Marra-Kesh
Last weekend, my roommate Sam and I took a short overnight trip south to the big city of Marrakech. We hopped on an early morning train Saturday and attempted to sleep the whole way. We probably would’ve succeeded were it not for three of the most adorable kids!
We arrived in Marrakech at around noon and walked from the train station to the Jemma el Fnaa, the main square in Marrakech. It’s effectively a huge market with vendors selling not just food and things, but also snake charmers, acrobats, henna artists, monkey trainers, musicians, dancers, and so much more.
After checking into our beautiful hostel and having tea (lots of tea) we decided to go explore the medina.
The medina is a massive organism, comprising stalls full of everything you would ever need, houses, hotels, street vendors selling things from their hands, restaurants, cafes, mosques, workshops, and so much more. It’s effectively a giant market city.
Sam and I decided just to wander and explore with the aim of getting lost. On our travels we came across beautiful archways, often entrances to mosques. Since I’m a Muslim, I was allowed in, and they are some of the most beautiful buildings in Morocco. It’s silly not to let non-Muslims in, I believe. Here are some pictures from our walk:
Here’s some of the graffiti we found along the way. Football and misspelled english are still common themes:
After wandering around for hours, we found our way back to the hostel around sunset for a quick nap and to recharge our phones before wandering out to the square for dinner.
Oh what an experience dinner was!
At night, a hundred street food vendors open up. Each one promising the best culinary experience in Morocco. After wandering through all of them, we ended up selecting one and had incredible eggplant, calamari and skewered meats:
After dinner, Sam and I decided to have some tea at one of the cafes overlooking the square which was incredible. After fighting to get a table at the edge, we sat forever just admiring the action below us and the city as a whole. We also took a bunch of candid and non-candid photos.
After an incredibly long day, we went back to the hostel and turned in early.
The next morning, we had a huge breakfast at the hostel including numerous cups of tea. We then went back to the medina and wandered some more before heading to the Koutoubia Mosque- the largest in Marrkaesh. It is also the model for the Giralda in Sevilla, which I saw just a month ago!
Marrakech
Sevilla
Unfortunately we couldn’t go in. Instead we decided to take a longer route to get back to the train station since we had some time to kill. In our wandering, we stumbled upon a really nice church, conveniently next to a mosque.
Which one’s which?
Sam also forgot to tell me he was actually a sloth:
We then got to the train station, stopped for a Moroccan McDonalds then boarded a very crowded train back to Rabat. All in all an excellent weekend trip. Looking forward to many more of these!
