A little bit about Marrakech

I had a great time in Marrakech, but it was slightly disappointing. It is known as the most touristy city in Morocco, and so I was expecting to be pretty busy all the time, seeing all the sights etc, doing lame touristy stuff and feeling good about it.

However, Marrakech's main tourist center was its medina, which was similar to the medina of Fes and Rabat except more stereotypically orientalist (and also slightly crazier). There is a huge square, called Djemaa el Fna where there are all sorts of things like snake charmers, people with monkeys, Berbers selling 'traditional potions' or telling stories. Basically what we associate with the Arab world in the 8th century. 

If you had never been to the Middle East before, it would have been completely astounding I think. I would have been completely content to spend 3 days in that square just seeing everything there was to see and probably would have been gushing about he experience, but unfortunately it was just more medina-y than the medinas of Fes or Rabat, so it wasn't nearly as much of a shock. 

That being said it was still a great trip. Marrakech has a lot of stuff to offer that the medinas of Rabat and Fes don't (like all of the things I listed above) and it was also nice to be out on our own with no rules of when we have to be back (one major complaint people have had with IES is that we are expected to be back by 10PM, which makes it hard to explore the city). We did see some cool sights like some palaces and whatnot. Also the hostel where some members of our group (not me) were staying was really, really cool and was owned by an awesome British guy. So we ended up spending a fair amount of time just hanging out there doing some team bonding.


Also despite sounding unenthusiastic about Djemaa el Fna, it was actually really awesome. Here are some pics: