A Week in Marrakesh

Tonight is sadly the last night of our trip as tomorrow night we leave from Casablanca just after midnight. We've been in Marrakesh, Morocco for about a week now relaxing, exploring, and, of course, shopping. It's a beautiful city and the hotels (or better the riads) are by far the best part. Last night and tonight we decided to go out with a bang and took out the big suite at Riad Akka. Though you couldn't tell from the number of tourists here, July and August are the low season apparently for riad accommodation so we got a bit of a deal. It's a really great place, only 5 rooms, and structured around a very charming courtyard complete with plunge pool. Last night we ate in and had a beautiful meal prepared for us. Far better than anything we ate in the supposedly nice restaurants (just tourist traps) around Djemaa El-Fna.

A quick story: As we're in a Muslim country, getting a glass of wine can be both a challenge and expensive (if you want something imported). We managed to find a liquor store with a few imported bottles of wine. After a little deliberation, we settled on a bottle from Argentina. Imagine our surprise when the strong red wine came out of the bottle a medium to dark brown and smelling rather like a port!

Djemaa El-Fna itself is a mind-boggling mix of people. At night it gets so packed that it is difficult to move. The orange juice vendors are experts at deception and quickly turn your 10 Dirham into 5 (minus 3 more for the OJ). Otherwise, the hightlights are definitely the food stalls with good, quick, cheap food and the date vendors selling dates of various quality. It's nice to be in a place that is a mixture of tourists and locals. It seems everyone in the city must venture out there each night.

I'll catch up on all the pictures from home in Boston and make a link here later. With no little sorrow I must say goodbye for now. Thanks for reading if you've made it this far!  Hopefully I'll see you soon back in the US!