WEATHER: Hot today in Essaouira 30C and HOT and 44C in Marrakech.
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: The bus from Essaouira to Marrakech was air conditioned!!!!
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Saying good-bye to Essaouira
BUYS OF THE DAY: Sending my stuff back home for the grand price of $250AUD
WORD OF THE DAY: Enshallah – If it’s god will - in Moroccan
No plans this morning till 10am when we were to meet Issam, so he could take us to the post office to send all our stuff home. The post office was quite good with all us Westerners walking in with bags of stuff. There was a dude that helped put all the boxes together, with the help of Issam, and they just stuffed what they could into the boxes. Initially they were just going to make one massive box, but there was no way Michelle was going to be able to lift a box 1m x .5m, let alone get it into the car. So I have sent 2 boxes, and on recommendation of the postage man, it has gone FedEx (yes so extra money to be paid) and they will arrive in Australia within 10 days and can all be tracked online. They seemed to know what they were doing in there, so I have complete faith that they will get there no worries. In the end I had 14kg, so the total cost came to around $250AUD, but once again, it is worth every penny to have the knowledge that I have bought some pretty cool souvenirs and the side bag is now GONE!! I also got my stamp in my Globetrotter book, so another thing that I can cross off my list. He wouldn’t put an ink stamp in unless I bought a stamp, which is fine, so I now also have the Moroccan King in my book as well (on the stamp), the lucky thing!
On the way back to the hotel, Lesley and I stopped in a shop that George bought this really nice skirt from yesterday. They didn’t have my size and I thought nothing more of it. But when we went into the shop today, the tailor was actually in there, so I asked him if he had any of the skirts in a larger size, and he said no but he could make one for me no problems. I told him that we leave in 3 hours, and he said no problems, come back in 1.5 hours and it will be finished. So I went back at 12.30pm and what would you know it was done! So I got this really cool skirt, made to order for $28AUD!!! What a bargain!
I pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon on the computer doing some bill paying, emails and messages I needed to catch up on. I have also managed to load 4 albums of the 9 I have taken on this trip so far, so I hope to get some more loaded on tomorrow at the hotel in Marrakech.
2.45pm and it’s time to leave. We have hired again the cart guys to wheel our bags the 10 minute walk to the bus station. I tell you for the 1AUD we pay, plus a small tip, it is worth every penny to not have to carry the backpack, and now that I am side bag free, it feels AWESOME!!! Once we rounded the last corner out of the Medina we could see the bus station and there before us stood our bus and it was not what we were expecting at all. It looked fairly new, had tinted windows and it looked AIR CONDITIONED!!! We even had assigned seating – what a relief we weren’t going to be travelling in a sauna today! On the road again for the last time, the bus rocked and rolled like we were on a ship on the ocean, but apart from that, with one stop we had for 20 minutes to stretch our legs, we made it to Marrakech with no problems and feeling refreshed – a 3 hour bus ride for us is like a walk in the park after some of the days we had on the road.
The bus station to our hotel in Marrakech was only a 10 minute walk, no cart guys here though, so we had to carry our own bags, but that’s okay as I have NO side bag!!!! We saw 2 weather signs, one said 49C and the other said 44C which Issam said the second was probably more correct, but it is still hot no matter what way you look at it!! The hotel has a pool, a LIFT (the first one all trip) free Wi-Fi in reception and AIR CONDITIONING!!! So it is going to be great place to spend the next 3 nights. I have to say I am a little Medina’d out, and the heat tomorrow is going to be insane, so I am thinking of just chillaxing by the pool and getting some rays. Hopefully the sun will be out tomorrow, as we currently have the Spanish Spree curse, the days we have free, it has rained or overcast, so fingers crossed that tomorrow will be sunny.
After freshening up, we started our 40 minute walk to Djemaa el Fna. Along the way we saw some more temperature signs and at 7.45pm it was still 44C! It was still daylight, but you could definitely still feel the heat this late at night! The traffic is pretty manic. I am not sure if it is just because we haven’t been in a BIG city for 13 days, but between the motorbikes, bikes, cars, busses, carts and horse and buggy’s there was a lot of traffic on the roads. Djemaa el Fna is a massive square, and as we walked up to it, you could just see the hundreds of people all thronging in the square. There were buskers, well the Moroccan equivalent, we saw a snake charmer, but the snakes were sleeping, a guy selling what looked like human teeth, there we hundreds of them on his mat, large groups of mostly men gathered around performing artists, people selling the wares and at one stage a guy with a monkey chained to his arm also came up to us and this is to name a few things. The square was mayhem with people everywhere and it was a little disconcerting to be honest and pretty over whelming!
We had dinner on Djemaa el Fna and what an experience it was. Basically there are over a hundred stalls selling all sorts of food and they are all numbered. So for example no.70 may sell brochettes and no.25 will sell lambs brain, no.56 will sell orange juice etc…. Each stall has seating, so you sit down, order what they have on their menu and tuck in. We were at a stall that had a large selection of food, and was served tapas style. There were bowls of food bought out over the course of the meal from olives, to calamari to some brochettes of lamb, chicken and mixed vegetable, to cous cous and the list went on. Some of the more adventurous had pigs brain, which looking at Michelle’s face when she popped a large piece into her mouth, tasted disgusting, but at least she gave it a go, but I passed on that and also the bowl of snails that made the rounds. No thanks. The guy next door sold eggs and potatoes in a bread roll. He basically hollowed a bread roll, added cream cheese in the bottom, peeled 2 eggs and mashed them in, add in a boiled potato and mashed that in, added some salt, added some Spanish onions and then a dash of olive oil, slapped it into a paper napkin and there you have what Issam called the most filling thing you can buy on the square. It looked delicious and I would have loved to have had one of those. The meal was a ‘real life experience’. I ate most things and I am glad that I did it, but I possibly wouldn’t do it again, except to go back and order from the egg and potato man.
After dinner Issam took us for a quick walk around Marrakech’s Medina to give us some orientation for tomorrow which a joins the square. I have to say I think I am shopped out and Medina’d out as well. I’m not sure if I will go back there, but I am glad that I can say I was there and I saw it. There are 4,000 shops in this medina and it reminds me a little of the Egyptian Bizarre in Istanbul. Once you get through the first few stalls, they just start repeating themselves again. I’ll see how I am going tomorrow.
Back onto the square, its 10pm and the temperature is still 40C!!! We decided to catch a horse and carriage home just for something different, and man it was pretty hairy. After mentioning the traffic earlier, well that is what the 2 horses pulled us through to get us back to the hotel! It was quite surreal to have cars and motorbikes whizzing past us as we plodded along! We had a bit of a lean to on one side and Tom was a little dubious to one of the horses, but we made it back in one piece for the grand total of 2AUD each which was well worth the experience.
A free day tomorrow – Marrakech is my oyster – or not. I will see how I pull up tomorrow as to what may lay in store, but it is good to know that nothing has been planned except out final dinner at 7.30pm.
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