Marrakesh in the Morning

On our first morning in Morocco, we get lucky with the weather and are able to eat breakfast up on the roof of the riad.  The view of this part of the medina from above is reminiscent of the view of the Albayzin that we have out our bedroom window in Granada.  And we take this opportunity to point out to the girls that there will be many similarities this week as we tour around a country in Africa that has a very long history with Spain.

We head out to walk through the medina with a guide, Abdul.  We do not yet realize that hiring a guide is not all that necessary (unless you scare easily) but we do think it will be nice to see Marrakesh through the eyes of a local.  As we walk through his neighborhood, Abdul points out that every few blocks there is a mosque, a community bread oven, a large water fountain, and a hammam (public bath).  Ingeniously, hammams are often next to the bread ovens so they can share a heat source.  There is a call to prayer five times a day and Friday is their holy day when everything is closed which means they can't bake their bread on Friday so that is the day for couscous.  Water was not brought into homes until sometime in the 1950s after their independence from France.  And though we are out early this morning and it is relatively calm, Abdul forgets to point out that if one stops to take too many pictures of these things, one is likely to get run over by a scooter or a donkey, or, at the very least, get spooked by one.  So one really should put one's camera down, though one has a very hard time doing that.

Then Abdul takes us into the Ben Youssef Madrassa, the largest of Morocco’s historic Koranic schools.  The interior detailing reminds us all of the Alhambra back in Granada.  Look familiar?

And he teaches us how to find the name 'Allah' spelled out in the carvings on the walls.  Read right to left, “A” is your pinky, the two “l”s are your ring and middle fingers, and “h” is the curve created with your pointer finger and thumb.  See it?

Onto the souks to do a little shopping.  We see a man carving wood using a tool that he manipulates with his feet.  Intriguing.  We stop to watch and marvel.  He makes a little charm for each kid and gives it to them, step number one in reeling in their parents.  He’s working on wooden handles for skewers, which he shows us.  Then he asks Willa to slide the top off a little box.  A wooden snake pops out and “bites” her finger.  Then he hands us another box, beautifully crafted and finished, and says “Open it.  You have one minute!”  We have no idea what to do.  He shows us how to slide a piece down to access a tiny key stored inside.  Slide another piece down in order to allow a third piece to slide across and the lock is revealed.  Cool.  He picks up another pretty box and twists the bottom and the top in opposite directions and four smaller boxes swing out from the middle.  Super cool.  We don’t need magic boxes or skewers or snakes that jump out and bite fingers, but we are pretty much hooked by his antics.

We have read in the guide books that bargaining is part of the process when shopping in the souks.  The gist is that the seller will start very high, you should start very low, and at some point, after a few minutes of haggling back and forth, you will come to an agreement.  For us, it goes a little something like this:

Michael: “Ok, how much for all of this?”

Moroccan: “For you, my friend, 3000 Dirhams ($300).”

Michael: “Oomf, that’s so expensive.  How about 800?”

Moroccan: “Come on!  All hand-made my friend, look at this!  Look at this!  But ok, ok, for you 2600, no problem.  Ok?”

Michael: “Ok.  Let’s say 1000.”

Moroccan: “Oh no, no my friend, no profit, no profit.  But ok, for you, ok, I can go 2000, no problem, no problem.”  He starts to grab plastic bags and newspapers to wrap up the goods as though the deal is done.

Michael: “Hmm.  No.  Still too expensive.”

Moroccan: “Look! I throw in camel for only 100!”

Michael: “Well…”

Moroccan:  “Ok, because you are good family I do 1500 but that is it, my friend.”

Michael: “1200.”

Moroccan: “Ok, 1200.”

We leave with the skewers, the hidden key box, the twisty top box, and a small carved camel for Grandma Lani because whenever anyone sees a camel they can’t not buy it for Grandma Lani.  And Abdul gets his commission later, I’m sure.

This conversation repeats itself a few times because Abdul still wants to take us to the dyers souk (where they die silk and sell scarves, and where it does actually smell like something has died), the slipper (babouche) souk, the Argan oil souk, and the rug souk, where Michael really almost nearly but doesn't completely lose his shit.  And where we do not, I'm proud to say, get conned into buying a rug, but where we do spend a good 40 minutes which is 35 minutes too many.

We also see lots of alley cats - the population here rivals that of our neighborhood back in Granada.

And then we feast.  More tagine.

And another stray cat.