Riding into Marrakech is like driving in L.A.... you just have to throw yourself into the chaos and become one with it. No hesitations and no timidness-see an empty spot and take it, because if you don't, somebody else will.
I remember merging into one roundabout between about 5 scooters, 10 cars, a donkey cart and a horse-drawn carraige, Steve right behind me shouting "Turn left here!" and my response: "I know, but I don't know how!"
We found our way into the medina and after a bit of looking, found a great little Riad with friendly staff, a gorgeously tiled room, and a rooftop terrace with a view of Jemaa el Fna square, the center of the touristy scene of Marrakech.
After already being in Morocco for 3 weeks, Jemaa el Fna was a bit of a shocker... Touts everywhere trying to seperate you from your money, prices at least double, everything sanitized and existing solely to put on a show for the tourists.It almost felt like Las Vegas, one big circus-like show. It took us a few days and a bit of exploring outside of the square to realize that there was a normal city there that we actually enjoyed. We ended up spending 5 days there, hanging out on the roof, getting lost in the markets, drinking tea with the guys running our hotel...we even found a bottle of Moroccan wine. Pretty good stuff!
Leaving Marrakech, we started into what became a very trying few days. It started the first night out, we were standing by the side of the road waiting for a gap in traffic so we could run off and hide for the night. A guy in his early 20's pulls up on his scooter-he doesn't speak french, but its obvious he's inviting us to his place for the night. Why not? We follow him home, where he lives with his mom, dad, and 13-year old sister Malika.
It all started out very normal. They were super excited to have us over, brought us some food and some tea, and we made an attempt at conversation with most things being translated through the daughter, who spoke a tiny bit of french. Next thing I know Steve gets dragged off by the brother (Jamal) and I get dragged into Malika's room. She shows me photos, her school work, and then opens her closet and pulls out all her clothes. "Do you like this?" she says, holding up a shirt. "Here, take it, present". Oh, thankyou, that's so nice! But that was only the beginning. By the time she was finished, I had a stack of about 15 articles of clothing in my lap, 2 pairs of shoes, and a bag of jewellery. I tried telling her this was too much... not only do I not want to carry this many clothes, half of them don't fit me because, well, they belong to a 13 year old. No good, she insists I take them to give to people at home: "presents from Morocco".
I try a different approach: I'm travelling by bike... it won't fit! She's not convinced-she grabs my panniers and stuffs every last thing inside. "See, it fits" she says triumphantly. You just can't say no to a Moroccan woman, apparently the young ones are no exception.
After she was done gifting me, we were stuffed full of dinner (Mange Steve mange Elaine... mange, Mange!) and informed that there was a pre-wedding party in the village that night. So off we go to the party, where once again Steve gets dragged off with the men and I get brought to the women's room.
This time I definitely got the better end of the deal. Steve apparently sat around in silence for the next few hours, watching TV, with the guys occasionally looking up to grunt something at each other before going back to looking at their cell phones. My room, on the other hand, was just going off! We had drums, the women were all banging on things and singing and chanting and shaking rattles and yelling and partying. At one point someone brought out a big drum, about 2 feet tall and 4 feet across, and plunked it down in the middle of the room. To my delight, this was the stand-on-top drum, so everyone took turns dancing and stomping on the drum to the screams and catcalls of all the other women. I was totally amazed at some of the village grandmas shaking it up there-they sure put my akward stomps to shame.
The only downside of the wedding party was that it also afforded the women an opportunity to stuff me full of more food. "I'm full" did not seem to be part of their vocabulary. We finally escaped the food room and went back to the house we were staying at, where the mom literally uncapped a bottle of perfume and up-ended it all over both of us as we were going to bed. Why? Not sure, but she sure got a kick out of it. We went to bed gagging at our perfumed stench and sharing stories about how impossible it was to say no to anyone in this house.
