Morocco prt 1

Yes yes and hi hi,
Yes yes I have been neglecting my blog for no reason really, except for the last 7 weeks.
Hi hi, I'm back. The last couple weeks I've been back home (Amsterdam), I visited Yann in Verchaix (France) and helped Yann in Imminwargh (Morrocco). So I intend to keep my blog up to date more regularly. Starting with some Morrocco stories in random order and this is part one.

Marokko or Morocco, a country I know because I lived in the Netherlands my entire life. Within the Netherlands there are many different cultures and the people from Morocco are one of them. Famous because of Ali B, Raymzter and YesR, dutch rappers with multiple hits! This is all I knew about Morocco besides the stereotype vision of a dessert with camel cruising and couscous eating people.
But now I've seen the real deal or dessert...? Rafting and trekking were the main events of the trip. The playground for these venues were the Atlas mountains and the Ahansel river, the home of the Amazighs better known as the Berbers. Imminwargh, untouched, no tarmac roads and not crowded with tourists except for us...
For about three weeks Yann (the Raft Boss), James (James), Fabiano (Sure, no problem) and me (dooley) cruised around the mountains and down the rivers with other tourists and acted like we knew. I knew I didn't but here I was, bonjour Morocco!!!

View from the rooftop at the hostel in the medina of Marakesh!

Day 1 started in the big city Marrakesh and was very interesting, we stayed in the centre of the Medina of Marrakesh. The medina is the oldest part of the city and surrounded by walls, probably to keep the tourists in.

Local chilling against wall, outside the medina

Before entering the medina we passed the new part which had allot of similarities to any other modern big city with big yellow M's, horrible popular coffee places and big fashion stores. The day in the medina was quick, fast, hasty and short but enough to experience the "old" Marrakesh vibe. Of course the whole thing was touristic, crowded and the locals wanna make money by selling crap in a very direct way. Driving skills in Marrakesh equals honking skills but this is alright because it's a way of communicating...in other words, fuck traffic rules! Within the walls the medina is a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys therefore the main transportation is with donkeys, mules, scooters, bikes and your feet. There are cars, it's not a car free environment but it keeps you on your toes and they will communicate with their horn.

Besides cars they move around the medina with at least 0.5 HorsePower!!!

One of the smelly touristic attractions within the walls were the leather tanneries, beh, the smell!!!

This picture cost me 10 bucks

In the end they want you to see the final process which was a shop where they sold leather bags, cushions and crap!!! A real must smell.
Yann showed me some nice little food shops and the best smoothie guy ever! I loved the narrow alleys in the medina and the locals cruising through it with their donkeys, oh and the sneaker shops with all the fake sneakers, wow unbelievable how fake it was, really??!!!