Morocco

Went to Morocco, well I guess it was about a month ago but I've been entertaining a special visitor for the last month so I haven't filled anyone in on the African adventures!
So Garrett and I went to Morocco at the end of April. We stayed in the heart of Marrakech for 2 nights then  went to seek a little refuge from the hectic city at the beachside city Essaouira for one night, then back to Marrakech to stay the night before catching an early flight back to Madrid. So that was our Thursday-Monday trip in a nutshell, here is the more elaborate version:
We got into Marrakech at night when activity in the main square, Djema'a Al-Fna, was at its peak. There were snake charmers, monkey handlers, story tellers, henna artisans, musicians, and food carts abounding and everyone was out to see the spectacle. One interesting aspect about life in the square is that although it is in the center of the tourist zone the square was full of Marrakech residents. This is something I had never seen before, usually residents completely avoid tourist districts but here this main square was shared equally between tourists and residents. There was a division between who did what, the storytellers only attracted an audience of locals because the stories were obviously told in arabic but other than that audiences were intermixed that the food carts attracted both residents and tourists to eat. Something I noticed immediately was there were no moroccan women out visiting the square unless they were with husbands or possibly on a date. There were women vendors, selling little pastries or their henna skills but they never had a cart like the other vendors. They would sit on a small stool anywhere in the square and wait for people to come to them. Many of them had their children with them.
We went to find our hotel right away which was a bit scary because it was off the main square but you had to wind around many narrow dark streets in order to get to it and I wasn't sure at that time what areas were safe or not. During our dark alley walk to our hotel we got our first taste of what would make up a large portion of our time in Marrakech, people trying to get your attention anyway they can to get you to enter into their business, in this case hotels. Moroccans, seeing us with our backpacks and me with the map (trying to be discrete about it but really needing it for these little winding streets) knew we were looking for a hotel and so would try to greet us and get us to go into the nearest hotel (there were lots along these streets leaving the main square). They would follow you for awhile still saying things to you to try to get you to give in which was a little unnerving. Finally we found our hotel which was a sweet relief. It was 100 dirham a night (the equivalent to about 9 euros) for a room for two people which was really beautiful; had ornate moroccan tiling. The hotel had a rooftop terrace and a central patio/open air space going up to the roof. We took some time to recollect ourselves and then headed out to the square again.

bought some spices here

The main plaza in Marrakech

We decided to go for a stroll through the medina (the narrow winding streets with carts and business abounding selling everything). It was incredibly crowded and people were again saying hello! hello! english? where are you from? mustache!! (referring to Garrett's mustache he had at the time) anything to get us to look at them and from there they would do their best to get us into their store. This whole experience felt very awkward to me because I'm used to being a friendly person. If someone acts friendly towards me, wants to know where I come from, acts like they care and are interested it would normally be very rude for me to just give them the cold shoulder, never look them in the eye and go quickly away.  But of course the vendors know that if they can get you to feel bad and make it seem like it is you who is being rude to them for ignoring a friendly advance you are more likely to actually acknowledge them and then get sucked into their vendor scheme where all the sudden you are in their store and they've handed you something which there is no way you can give back and now you have to pay for it. But this happens every 5 steps you take in Morocco which 1) was very stressful and 2) made me feel like a mean person which got really wearing.

Morocco is an islamic country which means instead of a church every 3 blocks there was a mosque (which no non-muslim is allowed to enter even though they look so beautiful and enticing) and this means when the call to pray happens at many times throughout the day, its loud! Each mosque has a singer with a megaphone making the call at the top of the tower (one of which was right outside our hotel, the 5am call was cool...) then you can watch all the men file into the nearest mosque.
Another frequent happening while in Morocco was getting ripped off. Had to get used to asking how much a meal or something was before sitting down to eat pretty fast. Also on buses, twice. I knew to avoid all the people in and out of the bus station offering to lead you to the right window to buy your ticket because they'll demand payment but it was really hard to shake them. You'd walk in and they'd swarm you and try to take guesses at where you were headed and would make it impossible for you took look around and try to see for yourself what window you needed to go to in order to buy the right ticket from the right company. When we went to the moroccan station to buy the ticket to Essaouira it was really overwhelming but I got us to the right both but then one of the people trying to lead us to the window which I had found myself but he just followed us all the way there tried to take over me buying the tickets. We got the tickets and then he said the price was double what it should have been I knew from my travel book. I confronted him on it but he said this was a bus which wouldn't make any stops and therefor get us there in half the time.  If this was true, I felt like it would be worth paying more for the tickets but then again, I had no way of actually knowing if he was telling the truth. Well, because this was still in the first 24 hours in Morocco I wasn't used to being lied to and cheated all the time so I went ahead and bought the tickets. The bus was just the regular bus, made lots of stops anywhere anyone seemed to be stopped and waiting for a bus. Then again, buying bus tickets from Essaouira back to Marrakech we got there and I didn't have specific information on what window to go to and I didn't see any window with the bus company name I knew I wanted so I felt like I really didn't have any other option but to go to one of the people who makes their livelihood leading people to the buses they want to take. He took me to one that looked pretty rickety and told me the price, which was about how much I had payed to get to Essaouira on a nicer bus that was supposed to be the fast one so I knew I was getting ripped off but I also just really wanted to return to Marrakech and I didn't know when another bus would be coming so I went ahead and payed it. That was the worst bus ride I've ever had. As we were pulling out I saw a really nice, clean, roomy bus pull up to board and then head to Marrakech :-( I was very sad that I wasn't on that bus because surely the tickets would have cost the same. The bus I was on made even more stops than on the way to Essaouira and it was sooo hot cause we were traveling during the hottest part of the day and it was so crowded people were standing in the aisle crammed together. I also saw what a moroccan woman payed to get on the bus--40 dirham. I paid 120. I spent the whole 4 some hours so hot, with a baby kicking my seat, super squished, thinking the whole time about how I got ripped off and how much I wanted to be on that other bus I saw. When we got off the bus the 80 some degree day hit me like a breathe of fresh air, a brick of ice really; it was that hot on the bus. So there are just two of the 4 or 5 times we got ripped off in one way or another. Each time it happened it really put me in a bad mood, boo.

