We arrived in Marrakesh after a grueling 8 hour train ride from Fes. On the way, we were hassled by a shop keeper who wanted us to come to his store in Marrakesh. Apparently, this is their practice - get on the train a bit before the final stop and push business cards into everybodys' hands.
Here's a little video of us walking through the medina at sunset. Gorgeous salmon pink and blue sky...
We dropped our things off at the hotel and immediately went to the Marrakesh medina which has been written about a lot. From a few blocks away, we could see the smoke rising above the medina. We found out that this is cause by all the food vendor who have open grills going everywhere. There were a bunch of shows going on, including story_tellers, music performances, dancing, and more.
Here's a video of one of the singers singing in a falsetto..
Smruti had henna put on her hands by an vendor in the square. The vendor first quoted us 10 Euros (about 12 US dollars!) . After some hard bargaining, she came down to 10 Dhirhams about 1 US dollar). The whole exercise took all of 10 minutes.
We spent the next day just trying to relax but it turned out to be quite hectic. We had to go to the post office to mail a box back to the US - the proces took about 5 hours because the whole post office shut down for 2 hours at noon for lunch!
The next day, we took off for a day hike in the Atlas mountains. Our guide, Hossein, was excellent and took us up to about a days distance from Jebel Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa. The views were gorgeous - it was nice to see a snow-capped mountain here.
Hoessein also took us to his house where he served us 'Berber Whiskey' which is somewhat funny term for mint tea! He put on some Berber music and Hossein's sister started dancing! We had a nic lunch up in their village and then proceeded back down to civilization! If you are planning on going trekking in the Atlas mountains, please get in touch with Houssain Altchojoa at +212-70-61-16-93 and Douoa Armed, Imlil, Post# 136, Morocco.
Here're Smruti and Hoessein's mother dancing to a Berber tune.
- Dev
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