hagglin and hassle...

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where do i start? first of all, cheer up dicey, benitez says that the squad rotation will pay dividends by the end of the season... (sound familiar?) and jim, what can i say? jose will be missed by more than the blues. when's roman the red gettin his coaching badges?? he seems to be callin the shots.....

right, lets talk morocco. got the bus from malaga to algeciras, to get the ferry to tangier, to get the overnight train to marrakech, to get a taxi to our hotel. as if that wasn't enough, we had to pay a dude to take us to the door of our hotel as it was located in the middle of the souks and was a mother to find. so by the time we got there i was nearly ready to leave again!

after day 1, we had to get out of the city and we did

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anyway!the souks are a maze of little streets filled with shops of all sorts, from spices and fruits, to leather shoes and bags, to scarfs and various ceramics and tons more. most things are hiked up in price by anything up to 500% so we didn't feel at all bad for low-ballin when haggling!

the main square, jemma el fna, or "big square" as the locals call it came to life at night. full of musicians, snake charmers and a food market the likes i'll never see again.

it was hard to feel at ease walking around the souks or big square as the locals tend to harass you looking to 'guide' you somewhere or just looking for money. they tend to talk mainly to the man as it is custom. they couldn't talk to nikki without asking permission first from me but most didn't. they don't seem to know what 'no' or 'no thanks' mean and keep following you until they get the message. so peace to wander around was as hard to find as our hotel!!

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after day 1, we had to get out of the city and we did.....

we went hiking in the high atlas mountains on the wednesday which was brilliant! we did it through an agency so we had a guide. we took a 'grand taxi' (a 1980's mercedes 320) to a town called imlil which was about an hour and a half away and met our guide hassan there. imlil is 1740m above sea level and without any delay we started headin up a steep path that was stepped but rough and uneven to say the least! it didn't take long for the sweat to start rollin as it was hot and we were surprised by hassan's pace. i still dunno how he did it with a wool sweater and chords on!  he took us to a little village 2300m above sea level, chamarouch, where the pastoral shrine of sidi chamarouch, the 'holy man', lived, but being non-muslim, we couldn't cross the bridge to his house. we met loads of locals on the path with horses loaded with supplies for what seemed to be campers and other tourists that were stayin is a different village. from there we turned back down to another little village called aremd where we were cooked a traditional meal by a 14 year old boy. it was a chicken tanjine with vegetables and bread. delicious! the views from here were breathtaking. we ended up back in imlil 4 and a half hours later exhausted.

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we went back to the madness with a plan to get our shopping done in an hour and get things as cheap as possible. we succeeded for the most part in finding what we wanted and for a price we were happy with, but you'd swear we were robbing some of them by their 'sad face' they seem to put on if we didn't increase our price!

after shopping we ate in the food stalls which was fun to see how they all operate and then bed for some rest before leavin for fes early the next morning...