Tajine

One of the very best parts of the trip was eating! Moroccan food is so good! Amazing flavorful spices used in everything. The table setting is salt, delicious pepper, and fresh ground cumin. I put cumin on everything it was so good. They also valued vegetables there which was a nice change from Spain. Great Moroccan salads with every meal: tomatoes, cucumber, onion, delicious blend of spices, oil and who knows what else, but all fresh! And the vegetables they did cook, like with their Tajines (a yum yummu meat dish cooked in an iconic clay dish from which it gets its name), still maintained the form of a vegetable which was amazing for me to see because Spain, if they have vegetables, love to cook them into an unidentifiable moosh. Also, really great orange juice! There were orange just carts all around Marrkech selling orange juice that they'd squeeze right in front of you for 4 dirham. I had lots of the best orange juice of my life. Also great mint tea after you finished every meal with tons of sugar. I was so, so sad to leave moroccan cuisine but I bought some spices there so that I could make something with flavor here in Spain.
Morocco was beautiful place to just walk around and appreciate the architecture, tiles, arabic archways etc. I'm used to doing a lot of walking away from from tourist areas when I travel becuase thats usually where you find all the cool stuff but as soon as I ventured away from that zone in Marrakech people would all stare at you and tell you to turn around and go back, try to lead you to the nearest tourist attraction. It made me feel unsafe so I only spent a limited amount of time in the real workers districts of Marrakech.
I'll relate an experience which really stuck with me that I saw in the main square in Marrakech. Garrett and I were getting some orange juice at an orange juice cart just watching the happenings when all of the sudden one of the women selling pastries with her 1 or 2 old picks up the little plastic stool she was sitting on and charges at a little boy of maybe 6 years old all alone, selling the same thing, and hits him hard with her stool. He immediately started to run off but she chased him continuing to beat him. He lost his shoe about this third fleeing step. She comes walking back with her stool, picks up his shoe, and sits back down again as if nothing had happened. A minute or so later the little boy walks back crying, with only one shoe and sits back down on the plastic bench he was sitting at. The woman is talking to him in a harsh tone from her stool and lets him retrieve his shoe from her. He then walks over to the cart we were standing at to examine his wounds in the mirrored front. He is bleeding from several spots on his face after his attack but after seeing the damage he goes back to his bench trying to sell his sweets, all the while still crying. I have no idea what happened to spark the anger from that woman but I don't condemn her. She lives in an extremely oppressive society for women and it could very well be she only mimics the abuse that she has received her whole life. At the same time I'm not trying to make excuses, it just definitely made an impression on me. I'm so privileged and you don't really understand that until you experience things like this. I never had to go selling pastries alone at 6 years old, get beaten, maybe have no place to go home to after said experience or maybe just know I had to sell more to support myself or family before I could go home. Its easy to look around you and say, well I'm not staying in the 5 star walled in hotels around this city walking, around in designer fashion, etc etc and its THEM who are privileged. But no, its me, its you, its everyone I have a relationship with in this world. Even some of the poorest people in the U.S. are greatly privileged in comparison to the quality of life in many other parts of the world. Seeing things like that really make it hard to forget how lucky I am in life and empower and motivate me to do more for my fellow human beings, keeping me on the right track in life.

Essaouria

Essaouira was a really nice break from Marrakech. It was a much more relaxed beach town where people didn't seem to be trying to get your attention quite as much. It was a very beautiful city, all the buildings were blue and white and there were fresh strawberries to eat everywhere. We spent a lot of time just relaxing from the Marrakech stress.
So thats just an idea of the Morocco trip. It was the most stressful vacation I've ever taken, you had to always be on your guard but it was also incredibly rewarding to see and experience all the things I did and visit a place unlike any other. It is a gorgeous country and I'd love to return to see more but I don't think I could spend any more than 4 days in a row there, too much stress!