Marrakech, Morocco

Our second to last stop on this journey around the globe! Marrakech was awesome and one of the few places I will be anxious to revisit. We landed a little after 7:00pm local time on Wednesday November 19. One great thing about this trip has been the ease with which we clear customs. TCS takes care of our landing/departure cards so all we do is show our passports and walk to a bus. Our bags are collected and delivered to our hotel rooms. Anyways, Marrakech was no exception. We got through customs and only had a ten minute ride to the Sofitel Marrakech Hotel. I wasn’t a fan of this place. It was a French hotel and everyone kept speaking French to us. I don’t know how many times I had to say, “I don’t speak French! And I don’t care to either!!” It just sounds arrogant. Ew. Now I sound arrogant.

Enough about that. We had a buffet dinner once we checked in, but It felt like it was after 10:00pm by this point so most people skipped out on dinner. Diana and I went for the free booze and desert. Not really, we just wanted a beer. Then it was off to bed in our 90 degree room. It was so hot! And when we opened our door to the porch we couldn’t sleep because of the noise from the street, aka cars and barking dogs. All night. Oh, also, we had to walk ten minutes to get from the lobby to our room. Blah.

On Thursday morning we took a walking tour of Old Marrakech, or the medina. This part of the city is surrounded by a wall and contains one of the most intact medieval cities in the Arabic world. I have alot of facts and names for what we saw, and I will be glad to share back is the US.

After our walking tour of the city we had lunch at the hotel and then went out for shopping at the local souk. It was very interesting... After the Souks we walked to the main square where there were Monkey handlers and snake charmers. Yep, look!

Who would have guesses it? I wanted to hold the Monkey?! He wouldn't let me take it though! It even had fingers and finger nails!

After shopping we returned to the hotel to pack for London and clean up for out farewell dinner. We ate at a traditional home, or Dar, that had been converted to an amazing resturant. There were three levels of roof-top porches that over looked the city. So beautiful! I didn't get good pictures of the view, but a few of the place.

The Dar is a square the looks like a run down building on the outside, but is a fabulous home on the inside. It had a courtyard in the middle with a pool! It was so neat!

They also had an open bar.

Exhibit A.

Also, Morocco had a film festival going on while we were there with a huge party at our hotel. We were going to try to sneak in but decided not to. However, we did get the red carpet photo taken! So silly, but at least we didn't sneak in to the Morocco Hollywood party. Ha!

Now we are in London for a few days before returning to the USA. I am ready to get home, but I have lots to say about this trip and I have so many more pictures. I will post about London while we are here! We are all looking forward to coming home in a few days though!