Weekend in Africa {Marrakech Morocco}

I don't think we really appreciated our trip to Marrakech as much as we should have.  Looking back at the photos and remembering our time there, it was incredible.  But, at the time, it was a tough trip for us.  Brian and I just found out I was pregnant, and it was too early to tell our friend Linda who was traveling with us.  

The easy part was not drinking.  We couldn't find a beer or bottle of wine anywhere in Marrakech. We went to one fancy dinner and we were all shocked that they didn't serve alcohol.

The hard part were the fumes and my exhaustion.  Because of the heat, most of the small alleyways/streets were covered, and all day long motorcycles would zip around leaving their exhaust behind.  I was so worried about breathing the air since I had been reading about how my baby's major organs were developing that week.  On top of that, I was in the period of pregnancy where I was just exhausted, so walking around all day and night was tough.  But, I survived and we now have a healthy little baby, so all is good.

I walked around a lot like this - trying to stay away from the fumes

When we arrived in Marrakech, our taxi dropped us off on the edge of the Medina, which is the city center, and we met a lady who walked us to the Riad (a traditional house with a courtyard in the middle) where we were staying.  The streets/alley's were like a maze and I honestly didn't think we would ever find the place again if we left on our own.   But we were hungry and anxious to see the night markets, so we ventured out.  Thank goodness Brian has a great sense of direction.  We would have never made it back that night without him.

The Night Market was in the middle of town.  It was incredible.  There was section of food stalls and surrounding that area were other people selling all sorts of goods.  There were also a good number of snake charmers and trained monkeys, as you would imagine, all of which were just for the tourist.  They just made us sad.

It was a terrible decision on our part, but that night we ate dinner at one of the food stalls in the market.  And, we knew it was a bad idea - the last thing we wanted was for me to get food poisoning - but we were caught up in the experience.  And we would have loved, loved these stalls and probably would have eaten there every day under normal circumstances.  Just our luck, Linda had recently come back from a trip to Tahiti where she got food poisoning, so it was a mutual decision to stay away from the stalls after that first night.

The same lady who showed us the way to the Riad came every morning and cooked us breakfast.  She would make different types of breads that we would spread honey on, fresh orange juice, mint tea and coffee.

The courtyard in our Riad

On the way to the Night Market

An escargot cart

part of our dinner

Linda with one of the chef's at the cart we ate at

finding our way home at night

"x" marks the spot?  Arrows pointing us home?

I loved this - the neighborhood kids had a soccer field spray painting in a courtyard.
We saw them out there playing a few times

Our first day, we set up a private tour with a guy named Abdul.  We wanted him to give us the lay of the land and show us what he loved about Marrakech.  He was perfect.  We started off with a little history of Marrakech at Koutoubia Moque but quickly moved into the Medina. After a stop at Ben Youssef Madrasa, which is an old University that has been turned into a historic sight, we made it to the area that Abdul grew up in.  He led us through the crazy winding streets with grace.  

Brian at the University

The courtyard at the University, the detail of the building was incredible

The gang

Looking down at Brian from one of the rooms upstairs

Abdul took us to 2 very memorable places during our time with him.  

First was a local bakery.  Behind an unassuming door was a virtually empty room with a massive wood fire oven.  This was a bakery that families and business brought their bread dough to every day to be baked.  Often, kids would drop it off and pick it up on their way to and from school.  A few guys stood around baking the bread all day long.  Abdul told us that they could tell each family's bread by just looking at the dough and there were sheets of doughs lined up to be baked that all looked exactly the same to me.  It was impressive.

The door to the bakery

The bakers at work

I couldn't really get a good shot of the oven

classic tourist shot

This wasn't near the bakery but I assume this little girl was getting her bread from her local bakery

The second stop was just across the street, next door to a bath house.  We walked in and saw a bed, or rather, someone's room.  And when we walked to the other side of the room, you could look down and see the tenant.  A man who was tending a fire.  This fire was the heat source that heated the water for the bath house.  All day long he had to tend to the fire and keep it going.  As a side job, he also used the hot coals to slow cook tagines for friends and neighbors (and Anthony Bourdain when he visited Marrakech).  Then, it got a bit cheesy when Abdul asked him to come up and play us some music on his traditional Moroccan guitar. But, we were entertained.

tending the fire to heat the water

traditional music session

we even got to wear hats...

Back on the street, we were cruising through the Medina with Abdul and we heard a huge commotion.  Abdul saw what was happening and proclaimed there was a "traffic marmalade" as he pushed us into one of the stalls.  There was a lot going on - donkey's pulling carts, men pulling carts, everyone going different directions and, of course, a few motorbikes.  Everyone was trying to get down the street at the same time and they didn't fit so they were crashing into the stalls and causing chaos.  We didn't really laugh about it at the time, but after we left Abdul, we got a pretty good chuckle from his English translation of "traffic jam" to "traffic marmalade" - he must have learned British English - hehe.   Abdul recommended a lunch spot for us and that is where we parted ways.

The start of the "traffic marmalade"

The aftermath

Beautiful streets and colors

I got such a kick out of the donkey's pulling carts

We were here

The lunch spot Abdul sent us to was fantastic.  They made simple meat tagines and bread and they did it very well.  We spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around, people watching and taking coffee breaks since there wasn't any alcohol being served anywhere.

enjoying lunch

more street shots

street markets

I would have loved these juice carts

pretty architecture

The main square from a coffee break

The next day, we headed out of town to do a cooking course.  We definitely appreciated being out of the medina and into cleaner air.  I thought it was a nice way to spend an afternoon, but the two chef's I was with thought it was a bit amateur.  We made bread, a few salads and a tagine.  We came out inspired and all went searching the medina the next day for a tagine and dish to kneed bread in.  It was a bit of a challenge to bring back these souvenirs on our Ryan Air flight but all safely made it home to London for Linda & Dublin and eventually California for us.

Our set up - here we go

Hard at work

The finished product

Our last day we spent walking around the medina.  We all really wanted to buy some spices, and especially some saffron since it's a local specialty and you should be able to buy it at a good price.  Unfortunately, tourist are often sold fake saffron, and we didn't really want to deal with trying to figure out what was good and what was bad.  Same with Agron Oil.  We really needed Abdul to help us navigate these purchases.

More cool streets

approaching the main square

Night markets

The city at night

Markets at night, again with the Koutoubia mosque in the background

The girls in the neighborhood we stayed in

Linda & Brian on the roof of our Riad

I mentioned we didn't find alcohol anywhere in Marrakech, well, we finally came across some at the airport, and everyone (one of my first experiences with "fake drinking") was pretty happy about sitting down for a beer.

This was our last big trip while we lived in Europe before moving back to California.  I was so excited about planning this one and it definitely was an experience.  From the bustling night markets, to the donkeys used as transportation to hearing the Call of Prayer all throughout the day, it was a place like no other I have experienced before.  It was also our first time on the African continent and we can't wait to get back there to explore some more.