Abdou's wild ride

Abdou as it turned out is a bit of a slick character, but he knew where to go and what to say. In the end it was for the best we found him since we got to see nearly everything we'd wanted to get to in two days in one. He had been a cab driver in Orlando so his english was good too. Our first stop was a decent restaurant. The food was fine but the pineapple cheesecake tower I had for dessert was better.

Just down the street was a pizza hut, a McDonald's, and a huge shopping area towered over by a "Zara" boutique.

While driving around Abdou answered my question about the holes in the walls around the Medina. He said they were to allow for shifting and expansion at night.

Abdou dropped us off at a large warehouse which the manager explained was for a government sponsored society that gave women money for their rugs (new or old). I wasn't totally sure if I bought the guy's story. He and a few workers cornered us and worked us over pretty well. We bought two very small rugs and got out while we still could.

Some of the old walls of the Medina jut out in various places in the kasbahs and have become roosts for storks.

After escaping the rug monsters we went to an old royal tomb, or rather series of tombs. When Marrakech was taken over way back in the day the invading emperor couldn't bring himself to destroy the tombs as he had originally intended. He compromised and had it walled off and forgotten. This plan worked until semi-recent history when the tombs were discovered and restored. You could see why the tombs weren't destroyed, the series of qubbas and prayer niches was beautiful yet very simple. That fine balance was what made them so fantastic and powerful.

After a brief stop at the old sultan's palace (a new one was built in 1960), which was just as fantastic as all the rest, and an herbalist's (tried to sell us meds, perfume, and starfruit as a viagara substitute) we parted with Abdou a fair bit poorer and made our way back through the market to rest for a bit.