Marrakech

Spring break!  And right before all my friends back in the states are in their last week of classes and heading into finals week.  My mom came to visit me for the week and a half I had off (hi mom!) and we had quite the adventure traveling from Barcelona to Morocco (Marrakech and Fes) and southern Spain (Torremolinos and Malaga).  From those weeks of traveling, I took more than 900 photos.  So I'll post a few of them on the blog, but to see everything, ask to see my external hard drive when I'm back in the states!  To warn the few people who are reading this blog, it's a long one!  And there are still even more spring break posts to come!

Day 1: Marrakech April 13th
Arrival in the Marrakech airport!

We were picked up by our tour company and driven to our hotel, Hotel Les Jardins de la Koutoubia in the center of the city.  We were treated with mint tea (soon to become my favorite thing about Morocco) and sat down poolside to wait for our room to be ready.

As soon as we got to the room, it felt like we were in a oasis because there were rose petals everywhere and it smelled lovely.  The hotel continued to feel like an oasis for us the entire time we were there... but for different reasons which will be explained later in this post.  (The rose petals shriveled up and whatever rose water scent they sprayed the room with slowly disappeared).

Time for lunch!  Even though we were in Morocco, where the local food is famous, we decided to take it easy and have lunch at the Indian restaurant on the terrace of the hotel.

Then we decided to walk around the market a little because we were so close and so mesmerized by what we saw on our taxi ride and outside the double glass window of our room.  How exciting does a city look when a donkey carrying a cart load of orange peels trots along outside your hotel window?!

The first observation of general importance was the LARGE QUANTITIES AND VARIETIES of dried fruit.  Too much, in fact.

Also some good-looking, but not-so-great tasting almond cookies.  We preferred the plain biscotti (not pictured) to any of the fancier snacks that had almond paste (ew).

Some sights along the walk:

Then mom wanted to go to a fancy hotel called La Mamounia that was supposed to be gorgeous inside and an entire tourist attraction in itself.  Our hotel gave us a small map and since it seemed close, we decided to venture out on our own to try to find it.  In the sweltering heat, after spending too much time walking what was supposed to be about 3 blocks, and almost getting crushed by cars and motorbikes because pedestrians do NOT have the right-of-way, we figured that we had a bad map.  Although we came across a lovely door on the way.

Finally we made it having walked many blocks out of the way and retracing our steps to find the correct street.  When we got there, the security guard said that these weren't visiting hours and they have a strict dress code that doesn't permit the flip-flops I was wearing.  Mom complained saying that we walked 1 1/2 hours just to get there and see it and that he should let us in anyway.  He made an exception for us and said it was okay.  And told me I couldn't take pictures.  Although after having drinks in the lobby, I sneaked one of the date arrangement near the front door.

The trip ended up being worth it because mom bought a lovely bracelet at the gift shop/jewelry store near the entrance.  For dinner, we walked to the main square of Marrakech called Jemaa el-Fnaa which was conveniently located a 5-minute walk from our hotel.  After dodging traffic again, we decided to not search too hard for a restaurant.  We picked a place called Argana that overlooked the square and had a decent menu.  About a week after I arrived back in Barcelona and mom went back to Chicago, the restaurant was bombed killing 14 people and wounding many others.  I can't believe we were there!  Thank goodness we left when we did.  Unknowing of future events, the Moroccan food was excellent and it boasted great views of the square at night.  We even came back a second night because of its decently priced, yummy food and convenient location.  We had mint-flavored couscous and lamb tagine (a dish cooked in a strange pot on open flame and tastes like stew).

For dessert, the famous Moroccan mint tea and a dish of oranges and dates sprinkled with cinnamon.

Day 2: Marrakech April 14th
I guess we're really not that great at learning from our mistakes because we tried again to walk around Marrakech on our own with the same bad map we used before.  This time our destination was the Majorelle Gardens, a garden about a block wide that was created by the famous French designer Yves Saint Laurent.  Our strategy to get there (a significantly longer walk in the sweltering heat than the day before) was asking someone random on the street about once or twice every block where to go.  Sometimes the people we asked only spoke French so I guess you could say we found our way via hand gestures.  Some of the sights as we were walking:

And finally we got there!  Just as we were about to go wait in the 10-person ticket line, we stopped in a shop where I bought a straw hat.  Then we bought our entrance tickets and explored the gardens which were riddled with bamboo, cacti, and ugly brilliant-blue paint.

We had a drink at the cafe in the gardens and relaxed our tired feet.  At this cafe (and at the restaurant on our hotel's terrace) there are water sprayers that help keep the Moroccan dryness away from the customers. It's incredibly refreshing, but you feel like you're a head of lettuce or a carrot sitting in the refrigerator of a supermarket just when the 5-second clip of "I'm Singing in the Rain" comes on.

After the cafe we had a little more energy to keep wandering around the gardens.

With an easy decision to take a taxi back to the hotel instead of walking, we made our way to the taxi line outside of the gardens.  After haggling with two taxi drivers to find the best price (perhaps) we made it back to the hotel.  In the hotel spa, mom got a massage-- a hammam-- while I got a manicure.

Day 3: Marrakech April 15th
So we finally learned our lesson and decided not to try to venture out on our own to learn the streets of Morocco.  After leisurely hanging around in the hotel, we made a date for a guide to take us around the city in the afternoon starting at 1:30pm.  I'm so glad we made the decision to get a guide because we got to see some nooks and crannies of the city, some architecturally-famous buildings, and avoided the vultures who owned the shops.

