Nothing (much) To Report

Time to write something about the vast country that is: Morocco

Just flying over the place you can instantly tell that this isn’t Europe. It’s big, and dusty very un-green. Basically, what I’m saying is – it’s just a desert really. There’s some towns and mountains and stuff, but you can’t help but think that they’ve just built all this on sand.

The thing to bear in mind with Morocco is that if someone is being nice to you, they want your money and if someone isn’t being very nice to you, they still want your money. 

I’ll give you an example: we wanted to get a taxi to the supermarket to avoid paying to eat in restaurants all the time, which was becoming quite expensive (after they demand tips from you) so we got a taxi, carefully negiotiating the price before getting in. This, however made no difference to the price we paid, because I didn’t have the right change and handed over a 200 Dirham note, to which the driver went to get change. Of course he then didn’t give me all of the change. When challenged about this he just laughed. And laughed. This was already day 5 of stuff like this happening to us, so the joke was wearing a little thin and my ability to shrug it off was fading. Not really being able to do alot about it (I didn’t fancy spending the next 10 years in a Moroccon jail) I had to just call him a wanker and walk away. He of course, didn’t understand what a wanker was – so I had to gesticulate so that he got the idea. I don’t give a toss what he now thinks of foreigners abroad, and if I ever have the misfortune to be driving a taxi and have him as a customer in this country – I will probably mince him up into very small pieces and feed him to my cats.

OK, thats a bit harsh. I might just settle for continued name-calling.

Anyway, you get the idea. The people leaving on the same plane as us were feeling pretty much the same and upon entering the airport said “If any of those porters grab my luggage (to carry into the airport, for a charge) I’ll bloody chop their arms off”.

So, all that aside Marrakech is still just one of those places that you *have* to visit at least once in your life. It’s fab. The Souk is never ending and sells pretty much anything you can imagine (and more). Although I have to admit that my stomach did churn at the sight of people choosing live chickens which were running around and cuts of meat with bollocks in tact (interesting fact: Moroccons don’t eat female meat) left dangling in the street for flies to wander across. The main square is full of snake charmers, orange sellers and henna tattooers and is exactly like it is in Hideous Kinky. The monuments around the city are breathtaking too and make you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.

Marrakech just makes you want to stop and sniff the air for a while to take in all the exotic smells of spices, perfumes and leather and the hypnotic music from the snake charmers. This, of course is impossible because every 2 steps you have stall holders incessantly calling at you in French ”ce que vous recherchez?” or something (what are you looking for) and it kinda ruins the moment.

Rather simply, my advice to anyone thinking about going is: just book a couple of days in Marrakech – a week in Morocco will drive you mad. I wish I’d done just that. Then I could have spent the money I would have saved going back to Amsterdam for some real fun involving much more beer and far less camels.

 -moosh