Continued from Marrakesh Day 3 Part 1.

We decided to do a quick walk through the medina here right after lunch. We are probably not going to be a fan of it after now having been in Marrakesh for 3 days, but gotta at least see it and decide firsthand.

On another note, we were wanting to see Jardin Majorelle this morning. But the plan to see that garden got nixed when we found out that we should have bought tickets ahead of time and that all tickets were already sold out. Sigh. This is what we get for trying to live in the moment and not planning ahead.

Reminds me of the little Tintin paintings that we brought back from Vietnam. What does that say about us?

RL says this is my stressed face…we are just dodging mopeds left and right. The shops are just…regular shops.

Boobs, really high mounted boobs.

See, just boutiques.

I imagine this is what people also talk about when they say that tourists ruined Venice. It’s also ruined Marrakesh…except the buildings here aren’t even as amazing as Venice. We are also part of the problem…

I guess someone isn’t a fan of tourists.

They call small apparel boutique concept stores here.

Am I back in America?

This is Madrasa Ben Youssef, 16th century college building. It’s beautiful, but we didn’t feel like fighting the crowds to visit. It’s crowded here in Marrakesh. Took a couple of pictures at the entrance way and kept on walking through the medina.

The medina is as uninspiring as we had thought. The market that we went to this morning, I believe it’s called Souk El Khemis, is probably what the medina souks used to be like 10, 20, or 30 years ago. That was the kind of market we were hoping for here in the Medina. Good thing it still exists outside the medina like a hidden gem.

This is kind of cool to see that parts of the medina are still old school though.

Now back to new school.

We’ve wanted to buy those Moroccan style glass, but packing and bringing them back to Austin would be difficult.

No longer souks for locals, but purely for foreign tourists.

Using Google maps to find my way around the souk and then out of here. Just doing a cursory loop just in case there’s something amazing to see here…there isn’t. Sigh.

Traffic jam in the narrow street.

My “stress and not having too much fun” face.

Alright, get me out of here.

Almost back to our riad. I can say now say I’ve visited the Marrakesh medina that everyone seems to suggest we visit. Perhaps they visited before it became what it is today. Perhaps they’ve never visited a traditional market before in other countries. But what it is today, it’s not really what we enjoy. It’s lost all the charm and character of what it probably used to be.

This is the best, naps.

The textured walls at our riad. RL really liked it.

Last checklist item to check off on our last night here in Marrakesh, visit Jemaa el-Fnaa, the main square here that comes alive at night with food vendors and whatnot. This is probably the first must see item for all tourists who come to Marrakesh. It’s like seeing the Mona Lisa and Eiffel tower in Paris, or seeing the Colosseum in Rome. After getting a pretty good feel for Marrakesh, we don’t think we’ll enjoy Jemaa el-Fnaa at night. We think it’ll be overrun by tourists, but I think we’ve got an obligation to ourselves to see it with our own eyes at least. So, off into a taxi we go. We are tired, ready to go home, and a 20min walk through the busy streets of Marrakesh just doesn’t sound like something we want to do.

This lady was flying on her little electric mobility scooter.

The Koutoubia minaret is right across the main entrance to Jemma el-Fnaa.

OK, we are here. Horse carriages…yeah, this will probably be lame.

Henna tattoo stands.

Snake charmers. Their snake flute/whistle/instrument is really loud and can be heard all over the square.

I think that’s an ol Maclaren stroller.

Cool old school baby sling.

RL got accosted by this really aggressive band member of this small group. She took a picture, and therefore he demanded some money. When she gave him some, he told her it wasn’t enough. No, it was just a picture, we hadn’t even stopped to listen to the music for awhile.

Then we walked between the food stalls, and it’s like walking through the gauntlet. All the touts are super aggressive, the most aggressive of any touts I’ve seen anywhere. We tried to keep our heads down and just keep walking, but they still swarmed us. They mostly swarmed RL, so I just stayed back and pretended like I didn’t know her and let her take the heat. haha.

Every shop here seems to be selling the exact same food. It looks to me like they may all have gotten their food from the same distributor. We didn’t even get a chance to get a closer look because they were so aggressive. Just get us out of there!! We had to do a brisk jog to get out of here without being pulled to seats. RL still got bombarded even while walking really fast and keeping her eyes down.

Lamb, finally seeing it. We both thought that we’d see lamb on the menu a lot more often all throughout Morocco, and we never really found it. Only lamb we had, allegedly, was that one outing when we ate at Moulay Idriss. It tasted like beef, but they claimed it was lamb. Before coming on this trip, RL wanted to eat some lamb brain soup at one of these stalls, but considering how aggressive and unpleasant it is here, that won’t be happening as we did’t even get a chance to look around at what food is being offered.

We need food, but the inner stalls are too aggressive. We chose to sit down at one of the restaurant on the outskirts of the square. Still part of the action, but not in the middle of the action.

I bet this experience used to be a lot better 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Marrakesh has too many tourists now and all experiences are too catered to the tourists now. Again, I think the disappointment mainly stems from my expectations prior to coming here and seeing how things are after coming here. If I had known, would probably have gone somewhere else other than Marrakesh…maybe.

Smiles, but you can tell by the way I’m holding my arm that I’m not truly comfortable and relaxed here.

Dinner. This will do. Only partially Moroccan food, but it is what it is. It’s been a disappointment on the food department for this trip. We thought we’d find a much wider variety of Moroccan food on offer, but it’s slim pickings. Again, almost all restaurants that we could find on our phones serve the same few dishes with hardly any variations. It works if we were only in Morocco for 3 days, but when we are here for 9, it got old.

Alright, one last walk around the perimeter, and then let’s get the hell outta here.

Taxi back to our riad. We are so tired of haggling on taxi prices, we mostly just make a half hearted effort now. We just want to get to where we are going without haggling over a dollar or two difference.

Someone lost their ice cream.

Back at our sanctuary. The riad owner told us that we must get in her pool, it’s heated! We did not know that. With that said, we don’t really want to travel with wet swimsuits in our luggage. Maybe if we had known that it was a heated pool on day one. The temps are warm during the day, but they definitely get chilly at night.

Gonna miss the snack food from this riad.

Blog blog blog.

Oh yeah, we had cleared out the riad’s liquor stash. Granted, they were low on everything, but we drink all of their gin, whiskey, Irish whiskey, and vodka. They had to go buy more for tonight. Don’t know if we should be proud or not.

We’d talked about using the giant tub in our room, finally making it happen tonight. It was awesome. Tomorrow, we make our way back home to Austin.

To be continued at London.