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We were only in Morocco for 3 nights, and 2 of these were spent on a the train between Tangier and Marrakech. But it was certainly worth doing, and we saw alot of things that we hadn't seen anywhere else.
Okay we've travelled a little bit, and this is the first time we've ever seen this- the moroccan officials were actually on the ferry from Spain to Morocco, and they were checking visas and stamping passports on board. So of course we were persecuted for not knowing this when we tried to walk into Morocco without stamps. For Gods sake, if you're going to do something wierd, tell people in English. They did make the announcement in French and Arabic, which I'm sure was a great help to people who had actually been there before. At least make the announcement in Spanish, that is the language of the country the boat left from.
The excitement of Marrakech is the market place, where the locals do al sorts of things to get money out of tourists. They charm snakes, read fortunes, squeeze oranges, beg, cook, try to trick you, haggle, perform and make music.
We haggled with salesmen for a teapot, and we got hassled by some fake guides who wanted us to pay them 14 aussie dollars for the crappiest tour we've ever had. we paid 3. It was hot- really hot, too hot to sleep. And when it finally cooled down outside, the bed we were in had soaked up so much heat during the day that we were still cooking. Our method of getting comfortable was everytime we woke up, we drenched ourselves with water from the basin that we luckily had in our room, and then went back to bed. After about an hour this would have to be repeated.
The food was great, and Belinda intends making herself a tajine to cook with when she gets home. Thats the terracotta vessel that they use to slowly cook the food here.
The strangest trick they had of getting tourists money was to be an "agent" who escorts you to a ferry company to gety back to Europe. They go in with you when you buy your ticket, and when you pay, you hand over your passport to the guy who sells the tickets. When he's finished entering your details, the "agent" grabs your passport before you can, and then fills out your immigration card that you need to leave Morocco. Then he expects you to pay him to have your passports and immigration cards back. Dave snatched the passports, threw the cards on the ground and walked off without paying.
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