Marrakech

After a few days in Fes, we left for Marrakech. The train took about 7 hours, so we were able to get in a little before dinner. This is a picture of Bryan and I at the door to our hostel.

While the door looks quite fancy, it was actually rather hard to find. It was located within the Medina, so there's no "left turn here, right turn there." Instead, it was "go to this Cafe, then follow a road to the left, go through an arch past this shop, follow til you see a slight widening of the road and then find the alley connected to that part of the road." It took a bit of searching, but we found it. Inside, it turned out to be an old Riad, which were basically the old palaces, but converted into a hostel.

Below is a picture of one of the common areas in the hostel that you could use at night when everyone tends to hang out with one another.

We did a few touristy attractions (a large palace and some old tombs) but the most interesting thing to do in Marrakech seems to be simply wandering around the huge markets within the Medina and going to the main square in the middle of it all. At night, the square fills up with musicians and a huge portable restaurant set up that sold couscous and tagine dishes. Here's a shot of the square at night. It's a bit blurry, but seems to capture the hectic nature of it.


During the day, the square is full of henna artists, guys with monkeys and snake charmers. One snake charmer finally got our attention and convinced us to sit down with snakes on us while they played with the python sitting by the main snake charmer
Another highlight of our stay in Marrakech was the fruit. Apparently the government has demanded such high taxes for the exporting of fruit that the fruit companies have temporarily stopped exporting and have flooded the domestic market. Luckily for us, that means amazingly good fruit at incredibly cheap prices everywhere in the city
And finally, here I am walking through the gardens outside of the large Mosque in the center of town