Marrakech

We took a grand taxi to Marrakech, through a less scenic but safer route down from Azilal. Marrakech was a reintroduction to heat, fashion boys, tourists, pollution and too many people on motorcycles. Progressively, there were also many women riding around on motorcycles, although I didn’t see many being as annoying as the men and driving around the narrow, crowded streets. I had seen and been irritated by motorists in the medina in Rabat, but it was much worse in Marrakech. We stayed in a hotel in the narrow alleys behind Djaama El Fna. The area was touristy as fuck—dominated by foreigners—but I still liked it. I enjoyed the orange juice stands, and the food stalls. Still it was annoying to be constantly pestered by all the vendors, after the calm of Azilal and Rabat. In Marrakech, discerning eyes could tell I was a tourist even if their guesses of where I was from were often way off. Although I had heard vendors try to hook you by yelling out a greeting in whatever language they think you speak (hello my friend! Mon ami, c’est pas cher, etc.) but had never encountered so many people that just yelled out the names of countries. Did they seriously think that if they could guess correctly we would reward them by buying their overpriced leather bags? Walking around Natasha we got some outlandish countries, Cameroon, Jamaica (Natasha’s twists elicited lots of Jamaica), Martinique, Belgium, France, and some more sensible ones like Brazil and the US. If one of them had said Dominican Republic I would have let them name the price.