Morocco, Day 1 and other stuff that doesn't really have a day

I circled Gibralter, Tangiers, and Marrakech

We got up on Saturday at 3:00am, so we could make it to the airport on time. Our flight was at 6:30, and the airport is about an hour away. Everything went smoothly. You may remember my complaining about Ryanair on our trip to Rome, and the fact that boarding is merely a gaggle pushing to get on the plane. So, this time, we paid for priority boarding, which means you still have to gaggle, but only with the other people who also paid the extra 8€ per ticket. So worth it.

We flew over France and Spain, and then down over Tangiers to Marrakech. My only real disappointment with the flight was that I didn't get to see Gibralter, since we didn't come down under the clouds until we were almost at Marrakech.

Our first glimpse of Africa

We landed, and it took us about 30 minutes to get through passport control. Apparently we look innocent, because we weren't required to have our bags X-rayed at customs like other people. Max changed our money as Em & I got our bags. As soon as we got outside and headed towards the taxis, we were accosted by the guy who apparently arranges those things. We showed him the address of the hotel, and he bundled us into a taxi. One thing I learned from reading up on visiting Morocco is to always set a price before getting in the taxi, so he told us it would be 300 Dh (dirham, the Moroccan currency). One euro is about 11 dirham, one dollar is about 7 dirham. Since we're pretty used to euro now, we just divided all of the dirham prices by 10 to get the approximate euro price. So, we knew that it was about a 30€ cab ride. The problem was that we had no idea whether or not that was reasonable, so we just went with it. Turns out, it was reasonable, so yay.

That was the first of several adventurous cab rides. The taxis are all little brown cars of varying brands. But, they're all small and all brown. Seatbelts are a luxury that few cab drivers can afford. Actually, since it seems like all the ones we rode in were from the 70s, a more likely explanation is that most taxis were just made before seatbelts were all that common. The lack of seatbelts made a scary ride even more scary...er... exciting.

This wasn't our first cab ride, but you get the idea. It's hard to tell, but this road had two lanes going in each direction. As you can see, there were regularly 3 buses/bikes/cars across, with people just walking across whenever they want to. At roundabouts, instead of proceeding in an orderly fashion, it was a free-for-all. The general attitude to driving seems to be, "if you can make it, go for it. If you can't make it, try anyway. Try not to hit anybody, but if you do, oh, well. Honk a lot." There were several times when making a left turn that three vehicles were making the same left turn at the same time, all trying to merge into the one lane available.

Some of the taxis waiting outside our hotel

The official language of Morocco is Arabic, though most people also speak French. We only ran into two people who didn't also speak English. One of our cab drivers also spoke Spanish and Italian. The guy who checked us in at the hotel switched between Arabic, French, English, and German without skipping a beat. I am constantly amazed at all the languages spoken by people around the world when we in America consider ourselves pretty well off if we speak English well and one other language at even a high school level.

Anyway, back to the taxi. Morocco is just so different from anywhere else I have ever been. I loved seeing all the people dressed in their various outfits, from people wearing jeans and T-shirts to Jawa robes, caftans to beautiful beaded dresses, to the women who were covered from head to foot. All the women we saw had their hair covered by scarves, but very few had covered faces.

 We saw lots of carts, mostly pulled by donkeys, but also by people or horses.

I also had fun seeing all of the things I am used to being in English in Arabic and French. Almost all the signs were in Arabic and French, with a number of them being in English, as well.

Kaw Kaw Power

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I'm not sure what Kaw Kaw Power is, but it has a Facebook group!

We successfully made it to the hotel. I had read good reviews online, but we were really happy when we drove up. It was quite beautiful. The lobby was clean and lovely, though smoking was allowed, so it didn't smell so great. It's an all-inclusive resort, so it was quite an extensive facility, including 4 restaurants - a casual one by the pool, the regular one, an Italian one and a Moroccan one. The Italian and Moroccan ones required reservations, but the other two did not. It was all buffet.

