Marraech

Hello from Marrakesh. We are staying inside this internet cafe as long as possible as it is super hot outside and it is nice and airconditioned here..oh blessed

so we just spent 2 nights and a few days in the small city near this sweet kasbah Ait Bennahadu...

it is where part of Gladiator was filmed (the part when he russle crow first starts gladiatoring in the small arena...and the arena in the background is the kasbah/town which is made out of dirt and mud...wow!)

we splurged on the 14 dollar a night place cause it had a nice pool and a great deck with a view of the kasbah...nice buddy!

we bought a couple of bottles of wine in town and had a couple of windy but awesome sunsets...we even found a can of pitted olives (which is very rare) and had those too...except they were not too good so we gave them away to some kids there...

on the way back from sunsed one night, we got strong armed into seeing this familys house near the kasbah because he had 'pictures of gladiator'...turns out he had worked on the set.

it was interesting though as the house was made of dirt and mud, including the floor and kitchen everyting...they slept on blankets on the ground and cooked over a propane almost camping stove...not too fun to live there...anyway, he tried to sell us some 'berber' stuff and we gave him like 1 dollar and ran...

so after a day by the pool and a couple of jogs around town (which got us some curious looks as if they were wondering where our rental car was) we hit the road for marakesh.

it didnt start off too good as it took about an hour to hitch a ride back to town (wazzazat) but we wound up squeezing into a van with some morrocans...

we took a grand taxi (old mercedes with 7 people squished into it) because they are much faster and better than the bus...

the bus rides usually have some random, unexplained stops, lots of yelling and a few guys which fall into the catagory of 'wild eyed stairing freaks'

so boom taxi ride which turned out to also have a random stop for 45 min...no matter what you cant seem to avoid that

but we made it to marakesh and were very prepared for extreme hassles because everyone warned us...so any one who came up to us and said hi we punched them in the face and ran...little kids got kicked and old ladies got an elbow...

actually, there was very little hastle and we got a nice hotel real eazy...

went to the new part of town to see royal air maroc and ran into a Mc Donlads...mmm...you know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in morrocco? a royal with cheese...

so we had our first micky Ds in morrocco since we were done with stupid kous kous and tangine

i have to admit that burger was damn good...but not as good as the one in spain

so marrakesh is a good city with lots of energy...not as hectic as we were expecting but hot during the day...

we saw some sites but they were not too much to talk about and the main attraction is just the crazyness that occurs in the main square with the snake charmers, music players, food stalls and guys that put a snake around your neck while you try to take a picture and then ask for money...gave him 50 cents and ran away again

oh, we also bought some Berber Ray Bans for only 7 dollas nice! we drive a hard bargain

they are real ray bans too...they say so right on the sunglasses

one thing we have noticed about people is that they dont seem to think staring is rude...at least the guys that is.

the women are more reserved and try not to make eye contact most of the time (probably trying to ignore the wild eyed stareing guys)

but guys have no problem with it...so when guys give sarah the learing stare i always try to give the wild eyed stare back at them but it doesnt seem to faze them....also they really enjoy spitting alot...even the women...hawking loogies left and right...crazy...

but i guess, to them wearing shorts and tshirt like we do is rude (to them it is like we are wearing underware around town) maybe that is why they stare so much...

so we are off to have mc donnalds meal #2

by the way, we have 2 more weeks in morrocco then we fly out of casablanca oct 12 to dakar, senegal...where we will see senegal and the gambia and fly back on month later

we picked there because it was easiest to get to from here and it is the most visited area in west africa so there will be lots of tourists...dont want any where too crazy

dont worry mom, we will not take any ferries (senegal is where one just sank and killed like 700 people so we will be sure to take extra care)

chow

sarah and jer