Morocco in 200 words or less.  Ha ha ha! Who am I kidding?  Anyways, we left home Saturday afternoon for Morocco.  For those that are wondering, it’s about a 2 hour flight to Detroit, then a little under 8 hours to Paris (if the flight crew isn’t late to the airport because of road construction on I-94), and then it is 3  hours and 20 minutes to Marrakesh. So it makes for a long day, but not horrible.  We arrived around 3:30pm, so the only thing we did was eat half our backpack snacks (not to be confused with purse snacks or suitcase snacks), go to the group welcome meeting, and then walk right across the street to the shopping mall and outdoor restaurants for dinner.  Yes, we both had pizza margherita, and it was delicious! After a full day of awkward meal schedues and gross Air France airplane food, that pizza was so yummy and necessary to reset my stomach.  We weren’t given the option to leave a tip on our credit card, and I did not have anything smaller than the equivalant of a $10 bill (100 dinhar), so I just had to leave 3 one dollar bills for a tip because well, I am not going to just not leave a tip.  Don’t worry, there’s a point to this story later.

The next day we were up bright and early to go on our city tour.  We started out in front of the mosque.  Now I got lost in the explanation, but it was built by the same people that built La Giralda in Seville, Spain.  And the one in Seville was the inspiration for our iconc tower on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas Ctity.  Isn’t it nice how that all loops back together?  There was some minor damage to the mosque from the earthquake in September.  I am not sure if you are ever able to go inside or if it was just closed due to the earthquake damages.  We walked around the medina and saw some more neat old stuff with entirely tooooooo many tourists in my way.  It was impossible to get any good pictures because of all the dang people standing in my way!  We have been spoliled our last few trips, but now we have been reminded of what it is to travel to a popular place.  Our next trip will be some place no one has ever heard of, so we can get ALL the pictures. 

Then we were set free for the afternoon.  Note, we were set free in the shopping area!  Thetwsontour should never be set free in a prime souvenir shopping area! We had to go find an ATM halfway through the day so that we didn’t have to curtail our shopping. We got some fantastic and cheap stuff. If you are lucky, dear reader, you may be the recipient of some of our treasures. But probably not. We don’t like to share.  We got new handmade leather belts that he trimmed to fit while we waited. It’s a great feeling to get 22 cm chopped off your belt!  We got the braided kind like we had in junior high.  Purple and green, too!  And the best part was he kept lowering the price himself and they were only $10 each!  Way cheaper than Kohl’s where you can only buy braided belts in brown and black.  Super exciting! 

After finding a purse store with fixed pricing (serously, I am not good at bargaining. I hate it!) We each got a cute little, but actully kinda big, handmade leather purse for $12.  Again, way cheaper than Kohl’s even with an extra 30% off coupon. It’s cow leather, so it’s not the best quality out there, but still, it’s a HANDMADE LEATHER PURSE.  

This is all in addition to the magnets, scarves, change purses, coasters, and earrings. So it was a successful day indeed.  

Oh, and this part is for my mother.  You know she worries if she thinks I don’t eat.  In between all this shopping, we went to a nice restaurant on the square for lunch.   We could have gone to a quicker and cheaper place, but it didn’t seem to have a bathroom.  We had to pee so bad! So, we paid a little more and had a delicious lunch of chicken tanjin.  Quite tasty, even if the chicken is on the bone.   Thetwinsontour much prefer boneless chicken breast, but we shall survive.  Moral of the story is that sometimes you have to pay a little more for a good lunch so that you can use  a clean bathroom.  It’s a good lesson to take note of faithful readers.

Well, our guide had told us in the morning how to get back to the hotel, but as you all know thetwinsontour are directionally challenged.  We started to head back after a full afternoon of shopping with our arms full of treasures, but we were kinda iffy on where exactly the main road was when we happened upon a taxi stand.  I looked at my sister, and she said, “YES!”  I asked the taxi cab driver how much to the hotel and pretty sure he said 200 dirham which is $20.  I said nope and walked away.  Then he yelled out 70 dirham, and we hopped in the car like our shoes were on fire.  Seven dollars I can do, but it still seems like a lot of money after paying $5 for 45 minute taxi rides in Bolivia last month.  But again, we had to pee, and our arms were full.  So that’s another important lesson too.  Don’t try to remember how to get back to the hotel if you can get a cheap enough taxi and you have to pee.   

Day 3 in Marakesh, we took a quick trip to the Ourika Valley.  This is in the Atlas mountains, but not the part that was destroyed by the earthquake.   So we had tea in a typical Moroccan house.  Their national beverage is Mint Tea, made with fresh mint from the garden. I think everyone grows their own mint, and don’t just buy it at the grocery store.  You can drink it with sugar or without.  I highly recommend the sugar. Thetwinsontour are not fans of tea, but we can drink about half a glass of sugared mint tea if necessary.  Sugar should be in cubes, but the older generation prefers to buy sugar in a giant cone shape and then break it into large chunks by hitting it with the bottom of a glass.  I looked at the grocery store.  The sugar only came in a 2 kg cone, which is quite heavy for the suitcase, but it only costs 11 dirham, so $1.10 for  4.4 pounds of sugar.  If they had smaller cones, my mom would be getting one for watching Artichoke.  If you go to someone’s house for dinner or need to give someone a present, you give them a cone of sugar. It’s tradition.  

So then we went into their backyard to see all of their livestock:  rabbits, chickens, guinnea fowl, sheep, a donkey, and a cow.   And then we wandered around the little town a bit for some quick selfies.  

The next stop was a botanical garden where they talked about the uses of the plants they grow there.  The main takeaway here is that you can use the rhizomes of iris to whiten your teeth.  Now I don’t know about you, but I am not about to dig up my fancy irises to whiten my teeth. I paid a lot of money for some of those iris bulbs! Who is going to use a $15 iris bulb to whiten their teeth?  Not me.  I guess I should have saved some of the boring white ones that came with my house and used them on my teeth. Alas, I dug those suckers up and gave them away.  

Guess what?  After eating lunch at the botanical garden, it was time to head back to Marakesh for some free time. What would you do with that kind of free time? If you guessed, walk back to the medina and do more shopping, you guessed correctly!  thetwinsontour love shopping!  It’s in our blood.  It’s impossible to resist!  We just got more of the same, and it was glorious!  What a great way to spend the afternoon.  

This time, since we knew the way, we walked the mile back to the hotel and saved our $7.  

Now, to conclude our story of Marakesh. We walked across the street to the mall for dinner again. There are 4 or 5 different restaurants along the front, and we were trying to decide if we should go to a different one or one we had already tried. We were wandering around contemplating the possibilities when the waiter from the first night looked at us and said due (doo-aye is Italian for 2) pizza margarita. And we were like, yes, that’s exactly what we want. We didn’t even have to look at the menu. Who remembers your order from 2 days before, even if it is easy? That’s what I call great service! Before he brought out our pizza, he brought out the 3 one dollar bills we had left as a tip and asked for dinhars instead! I mean, he could have just walked downtown and bought 3 cute little camels with those dollars. I bought a lot of stuff from the street vendors with dollars, including several cute little camels. Anyways that’s a nice way to come full circle here. With that, I will bid you a fond fairwell for now.

Love,

thetwinsontour