Day 18: Back to the oven we go - hello Marrakech

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(Sidenote from yesterday: forgot to mention that I got a grab-bag of goodies at the bakery!! I have no idea what anything is, but they were all good. I found my two favourites – those will be my treats for the rest of Morocco haha)

So, very relaxed day today... which is a recurring theme for Morocco it seems. (Well, recurring theme on days we aren’t trying to find our hostels. Ahem.) I have to say it was nice to wake up and put pants on – it’s still super cold in the room and windy as ever outside. It was a little warmer today though, around 30 or so.

We woke up and had some breakky, then just wandered around the Medina for a bit, but wandering off towards the bus station. It was nice seeing a different part of the Old Town than what we’d been mostly wandering through the other day. It’s the same, but different – just neat to see the people and the shops and the stalls. I like their fruit/veggie stalls – they have little balances on them to weigh out the cost and such.

(While I think of it – we had the usual whistles and such today, but he had one nice “you look very beautiful” as a guy walked by with a little kid. That was at least a nice way of doing it.)

We got to the bus station a little earlier than expected (ie we found it on the first try haha) so we just bought a drink and sat outside in the cafe while we waited for the bus to be ready. This random guy came up to us while we were waiting to board – unlike the others I don’t think he was trying to say we’re beautiful or proposing marriage haha, he was just talking, very quickly, in Arabic. And kept nodding. And we were totally lost hahaha. I tried French, but nope, nothing doing. He just kept going. Finally he’s like “England? English?” No. “French. French girls.” No. “Oh. Oh American girls! Yes!” No. “ Yes! George Bush!” Yep, we almost died laughing. He chuckled and then nodded and went on his merry way. Whattaguy.

(Sidenote: some of the guys try pulling out all the stops... including guessing where you’re from. We’ve literally had people walk beside us listing 15 countries before they gave up. Also, they say random English words like fish n’ chips or try whatever language they know haha. Ello senoritaaaaaaaa. Bonjourno.)

Bus ride was nice and uneventful – we stopped at a different place this time, so all new stores/vendors to be called over to ;) The butcher tried calling us over with a bunch of whistles and “allo Mesdames – hello. Hello. You from England?” Right, because I’m going to buy half a cow to take on a hot bus to Marrakech. Toilet was interesting – like the other rest stop, you pay but you pay for toilet paper... 50 cents gets you three sheets haha. Party. Unlike the other rest stop, half of these toilets were the squatting ones... yeah, we weren’t that adventurous. Ahem.

(Another sidenote: the leading guesses for our nationalities are UK and Polish. I do not know why.)

On the drive to Marrakech was a whole lot of desert and herds of goats... but the best thing I saw was the double-decker cow trailer. I honestly wish I had my camera out - I don't even understand what I saw. Cows were in a "regular" trailer thing, and then they were just loose on top of it - like they were tied with a string around their neck, but they could move around. This explanation doesn't do it justice - I was so confused as to how they weren't falling out... tipping over.

Getting off the bus in Marrakech wasn’t too bad – the taxi people were a little further back so we basically just made a bee-line for the side street to get away haha. Walking back to the hostel went better than expected – we took the correct way this time and had no problems which is like a miracle for us here in Morocco. We were walking down a pretty main street – it’s honestly amazing watching the guys on their bikes give themselves whiplash turning to look back... I don’t know how they don’t crash. As I type that, I realize it sounds really vain haha – it’s not – I hope you guys get what I mean.

Anyway, back at the hostel we arranged/switched around some dates and that all worked out lovely. The bed I wanted (bunked with Em) wasn’t changed (another guest had been sitting on it this morning, so cleaning lady thought it was hers) but they came to change it right away. The cleaning lady was TOO cute. She didn’t speak English or French, but she was trying to explain to me that she would change it, and I could sleep there.

The game of charades continued for about 10 minutes – she kept trying to chat with me, Em and this other girl in our room – it was fun. At one point she grabbed my arm and turned it sideways and laughed – I thought she was making fun of how pasty white my arms are on the inside ahahahahaha. But we finally figured she was trying to tell me the wet spot on my sheet was just from her elbow, from beforehand. Ok, ok good.

She then kept pointing at Em saying “zooina” or something like that. We’re like uhhhhhh... no...? yes...? I don’t know? Hahaha. Finally we got that she was trying to say that Em was beautiful. We got “jolie” out of her which was about the only French she seemed to know. So then of course we were all “zooina”. Everrrrrybody zooina. I am totally spelling that wrong / I don’t even know if that’s the correct word, but the thought is there ;)

We stayed in the room for a bit to let the sun ease off a tad... cough. We walked a bit into the Medina, but then went to the supermarket to get some goods and make our supper. We ate on the roof of the hostel again – it’s so lovely up there, the vibe is so relax. After we ate we just sat and chatted for almost an hour. Ah, ‘tis the life.

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