The west is the best

4-21-2009 -- 4-22-2009

I waited months for this day to arrive and it finally was here. I was up all night long packing for my trip to Morocco and at 3:45 a.m. I met one of my travel companions, Caitlin. We shared a taxi to Termini where we met our other travel buddy, Romina. We took a bus from Termini to the airport and soon enough we were on our way to Marrakech. We spent one night in Madrid before flying to Morocco. We arrived in Madrid mid day, roamed the streets and ate dinner. The next morning, we hopped on a plane to Marrakech.

We landed in Marrakech at 9:30 a.m. and a taxi service met us at the airport to take us to our hostel. We stayed at The Heart of the Medina Youth Hostel and it was actually in the heart of the medina. A medina is a distinct city section found in may North African cities. Medinas are usually walled cities and often contain palaces, mosques and beautiful fountains where the local people still collect water today. "Medina" usually refers to the old part of the city and some medinas were founded as early as the 9th century, however, today the word medina simply means town in arabic. It is typical to here the locals say "new medina" and "old medina" to distinguish between the the old town and the new town.

After we settled in we were ready to hit the medina in Marrakech and our first stop was lunch. We ate tagine kefta at a charming little restaurant and it was safe to say we were already in love with everything that is Morocco, especially the prices. After lunch we had to organize some of our travel plans. The next morning we were taking a desert tour to Zagora and we needed to find the tour's meeting point and pay for our spot so we wouldn't be dropped. We had no idea where to go, so we asked some locals. The locals were more than helpful and they insisted on escorting us to the desert tour headquarters. I'm sure they were just after the tip. After we settled our tour business and found a map of Marrakech, we were ready to meander the souk. The souk is a market within the medina and it is where you can buy textiles, jewelery, spices, wooden sculptures and other valuable goods. In a souq, the final price of an item is reached by bargaining with the shopkeeper. The locals are master bargainers and you have to be very careful. We caught on quickly we were playing their game in no time.

We also spent a good amount of time in Djemaa el Fna, the main square in Marrakech. The square is full of snake charmers, acrobats, orange juice stalls (you can buy fresh squeezed orange juice for 30 cents). I have never seen anything like this place in my entire life. We sat for henna artists in this square and drank our fill of Moroccan orange juice.

When night falls, this square transforms into a kind of outdoor restaurant. It seems like all of Marrakech gathers at this square to eat dinner and there are dozens of food stalls to choose from. We dropped our things off at the hostel and headed back to Djemaa el Fna for a traditional Moroccan meal. We ate tagine chicken, rice and cous cous followed by Morocco's trademark mint tea (the locals call the tea whisky) and went back to our hotel. We had to wake up early for the desert tour after all.

The Moroccans love Barack Obama and they call him "brother." I had many conversations with Moroccan locals about Obama and American culture. They seem to like Americans very much and I had one conversation in particular at the Djemaa el Fna with a man who said the Americans and the French are the best people because they are happy and aren't afraid of anything. When we were walking away he yelled, "the west is the best," and I can't help but agree.