Marrakesh!

WARNING: THIS ENTRY IS SUPER F-ING LONG!

10/2/09-10/04/09

We went to Marrakesh this weekend!

Marrakesh is situated about 4 hours south of Rabat. Henry, Ronan (not sure if I've mentioned him yet - he's a young British guy deferring his enrollment to Oxford for a year and is here studying Arabic), Will, Barbara, Amrita, Chloe, Fabienne, and I left La Gare Rabat Centre Ville at 5 45 on Friday. The trains here are comprised of many different compartments rather than open rows of seating like on the LIRR or the Subway in NYC, so we snagged two almost empty ones and split up.

The trip there was pretty hilarious for a few reasons:

-The door in our compartment didn't work and it was hilarious to watch people try to enter and exit.

-The lady sitting next to me had a pair of small scissors on her keychain...ok, fine, maybe she's a seamstress or something. But did she have to hold them on her index and middle fingers so that the blade stuck straight out threateningly? Halfway through the ride she got up and stood out in the tiny hallway instead, staring menacingly at the people trying to push past her and her large suitcase.

-The train stopped at one point and nobody could figure out why. First we heard that a young man jumped off the train and died, then we heard that he simply had fallen and broken his arm...after about 45 minutes of sitting there we heard that it was an "April Fools Joke" and really it was just an electrical problem (we were told it doesn't have to April for April Fools Jokes to occur....a little frightening)

-Ok so technically this happened after we got there but it was right before we went to our hotel so it still kind of counts. We had just met up with Tom (he had gone down to Marrakesh to catch his flight the next day) right outside the Medina and were figuring out what we wanted to do for food when this guy just walked up, took Tom's water bottle from his hand, took a sip, poured some water over his head and scrubbed his face, then handed the water bottle back to Tom and walked away.

-Welcome to Marrakesh.

Ok, so here's the thing about Marrakesh: It's a huge tourist trap. Remember in Aladdin when Jasmine dresses up as a peasant and goes into the town and everyone is talking to her and people are charming snakes and have trained monkeys and all that? Ok yeah, Marrakesh is like that. It was pretty tiring to have to constantly be warding off people and haggling for prices, but it's a nice city none the less. The great thing about being in the tourist capital of the country was that things were a little cleaner and upscale than in Rabat. The bathroom at the train station was actually like a normal train station bathroom - a little dirty, but still flushes and has toilet paper. AMAZING!

The hotel we stayed in the first night used to be a house where all the members of one extended family lived. It is a courtyard style house with 30 rooms and lots of really awesome decor. I would definitely love to decorate any future homes of mine with Moroccan flare. It's so gorgeous!

The next morning we all had breakfast on the terrace to make our plan for the day. We went to this really beautiful garden where the ashes of Yves St. Laurent are scattered and saved this tiny turtle (which Henry named "Perkins the Dog") from the sidewalk...at least I think we saved him rather than hurt him. Not too exciting, but I always appreciate moments of shade and tranquility. We then ventured back the Medina for lunch where I had the supposedly famous "Couscous aux Sept Legumes." It was tasty, true, but when they say "seven vegetables" they mean literally seven pieces of vegetables sitting on top of the couscous (I think it was something like 3 pieces of carrot, 2 slices of eggplant, and 3 slices of zucchini). We then set out into the Souk to do a little shopping!

Let me tell you, the guys in the Souk in Marrakesh are AGRESSIVE. I can handle people calling after me or saying things to get me to come into their shop - I get it, they're trying to make money - but the amount of times I was grabbed by the wrist was uncanny. I'm normally a very polite person but I really cannot stand this attitude toward foreigners and have no problem saying with complete disgust "Don't touch me," or "Ne me touche pas!" as the case may be. They would never grab a Moroccan woman like that. Don't get the wrong idea, not everyone is like that and I met some very nice people while I was shopping that day. I got presents for some of you! Be excited! Some of us got really great deals because we were with Amrita. Amrita is Indian but people here think she is Moroccan all the time and give her the "Moroccan discount." Her usual story is that her parents are Moroccan but moved to America and so she grew up American. The funny thing is though that she puts on this really weird accent that she totally wouldn't have if she grew up in America and spoke only "shweeyah" Arabic. (shweeyah = "a little" in Arabic) But whatever! It works out well for us!

