Thursday 25 December 2014

Christmas in Morocco

It's Christmas!

We woke up at our normal time this morning to be greeted with beautiful sunshine and warmer air than the last few days.

We took our presents up to the rooftop where we eagerly opened then all. I got lots of games :-)

After breakfast we made our way confidently through the souks, not getting lost once!

On our way through with noticed an interesting looking house that we were invited into. Inside we were greeted with line upon line of beautiful antiquities, all in rows. The house didn't seem to end and just went on and on. Our guide in the house explained that the treasures were being housed in an old and rather large Riad which even had a Roman bath!

The further you went in the deeper we seemed to go. There were no external references inside and the air was quite chilly, with the main room being below street level. The ceilings and door ways of the main rooms were all intricately decorated with carvings and beautiful colour paints.

One of the main things in the 'shop' (gallery) was lots of large old, beautiful wooden doors (they are frequently made into coffee tables). When we ask we were told these were from derelict Berber villages in the Sahara. Later in the afternoon we saw a small truck packed full of old doors and we wondered how long it would be until all these lovely old doors had been collected and sold.

After working our way through the old Riad we were whisked off to a carpet shop where we took no nonsense as I wasn't feeling to well :-(

I decided lunch should make me feel better and we ended up in the same place we did the first day, with Fluffy :-)

Feeling much better having eaten lunch, we continued our wander through the souks. We noticed that most of the goods being sold in the souks are seconds with the more up market shops selling the proper stuff, at significantly higher prices.

Eventually we ended up back in the main square with the locals displaying their snakes (pythons and cobras), monkeys and hedgehogs! There was even a party bus blaring out music into the square with everyone walking by ignoring it!

After having drinks in the square we headed back to the Riad for an afternoon nap as Stu was feeling ill. I, on the other hand was now feeling much better!).

We had dinner in our now favourite restaurant Cafe Arabe. Unfortunately next to us were sitting 4 chain smokers. It's strange to see people smoking inside and this was the first time we have had the misfortune of having to sit next to them. Although the smoke smell is unpleasant is not quite as bad as the cigarette smoke in the UK as it has a more fragrant smell.

Fortunately the chain smokers were only there for drinks and soon left allowing us to enjoy our dinner (no turkey in sight!) to the background of the call to prayer. It gradually grows in both intensity and volume and to ensure you can hear it fully they turn the music off in the restaurant.

On our way back to our Riad we saw our one and only real Christmas tree in the foyer of one of the larger, more colonial appearing Riads. It was a lonely looking tree that was definately feeling sorry for itself. Awww.

Happy Christmas everyone :-)

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