When we explored the market on our own the first day, we were hounded by every shopkeeper.  If we batted even an eyelash in their direction, they would try to usher us into their store and show us every item they had even if we insisted that we didn't want to buy anything but just look.  If we were in fact interested in something, a great game of haggling would begin where the shopkeeper would start at a price too high and we'd be disgusted and try to walk away thinking that the quality of whatever item it was we were going to buy was way too ridiculous.  Then they'd start haggling with us as we were walking away because people traditionally act like they don't want the item when they want the price reduced a lot.  And they couldn't stand losing a potential customer who they have managed to lure into their shop.  But in fact, we really weren't interested enough in the item to continue haggling and wanted to leave because of the pushiness of the vendor.  Needless to say, shopping in Marrakech was not a happy activity, but rather put a sour/angry frown on our faces.

However, with the guide at our heels, we were able to haggle with more ease and were generally harassed less by the shopkeepers.  On the start of the tour, we saw many lovely doors.  Apparently Morocco is famous for its doors because on the majority of "Hello from Morocco!" postcards we saw there were tons of pictures of interesting-looking doors.  I also loved the texture of the outside of buildings.

The first architecturally significant place we visited was called Fondation Omar Benjelloun.  A quick walk-through was enough to experience the architecture which we were already almost accustomed to seeing.

Next stop?  The Medersa Ben Youssef, a 16th century Qurannic school.  I liked this one much better.  Probably because a lot of it was outside and for some reason it seemed more majestic and serene.

And a photo of our guide in one of the windows, of course.  He's wearing traditional Moroccan dress.

And then we continued wandering around the market.  Our guide took us to a jewelry store where mom and I both bought a pair of earrings.  We also saw a large number of stray cats, and no stray dogs.  This is quite the opposite of most other cities we've been to.  (Although Barcelona can boast a fair number of stray cats, actually).  Our guide said this was because dogs are kept inside the home to keep out the demons.  That certainly fits the role of dog-as-protector.

After the 3 hour tour, the guide let us off at yet another restaurant overlooking the main square.  We shared a tomato and mozzarella salad and took some pictures of the view.

We walked through the square on the way back to the hotel and discovered it was a place for everything: henna tattoos, photo opportunities with large monkeys, live traditional music, and some snake-charming entertainment.

Day 4: Marrakech/Ourika Valley in the Atlas Mountains April 16th
Upon a suggestion of our guide from the day before and because we were getting tired of being in such a loud city (even though our hotel served as a nice oasis from all the mad shopkeepers, noise, crowds, and motorbikes that wanted to run us over) we decided to take a day trip to the Ourika Valley in the Middle Atlas Mountains to see a Berber village (indigenous people of North Africa).  After another lovely breakfast buffet at the hotel, our guide/driver picked us up at the hotel at 11:00am.  Note the fig jam in the photo below!

Our guide Hamid drove us through windy mountain roads to see the olive groves, poppy fields, and Berber villages clinging to the feet of the mountains.

First stop was a Kasbah-turned-expensive Moroccan goods shop which we basically walked in and out of, stopping quickly to take a picture of the outside.

The next stop was a rug cooperative.  Mom was set on buying a Moroccan rug so there was plenty of haggling to be had. Here's a photo of the back of the shop.

Next, the rugs we were deciding between.  Ultimately, we picked the one on the bottom left.

My guess is that the shop owner's English wasn't too good, because he wanted to haggle on a torn-up piece of notebook paper instead of the usual lively discussion.  While mom and the shop keeper raised and lowered the price (originally set at 6500 durham and eventually lowered to 3000 durham!) I took some pictures of the piles and piles of rugs for sale.

To be able to fit the rug more easily in our suitcase, he wrapped the rug up in plastic and a lot of packing tape so that it looked more like a suitcase than a piece of art you step on.

Next stop on the ride was an aromatic medicinal herb garden tour.  Our free tour was guided by a 29-year-old girl who speaks Arabic, French, Hebrew, and English.  We learned about a bunch of herbs and their medicinal uses.  Of particular interest to us was the peppermint plant because that's what the Moroccan's use in their famous mint tea.  We decided we are going to try to find the seeds in the US so we could grow the plants in a pot in our backyard this summer and make our own tea.  Hopefully that will really happen!

Before entering the shop to buy many of the products we just heard about, we saw a quick demonstration of Berber women making argan oil, an oil made from seeding, mashing, and grinding the fruit of an argan tree.  It's used cosmetically and in cooking.  Apparently this oil is extraordinarily healthy and is incredibly expensive in every country in the entire world besides Morocco.

After buying several 'natural' products (including a bottle of argan oil for salad dressing), we traveled along the Ourika river where we saw many precarious bridges.  Of course, I had to cross one and take a picture of the beautiful scenery!

Next we stopped at a restaurant where a few other tourists were eating.  The view was just as lovely and the food was yummy too!  By this point, we realized we really can't have bad food if we keep ordering tagines.

Then it was time to wander around the Berber village by foot!  We saw some poppies, shops, tagines and kebabs being cooked, chickens, camels, and a fountain of Coca-cola.  Also the restaurants that put chairs right at the edge of the river looked quite tempting!

Okay, after all this wandering under the sun, we were pooped.  Time to head back to the van for the 45-minute ride to the hotel.  But on the way, our driver couldn't resist stopping so that we could take close-up pictures of camels.  There was the option of going on a camel ride, but the look of disgust/revulsion/fright hiding behind our smiles in the photo below said that it wasn't going to happen.

We went back to the hotel to pack for tomorrow: a 7 hr drive to Fes!  Look forward to more posts this week for more updates on my spring break adventures with my mom to Fes and southern Spain.  And also my trip last weekend with CASB to Madrid!