Marrakech - by night

[motetus]

The last batch!

At the heart of the medina is the Djemma El Fna, the main square and marketplace. During the day the square doesn't look busy or impressive at all, just orange juice stalls and people trying to earn money by posing for tourist photos - water sellers in their traditional red costumes, snake charmers and men dragging about chained Barbary apes (who got a very curt response from me when they tried to get me to pose with them). I hate being pestered for money (and I never seemed to have any coins on me), so I didn't try to take photos of any of them. At night though, the place really starts to get lively. Food stalls are set up and the square gets filled up with storytellers, beggers, henna artists, dancers and musicians. Who also harass you for money if you look at them, let alone take photos.

The square filling up at sunset.



At night.





Setting up the food stalls. I miss my ultra-wide lens for shots like these. :(



We ate at the stalls every night, and I only got sick two times out of five (thank goodness for immodium). The stall waiters will try anything to get you to eat at theirs, and once they realise you're English they start shouting out cringeworthy phrases like "lovely jubbly!" and "it's bloody good food" in an attempt at a posh accent. Maybe some tourists find it charming - I thought it was kind of embarassing.

Among the dishes you could choose from were snail stews and whole roasted sheep heads. I was a coward and stuck to tagines and couscous.



No, I didn't try this either.



The orange juice stalls. The juice was actually really nice.



Part of the souk.



I'm rather regretting not bringing home one of the larger lamps. Damn you Easyjet and your extortionate checked luggage prices. Actually, I was a rubbish tourist and didn't buy anything at all, because a) I hate having to haggle, and b) the smaller items were rather cheaply made and tacky looking. When I have a house of my own to decorate I'm going back for a lamp.



And finally - my kind of shop! No, I didn't buy anything here, though I was tempted to dig through and see if there were any old film cameras in working condition. The layer of dust over everything made me suspect that it was more for display though.



Uh, so when I said my massive photospam was almost over, I neglected to mention that I took the camera along to the Lake District this weekend, and we actually had really nice weather (though I don't have a huge amount of photos, because some people were more interested in beer than long walks). You'll have a short breather of a few days while I attempt to master Photoshop's HDR function and try to produce photos that don't look as if I do my post-processing while taking LSD.

Comments

Hear a lot of French there?

[pronker]

Did you ever need to/want to wear Moroccan garb over there, or bring back any abayahs, etc.? And those lamps, you could do a whole room around one ...

Re: Hear a lot of French there?

[motetus.livejournal.com]

Yep, French is the language to use over there if your Arabic is worse. Luckily the boy speaks passable tourist French, because my two years of studying the language left me with a vocabulary that can be counted on one hand.

I was a little tempted by the jellabas, especially the ones that make you look like Ben Kenobi. Wasn't tempted by the women's outfits (though maybe if I'd worn the headscarf and veil I might have had fewer people trying to sell me stuff), as it's not exactly hard to find that type of clothing in the area of England I live in!

Re: Hear a lot of French there?

[pronker]

It was very interesting to see the photos of the souk, because the fairly free dress of the women tourists showed such a differing portrait of a society than my friend's photos from Saudi. She and her family lived there for about 2 years and despite being promise they could live in the American/foreign enclave, they wound up in an apartment in the public sector, necessitating her use of the Arabic covering.

Re: Hear a lot of French there?

[motetus.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Saudi Arabia is rather extreme about those things - I don't think I could ever live there. You might get stared at more in Morocco if you wear skimpy clothing, but you wouldn't get in trouble for it.

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

The lamps are lovely. I know I had a hard time not buying one when I was in Istanbul.

[motetus.livejournal.com]

I know, they're tempting, aren't they? When I have a place of my own (and one with higher ceilings) I need to go back to Istanbul with a girlfriend who'll encourage me to buy plenty of stuff.

[shakesmears.livejournal.com]

Lovely atmospheric shots :o)

[motetus.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

[inyadreems.livejournal.com]

I like to see shops, of any description. It looks like a lot of fun there. I hate when they badger you, though. I mean, they'd sell more if they just shut up and let you browse.

[motetus.livejournal.com]

Yep, I hate being bothered while shopping. I would have liked to buy a bit of silver jewellery but I didn't have the energy to deal with the shopkeepers.