Marrakech is a pretty cool city. It's not the commercial centre and has only about 1m people so is much smaller than Cassablanca (8 to 9 mil) and much better for it. The place started as a trading centre on the camel caravan routes so all sorts of goods including slaves were traded here. The Souks and Square continue this amazing tradition of trade today. You can easily get lost in the rabbit warren of alleys and laneways in the Souk but Greggie came up with the brilliant idea of taking a picture behind us, every time we turned a corner with me in the picture pointing to where we'd come from. When you want to go home, just play the pictures back on the camera and follow the directions - Brilliant!
We had a tragically touristy experience at "Chez Ali" one night. It's like a really poorly done, Disneyland version of the history of the Berber tribes accompanied by equally tacky (but lots of it!!) food. I imagine a night at Kryal Castle might be nearly as bad as this!
But otherwise, it's been great to relax for our last couple of days here with a bit of bargaining and shopping, a walk through the gardens owned by Yves Saint Laurent and enjoying a traditional Hamman - well, perhaps it was a bit of a Westernised version as Greg & I could be in the same room together but it was lovely and at 1/10th the cost of a massage in Paris we've realised too late that we should have had one every day!
Off to Spain tomorrow, assuming of course that this Icelandic volcanoe that has shut down 2/3rds of Europe's flight space does not interupt our plans! Oh well, Inshallah!
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