Chefchaouen: The Blue City

Of course our bus broke down.

Nick with our new Canadian friends.

Cats for Alison.

Marrakech: The Non-Food Photos

My Second Blog

That's right, I've started another one.  This one follows my artistic projects.  Check it out.

http://k-brookedesign.blogspot.com/

Things I've learned in Morocco

I had a nice little chat with the man who works at our hotel. He gave me some general advice for surviving in Morocco: like always counter offer half (which I always do), he also told me that tourists always pay more than moroccans, and that I did get a decent price for the leather bags and that they are very good quality. He also told me a little bit about how the system works here, for example, the taxi cab drivers do not own their car, there is a big boss who owns the car and everyday that boss might tell the driver "you need to bring 200 dh to me" and if that driver only makes 200 dh that day he doesn't bring home any money for himself. But if he over charges tourists and makes 400 dh then he gets to take home 200 dh. And you will notice that anytime you haggle in the market, the sales person is always calculating (or recalculating) a price which has to do with their profit. Not a very good way to make a living and tourists always feel like they are being swindled. In my opinion, they need a new business model. 

Dinner in Merrekech: I Eat Brains

I did try the brains.

Dinner in Merrekech

In Marrakech they have the biggest outdoor food market/barbeque in the world. It's probably one of my favorite things about Morocco so far. All of the food tents have prices already listed, so you don't have to haggle, the prices are incredibly cheap, and for the most part, you eat along side the Moroccans of all stature.

I say for the most part you eat along side the moroccans because it depends on the tent you choose. Last night Nick and I choose a tent that had fish, lots of moroccans, decent prices and no barker. We sat down next to a very nice Moroccan man, who explained the system to us. The big tents with a large variety of food, barkers, and higher prices are tourist traps. Also let me explain barker: they are men who stand outside of the tent with a menu in hand trying to get you to sit at their table so that they can get a small commission. They say things like "just look, just look" "okay, well come eat here later, you promise?" "you so skinny, you look like Starvin' Marvin, come eat, come eat" "o, I remember you, you remember me" "1-1-7 next to heaven" "see you later aligator". The 117 refers to the tent number, because all of the tents are numbered and they throw out silly saying to try to get you to remember their number and return for dinner.

Right, so back to the story: the man explained the food tent system to us-most europeans see other Europeans sitting down and eating, so they choose to sit down there as well. It's the tables with the Arabic people that have the best food and prices. These tables also don't have a barker. The tables with the soup are the cheapest so they don't have a barker and it's there where you will eat with the poorer moroccans because they can fill up easily and cheaply on bread and lentils. The food tent where we met this man is a little more expensive (though still pretty cheap for tourists) where they had fried delicious fish for 12 Moroccan dollars (divided by about 7 gives you the cost in American dollars) so less than $2, we had two different types of fish 12 dh each, a fresh salsa 3 dh, an eggplant mix for bread 5 dh, two things of bread for a dh each, and a drink for 5 dh. Total 38 dh or $5.42 dinner for 2. Although I must also note that we had lentils and bread before diner along with a freshed squeezed orange and grapefruit juice. The juice was 5 dh each, the lentils which tasted remarkably like steak and shake chili, 6 dh each and we had 3 bowls, along with 2 cups of tea 1 dh each. So that adds another 30 dh or $4. All in all super cheap and incredibly delicious.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Moroccan kids

Even the kids are swindlers here. If they catch you walking alone they immediately tell you the road is closed and try to guide you or follow you and eventually ask for money. Last night, Christmas, a little girl tried selling me Kleenex which isn't too strange here but after I said "no thanks" she noticed that I was eating dried apricots and immediately thrusted her hand out at me. At first I was a little disturbed and put off by her behavior, but then, why not give the little girl a dried apricot. So I did.

They learn young, the moroccans.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone