Accountant Adventures: Marrakesh

Fancy Hat

Julie’s bag is in really bad shape one of the wheels is completely gone and now when the bag is pulled the bottom of the bag tears on the street. We bought some tape to try to fix it, but as soon as we started to pull the bag it fell apart again. We pretty much have to carry the ridiculously heavy bag everywhere now.

Today (Thursday) we slept in a little and were still unsure of our plans for today, we are so bad at planning. We were thinking it would be nice to go to Essaouira, a beach town and stay there for two days before heading back to Casablanca. We are going back to Casablanca so that Julie can return home on Sunday. We looked into it and figured out that there were no trains and we would have to take 2 really long Grande Taxis, first to Marrakesh and from there to Essaouira. We decided that would be too much traveling and too expensive so now we are going to Marrakesh and staying there tonight and then taking the train to Casablanca until Julie leaves and I figure out what I am doing next. I am probably going to spend another week or two in Morocco. Then I will take the ferry to Spain and travel around there and then continue making my way North in Europe. It is all very tentative at this point in time. If anyone wants to come and join me anywhere, let me know.

We were able to get the Grande Taxi to Marrakesh very quickly and climbed in for what is most likely Julie’s last Grande Taxi experience of this Moroccan trip. I think Julie started to get teary eyed at this though because she loves being crammed into a cab with 6 stinky guys. The trip from Ouarzazate to Marrakesh was less than 200 KM and I couldn’t figure out why it was nearly double any other trip we have taken until we started to drive up and around in the mountains. It takes a long time to go 200 KM when you cannot drive over 40KM/H. A little over half way we stopped for a 30 minute break to get some food. Julie and I went to a restaurant and ordered our food, which came 28 minutes later. I grabbed the food wrapped it in paper and headed back to the cab to eat it there. None of the other passengers outside Julie and myself seemed too concerned with the 30 minutes of allotted time. We were the only ones besides the driver back at the taxi. The driver told me that in Morocco 30 minutes can mean an hour or maybe even two. Everyone finally came back about an hour after the driver had given us 30 minutes to eat.

As we headed out, the driver turned the radio off and started to listen to the car, it was making loud sounds. Julie and I looked at each other with looks of “not again!” The driver pulled over, looked under the car, looked under the hood and poured some water somewhere and then decided to drive on and see what happens. Luckily it kept working and we made it safely to Marrakesh. Marrakesh is hot, really really hot. I do not like it, I wish someone would put an air conditioned dome over the city or at the very least an air conditioned dome around me while I’m here. We went to a hotel from LP and it was closed so we went to the next cheapest close by hotel from LP but all of the really cheap rooms were already taken. The manager gave us a discount so it is not too terrible but more than I wanted to pay, that is for sure.

Moroccan restaurants have 3 things on the menu Tagine, Kabobs and Couscous. That’s it, those are all of your choices at 95% of the places. They are all decent food items but they are all bland and the lack of variety is frustrating. To add to the frustration most places don’t actually have couscous. LP has a listing for La Maison de Couscous and it is supposed to be air conditioned so we decided to go there for dinner. Then we found out that they had closed. We were really hungry and thirsty and hot so we went to the next restaurant that we could find and went inside. Before entering the restaurant you have to buy your drinks outside. I got 2 sodas and Julie got a soda and water and the total came to almost $10 USD. We laughed and said thanks but no thanks, we don’t need to pay that much for drinks! We went next door where there was air conditioning and we were able to get couscous, it was very delicious if not bland.

Marrakesh is famous for their enormous outdoor market and we spent the night walking among the shops. They have snake charmers, monkeys, women who apply henna and lots of locally made items. For dessert we had some delicious fresh orange juice that must have crack sprinkled in it because it is highly additive. Tomorrow we head towards Casablanca.