Marakech en la noche

It was time to venture out for the evening. We were told the food stalls were a sight to see. Food stalls?? I didn't even know what that meant and had no idea what to expect. We headed out walking through the medina and decided to look for a place to have a drink that B read about on wikitravel. The place was ubbbberrr fancy. Definitely the nicest place we had seen. There was only one couple in the huge restaurant when we arrived. The ambience was nice so we decided to stay for a drink. Drinks were stupid expensive and the guy took about 30 minutes to bring us one drink so we had one and went on our merry way. Guess he was pretty busy with the one other table in the place :) 

We got to the square and saw tons of people all over the place and guys holding menus and grabbing us and shouting out a slogan with a number like "Stay Alive with number 25!" and "Number 7 straight to heaven!" and pulling us all over the place trying to get us to eat at their food stall. The more they grabbed us, the less interested we became. I was losing my appetite by the minute. Finally one guy got our attention so we sat down and ate a couple bites of some chicken and lamb. We were craving lamb so bad, but this wasn't cutting it. It was about $2 so we ate the couple bites and moved on. We came to number 13... No one yelling. No one hassling us. Just a handsome middle eastern guy with piercing eyes standing there cooking his LAMB! There was picnic table style seating around Hussain's food stall and one bench right in front of him. We sat down right there and asked for a plate of lamb... It was the most amazing lamb, perfectly seasoned, melting in my mouth, I've ever had. We were in heaven and this wasnt stall number 7. Whoever said #13 was unlucky was so wrong. We savored every bite of that plate of lamb and shared one more. Cloud. Nine.

Once we finished we said our goodbyes and started exploring around the square checking out all the circles of people and all the activities. First we saw a circle of people using fishing pole type sticks with strings attached to them and a ring on the end. They were trying to lay the ring down on the tops of coke and fanta bottles. It didnt look THAT hard. B paid about 20 cents to enter and try to no avail. 

The next circle of people we came to were a bit more lively. They were cheering and shouting and tossing coins in the center of the circle. When we made our way up to the front we could see 2 boys, about 11 years old, wearing boxing gloves. Prize Fighters... Oh dear... We looked at each other in shock, but kind of chuckled. wow. only in morocco? They couldnt start the fight until the man running the operartion collected enough money. They were taking bets on which boy would win. Finally the fight began. The guy that was leading the Prize fighting was bouncing around in the middle of the circle, slapping the boys around, getting them jacked up. He was a scrappy lil moroccan guy. I was scared of the him. Poor kids... gettin tossed around by him while also trying to box each other. My brother took out his iPhone to take a picture and the scrappy moroccan came over and started motioning for B to pay him for the photos he was attempting to take. My brother refused. This went on for a few minutes. Scrappy STOPPED the fight saying he would not continue until my bro paid him. My brother instead said... "Why dont we box?" 

oh god...

The guy agrees... they finish the kids fight and then the men get the larger size gloves.

oh god...

this guy is little but s . c . r . a . p . p . y .

im worried. my brother has the gloves on and and hes bouncing around stretching while another guys comes to collect money from the crowd for the boxing to begin. he also makes the crowd back up... 

back, back, back... in a thick arabic accent... motioning for everyone to give them some room.

B looks at me and we are laughing and hes motioning that hes gonna get knocked out.

we're both worried.

this little guy might just put on a show and lay my brother out right here in the square.

Where are you from?

California! 

GWOW! CALL -EEE -FOR -NEE -YAAAA!!! 

The moroccans start cheering over and over. yelling CALIFORNIA!!!! !

after about 10 minutes of asking for more money, B is about to throw in the towel. Hes over it. and probably scared from the anticipation building up! ;) 

He takes off the gloves and starts to throw them on the ground. The referee stops him! no no no. its okay! Lets begin!

Talk about prize fighter...

Barrett puts the gloves back on and the fight begins. They are bouncing around and b is pushing scrappy all around the "ring" of people. The ref is pulling them apart, while also laughing and trying to get b off the prize fighting champion. hes not doing as well as we imagined.

after a few minutes of boxing its very apparent who the winner is... the ref pulls them apart and is holding their wrists in his hands asking the crowd who they think the winner is. people are cheering and yelling in arabic and he is smirking. after a minute or so of building up the anticipation, the ref announces... WINNER!!! and raises my brothers arm. B starts laughing and goes in for a hug... 

But what better way to show you than pictures??

Marrakech Prize Fighter