautiful and we have a huge bed! The terrace is cool and that is where we will have breakfast and later to watch the sunset. It is very windy up here though but it is cool to see all the tops of all the buildings near us! We are meeting Steph’s friend who is also a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. We ask where we can get some lunch and they tell us they have the best fish in the country and there is a fish market close by so we head there. We go to number 33 where he tells us to go. All of the fish is laid out on the table so you order what you want and they weigh it. That determines the price of the food. They of course haggle with you on everything including food. This is no exception. Today we are hungry and we haven’t had fresh fish in months! So we order all the good stuff, snapper, crab, lobster, all the good stuff and full fishes too. It was something like 500Ds! But it was worth every penny. That is about $60 for three people to have some good fish. And we ate it ALL too! The fish market is very much like the square in Marrakech as soon as you enter the area you are fish food…they hassle you until you sit down!
We met Steph’s friend around 3pm and she was with another friend who was meeting her parents. Another PCV. We had some coffee and talked about each of our experiences. Steph caught up with her old friend and we made new ones. We had a great time just sitting there catching up and then we went into the Medina to do a little shopping and looking around. Cara took us to the only liquor store in town and got us the famous doughnut that Morocco is on the map for! We couldn’t find it in Marrakech. We were having dinner at the hostel so Cara agreed to meet us there later and we went our separate ways.
Later that night we had Tajine at the hostel and sat around with all the guests. There were two other women there from Kiev. Can you believe that? Of all the places we go we run into other women from Ukraine. They were American too but not peace corps volunteers. They work at one of the special schools in Kiev. We never got their information so we couldn’t contact them again if we wanted to however, I think I worked with one of them when we did the healthy lifestyles project at that school. They were really nice. There was also another couple there from Canada who were really cool. The hostel owner was hilarious. His name was also Abduhl. He is an old guy still living like he is 30. His partner is from Australia and helps him run the place. Really cool guys. There are also two girls there from Germany. They are just traveling Africa trying to make a documentary. I am not sure exactly what they are doing. I wanted to talk to them more but didn’t get a chance. It is a quiet night. Cara meets us and we just hang out and drink a little. Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve and when the real party starts.
The next day we walked around a bit more, had more fish at the fish market, walked along the beach and got our bus tickets for the next day back to Marrakech. Cara was leaving today so she took us around shopping so she could haggle for us in Arabic. We all bought some earrings. Mine are supposed to be the Berber symbol. I liked them as they reminded me of my friend from Marrakech. They are really nice and they are real silver. Later that night we had a party at the hostel for Christmas Eve. It was a good time. We drank, ate and were merry. There were many more people at the hostel tonight for the celebration. We went to bed early though…big day tomorrow. A bus to a train to a new city…Fez!
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