The Marrakech Express Trip

We took a little road trip on May 31st up to the beautiful city of Marrakech. The first thing we noticed was the whole town is a salmon pink color. The ramparts of the town are very old but have been kept up. Marrakech is a lot greener and more metropolitan than Agidir. The architecture on the newer buildings is very traditional and beautiful....

Below you can see the gate welcoming us to our Hotel. The Royal Mirage Marrekech. Our Translator, Aziz, used to work in the hospitality industry (At the 4 Seasons in Palm Beach) and he has a friend who got us a real good deal on our hotel.
And the lobby was absolutely fabulous!!
We took a taxi into the city where we saw some interesting wildlife......

... and not so wild life.
We entered the Medina and found beautiful art work in unlikely places.
We grabbed a carriage and went for a short tour around the tourist district.


Cody tried to refuse the driver when he handed him the reins and whip. When the driver put the hat on Cody's head, Cody looked at us and asked how many critters he might be harboring in the hat?

The is one very old mosques of the city.
...and I finally made Cody take some pictures of me so people could see that I was here too.
We ventured into several of the souks where prices were a lot higher than in Agidir and Taroundant.
Of course I had no problem finding the shoe vendors.

And I loved these "Sparkly Slippers" I didn't even bother asking the price though.

We visited Place' Jemma El Fna.. one of the most famous places in Marrakech. It was early in the afternoon and not very much was going on.
We did find a good place to get fresh squeezed orange juice for about .42 cents a glass.
We went to roof top cafe' for an early dinner.
The smoothies were delicious! Then we headed back to the big square..... Place' Jemma El Fna..
Which was extremely crowded and bustling with snake charmers, dancers, storyteller, tooth pullers, vendors of all sorts and thousands of tourists and locals!!

Several of the over 100 food vendors served this speciality.... Goats Head anyone?

Cody and I indulged ourselves with Henna Tatoos..... And then we walked about halfway back to the hotel before we grabbed a taxi. It was a very pleasant ending to a very pleasant day.

On Sunday morning when the traffic was almost non existant, we drove through town to see some more sites.
As we left Marrakech via a different route we passed miles and miles of olive orchards. We drove home through the High Atlas mountains and it was a beautiful drive.

But you have to watch out for the sharp rocks. They will cut your tires.

All in all I have throughly enjoyed our time in Marrakech and I will miss it! Saturday Cody and I leave at 4:00 in the morning to return home. We will be home for 2 days and then we will leave to go to Colorado with Hillary and Cali and Gideon. We are going to camp for a few days and I am going to try to rest up for the coming six weeks of summer fun!