A night in a Riad and three days in Marrakech

When I left this travel tale, we were spending out last night in Erfoud, after a desert adventure and my first camel ride. Our next big destination was Marrakech, but it's a very long drive, so we spent a night in a riad on the way in village that houses the UNESCO World Heritage site of Ait Benhaddou. It's a ksar, a fortified village that dates to the 11th century. I don't think that the riad was quite that old, but the heating might have been.

But, the problem was that on the bus ride to Ait Benhaddou, I started to feel yucky, like I was getting a cold. Another woman on the bus already had something (I had given her one of my three precious NyQuil doses), and I was the next to fall. We got to the riad and I just went to bed. The room had an electric heater, high on the wall—the ceilings are really high in all these building—and it was on but not turned up very far. I turned it to 32˚C, the top setting, but it still took hours for the room to get toasty. (It was very toasty up near the ceiling, but that was 12 feet away from the bed.) Anyway, I went to bed and slept all night, missing dinner. I got up for breakfast and to pack, since this was one of out two stops that was only a single night. I truly felt crappy, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime visit, so I wasn't going to miss climbing Ait Benhaddou.

Here was where my first good luck came in. There is a group of three couples traveling together. They are Vietnamese in origin, but are US citizens and live in California. They have mostly stayed as a group, but they are very nice and I've spent some time with them. I mentioned to one of the women that I had a cold, and she immediately asked if I had DayQuil. When I explained I had only 2 NyQuil, she had her suitcase taken back out of the undercarriage of the bus and gave me a card with 2 NyQuil and 4 DayQuil doses. What a lifesaver!! (Mui, if you ever read this, you have my eternal gratitude!) I immediately popped a DayQuil and went off to climb Ait Benhaddou (pictured above) with most of our group. (BTW, I'm adding DayQuil/NyQuil to my must-take list for future travel!)

Long story short about my cold: I felt under the weather for 3 days, but now, our last full day in Marrakech, I think I've turned the corner. Our guide Abdul also gave me a medicine that he said works for him. It's got Paracetamol in it, so it's basically a tylenol med. It is a box of packets and you mix a packet with water, giving a vaguely fruity, bright pink solution. I have taken it, but since acetaminophen is also in DayQuil, I'm not taking much of it.

But, back to the tale. We climbed Ait Benhaddou—where some people still live, by the way—then got on the bus for Marrakech. I should have slept, but then I would have missed the scenery, as we climbed a pass to cross the high Atlas Mountains. The road was rebuilt during the French colonization of Morocco (1950s, I think), but it was still a heck of a drive. Our driver is amazing, thankfully. There were spectacular views all the way. I couldn't get too many photos from the bus, but, being Sunday, it was market day in many of the villages we passed through. The tagines were on the grills in front of the restaurants—I'm going to have to do a post just about tagines, in addition to my Cats of Morocco post.

As always, every village or cluster of houses had a mosque with its minaret. There were small flocks of goats being herded on the mountainsides. And, like everywhere in Berber territory, there were dogs hanging out by the road. This is very different from the coastal area and Tangier, where dogs were quite rare. The Berber dogs hang out by the roads (they do have owners) because people stop and give them food. The dogs go where the food is: right by or in the road. They seem pretty savvy about traffic, thankfully.

There are still many more cats than dogs here, even in the Berber area. Most of them seem healthy and well fed. As I said earlier, a cat post is coming.

Late in the afternoon we came out of the mountains and into Marrakech (which can be spelled either Marrakech or Marrakesh), which is located on a plain between the middle and high Atlas Mountains. The hotel is luxurious. I've been surprised by the hotel quality on this trip. This one is a five-star and according to Abdul, is the top hotel in the city. It's called the Mövenpick. BTW, if you check out the website, check out the daily chocolate hour! Oh, here is one picture, one of the chandeliers.

I got room service (lemon tagine! Yum!) then crashed. The next morning we met up for a tour of the city, including the souk. The souk is enormous! There's central square too, and it was all too vivid! And, yes, that's a cobra in the last picture. I had a snake placed around my neck briefly, until I explained that I really didn't need a snake in that location. But I did hold it. It was a very nice water snake, unlike the cobras and vipers.

After the souk, I rested for a couple of hours. When I signed up for this trip, I did not sign up for last night's excursion, a cooking class followed by a carriage ride. Incidentally, the horse-drawn carriages here—and there are many—are licensed and are just like cabs for excursion purposes. Anyway, I hadn't signed up originally, but I decided what the heck. And there's $77 I'll never see again. It was okay, I guess. The location was lovely, but I can follow a recipe (which they gave us) without instruction. But we got to eat the product (chicken tagine) and the carriage ride around the city and back to the hotel was nice.

The next morning we climbed on the bus for a trip to the Ourika Valley. I had really been looking forward to this, as I hoped to see new birds around the water. (And I did, including a black-shouldered kite!) The first stop wasn a village where the group visited a small private home. I did not participate in this. I know that it is mutually beneficial for the host family ($$) and for the tourist (information about what a home is like), but it's not my thing. I wandered around the village instead.

We lunched at a botanical garden that had lovely herb beds. (This is where I saw the kite overhead.) They served fresh lemonade made from lemons picked from the trees in the garden. I captured a beautiful rose.

Then it was back to the hotel in the city. I dropped my backpack and everything else off and joined 3 other people for a return visit to the souk. I didn't take anything other than my phone, so I didn't have to worry about anything getting grabbed. The cab ride was an adventure. Those drivers have nerves of steel, and the cabs are remarkably dent-free, when you consider the traffic. I shot a short video of a traffic circle, but the reality is much more harrowing.

After wandering the souk, we took a cab back to the hotel. I took advantage of the chocolate bar and ruined my appetite for dinner. Then it was back to the room to pack. We have to put our luggage in the hall an hour before departure. The porters pick it up and take it to beside the bus. Before you board the bus, you point to your bag and they place it on the bus. That way you are sure that your bag is there!

And now it's on to the beach town of Agadir.