Sunday started with me waking to my alarm, as I had the usual jetlag sleep-wake-sleep night. Today, I had a driver and a tour in Marrakesh. It is a two-and-a-half-hour drive to Red City, and I was paying the rate for a group—not cheap, but fitting with my plans of using Casablanca as my base for this trip.
When making coffee, I managed to miss the cup and pour boiling water on the table and floor. I ran to the bathroom and poured cold water on my foot, which was splashed. No injury, but a clear warning that jetlag does not make you smarter! I was also set on not buying another carpet or other items. I wanted some cooking spices and hoped for a tourist-ready set matching what I found in Istanbul years ago. A full-color collection worth a picture, and I have it on the wall in the kitchen.
Aside: I met a family of Americans but chose not to use their names as they are in business, and I thought it best not to share more information about them on social media. It makes the writing sound a bit over-formal and frankly ham-fisted, but I thought it best to protect them. So please forgive that, and know they were fun to travel with.
I had already published the blog for yesterday, so I could grab breakfast and then pop into the van. I brought Dramamine, concerned that breakfast and three hours of bouncing in a transport van could be more than I could take. I also ate a larger breakfast as I was worried that the tour would not have a break except for mint tea and a sales pitch. I eat when I can when traveling, hoping that the exercise of walking on the tours will cover those calories. I found that streets and sidewalks here are made from cobblestones and bricks and, while mostly not unsafe, are not easygoing either.
The staff and concierge were watching for me, and soon, my ride was there at 7:30. I had a black Mercedes van with excellent leather seats that fit ten to myself. My driver, Zouhair, used to live in California, and his English was good and American. While he missed a word here and there, he was easy to understand and was happy to have a friendly, well-traveled American today.
The drive was incredible and maybe one of the significant parts of my trip. Just seeing Morocco, the town, and the mix of olive trees and desert made me excited and happy. Zouhair explained things as we went, and we talked about Artificial Intelligence and other topics that interested him while I watched the landscape and asked him questions, too. We spoke of housing here and his wish to create his own travel agency. The road was new and better than in the greater Portland area. I was not having any issues with motion sickness. Excellent.
I was prepared, but the tour guide was still a bit of a disappointment. He loved to talk endlessly, and his English was unclear. He spent our first hour talking in front of a ruined Mosque, which apparently was one of the first buildings in Marrakesh and appeared to have the remains of a large cistern now exposed to the sky. But few words were spent on the sight.
Soon, we were happy to be moving and walking into the Souq. There were snake charmers everywhere, unhappy cobras, and rattlesnakes to visit and take photos for a fee. Our guide took my iPhone and got a close-up for me. Our guide, I had joined another three people on tour, led us into the chaos of the narrow walkways surrounded by shops and often covered above to keep the desert sun away. It was a fantastic and slightly cloudy morning, which we soon learned to love. It was clear the Souq would swelter in the hot summer. There was little air movement.
The family I joined on the tour: a husband, wife, and daughter who were international living Americans. The husband was on business, and the daughter was celebrating her 20th birthday. The daughter wore Muslim jewelry and spoke Arabic, to the delight of everyone in Marrakesh. I played my role as an unknown family friend to be ignored. Perfect.
We all but ran through the narrow alleyways following our guide and avoided, to our surprise, motorcycles running through the crowd. I was also hit once, with no damage, by a bike that pushed through the crowd less efficiently. My driver told me this weekend was a holiday, and Moroccans love to visit Morocco. The place was overflowing.
We stopped at a Riad being transformed into a restaurant. The former home has courtyards with gardens opened to the sky. Our guide explained that the sound of birds, the water flowing in the fountains (dry today), and the smell of the medicinal plants (including roses) were to remind you of God and the goodness you have while alive. It is, he explained, not a requirement to Believe in Morocco as it is an open country, but the space helps. I could see the practicality of the design and how it would be an excellent place for morning prayers. A workman used a file to cut the designs into the stone to replace some stonework. I did not know it was a manual task to file the stone–fascinating.
We soon returned to our motorcycle-dodging cobblestoned follow-the-leader tour. The shops could have been Istanbul or another Souq. The brasswork of lights and lamps might get more attention on another day when I am not dodging while trying to talk to my fellow tourists and not lose line-of-sight to our guide. I saw more chess sets and leatherwork than on my last visit to a Souq, but there were a few daggers and other dangerous exotic items. We did not see an antique area, just new items. Our guide waved us away from clothing, hats, and other clothing items. “All made in China,” he said with a scoff, saying that these items should be below our notice. I did see python skins, live turtles, and shark egg cases (still in seawater) for sale.
From what I could see, the items for sale were tourist items, clothing (usually soccer or splashy labels), and locally-made wood, brass, or other craft items. The tourists appeared to be a mix of imports like me and a collection of local young people on holiday from Morocco. A friendly crowd that was buying.
