Saturday, 14 July 2012

Friday 14th July–Off to Marrakech

Today was a long travelling day. We were there to catch our 9am train in plenty of time… and so began our 8 hour train journey to Marrakech. We managed to be assigned a cabin with air conditioning, the seats were comfy and on the whole I didn’t mind the trip at all. I pulled out my Kindle, finished Middlesex (still not sure about that book) and started Catching Fire (Hunger Games pt 2). I was pretty much absorbed in this the entire time and was even a little annoyed when the train pulled into the station at 5pm… I only had 20% of the book left and I wanted to finish it!

  Loooong train   Hello Marrakech

When we jumped off the train the heat hit us straight away – 46 degrees, lovely weather! The Intrepid groups usually walk to the hotel but Jaimen was nice enough to spend a very long time negotiating with a whole lots of taxi drivers (none of them wanted to take us a short distance). Once we reached the hotel it was clear none of us wanted to leave it again anytime soon, so room relaxation and sitting by the pool was in order for three hours.

At 8.30pm, when the heat was reducing just a little, we all headed out on the 40 minute walk to the main square. Already we could see all the major shops and fast food chains – this place is a lot more cosmopolitan than anywhere else we’ve been in Morocco. When we eventually got to the square we couldn’t stop staring at the amount of people there…. it was like a music festival for us, instead it was the average night for them. The square was basically divided into two halves – big circles of locals watching street performers and big outdoor tables with food and kitchens (plus all the surrounding shops and markets).

  Street performers   Dinner spot

We sat down at a cramped table in one of the local food places, with billowing smoke and piles of food on display everywhere. I ordered Tangia, a traditional Marrakech dish apparently – basically lots of yummy slow cooked meat in herbs and spices. All the meals came out about 2 minutes after we ordered them, the food was all just sitting there after all! The atmosphere at this point was truly something special, so much crazy energy and organised chaos!

  Crazy markets   Lamps?

After dinner the group split up and we said our farewells – this was our last group meeting after all. Shlomo and Laura stayed behind with Andy and I and we took another hour or so to wander around the square a little more, basically just through markets – it appears that shopping and eating are clearly the main things to do in this country. On our way back to the hotel we stopped to buy some cheap Moroccan lamps – this resulted in a highly entertaining process in which we haggled for three lamps, walked down the road, found better lamps for a cheaper price and then in a very complicated manner managed to swap them over for a small price. Fun times! Back to the hotel by 1am for our last night in the country!

1 comment:

  1. I can lend you the last two Hunger Games books when you get home because I had to buy them so I could real them, lol.

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