The morning brought a bit of a nightmare-we like to call it hospitality turned harassement. That's when someone gets so wrapped up with hosting you that they stop caring about your comfort or what you actually want. They told us we weren't leaving and had to stay another night, so they could stuff us full of more food we didn't want and give us more things we couldn't carry on the bike. At one point the mom and daughter decided to draw all over my hands and feet with henna, which I was initially thrilled about-it was really neat. Though it sufficiently disabled me while waiting for it to dry that I was completely trapped. The daughter spent the entire time peeling eggs for me and stuffing them into my mouth, ignoring any protests. I felt like a donkey with my head in a feed bag. At one point Steve walks in carrying a tajine-it's like a giant clay pot used for cooking, weighing in at about 15 lbs. "Look, we have a tajine..." he says, with a hopeless look on his face. More gifts from the crazy house, totally inappropriate for 2 people on bikes.
That night, we lay awake, grinding our teeth from the coffee we'd been force-fed right before bed, plotting our escape. I hate to be ungrateful, but enough is enough, we had to get out of there. They were hospitalizing us to death!
Come morning we tried to conveniently "forget" the tajine... no luck. The mom made sure to pack it nice and snug into Steve's front pannier. We finally said our goodbyes and thankyous and took off, my panniers stuffed to bursting with clothes, Steve struggling to keep his front wheel straight against the weight of the tajine. It wasn't long before we started leaving a trail of stuff by the side of the road. Again, I hate to be ungrateful, but the alternative was to drag all this stuff we couldn't use along with us across the desert-no thanks.
The next few days to Agadir weren't much better- it started raining-hard, painful drops that drive into your face and sting and make your eyes water. The wet road made our brakes nearly useless and at the bottom of a huge long hill, as though mocking us, we rolled, at high speed and brakeless, into a town called Amaskrewd. When it finally stopped raining the headwinds started, horrible gusty headwinds that held us to back to speeds of about 6km/hr.
It seemed like forever, but we finally reached Agadir and managed to find our cheapest hotel so far. The next day was spent drinking much-too-expensive beer on the balcony, eating take-out burgers, and recovering from the epic few days. The crazy house was calling us-we had unwisely left them our phone number-but we couldn't bring ourselves to answer, it was still too soon. Definitely the most trying few days of the trip up to this point.
I remember merging into one roundabout between about 5 scooters, 10 cars, a donkey cart and a horse-drawn carraige, Steve right behind me shouting "Turn left here!" and my response: "I know, but I don't know how!"
We found our way into the medina and after a bit of looking, found a great little Riad with friendly staff, a gorgeously tiled room, and a rooftop terrace with a view of Jemaa el Fna square, the center of the touristy scene of Marrakech.
After already being in Morocco for 3 weeks, Jemaa el Fna was a bit of a shocker... Touts everywhere trying to seperate you from your money, prices at least double, everything sanitized and existing solely to put on a show for the tourists.It almost felt like Las Vegas, one big circus-like show. It took us a few days and a bit of exploring outside of the square to realize that there was a normal city there that we actually enjoyed. We ended up spending 5 days there, hanging out on the roof, getting lost in the markets, drinking tea with the guys running our hotel...we even found a bottle of Moroccan wine. Pretty good stuff!
Leaving Marrakech, we started into what became a very trying few days. It started the first night out, we were standing by the side of the road waiting for a gap in traffic so we could run off and hide for the night. A guy in his early 20's pulls up on his scooter-he doesn't speak french, but its obvious he's inviting us to his place for the night. Why not? We follow him home, where he lives with his mom, dad, and 13-year old sister Malika.
It all started out very normal. They were super excited to have us over, brought us some food and some tea, and we made an attempt at conversation with most things being translated through the daughter, who spoke a tiny bit of french. Next thing I know Steve gets dragged off by the brother (Jamal) and I get dragged into Malika's room. She shows me photos, her school work, and then opens her closet and pulls out all her clothes. "Do you like this?" she says, holding up a shirt. "Here, take it, present". Oh, thankyou, that's so nice! But that was only the beginning. By the time she was finished, I had a stack of about 15 articles of clothing in my lap, 2 pairs of shoes, and a bag of jewellery. I tried telling her this was too much... not only do I not want to carry this many clothes, half of them don't fit me because, well, they belong to a 13 year old. No good, she insists I take them to give to people at home: "presents from Morocco".
