Marrakech Mayhem

Having only been in Morocco for 2 days, laden with jet lag I would've probably been advised not to travel four and a half hours south to Marrakech this weekend. But, I did and was thankful for it.

Of course, we were late meeting each other and had to run to catch our train. Sweaty, but glad we didn't have to wait two hours for the next one, we sat down in what felt like the Hogwarts Express. The train had cabins that sat about 8 people with doors that made it seem like our own private place. We were talking about the tanneries where people stomp pigeon poop into leather to make it extremely soft when Vicky, from England, said, "Of course they do, pigeon poop has magical properties!" Given the situation and the fact that there was another Brit on board I thought we were headed directly to magic school. Turns out, Vicky is quite rad and was extremely helpful with her Arabic skills.

Marrakech is certainly a lively place. The big plaza was extremely entertaining. We watched snake charmers, monkey trainers, storytellers, musicians of all types, henna tattoo artists, dentists (on the street!), fortune tellers, dancers and we even watched a boxing match. Anyone could put on the gloves and box each other...the catch was that the crowd had to pay enough money for them to fight. I was left wishing I'd have paid more attention when my older cousin Trent was beating my body into bloody submission as a youngster. Alas, I only watched. But, man it was a sensory overload to be there on that plaza. Aside from all of the entertainment, food vendors were out in full force with spicy aromatically pleasing wares to offer.

Marrakech is known for its hustlers. People posing as tour guides offer to take you places and then expect money for doing it. They can be rather pushy and annoying. So, it was with great relief when someone grabbed my shoulder and said, (in perfect English) "Hey I'm not a tour guide. I only want to talk Rasta." I turned around to be greeted by a dread-locked, nearly toothless friendly face and in my best Bob Marley accent replied, "That's right. We must win it with Rasta. If we don't win it with Rasta, we will continue to suffer until we learn these things...with Rasta there will be no more war!" Youssef and his friend, Mustaffah were obviously excited by this and we ended up going to the base of a large, beautiful mosque, sat in a circle and listened to Youssef tell us of Rasta, Islam and Arabic folklore. It was such a beautiful time and proved to me that good, truth-seeking people are found everywhere. (pictures to follow...for some reason they're not loading)