Today it is 122 degrees outside in Marrakech. That is the hottest that it has been in Marrakech in the last 50 years. It just so happened that it is also the day that I get to go ride camels. But, before I get to go camel riding it was a stop at the spice bazaar.
This spice bazaar in Marrakech is nothing like the one in Istanbul and reminded me more of an auction. When there is a large group that comes in, like the tour group I am in, they hold an informational session of about 45 minutes that allows everyone to smell all the spices, try all of the cosmetic products, and view all of the henna. Then, the guy in charge goes through each item and asks who wants it and how much. Overall, the entire process takes about 3 hours and you end up with a lot of great spices and way too many random cosmetic products. Overall, it was a pretty fun time smelling all of the different spices and my skin felt great after all of the various creams and ointments that I tried.
Then, I thought it was onto camel riding, but in fact it was onto dune buggying. Apparently the place that we were taking out camel ride through also offers dune buggy adventures. So, I got to drive this very rickety old dune buggy that make screeching sounds when I tried to turn and had no power steering for about a 20 minute ride through the palm groves. When my friend Dawn and I got out of the buggy we were both covered in dust and it looked like we were the tannest people in the world because dust had literally covered every inch of our skin. But, it was very much a good time and I felt like quite the cool race car driver J
Finally lunch time. The restaurant that we were eating at for lunch was a traditional Moroccan style restaurant. There were no chairs only seat cushions, pillows and very low to the ground tables. So, we all sat on the cushions and dug into the delicious food they brought us. Like the other meals that I have had, the vegetarian food was quite lacking. Because I am terrible with identifying meats I will just give a detailed description of the vegetarian food.
The first course was cous cous with cooked carrots. The carrots were absolutely exquisite and the cous cous had mint flavoring in it which made it very refreshing. After that was homemade bread and for dessert there was orange slices with cinnamon and some interesting melon I had never had before. Then it was onto camel riding! J
I have ridden horses a lot before and they are very fun, but a camel was much better. The saddles that were on top of the camels were so comfortable and I sat cross-legged most of the time on top of my camel looking out at the palm groves. (Margaret- someday we will have to go together.) The guide that was walking beside the camel train carried a huge water bottle and would go around spraying all of the people in the group to cool them off. In fact, because it was so hot we all wore blue turbans to stay a little cooler. My guide came around once and dumped a bunch of water on my turban and it was all dried up within about 20 minutes (wonderful, wonderful 122 degree heat.) J
Camel riding was pretty much the high point of the day. The evening involved another trip to the square to do some shopping and haggling. One thing that bugged me was that the gender gap in Morocco is very big and the guys in my group could get better deals then I could. But, seeing all of the snake charmers and monkey people again were pretty fun and all of the shops were so colorful (I will put pictures up when I can!!)
No comments:
Post a Comment