Marrakech: Very Good Price Snake

I'm not sure if the phrase "very good price snake" has ever been uttered to me in the past, but in the Djemma al Fna of Marrakech, it was hardly strange. When surrounded by thousands of swarming people (Moroccan and tourist alike) and having your senses bombarded by snake charmers, random monkeys, acrobats, rhythmic music, storytellers, motorcycles speeding between pedestrians, hustlers dancing in front of you and then asking for money, and food stalls, belching fire and serving up the edible and inedible, a young boy offering up a serpent for cheap really just made sense. Fortunately, these snakes were made out of wood (though they were pretty life-like and scared many a child), but with the plethora of cobras and other reptiles found in the square during the day, I really wouldn't have been surprised if the snake was real. The Djemma al Fna ("Assembly of the Dead" in Arabic) is the main square of the (funky cold) medina of Marrakech ... we stayed in a hotel in one of the nearby medina alleys and spent quite a bit of time wandering through the square or sitting above it in a cafe and watching the goings-on.

Our trip to Marrakech really was EXCELLENT ... a) Sam had Friday, Monday and Tuesday off to cavort, b) Ramadan finally ended on Saturday, and c) Marrakech is an amazing city. We traveled with our friend Misty, and had intended to catch a grand taxi to Meknes Thursday night, then take the train to Marrakech the next morning. However, we had dinner at our friend Ali's house on Thursday and he began opening bottles of wine. We mentioned that we would have to leave later that evening and therefore couldn't drink a LOT of wine. Ali has a beautifully persuasive presence. He simply said "I'll be driving right through Meknes tomorrow morning", opened a bottle of wine, set it in front of us and walked away. Consequently, with very little sleep and a meager breakfast, we hopped in Ali's car at 8:00 the next morning, barely caught our train in Meknes at 9:30 and enjoyed a long, dusty, hot, hungry (Friday was the last day of Ramadan), 7-hour train ride to Marrakech. Since the weekend was Aid al Fitr (the end of Ramadan holiday), the train was jam-packed, and from Casablanca on south, people filled the aisle and sat on the arms of chairs. We taught the guy sitting across from us how to play Skip-Bo for a little cross-cultural exchange and had an audience during a stimulating game of Scrabble.

As if some of my postings aren't incredibly long, this one would be REALLY long if I tried to cover all of the delights of Marrakech. So I will try to highlight:

* The Djemma al Fna: another world heritage site, and pure craziness. We're lucky we didn't get killed by the motorcycles and cars flying around. And there are quite a few Moroccan men who are lucky they weren't killed by Sam. A lot of the sexually-repressed members of the male-centric society took every opportunity to grope Sam and Misty or offer up whatever lewd comment they could offer up in their crappy English, with me present or not. At one point, Sam turned and stared at a guy who had just rubbed her ass, and he came running up and got in her face. Misty and I both stood right beside her, and I think we probably saved the guy from getting torn limb for limb, not the other way around. Apparently over the last ten years, the importance of tourism has been recognized in Morocco, and I'm sure this youth wouldn't have fared too well with the Moroccan police (who can be found around the perimeter of the square) if Sam had raised a fuss. Still, at night these types of activities did occur frequently, so the music and entertainment areas of the Djemma were understandably not very entertaining, and we didn't spend a lot of time there after-hours.

Fortunately, this harassment didn't spill over into the food area. Each food stall DID have its own "helper" of sorts whose job it was to lasso passers-by and drag them into their restaurant. They could be a little rude (most likely because of the vicious circle of tourists being rude to them), but if you stopped, talked with them for a moment, then moved on, they tended to not be as aggressive. In terms of food, one can get kebabs, soups (lentil, white bean, snail), fresh-squeezed juices, salads, pastries, dates and nuts, sheep's head, cinnamon tea, all for great prices. And yes, I did say sheep's head: the hair is burnt off of the head, then it is boiled and cleaved in half. Misty and I sort of worked our way to the triple-dog dare, at which point neither of us could back down ... so we split a head. Really, some of it tasted like a good roast, but other parts were pure fat. We only took tiny bites of the more questionable parts, and the plate was still fairly full when we backed away, much to the amusement of the locals.

* Hammam Ziani: many Moroccans don't have hot water, so they go to the hammam (bath house) to get clean. These bath houses are about 7 D to get in (less than $1), and can be found in any city in the country. Hammam Ziani was NOT a traditional hammam and was quite a bit more expensive (80 D / $10 for the basics), but it was pretty damn awesome. First you sit in a steam room for fifteen/twenty minutes to loosen up everything. Then you come out, lie on a table and a dude (men and women go to separate areas) takes this rough glove to your body and scrapes off all of your dead skin. Seriously, there are piles of skin lying around you when you get up. Then you shower, then you get washed (pretty bizarre having someone wash you, I must say), then you chill with some mint tea afterward. It felt good to be clean. Apparently the glove used for tourists is wimpy compared to the glove used on locals ... I'm not sure I want to experience the local glove. Sam and Misty did something a little more complicated with a massage and mud wrap, and they said it was pretty awesome.

* The Koutoubia Mosque: Giant mosque. Dismantled and re-assembled at one point because it was not correctly aligned with Mecca. Very old. Very cool. See picture.

* Jardin Majorelle: lots of crazy cacti, and nice and cool during the hot afternoon.

* Al Fassia: a women's cooperative restaurant in the Marrakech ville nouvelle. Pretty damn spendy ($30 a person), but VERY good as well. Strangely enough, we ran into several sets of people that we knew from Ifrane in Marrakech. One set of people included Thomas and Terry, two Americans who run an alternative tourist business from Ifrane. They had two people with them who they were taking on a trek the following Monday, and we all went to Al Fassia together. Wine, tons of delicious salads, lamb tagine with prunes, pastilla (a pie made out of pigeon and cinnamon) ... yum. One thing that was sort of funny about the Al Fassia experience is that Sam had read about the place on the web and was surprised to find that Thomas and Terry were planning to go there Saturday evening as well. Turns out Thomas wrote the article that Sam read on the web. Small world.

* Palais el-Badi: an ancient palace built in 1578 that was subsequently pillaged by an imperial successor in 1602. The palace grounds were very beautiful and serene, but perhaps the coolest aspect of the ruins was the hundreds of storks that have set up residence on the palace walls. Perhaps some of you out there are pretty familiar with stork-life, but for those that aren't, occasionally the birds will gnash their beaks in unison, making a terrifying sound reminiscent of "Predator". When this sound was amplified in the smaller rooms of the palace, it was unnerving. But still awesome. The view from the top of the walls took in the whole city and the nearby High Atlas mountains.

I think that was still a pretty long posting. Check out the pics: Marrakech.