Andre and Wendy: Marrakesh day 1

We are in Marrakesh for 3 nights, so very nice not to have to take our bags down to the bus this morning and move on to another city.

We start off this morning by picking up a local guide to see Minaret of the Koutoubia from the 13^th century, 1195. Lots of interesting stories from this local guide, we really enjoyed him. The original mosque was discovered to be 10 degrees off pointing in the direction of Mecca, which all mosques are supposed to point, so was torn down and rebuilt using the same stones by the grandson of the original person that had the mosque built in 1147.

Next we visited the Bahia Palace, the only palace we are able to go inside on our tour. Amazing tile and wood work. We learned much about the old Vizir and Berber lives. The front of the palace was for guests, meetings and and amazing dining room, then on to the private quarters. The private quarters started with 4 large bedrooms, where the 4 wives would share with their children until they are 5. 4 wives are still possible to have, but you would certainly need a lot of money. 4 wives is the maximum. After the wives rooms there is a large area for children that are older than 5, boys and girls on each wing, usually around 24 children are here. Finally the main bedroom, and explanation of the process of switching around of wives nightly, all interesting.

We now go back to the Jemea El Fna square and the Koutoubla mosque where we were last night. This mosque is really the focal point of Marrakesh, no buildings are allowed to be built any higher than this.

It is great to see this square in the day time, so different than night time. Night time is lots of food stalls, day time turns into ladies giving hennas, snake charmers, monkeys on leashes (urgh) and not as crazy busy as night time. We also say goodbye to our local tour guide here, it has been a great morning.

Time for lunch, Youssef gives us a meeting point for after lunch, 5 of us head off to find the Tangia restaurant that we were shown last night when we walked by, Tangia is the specialty of Marrakesh. This is a beef dish that takes a long time to cook in clay pots over ashes. Absolutely delicious, a crazy busy restaurant that packs the people in over multiple small floors. They bring the dish to your table in the clay pots with covers on them, and a display of pouring the contents of the pot into a plate. Served with delicious bread. We were there at about 1PM, an early lunch for locals, when we left there was a long line up to get in, so glad we went when we did.

After lunch back to our hotel and good byes to Youssef, our driver and driver helper. The driver helper has been counting us every trip to make sure we are all there, I also see him emptying the garbage from the bus, and the floors are washed every day when we get back on the bus, I am sure it is him. Tips distributed, always the awful part of the tour for everyone, what is the right amount to tip?

Time spent outside by the pool under the bamboo trees getting caught up on news from home. Then off for a nap. It was a nice break from all the running around. Enjoying a glass of wine in the room, no alcohol allowed in the hotel, so our hidden bottle of wine must be enjoyed in the room. I think only 3 or our hotels this week sold alcohol. This hotel even has a problem with bringing water in from outside, we were stopped in the lobby with our 2 bottles, Andre went up to the room to get a knapsack and we put them in there and just walked by the bellman.

Supper tonight will just need to be very light after our huge lunch today. Then we plan on going out for a little walk around the hotel, the street outside is very nice, and we are near the opera house which will be nice to see at night.

The view from our hotel room window, no balconies

The hotel lobby had lots of old pictures

Our first stop was to learn about the minaret and the mosque that was taken down

Then walked and visited the Bahia Palace.

The had a movie set still setup at the entrance. Once again the architecture was amazing. Lots of people there, hard to get good images to do it justice.

Then a walk to visit a pharmacy.

Then on the bus for a short ride to the main entrance to explore the square in the daytime.

5 of us decided to go for Tangia instead of doing the group lunch. 4 more decided to do the same as well. This place is famous for it. It is cooked in a clay pot on low heat. Kinda like a beef stew except with lemon and garlic. They also cook lamb in an inground oven.

Tangia pots

Since we still had about 25 minutes I took the rest of the group for a walk in the souk.

We talked to a tour reseller about doing a day tour tomorrow but decided just to explore the Medina instead. It was only $20 US per person for the Ourika valley tour. Reasonable.