After my time at the beach, I took the bus to Marrakech. Dennis and Stephane, 2 friends of the family happened to be there at the same time as part of a tour. They offered to let me stay in their luxury hotel with them for two nights and of course I accepted.
Dinner on the second night was a four course feast with hours of live Moroccan music, full of crazy costumes, plenty of drums, occasional screaming and of course snakes and scorpions.
One afternoon, I decided to hit up a hammam. Most people don't have hot water at home so many use these to bathe. They are like a cross between a spa and a bath house. After changing into a robe, I was led to a small steam room where one of the hammam women lathered me up with black soap (local soap made of olive oil) and then scrubbed off the dead skin with what felt like coarse sandpaper. Next, the clay skin treatmet and finally a half hour argan oil massage. Not a bad way to spend an hour or two.
One of the main attractions in Marrakech is Djemaa el-Fna...a huge square in the center of the medina. Some of the attractions include: snake charmers, musicians, crazy magis/snake oil salesman, henna artists, countless orange juice and dried fruit stands, acrobats, actors, etc... By day it is full of tourists from the many tour buses that park nearby.
At night, however, Djemaa el-Fna, truly comes alive. As you approach you see thousands of bright lights, smoke pouring into the sky from countless grills and food stands, and crowds like the return line at Best Buy the day after Christmas. As you get closer, you hear a background base beat created by hundreds of drums in drum circles all over the square. I sat down for dinner at one of the grill stands, pointed to a number of items and ended up with way too many plates of food in front of me. Somehow, I finished it all...followed by a couple fresh squeezed juices. After dinner, I spent some more time wandering around the square checking out the drum circles, games (including put-put), and a crazed, fat, longhaired, shirtless storyteller. Finally, I capped off the evening with a mint tea in the square and a cipro when I got back to my room (antibiotic...otherwise all that street food would surely come back to haunt me).
