Marrakech!

Marrakech, the land of really big markets and wailing guys! Yes, those things in my opinion are the most distinguishing things about Marrakech and probably the rest of Morocco. At four o'clock in the morning everyday someone from the each mosque in the city starts to yell or wail a prayer into a microphone that gets blasted so everyone can hear in a ten block radius. But don't worry if you're not in that ten block radius, another guy in a Mosque goes and wails the morning prayer so that everyone can hear. Basically there is no escaping. At noon it happens again then at five o'clock at night and again at nine o'clock and lastly at eleven o'clock.

So cute!

The markets are so big that they span most of old Marrakech, it's like one big mall that never ends and the variety of stuff you can buy is the same. From leather bags and cheap one dollar souvenirs to pirate clothes, phones and shoes. There is also a part where you can mainly buy things made by blacksmiths like giant locks and door knockers. Of course, my dad got sucked into buying a huge lock about the size of a small laptop screen, though it wasn't easy. It involved a lot of bargaining and the Moroccan’s have an interesting way of doing so. They start out normal bargaining, exchanging prices and usually they come down to your price, but there is a catch. If you go to the bank and then come back, they raise the price. I think they think it's a way of punishing you for not buying it right then, even if you had no money to pay them, so you're right back where you were and you have to go through the bargaining process all over again. Sometimes they don't even meet your price so it makes all that work for nothing, and usually when that happens it's not a nice goodbye.

Spices!

Chameleon anyone?

Another highlight of Marrakech was the square. The square is one of the most famous things about Marrakesh it has a big complex of shops in the middle surrounded by many freelancing henna tattoo stations, guys with monkeys, snake charmers and people making music with drums and thimble like things. Now that’s only what happens in the day at night it is much livelier. Around five o'clock portable restaurants start setting up all over the square and by seven o'clock everything is in full swing. The restaurants are all packed and all over the square there are circles of people singing and dancing sometimes around a chicken. There are other circles with play or dancing and singing. it is a very exciting square. But the best thing about this is it's every night all year. it’s not for a holiday, it’s just everyone having fun in the name of fun.

One other thing about old Marrakech is that it's like a huge maze. If you look on at old Marrakech on a map its diameter is 2 km and if you do the math it’s 12400 square hectares. Now that’s a lot of maze and we only walked probably about one half of that shopping and walking to places. But half of that was probably following people to their friend’s stores or to tourist traps. After we got sucked into following to people to their buddy’s store we made a pact that we would never follow a Moroccan again but of course my father instantly broke that rule following someone hoping that it would pay off and of course every time we did we always got led to a friend’s really expensive store or a tourist trap.

Tea time!

Catssssssssssssssssssss! There are a lot of cats in Marrakech.  So many that I once counted twenty seven cats in one hour. There are so many on the streets it’s much like Mexico’s stray dogs, they were everywhere. Though it also seems that the Moroccans like cats much better than dogs because the entire time I was there I only saw two dogs. I wonder what the rat and mouse population in Marrakech is like. There are probably none with all those cats walking around.  I also saw three cats lying on top of each other and it was really funny! Cats are silly!

The Square!

OK, my last paragraph was a bit weird. It’s probably because I’m running out of things to say and I still have 100 more words to write and only twenty nine percent of battery left. But anyways I should probably update you of where I’m actually know before I get super behind when I have to write a mountain of words about Paris tomorrow, I’m in France now driving towards Paris which is 246 km  away and it’s already 6:15 so we are going to arrive in the dark around 8:30 (yayay). I’m at 776 words now and only twenty seven percent battery left so I should be able to proof read and finish this post. Yea only 1 more word left! I did it 800 words, actually 810 now so goodbye my next post will probably be about Paris!