Marrakech to Ait Benhadou

typical street setting in marrakech
see all photos »

We ended up arriving in Marrakech at around 7:30 pm after an extremely long and agonizing day.  We could feel the temperature of the air shifting from being moist and bareable to dry and scorching hot.  Although the mountains are only about 85km away, the contrast is very pronounced. Marlene slept in the backseat most of the way home while I tried to get some driving tips from our cabby.  It was quite funny when at one point our journey our cabby started yelling with excitement and waving frantically at an oncoming car.  When the other car failed to respond, he put his four ways on and somewhat pulled to the side of the road yelling "c'est mon frere!" as he rushed out of the car.  Apparently his brother didn't notice him as he was running down the road screaming and waving...quite the experience! Anyway, once we arrived into the city, we were dropped off at the main square area where we were instantly swarmed by children who either wanted change, to carry our bags, or have a drink of our fruit juice!  None of us (the britts included) were in the frame of mind for them and just continued on as if they weren't there.   We parted ways with our fellow hikers and set out to find our "Riad".  The britts had told us they'd seen our riad and gave us directions to it...the trouble was that they were wrong and we ended up getting a little lost.  There were tons of places to stay in this area and everyone was trying to convince us that there's was the best place to stay at, we kept insisting that we had reservations at another spot but couldn't locate it...finally after arguing with one hotel owner about staying at there hotel, he told us he would bring us to the correct one...finally!  After a slight detour, he did end up eventually bringing us to the correct one, of course, only after he pointed out various restaurants and internet cafes that were "great deals" along the way.  Once we arrived at our location, he simply looked at us and held out his hand...guess nothing is free in this country.  We were both extremely exhausted, but also very hungry, so we set out for some comfort food.  We found a nice little Italian restaurant and ordered pizza and lemonade..mmm.

fresh spices and nuts
see all photos »

Early the next morning is when everything started heading south for me.  My stomach was not happy with the way I had treated it (neither was my body) and demonstrated its anger.  At first I thought (or hoped) it was just something I ate that didn't agree with me...but after 2 trips to the toilet in less then an hour I knew something was up.  We slept until about 10 and went up to the hotel's rooftop restaurant...it was already at least 35 out and we were sweating eating our breakfast...well, I actually felt horrible by this point and ate nothing.  We now had to decide what to do about our rental car since we were supposed to pick it up and drive out to some waterfalls that afternoon.  The end decision was that I would go back to bed and try to sleep off my ailments.  Marlene stayed with me for awhile but I insisted she go out and enjoy herself.  It wasn't until about 4pm that I felt well enough to go join her in her adventures...it only took about 30 minutes for me to start feeling awful again but I toughed it out in order to catch a glimpse of the bustling entertainment of the main square.  It was quite impressive, from gypsy palm readers to snake charmers, musicians to people with monkeys...and just overall pandemonium everywhere you looked!

see all photos »

We decided we'd go take a look around the Souks (market place) to get a sense of what we would be faced with in Fes (which is where we were planning on doing most of our buying).  It was like nothing I'd ever seen, the only thing comparable would be a giant circus atmosphere, with all the booths selling things instead of having games.  We stepped into one place 'cause marlene saw a carpet that caught her eye.  The shopkeeper was really friendly and nice and kept insisting that we could infact "just look" with no obligation to buy...so we stuck around and let him show us his merchandise.  It was long before this guy was getting a little TOO friendly with Marlene and began hitting on her.  He then turned to me and offered me 10 camels for her...we both just started roaring this was highly entertaining...which I think he saw as an invitation to keep bargaining!  It was pretty funny for most of the time until we had had enough and were ready to leave...he wasn't ready to have us leave until we had a serious discussion about the value of my girlfriend.  It actually did get to a point where I had to grab her arm and pull her out of the store and tell him sternly that she was NOT for sale!  HAHAHA! kind of funny but not really.  After about an hour of wandering around I needed to take a break and so headed back to the riad with the hopes of having enough energy to enjoy a little of the night life.  Unfortunately I didn't feel much better but again toughed it out in order to catch a glimpse of the night time madness.  It was quite the scene as the entire square turned into an open air market serving fresh juices, nuts, fresh fruit, and all sort of cooked foods.  We went for a traditional meal at a restaurant that had a nice view of the square.  I could only stomach a bit of soup, but it was really good!  Again my stomach started rumbling so I quickly made my way back to the riad.

souks
see all photos »

The next morning I woke up feeling surprisingly well, so we headed out to the new side of Marrakech and picked up our car.  On our way there we spotted a Mcdonalds which of course we just HAD to stop at (eventhough neither of us eat there here in Canada!).  It's actually kind of rediculous (and a little sad) how we ended up there.  The car took an eternity to check out so we said "forget Mcdonalds, lets just go".  So off we went...just on the outskirts of the city there was a giant north american style grocery store that we decided would be a great place to buy some fresh food instea of eating Mcdonalds.  I wouldn't be mentioning this accept for the fact that this place was about as secure and locked down as an international airport.  Seriously, not only did we have to show our passports, fill out a document stating we wouldn't take photos, leave our cameras and electronics at the front desk, but we got searched too!  Pretty funny, we'd obviously never seen anything like it.  Oh, and once we checked out they actually had security guards look at our receipt and through our bags to make sure everything was accounted for! ha! pretty tough business! So anyway, once we got into the car we debated about whether or not we should go back into the city to the Mcdonalds...we thought about it for a while and decided we needed to go back...so 35 minutes later we found ourselves at was probably the only Mcdonalds in all of Morocco...not exactly my proudest moment!