Marrakech

Marrakech is the last city on my tour of Morocco. We arrived and found our hostel with less trouble than in Fez or Tangier (although what is with hostels in this country being practically empty? They're like relatively nice, pretty clean ghost towns. But they offer less amenities than their European counterparts, and they don't serve breakfast during Ramadan). Anyhow, so Marrakech is my last city to blog about.

Marrakech is much more developed and therefore more touristy than Fez. Normally, groups of tourists bother me, but here, it's kind of a breath of fresh air. I don't stand out so much in Marrakech.

So here are some pros and cons of sticking out like a sore thumb in Morocco:

Pro: adorable little kids say "bonjour!" when you walk past; some people stop to ask where you're from and welcome you to their country (and everyone here says "you're welcome" instead of "welcome" without perceiving a difference, which is kind of charming);

Cons: every taxi stops to ask where you want to go; every tout in the medina asks you where you want to go (and they literally do not believe that you might JUST want to walk with no specific destination, which is USUALLY what I'm doing); cars beep at you when they drive past; everyone assumes you're rich; etc.

But you have to understand, it's harder to come up with pros because my good experiences here have nothing to do with how much I stick out; they have to do with meeting nice people and eating good food, regardless of whether I'm walking around with a neon sign flashing "WHITE GUY." So the point of this tangent is, it's nice not to be a target.

So Marrakech has a lot of nice streets and parks--I'm sending this blog entry from the "Cyber Park," which has outdoor touchscreen computer terminals along its paths and wi-fi for portables. The market is less authentic than in Fez, because Fez is really one of the artisan capitals of this part of the world, but it's colorful and fun regardless. However, people in Marrakech are completely willing to exploit Western ideas of the Arab world. The main square in the medina is almost impossible to walk through without being accosted by monkey-handlers, snake-charmers, henna-tattoo-"artists," and the like--yesterday, a man tried to entice me into his shop with the advertisement "Berber carpet? Flying carpet?" Tonight, on our last night, we're going back to the square, where there are supposedly tons of street shows and a lot to see... Belly dancing, perhaps?

So it's probably not difficult to tell that I enjoyed Spain and Italy more than Morocco, but I wouldn't mind coming back--I would like to see the mountains and deserts, especially. I hope I didn't give too negative an impression, but it has been a bit of a culture shock, and it's taken some adjustment. I'm from the country, where you always say hi to strangers, and this place is different, which is kind of hard for me. A lot of people want to take advantage of foreigners, but I survived it, and I was cussed at a bit and hopefully not taken advantage of too much. Morocco is a pretty crazy place.

Tomorrow I fly back to Spain, where I can see the Vazquez family again! And then the day after, I fly home. It feels bizarre to be able to say that.
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