I try a different approach: I'm travelling by bike... it won't fit! She's not convinced-she grabs my panniers and stuffs every last thing inside. "See, it fits" she says triumphantly. You just can't say no to a Moroccan woman, apparently the young ones are no exception.
After she was done gifting me, we were stuffed full of dinner (Mange Steve mange Elaine... mange, Mange!) and informed that there was a pre-wedding party in the village that night. So off we go to the party, where once again Steve gets dragged off with the men and I get brought to the women's room.
This time I definitely got the better end of the deal. Steve apparently sat around in silence for the next few hours, watching TV, with the guys occasionally looking up to grunt something at each other before going back to looking at their cell phones. My room, on the other hand, was just going off! We had drums, the women were all banging on things and singing and chanting and shaking rattles and yelling and partying. At one point someone brought out a big drum, about 2 feet tall and 4 feet across, and plunked it down in the middle of the room. To my delight, this was the stand-on-top drum, so everyone took turns dancing and stomping on the drum to the screams and catcalls of all the other women. I was totally amazed at some of the village grandmas shaking it up there-they sure put my akward stomps to shame.
The only downside of the wedding party was that it also afforded the women an opportunity to stuff me full of more food. "I'm full" did not seem to be part of their vocabulary. We finally escaped the food room and went back to the house we were staying at, where the mom literally uncapped a bottle of perfume and up-ended it all over both of us as we were going to bed. Why? Not sure, but she sure got a kick out of it. We went to bed gagging at our perfumed stench and sharing stories about how impossible it was to say no to anyone in this house.
The morning brought a bit of a nightmare-we like to call it hospitality turned harassement. That's when someone gets so wrapped up with hosting you that they stop caring about your comfort or what you actually want. They told us we weren't leaving and had to stay another night, so they could stuff us full of more food we didn't want and give us more things we couldn't carry on the bike. At one point the mom and daughter decided to draw all over my hands and feet with henna, which I was initially thrilled about-it was really neat. Though it sufficiently disabled me while waiting for it to dry that I was completely trapped. The daughter spent the entire time peeling eggs for me and stuffing them into my mouth, ignoring any protests. I felt like a donkey with my head in a feed bag. At one point Steve walks in carrying a tajine-it's like a giant clay pot used for cooking, weighing in at about 15 lbs. "Look, we have a tajine..." he says, with a hopeless look on his face. More gifts from the crazy house, totally inappropriate for 2 people on bikes.
That night, we lay awake, grinding our teeth from the coffee we'd been force-fed right before bed, plotting our escape. I hate to be ungrateful, but enough is enough, we had to get out of there. They were hospitalizing us to death!
Come morning we tried to conveniently "forget" the tajine... no luck. The mom made sure to pack it nice and snug into Steve's front pannier. We finally said our goodbyes and thankyous and took off, my panniers stuffed to bursting with clothes, Steve struggling to keep his front wheel straight against the weight of the tajine. It wasn't long before we started leaving a trail of stuff by the side of the road. Again, I hate to be ungrateful, but the alternative was to drag all this stuff we couldn't use along with us across the desert-no thanks.
The next few days to Agadir weren't much better- it started raining-hard, painful drops that drive into your face and sting and make your eyes water. The wet road made our brakes nearly useless and at the bottom of a huge long hill, as though mocking us, we rolled, at high speed and brakeless, into a town called Amaskrewd. When it finally stopped raining the headwinds started, horrible gusty headwinds that held us to back to speeds of about 6km/hr.
It seemed like forever, but we finally reached Agadir and managed to find our cheapest hotel so far. The next day was spent drinking much-too-expensive beer on the balcony, eating take-out burgers, and recovering from the epic few days. The crazy house was calling us-we had unwisely left them our phone number-but we couldn't bring ourselves to answer, it was still too soon. Definitely the most trying few days of the trip up to this point.
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