Thankfully after yesterday’s little weather hiccup, today Morocco produced the fine weather it’s renown for, and we spent the large majority of the day swimming and playing Yahtzee in the sun – a perfect day.
After our usual cucumber/ porc and baguette breakfast, we walked across town to the local souk – Marrakesh had given us a taste for the local markets and we were keen to check it out. After a quick 30 minute walk in the beautiful morning sun we arrived with our hunting caps on, trying to track down the perfect man bag for Brad. It didn’t take long and after a bit of bartering he managed to pick up a dark brown leather satchel of good quality, which is always a bonus! That being said, it meant our funds were slightly depleted for the rest of our souk trip, and given I found a pretty silver, jade and hematite pendant, we’ll be back again in a few days!
Moroccan souks are a really crazy but great place – picture a HUGE indoor market, with thousands of different alleys, twists and turns, with every stall bring a multitude of smells (leather, spices, incense...). It’s basically impossible to not get lost, but given they have 12 different gates you seem to be able to find your way out eventually. Tracking down this pendant however may pose a problem!
They’ll try anything to clinch a deal though, with one man telling us today that he ALWAYS had people from New Zealand shopping at his store, and that they ALWAYS brought from him. Given everyone else we’ve met doesn’t even know what language we speak or where on earth NZ is, I highly doubt that New Zealanders fly to Morocco just to buy fake sunglasses off this one fellow! We’ve even had a few of the hotel staff sit down with us one night, where we had to look up the NZ flag to show them all. The funny thing is we’ve never had an issue with the NZ flag before, but when showing it to the hotel staff we were struck by the fact that it really is very boring and doesn’t seem to represent NZ at all. They agreed, saying it was ‘just like United Kingdom’. To be fair that same hotel man pushed me in the pool today, then proceeded to sneak up behind me and tickle me with a stick then run away, leaving me to think I was being attacked by a huge Moroccan flying cockroach, so I shouldn’t really take his word as gospel!
After spending the morning and early afternoon at the souk, the rest of the day was spent swimming, reading and playing Yahtzee in the sun – utter bliss. All topped off with a delicious dinner right on the beach. I had the most beautiful fish and Moroccan salad dish, served with a side of five fries! Brad opted for the chicken burger, which was great as it meant I got to eat all of his fries as well! I swear I must be the only person in world history to go to Africa and actually put on weight. Isn’t this continent stricken by famine? You wouldn’t think so the way I’ve been eating! Although Marcia, Kimi and Mum will be pleased to know that I did share my fish tonight with a couple of cute little cat friends. When the waiter wasn’t looking I kept slipping the kittens mouthful after mouthful – much to Brad’s distress! So while I may be eating enough to feed Nigeria, I’m also keeping the cat population nourished so it’s not entirely selfish!
You can tell the World Cup has officially kicked off and the hype is hard to ignore. We’re a bit gutted we’re not in England for tomorrow’s match between England and the USA, but as mentioned we’ve found an English pub, aptly titled English Pub, which will play the match. We popped into the local dairy after dinner to pick up some water for tomorrow’s dune adventure, and the entire shop stood rooted to the floor, glued to the match between France and Uruguay... In fact even as I type this, a certain someone is doing the exact same thing!
Tomorrow we’re off on our sand dune adventure for the day, followed by the English pub so we probably won’t get a chance to update the blog tomorrow.
Love to all and missing you heaps. Had a bout of homesickness last night as I read everyone’s emails, but just keep reminding myself that we’re here for a good time not a long time so I need to stop my moping!
xxx
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