Marrakech By Day

I got to the train station in casablanca with 10 minutes to spare before the train was supposed to depart. plenty of time right? wronggg. it was a straight zoo with a line wrapped out the door to buy tickets at the window, but there were also two machines you could buy tickets from. of course you need to know french or arabic to read the dang machines sooooo.... it was finally my turn and i was trying to guess what the touch screen was asking me. then i swear this sweet lady behind me had to be the only person in a 20 mile radius that spoke english at all. let alone so well! she was an angel! the machine wouldnt accept international credit cards and wasnt accepting cash at the time so she bought the ticket on her debit card and i gave her dirhams. then she told me where i needed to go and to RUN! by this time the train should have left 5 minutes ago. its quite a struggle between being a light packer and having just your pack when youre a photographer. blaaaa. so here i am with my 65L pack on my back and my thinktank rolling camera bag and my carry on trying to run down tons of stairs only to run back up another set to get to the right train to take me to marrakech. i remembered reading about sitting first class on the trains being the way to go with air conditioning and your own reserved seat so thats just what i did and it was great. 

marrakech was a bit more than i wanted to handle... I got to the train station in marrakech and assumed I could tell them the name of my hostel and they would know exactly where to take me... wrong again. after buying a pistachio milkshake so i could access some internet, i called on skype to the guy at the hostel who originally told me there would be free transportation from the train station. when i called he said i needed to take a taxi for 30 dirham to bob luxor and to call when i arrive and someone will pick me up from there. okay. we arrive at bob luxor and the cabby tells me he doesnt have a cell phone and leaves me on the corner. fine. i cross the street with all my crap to use a payphone. i have no idea what coins to use to make a call. i give a guy the number and hold out some coins in my hand and ask him to call for me. he says ohhhh Riad Layla Rouge???? I work there... I will take you. its just minutes down the road...  Umm. nope. no thanks bro. after telling him multiple times that i want him to call the place he finally calls, they start speaking arabic and laughing and he looks at me and says "He told me to take you!" and gives me the phone for the guy to tell me, yes, that man you are with. he will bring you. okay fine. take me. he offers to carry my luggage. nope. im good. just show me where to go. after a few minutes of walking he finally convinces me to hand over my pack to lighten my load. when we arrived at the hostel they were warm and friendly, offered me mint tea and a comfy couch while I wait to get checked in. then the guy who escorted me down an ally to the hostel demanded 40 dirham. thieves.

the next day my brother arrived and i was thrilled to have him. i could tell from the previous days in morocco, this wasnt a country i wanted to venture around on my own. we wandered around, had some lunch, and started exploring the medina. after a bit a guy came up saying hey where are you from? AMERICA! WOW! Ya california! California knows how to party! In a thick arabic accent... Then he says hey my friend works at the tannery... He can show you where it is! and the other guy pops in and starts walking in front of us... "Guiding us" to the tannery. Brother and I both say, We are fine! Thanks! We are just taking a walk. he says "No its okay, I work there, I dont want money, Just want to Well for about 15 minutes there is no other way to turn and this guy is still just walking in front of us... then turns to us and says Here we are... The Tannery!

oh um... cool bro... but no thanks. we are gonna head this way.

No here is the tannery.... ya. awesome

No thanks bro. We don’t want to go to the stinkin tannery (literally). B heard that its cool, but you don’t want to go in the heat of the day because of the smell. Yikes. We’ll pass. But thanks for “showing us the way”. Byeeeee. He got super hostile and up in my brothers face asking for money then proceeded to say “don’t touch me!’ pointing his finger at my brothers chest maybe half an inch away from touching him.

“You don’t touch me!”

“Lez go. Lez go lez go.” Insinuating that he wants to fight. And now touching his chest this time…

Ummm no. I’m not having this. And having 50 Moroccans on the street turn on us. I stood between this angry thief jerk and my brother. All 5’2 of me, standing in between my brother standing at 6’1 and this Moroccan guy who was probably 5’10. Hey umm… guys!!! Guys! Talking up at the Moroccan with my back to my brother like I was protecting him… Stop!! I raised my voice.

All the while thinking, “Bet you wont hit a broad!!!!” ((But seriously please don’t cause that totally ruins the whole girl standing in the middle to break up the fight thing)) I’m trying to be a hero. Don’t screw this up for me.

My brother, being the sensible one (Strange, I know!) says cmon! And leads me in the direction we came from. We want out of this situation. We start turning around and homeboy is not having it. He is still antagonizing my brother

“LEZ GO. LEZ GO!!!” while standing close and following us back in the other direction. He goes and finds a friend to follow us.

Greeeeeattttt. Brothers been in Morocco for 3 hours and I’m sure hes wondering why the hell he joined me, already. Herumph… We start walking with a little bit more pep in our step and after a few minutes our dear pal finds a new set of tourists to harass, but before he starts “guiding them” to the tannery he turns and shouts “F*** you Uh-mare-ee-can!”

