Travel Day – Morocco to Tanzania: Week 2 / Day 11 / Jan 21
Marrakech, Morocco: Today is a getaway day to head off to Tanzania. Our flight is reasonably late in the day (7:10 PM), but we were told to be at the airport about 3 hrs before our flight. After breakfast at our riad, we headed out to explore the souks once again and see what was offered for sale.
Where the chaos of the souks was overwhelming on the first day, we found that today we did not really notice the hustle and just casually looked at the shops. The maze of shops can still be quite confusing though. Taking pictures in the souks is difficult as the shopkeepers do not want you to. The souks are “organized” into sections with leather in one area, fabrics in another, and metal goods elsewhere. In many of the small shops the workers are actively tanning hides, crafting leather goods, dying wool, and shaping metal lamp shades.
Linda stopped in at one of the souks to buy some scarves and, of course, had to haggle on price. We had discovered elsewhere what one could pay for a pashmina scarf, so she used that as her basis. After finding two scarves she liked the game began. He wanted 800 dirham while she offered 100 dirham – yes, a laughably large gulf. He eventually dropped to 150 dirham. As she knew she could get them elsewhere, we walked away, but he eventually chased us down around two corners and about 10 shops and agreed to 100 dirham. I am sure that they could have been gotten cheaper yet, but that seemed fair given what we had seen elsewhere.
Before heading to the airport, we stopped in at Le Jardin Secret. An ancient garden that had been restored over the last fifteen or so years, it provided a pleasant area to relax. Only after looking at my pictures did I realize that I took no pictures that show the gardens themselves. Instead, there were just a lot of closeups of flowers. Yep, I have a problem.
OK, I took a few pictures that were not flowers.
With that, we head off to the airport for our overnight flight to Doha. From there on to Tanzania.
I am so enjoying your travelog. What an adventure and we get to hop a ride with you. 🙂 Thank you!!!
Thanks Lisa! We are having a ton of fun so far. The only issue to date has been lack of WiFi access in the desert and the bush in Tanzania. I’ve gotta get caught up on my reports!