Its been a while but work has kind of taken over lately, so where was I....
Left Azrou on the N8 at about 8:30 am. The sun was hot, and as I headed down towards Khenifra, through M'rit it got hotter. After Khenifra I found another one of those Barrage (dam) type things. I reckon its the suns reflection that makes it this colour, simply stunning.......
Well, after this the road was pretty flat and straight, I thought at one point I could smell burning rubber, maybe the tyres were getting too hot? I stopped and checked but they were good, I stopped for a while anyway to let everything cool down.
The high Atlas in the background looked good, the scenery was blowing me away...
After about 3 hours ride which to be honest was hard going, I reached the outskirts of Marrakech.
Now I was keen not to be messing about in Marrakech as to say its a bit mad there would be an understatement...I had pre-booked a hotel here, didn't want to be messing about looking...I dropped into a fuel station on the outskirts and asked a young guy on a moped to take me into the Medina as I didn't fancy getting lost here....A few minutes and 30 MAD later I found the hotel.
Hotel Agnaoue was my destination for the night. The website flattered it beyond belief, it is without doubt a shithole of the highest order...
The first room I had stunk. The smell was of the sewers, plus none of the plug sockets worked so I had no-where to charge the phone/headset etc. I went back down to the reception and asked to be moved. They moved me to another room, which stunk as well. I was starting to think it was me....The A/C didn't work in the 2nd room, so in room 3 now, it smelled a bit but not too bad, plus the A/C and plug sockets seemed to work and it was 7:30 now so I stuck with it, until that was I decided to have a shower.....
Room 4, an argument and a lot of swearing later and I settled for it.
Went out at about 8 to sample the delights of Fna square.
Now Jemaa el Fna square is world away from Trafalger. It has to be seen to be believed. There are snake charmers, people with monkees, Vultures, Kestrels, Rats, you cannot believe what they will sell you. I wandered around for an hour trying to take it all in. Found the souks quite amazing places, everything is for sale, quite literally...
You cannot take a picture of anything without someone jumping on you demanding money, the snake charmers are the worse, they will stand in front of you if you get your camera out until you have paid. I found the noise, the constant poorly played pipes and the smells all quite heady...
I came across this small group of African musicians, really loud and quite good to boot...
Once the night time came it was a very different place though, It sort of came alive...
Never seen so many people and I have to admit it was a little intimidating at times...
I had dinner in the hotel opposite mine. 180 MAD for what was basically re-heated rice, tinned veg and a couple of dodgy looking kebabs. I politely refused to eat said shite, dropped the guy 20 MAD for the water and bread and sloped back into the market square. Now if I said there was over 100 pavement restaurants out on the square that night, I might have been underestimating it, they were everywhere. Each one offering you the 'best' food in the square, one guy actually said no one had ever had diaorriha
at his stall...
Just trying to add some video.......