Em in front of one of the hotel ponds

Normally check-in is at 2, but they let us check in at 11. Our debit card was unfortunately denied, since we had forgotten to call BOA and tell them that we were going to Morocco. We also couldn't use our Capital One card, because it's a Master Card, and apparently MC isn't as widely accepted as Visa. Luckily, though, we had brought a fair amount of cash with us, and we were able to pay the hotel bill in cash. Thank goodness we didn't decide on Club Med, because we would never have been able to afford that in cash!  By then, it was almost 12. We put our stuff in our room and headed to the restaurant that served lunch. It was pretty good! Not excellent, but we were so hungry that we didn't care. We made our reservations for the next night at the Moroccan restaurant.

Koutoubia mosque

We thought about taking a rest, but decided against it. We had reservations for the hotel shuttle back from the medina (walled old town) at 5:20, and we didn't want to not have enough time down there that day. We hadn't been able to get a spot on any of the shuttles out there, so we took a cab. He asked where we wanted to go, and we replied that we wanted to see the medina. I didn't realize that the medina was huge, and I needed to be more specific. He asked what we were looking for, and we said we wanted henna and spices. He said he knew of a spot to get both of those, and dropped us at a little shop. One nice thing about Marrakech is the Koutoubia mosque. It's minaret is visible from almost everywhere in the medina, so we knew to go that way to find the bus back to the hotel. It was a neighborhood that didn't look used to tourists, and we were a bit nervous. People were staring at us.

The spice shop

The scale

We walked into the shop, and a very nice man started showing us all of the things they have. Huge piles of mint tea and other mixtures were given to us to smell. The thing I wanted most was turmeric, and he had piles of it. We also picked up some Moroccan spice mixture and a few other things. He had some saffron, but it didn't look real, so we skipped it. He weighed our bags of spices on a manual scale and totaled it up for us. We were still too nervous to haggle, and so we just paid. We probably got ripped off, but oh, well. He then led us to the back of the shop where a lady came out to do our henna. She was one of the two people who didn't speak English, so the shop guy translated for us. She said it would be 600 Dh for Em & me to both get both hands done. We didn't know if it was fair, but as we were again too nervous to haggle, we went for it. Then we were nervous because they said the henna was black. I had heard that black henna was not good for you, but I wasn't sure why. We figured that one time wouldn't hurt. I have since read up on it more, and I'm so glad we didn't have any bad reactions to it! The chances of us ever going back to a henna culture is pretty rare, but never again will I get black henna. It can cause horrible reactions in some people. Em & I are both fine, though, no bad reactions here, thank goodness.

We walked towards the mosque, and ended up in the main square - Jamaa El Fna. We saw lots of guys with snakes, and one of them walked up and put a snake around Em's shoulders. I took a picture. Then he put the snake on  me, then on Max, then on both Em & Max.

Then they demanded their money. OK. Pictures with snakes is one of the things we wanted. Then another guy in a costume came over and stuck his hat on Em and told us to take a picture. Then with me, then with Max. Then he demanded money. By this time, we learned that everybody wants money for pictures. Either that, or you can't take a picture at all, because they'll yell at you. So, I ended up taking lots of hip shots, so we wouldn't have to pay. Discreet picture taking was the name of the game.

The shop where I bought my lantern

We walked around the square towards the shops at the back. One guy grabbed my arm and started pulling me towards his shop. It was kind of scary. I just kept telling him no and pulling away, though, and he eventually let me go. We saw a few things we liked, but were pretty much out of cash by this time, so there wasn't much buying. We walked around in the shop-lined alleys for a bit, but didn't want to get too lost, since we only had an hour or so before our bus was scheduled to come. I did buy a lamp, and we got a couple of little stuffed camels for the kids of the neighbors feeding our cats back home.

The souks are divided (sometimes roughly, sometimes specifically) into sections by what they sell. While we saw some shops that had clothes, shoes, pots, purses, and toys, there were also whole sections that only sold olives. In one alley, there were several stalls just like the one on the left, selling nuts and dried fruit. It's hard to tell from this picture, but these guys have popped up through a hole in the middle of the stand and are surrounded by baskets.

These pots are called tangiers (or that's what it sounds like). Single guys take their pots in the morning to the market and fill them with meat, olives, veggies, spices, etc, and them bring them to these guys. These guys then cook them in the ashes from the furnaces used to heat the hammams (baths). They cook for 4 or 5 hours, and then the single guys come to pick them up for lunch or dinner. Neato, huh?

goat legs

My beloved Fanta in Arabic