Marrakesh – September 23rd 2017
Our last full day in Morocco was finally here. We stayed around the hotel in the morning and afternoon to get a good swim in for the kids. Our plan was to head back to Jemaa el-Fna square at night as we heard the square really comes alive then.
As we headed back to our room from the pool a staff member from reception came to us and told us that our driver was demanding his money for the rides. You know when that switch goes off in your head and it’s harder to be nice, well that happened. I was livid that he was trying to track us down after he told us no worries until later, ugh. We explained we would deal with him and she backed off.
We ended up calling the driver to come pick us up later that night to take us to the square. We needed a ride and we needed to pay him, win/win or lose/lose, however you look at it 🙂 Pretty sure he knew we were done with him by then and he was polite but done with us. Not happy to open doors and wish us well.
We first went to a big department type store in the Medina, called Bouchaib. This store offered many of the same items you find around in other shops (plus wayyy more) and there was no haggling involved. It was set prices. I was excited to find a couple smaller Moroccan wool carpets. They were so beautiful and you’ll remember I fell in love with the $2500USD one days earlier. The carpets were wrapped for us and on to the square we went.
The square was getting busy now that it was dark. More vendors were out and food tents had popped up everywhere. Each restaurant had it’s own number although the menu looked pretty much the same. The workers were very persistent and realllly wanted you to eat at their place which after the 10th person trying to pull you to their stall it was time for a breather. We found a juice stall and tried some fresh juices and saw the stalls and Mark found Beats headphones. Real ones for sure 😉
We chose dinner at a busy restaurant off the square. We were lucky and got to eat up on the 4th floor terrace. The price for the awesome view of the square was a grumpy waiter, 5 of us squished around a two-top table and cats everywhere. But the food…ahh. I still miss the delicious Moroccan food, yum!
Soon it was night and time to go, we found a cab who of course tried to rip us off and got out the car soon after he pulled away from the curb. Our fault really, as we didn’t negotiate a price until he pulled away but when he fully tried to take us to the cleaners we were out, literally.
We soon found another cab who agreed to a price, higher than we wanted or thought we should pay, but by then we really, really, really just wanted to get back to the hotel.
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