Today is our final full day in Marrakesh. No tour guides or busses today, we are on our own. We had thought about booking a tour today, but done with travel days so we will just do some walking around, lots to see.
First off we meet up with another couple and go to watch the start of the Marathon which is only a couple of blocks from our hotel. We have never been to a marathon before, we really enjoyed it. We watched near a 4 piece drummer band that was cheering the runners on, lots of fun.
Back to the hotel for breakfast and then decision made to what we will do today.
We start off walking from our hotel back to another part of the Souks near where we had stayed last time in a Riad. Along the way we met up with Mohammed who was with Youssef yesterday, he told us we should go and get some amazing pictures on the other side of the Medina, it goes on until 1PM. We decided we would walk, come across another guy who says we really need to get to the other side of the Medina, he hooks us up with a guy that he knows is going to work in a restaurant on that side, so we are off following him. We were on our own kind of marathon quick walking here. Our last guy drops us off at the tannery, no this is not what we want, basically forced to take some mint, walk through and off to the selling of leather section, we told him no, we had already done this in Fes. Then he wanted money for the mint, that was a hard no, we are done. Next somehow we got roped into going to a pharmacy, another hard no we have done that sales pitch already. This followed by stuck with carpet sellers, and I am done with this nonsense.
Andre had read about a Photo Museum, at this point I am ready to just get off the streets for a bit. Photo Museum was a display of pictures starting from the 1850's to 1930's, so interesting. The top floor was a lovely terrace cafe where we enjoyed lunch. It was a great break to get out of the crazy souks for a while.
Lunch followed with a little walking tour Andre made up on google maps. Not sure if we really did all that he had hoped, but it filled up the rest of the afternoon, including purchasing a couple of magnets along with the many different sites we saw.
Back to the hotel, visit with others that happened to be outside when we came back. Decided to just stay in for supper, again when we went to the dining room just found someone from the tour to have dinner with. An early night, as we have a very early morning, 3:30AM bus pickup for our 9:30AM flight, but the airport is 2.5 hours drive away in Casablanca.
Uneventful trip back to Casablanca and the airport. Extremely long lineup to get through passport control, took nearly 1 hour. Flight left a little late, but time to make our 1 hour connection in Montreal for flight to Halifax. Halifax is in the middle of a storm, schools were closed today. Our normal 2.5 hour drive to the airport took us 4 hours, slow going, we were exhausted but made it home safely.
Had a great trip, but 2 times to Morocco is probably enough for us. We visited some cities we hadn't been to before, and loved seeing Marrakesh and Fes again, but still so much of the world to see. Lots of more travel adventures coming up soon
The train station near where we are staying in Marrakesh
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| One man band |
The snake charmers and the Monkey handlers were here also but no picture of them as I think its cruel to the animals.