Such lovely people, aren’t they? We laugh it off and continue exploring the Medina, but with a guard up this time.

Bath time…. All bets were off. There was no walls we could put up in the Hamam. We were vulnerable. But with risk comes reward!

A couple different people had told us separately about the “baths”… we were intrigued and decided to ask the guy at the hostel if he would help us find it and make sure we don’t get taken for a ride… He was glad to take us to the Hamam (Ha-mum)…  He told us to leave EVVVVERRRYYYTHING in our room so we would not get anything stolen while at the Hamam. He asked multiple times… “You left EVVERRRYYTHING in your room, right???” Now we were worried. We couldn’t stop laughing, but nervous laughter that it wasn’t the people at the Hamam that were going to rob us, but the guy at the hostel. After all it was his dinky lock on the door. The door to the room with our passports, money, computers, phones, MY CAMERA, all my lenses, everything we have while traveling was in that room.

I went back to the room and added another padlock I had for lockers at the hostels. I’m smarter than the average bear. B gave me fist pound when I told him what I had done, but we still couldn’t help but laugh about it the whole way there when he asked us yet again, “Now you left EVERYYYYTHINGGGG in your room right???” I couldn’t contain my laughter.

We didn’t know much of what we were getting ourselves into, so our faces when we walked in vs our faces when we walked out were a bit different, to say the least. A girl at the hostel told me “you’ve never been this clean in your whole life” and B said he heard you get down to your knickers and someone scrubs you “squeaky clean.” Both comments couldn’t have been more right. Girls to the girls side. Boys to the boys side. We nervously waved goodbye and went our separate ways. I walked down 2 stairs into a room that felt like an large empty locker room with tile floors, walls, and ceilings. The woman didn’t speak any English at all. She motioned for me to take my clothes off and then she did the same. There were other women just laying along a tile covered bench. One side had wood planks like in a sauna. There was a woman sitting in her towel relaxing. She was wearing gellies for shower shoes. I was standing in my bra and underwear when I looked up and realized I stood out more than all the naked women. I took my bra off and added it to my pile of clothing. Standing there crossing my arms across my chest, so embarrassed… My girl came over to me and took all my clothes except my cheeky underwear that i was not about to remove. I was uncomfortable enough as it was. Don’t they teach you guys that these are your privates???? Its supposed to PRIVATE!!! WHAT AM I DOING HERE…. She had 3 giant buckets in one hand and grabbed my wrist with her other hand to lead me into the scrub area. It was so muggy and steamy in the room. There were girls my age and old woman of all shapes and sizes in there sitting on the ground using water from their buckets to bathe. Some were bathing themselves and some were being scrubbed down by a professional. And believe me when I say… they are professionals! My pro scrubber pointed for me to sit. I sat on the hard cold tile cross legged covering my chest while she filled the three buckets full of scalding hot water. She lost about half the water in each of the buckets sloshing it everywhere while dragging them to our station. She started cleaning my arms, legs, and entire body with unscented soap. It was awkward. I didn’t know where to look. She was short with a large set of knockers that were flopping around. Should I close my eyes? Should I look ahead? Am I being rude? We cant communicate and even if we could… What would we say? Would we be having small talk while she cleans ever crevice of my bod? She massaged my scalp while shampooing my hair for what seemed like an eternity. It was heavenly. I was finally relaxing a bit when she dumped one of the buckets that had become luke warm on my head to rinse. She had to refill the buckets again before she began the real work. She motioned for me to roll over and lay down on my stomach on the tile floor. THE SCRUB. It felt like a rough mix of sandpaper and that silver stuff you use to clean pots and pans. She wasn’t holding back at all. She put more elbow grease in cleaning the dead skin off EVERY INCH of my body than I ever have cleaning a casserole dish after Thanksgiving dinner. Owe. Owe. Owe. Ohhhhh Dear…. There?!?! Owe. WHOAAA. She was stretching me in yoga poses I sadly hadn’t done in a couple weeks. And there was no regard for the underwear that I chose to keep on. Those weren’t about to keep her from cleaning my tush. She had a job to do. And By God, She was gonna do it to the best of her ability. Time stood still in the Hamam. It may have 2 hours or maybe 30 minutes. There’s no way of knowing. But what I do know is I was, albeit, somewhat shocked at the events of the afternoon, I WAS CLEAN! Squeaky clean, to be exact. We walked out and looked at each other and just started laughing. We had both experienced something that we will never forget. My brother was already thinking through how he could have someone in LA give him a traditional Hamam scrub every morning. (Preferably a female from here on out.) My ribs and chest bones were bruised and sore for a couple days from the depth of her scrubbing and pushing me into the tile floor. And to think we pay for this! Yet somehow, I am left with fond memories of the Hamam.