Morshocko

Marrakech Day 1

What can I say about Marrakech, it was amazing, shocking, chaotic, smelly, beautiful, friendly, and an experience. When we first arrived in Morocco we flew from Paris, France. Rusty and I both were expecting amazing things from Morocco because we had heard so many amazing things. Well we got off of the plane and we were met by a taxi driver to take us to our hotel (riad jddi), he takes us to his car and we drive to Marrakesh.

We zoom through the streets, I must say the drivers of this country are amazing. There is not much order to the streets, so just when you think the driver is going to smash right into oncoming traffic, or run over a person crossing the street, it’s like they have rehearsed the movements already and we all glide by each other calmly and with no effort, with me panicking in the backseat. As we were making our way to our hotel, the streets are filled with vendors, people going from here to there, it was quite the sensory overload. I was amazed at how many people there were bustling about. We turn into this “street” where there are people, donkeys, children and trash covering the street.

The driver, who speaks very little English, and very little French tells us this is our stop, I have to admit, I was a little um, Horrified. We were not anywhere near a touristy area, we were in the slums, or souks. There was a little man standing there and he says “follow me” so we did. He led us through the street, and weaved us ally through ally. At one point rusty looks back at me with a look of concern. I don’t remember much about getting to our Riad because I was amazed and overloaded by our surroundings. So finally we get to our Riad and it is literally in a back alley somewhere in the souks of Marrakesh. He leads us through the door and into the riad.(after 3 flights of stairs). At this point I am confused, hot, and I feel like if anything else happens I might explode, then he shows us our room, and as soon as the little man named Hussni, leaves, I break down and start to cry. This is not what I expected Morocco to be like! Our room was supposed to have air conditioning, and the décor was nothing like it was in the picture, the room was completely different than what was shown in the picture on the their website!! It was basically someone’s house that we were staying at. I was really upset at this point and when Hussni came back I think he could sense that I was upset. He took us to the very top of the house, called the terrace and offered us some mint tea, the view was amazing, this calmed me and we decided to stay in that night because to be honest, were nervous to go out to the crazy streets.

Later Hussni tells us that there was going to be a wedding there that night. I was really excited about this! We got to experience a Moroccan wedding! It was nothing I had seen before. There were so many colors and a lot of dancing with traditional Moroccan music. The wedding started at 9pm, everything starts late here because it is so hot in the day. The bride was first to come into this ornately decorated room. She was wearing a beautiful mint green gown, with her face covered with a green veil. She was shown around the room, and then to the table that I think was the “women of importance” table. Because anyone that greeted them gave them like 5 kisses on the cheek, whereas anyone else go 2 kisses. After the bride was shown around the room, she was sat down on this couch that was the same color as her dress, and was a propped up higher so everyone could see her.

Then her 2 maids started painting henna on her feet and hands. Then the Groom came in and he looked like he was 20 years older than the girl! And he was not interested in the whole ceremony at all. He was texting, and talking on his cell phone! By the way, there is music and dancing going on while the bride is getting henna done and the groom is sitting on the couch with her.

Then the bride is taken and she changes into a white dress. And they are taken around the room again. She then gets into a carriage type thing and is lifted into the air by four men. And they dance around with her in it. At this point it was 12pm and I was really tired and went to bed. I was sad not to be able to see the whole wedding but I was too tired. But it was an amazing experience!

PS. we were not allowed to take pictures of the wedding, we snuck one from the rooftop when they were setting up. -Chelsea