Day 28 - Farewell to new friends and Karima's cooking class

Farewell Charles and Georgie

Shopping for food at the market

Targines

The yummy chicken, olive and preserved lemon tagine we made at the cooking school

Jsrdin Marjorelle

Jardin Marjorelle

Dusk in Marrakesh

The 6 of us caught up with our tour leader for breakfast and we said goodbye to one couple who are not going on the southern section of the tour.  We will miss them as they were a lot of fun.  We went out for café nous nous (half coffee and half milk) and pasteries.

Four of us booked in for a cooking class.  Karima, our guide, came to collect us…she is a chef in a restaurant.  She took us to the market in the old part of town to buy the meat (chicken – they are alive and in cages in the back of a shop, then they are killed, plucked and cut up, and laid out for sale whilst still steaming) and the vegetables for a tagine and salad.

The cooking class was in a beautifully restored riad. It was a really relaxing atmosphere to cook in and learn more about Moroccan culture.  The class went for about 4 hours – we cooked our lunch, drank mint tea and finished with slices of sweet oranges sprinkled with cinnamon and a little sugar – “zween” which means beautiful in Arabic.

The four of us then went to Jardin Majorelle - purchased by Yves Saint Laurent, it is an electrick blue villa and garden built by landscape painter Jacques Majorelle consisting of over 300 plant species including cacti, bougainvillea and terracotta planter pots in vibrant yellow, orange and blue colours.  YSL’s ashes are scattered at the site.  The building and garden is gorgeous!  We had a gelati from a store next door – mandarine flavoured that was divine.

After a couple of hours at the hotel doing hand washing and updating the blog – limited time to do this because to many loving things to explore on our trip, we had the first meeting for the next stage of the tour.  We have 4 new people on the trip – 2 from Holland, 1 from Australia and 1 from Canada.  The focus on this part of the tour is the High Atlas Mountains and the Sahara so great contrast with the rest of the trip where we visited a number of big cities.

Dinner out with the group was on a roof- top terrace where the specialty dish is Tride (chicken, pasta, lentils and cinnamon), washed down with a beer.  A waiter offered to buy me for 1000 camels – still not certain if it was a joke or not but our tour leader now thinks he has competition!

The group went into Djemma El-Fna (main city square) to experience the wonder of this place.  It is Saturday night so really busy with locals and tourists. It is an amazing bombardment of the senses with thousands of people watching jugglers and snake charmers; playing games for money; eating everything from snails to kebabs; drinking mint tea and fruit juice; riding in a frenetic manner on motorbikes; seducing buyers; painting henna tattoos; telling fortunes etc.  Meanwhile the square is shrowded with smoke from the bbqs and exhaust fumes.

We only had a sample of the square as will spend more time on our last night in Morocco – go out with a bang!

The group walked through the streets back to the motel, stopping for Moroccan coffee (very strong and sweet like Turkish coffee), dodging cars and motorbikes, attempting conversations with the locals out - the men are a lot more friendly whilst the women are shy and reserved.