Snakes!!!!!! (Becky)

Hot hot hot! That’s the best way to describe this day. We tried to find a travel agency that would book a flight back to Europe (we found a very cheap one online, but the system messed up processing the card, so we decided to go the travel agency route instead). But, of course, it was a Sunday, which apparently means that things will shut down even though it’s not a holiday here. So no flight yet. But it did give us an opportunity to explore the touristy district on the west side of Marrakesh, outside the city walls. It has wider streets, prices quoted in euros, and no real indication that it isn’t just a town in southern Spain. We did manage to find our first supermarket in Morocco, and went wild with the cheap (and haggle-free!!) prices, buying several bottles of water and a bunch of packs of wafer cookies for less than the equivalent of 3.50 euros.

We then headed back towards to city, in search of a park where we could get out of the hot sun, stop sweating for a few minutes, and relax. We tried one called Majorem Gardens, but the 3 euro admission fee was a bit steep. The next park on our map was closed off, and the next had no shade. Finally, we found the “Cyber Park,” which was really cool. Full of shady trees, a fountain, and benches. Plus, it had a bunch of free Internet kiosks throughout the park, where neighborhood kids came to play games, read, and do whatever else kids do on free computers. We sat there for several hours, doing crosswords and protecting our recently purchased cookies from scores of demanding multilingual kids.

That evening, we headed back to the central square and the market area. The square was filled with performers, henna artists, food shops, games, and pretty much anything else you could imagine. We took a few pictures, but then were accosted by a man who claimed that we took a picture of his cobras and demanded money. We didn’t have much with us, but gave our last 10 dirhar coin to him to avoid conflict. But he wasn’t done. He brought Jeremy in for a nice and close picture of the cobras, then draped another snake around his neck before he could protest. They said “picture snake! Picture snake!” and didn’t remove the snake, so I finally took a picture of Jeremy looking pretty awesome with his snake friend. And, of course, they demanded more money, which we didn’t have, so we had to flee quickly into the crowd.

We later went into the market and successfully haggled for the first time to get a change purse for half the price we were offered. This was followed by the cheapest, most watery ice cream we’d ever purchased and a couple of glasses of fresh orange juice before heading to bed early to prepare for our early desert trip the next morning.