That night we had a pretty wacky experience going to dinner. We first attempted to go to this restaurant mentioned in Lonely Planet, but the prices were double what the book stated, so we left. It was pretty fantastic though, they had this little fountain of fire in the middle of the restaurant (I don't remember what the actual name of the restaurant was, but it translates to "FireWater.") So we left and went to this little place in the Medina that Will had popped into before to see if it might be a possibility for dinner. Apparently the guy there said that he would serve us wine with our dinner and had asked him to call if we wanted to come there. So we walk in...and it was incredibly dark, as in, only the candles on the tables were lighting the place. The couples at their candlelight dinners all glared at us...weird...but ok, maybe they all happen to be in the middle of arguments. After a few moments of waiting in this odd side room we were taken to our table. The owner seemed very strange (we think he may have possibly been drunk) and kept coming over and talking to us. He mentioned several times to Will that he did not call before we came to the restaurant. We tried to explain that it was a spur of the moment decision but I don't think he understood. When Will inquired about the wine, the owner seemed especially dismayed. A while later we saw him enter the restaurant with a bag - he had gone outside the Medina to purchase it for us and tried to charge us 300 DH (about $40) for the bottle, which is absolutely insane. The wine was crap and you probably could have bought it for under $20 at any grocery store in America. He told us that wine is illegal in the Medina and he went to great lengths to get it for us, but we told him that we're sorry he took the risk but he didn't explain this to us beforehand and we were not going to pay 300 DH. We got it down to 100 DH and tried to get out of there as quickly as possible. He did send us on our way with lots of statements like "You are my customers, if you pay or no, I love you." He also gave Will a small glass of wine to take on the way out the door, which we immediately ditched. Oh, and did I mention the random women that seemed to be coming and going all throughout the restaurant? One was wearing all leather...SHADY! The tagine was pretty good though.

The second night we stayed in a Riad, which is basically just a nicer hotel than normal. Marrakesh is known for its Riads, so we had to see what they were all about. Some are very fancy and have pools or hammams directly inside them, but ours was pretty basic - just nice rooms and people. The bathrooms were amazingly large! Definitely the biggest one I've been in since coming to Morocco. And we had a really baller breakfast on the terrace in the morning. It was complimentary and it came with fried eggs, pain au chocolat, crepes, bread, coffee/tea, and juice. Yumm!

And after the amazing breakfast, I discovered I had a major problem. I had lost my debit card and 400 DH (about $50). I have no clue how it happened. I used my card to get money out of the ATM to go to dinner the previous night, and that was the last time I saw it. I thought that maybe when I was trying to quickly pay for dinner the night before it fell out of my bag onto my lap and I didn't notice. So....I had to ask Will to accompany me back to the restaurant. It was the last thing on earth either of us wanted to do...but we did. It wasn't there. It also wasn't at the bank where I took out money the night before or at the hotel, and therefore it was completely lost.

So for me the morning was spent mostly at an internet cafe frantically checking my bank account (no charges were made), trying to see if I could cancel my card online (I couldn't) and trying to find phone numbers to call to get it cancelled. Of course, I had run out of money on my cell phone (almost all phones here are pay-as-you-go). Luckily I had accidentally purchased a regular calling card for payphones a couple weeks ago. Unluckily, it was in Rabat. So I just kind of prayed nobody used my card until I returned home. I immediately went to a payphone and called my mom to see if she could call and cancel the card for me since her name is also on the account. Everything is fine and now I am waiting for the new card to arrive. Disaster averted. Also, after calling Visa myself I learned that there is such a thing as "Visa 911" where if you lose your Visa card while traveling, they can wire you money from your own account. At that point my Mom and her fiance Curtis had already wired me some cash, but it's nice to know that such a service exists.

TRAVELLERS: NEVER STORE ALL YOUR CASH IN THE SAME PLACE.

Luckily I had not put all my cash in my purse and still had enough money in my backpack to buy lunch, get me home, and to travel to work for the rest of the week.

Ok so even though the trip was filled with strange characters and the loss of my debit card, it was still great and I'd like to go back to Marrakesh another weekend and see all the things I missed!