Our guide told us it was time to learn about the local crafts, and I nearly moaned when it was a carpet store. We entered another Riad, rebuilt as a carpet warehouse and display store. The gardens and fountains were long gone, and the sky was no longer visible. This one claimed to be from the 1500s, but I would suspect that only the stones in the foundation are that old. Our host saw our interest and took us up some solid but twisting stairs to see the architecture that still survives. The railing was reachable between carpet stacks.
The building’s Riad features showed some age, but it was still lovely and showed, except for electrical wires drilled or torn into the walls at random places, to have been respected. The huge floors were perfect, now covered in marble and stone sheets, for showing carpet after carpet.
If you have any available funds, you should be prepared to pay more than that, and you will soon have a carpet delivered or packaged for easy carrying. It is a beautiful mix of theater, sales, and FOMO that one has to admire. My scowl and silence made me not the victim this time, but the family was already dizzy from the carpet show. I was happy to be a guest on this pitch; I loved every minute now that I was a watcher. I saw the others in the carpet biz notice me and my smile as they began the fleecing, and I was now a co-conspirator as I stayed silent and did not queer the pitch.
The endless rolling out of carpet after carpet and us being asked to handle and even walk on them made it fun to watch. The husband asked me, “How would we get these home?” I just laughed at him and told him they would find a way for him. The wife decided on something, and he apologized for taking my time on this. I again laughed and showed him the picture of my carpet from yesterday. I am not the one paying this time I said with a smile that he thought was funny and slightly worrying.
Soon, our host announced that never before had women bargained so expertly. He shook the husband’s hand for marrying such an excellent woman who thought he got off with just mint tea. But no, he watched, somewhat shocked, as they rolled and expertly packaged his newest carpet. His daughter had cheered on Mom and was excited that Mom got a rug to take home. All those years with Wild’s Furniture have me always enjoy watching Good Pitch, as long as it is not directed at me.
My patience was nearly expended on the next stop. Potions and spices with a sales pitch that I thought awful. I am not a fan of anything homeopathic as I believe the quality control is too loose, and the science is poor (don’t start with me on this). People want this stuff to work, and many report good results. I am allergic to much of it; it makes me cough and sneeze. The male-enhancement appeal also is a fantasy used for thousands of years to sell endless types of mixtures. But they sell cooking spices, so buy three and get one free. I picked the two mixes I could not get at home, and that was it for me. They were about $30 worth and excellent gifts, too. I managed to stay polite.
Aside: I was ignored as a lone male for most of this pitch. Couples were the target for the pitch, with potency and age reduction as the male focus. I remained quiet and politely turned down any mystery treatments. I have surgery in twenty days, and I don’t need some mystery ailment caused by an unknown product in Morocco.
It was now well beyond 2 (14:00), and I was right about eating a good breakfast. I checked and was surprised I had only about 7,000 steps for the day, and I felt guilty that I was not correctly channeling Dondrea’s 10K step goal a day. However, these were hard steps on uneven surfaces with dodging, so I rationalized that I would not have to walk more when returning. We stopped at the same Riad and had a nice lunch. I sat next to the daughter and soon shared my lunch with the family, which came in courses. The daughter passed the small items over, and soon, everyone tried them. Our guide was invited to lunch, unusual, and accepted after multiple requests. I had couscous, while others had excellent meat items in a tagine or on skewers. There was some debate on the size of lunch, but we all were headed back, in separate vans, to Casablanca and thus would likely miss dinner. So olives, bread, and meat items all soon disappeared.
As I was treated more as a guest than an add-on, I picked up lunch for $97, with the family taking the tip for the food and the guide. I was honored to meet them.
It is a long walk out of the Souq, and this is just one of many. The weekday markets are for the locals, and I would have loved to tour one. There are also museums and some historical sights in Marrakesh. Still, with only four hours and the apparent need to be fleeced, the tour ended with our exit at about 4 (16:00). We exchanged some information, but I am a realist about tourists meeting up (and shook all their hands).
My driver was ready, and soon we were on our way. I was a bit tired and full. Getting on a camel, the last part of the trip, was not in my cards. The driver thought it funny but drove by all the camels just in case I changed my mind. See them, I was sure I did not need to ride one. Again, if I was with folks, maybe, but no.
I nodded off a few times on the way back to Casablanca and talked with my guide here and there, but I was sleepy. The two-plus hours quickly passed, and we were surprised to see rain and rainbows in the desert areas. It was an excellent drive again and well worth the price. I tipped the driver well, exchanged contacts (with my realism about that), and paid the driver when arriving at the hotel.
I was soon in my room, and the sun was setting. I rested, and soon, it was night when I woke. I was staggered, and it was best to shower and sleep. Of course, that did not work, as I woke-sleep-woke from jetlag. But for each cycle, I was better. My lungs froze up, and soon, I was using my inhaler. I was either tired or exposed to something that I was allergic to. I recovered, and the wheezing stopped. I managed to continue to slip into sleep and out all night. Rest comes in breaks when traveling–no surprise there.
The usual travel is flying into Casablanca, seeing a few sights, and then off to Marrakesh and other places. I have no regrets about my choices.
Thanks for reading.
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