Morocco Day 7

Marrakech is a modern high energy city, with a red Medina at its heart. Their Medina is nothing like the one I had previously explored in Fes. The halls are wider with more people and more confusion. I felt like a needle in a haystack.

After a fast-paced tour through this eccentric marketplace, we found ourselves in the food square adjacent to the Medina. Where snake charmers mesmerized cobras to do their bidding. One of the Snake charmer associates stopped Bryan, Gabby, and I. They suddenly placed a long green snake around Bryan's neck and had him kneel beside the cobras. Through a clenched smile, Bryan urged me to take the picture quickly. I got the shot, and as Bryan was about to stand up, the green snake jumped and his professional camera slipped from his neck. Several important components skidded across the cement ground. The cobras jumped and hissed as a result of the crash. We hastily recovered Bryan's camera pieces only inches away from the spooked deadly snakes. In hindsight, this was a reckless decision, but I think the snakes were defanged, at least that's what I tell myself to calm the unease that grows upon recalling this experience.

After retrieving the green snake, the charmers were almost unphased and demanding compensation for the picture. Bryan offered 10 Dirham (one dollar), but this angered the charmer. Bryan was angry too, he didn't exactly want to pay after they nearly broke his camera, so he said that's all he'd give him. The guy wasn't having it. So I offered an American dollar to make this exchange go faster. The man yelled, "This is Snake Charmer!" Or something along those lines and snatched the money from our palms. We got out of dodge.

After our snake squabble, we visited another carpet store with an impressive rooftop view and then the Marrakech Bahia Palace. This place takes the cake when it comes to Arabian architecture. The palace gardens were green and bountiful. Exotic citrus trees and flowers dotted the extravagant courtyards. The surrounding apartments were decked out top to bottom with beautiful geometric detail work. They belonged to the former wives of past kings. We learned that the most extravagant apartment was for the favorite wife, and ordinarily, the favorite was whoever bore the firstborn son. The concubine rooms were less fanciful but encircled a remarkable palace plaza in which the tiles shimmered like the ocean on a sunny day. Then we saw the Saadian Tombs. The white walls within seemed to echo the elegance of past lives.

The palace was fabulous, but I was definitely more excited for what came next: free time. The finale of our trip was what we all desired most, freedom to roam Morocco on our own. We had five hours to traipse about the streets of Marrakech, and it was liberating.

Immediately, we went back to the Medina. We split into groups with a few of our peers. My groupmates were Bryan, Bill, and Shelby. Cautiously avoiding any snake charmers, we cut through the front square and entered the market. Motorcyclists zoomed by and I stayed wedged between Bill and Bryan. I saw a shirt I liked and inquired about the price. Before I knew it, the vendor was pulling the shirt over my head and tying its strings. I attempted bartering the price, but I am not great with confrontation, so I looked nervously to the others for help. They signaled how much to say but I noticed a hole in the shirt and I awkwardly explained I was no longer interested. After that, we established a hand signal for when we don't want to buy.

Navigating this labyrinth proved to be the most nerve-wracking part of my time in Marrakech, far more frightening than the morning's cobra encounter. At one point, we took a wrong turn and ended up in a shady alley where a group of men encircled us. One man offered Bill drugs, he declined and we swiftly exited the dark alley, retracing our steps until we found the main paths. I tried to seem calm and collected but it felt as if my heart was about to leap out of my chest. After all that I just bought the gifts I wanted and we left. The guys sat grabbed a dinner of sheep's head as I fumbled with the hand made chess set I bought for my boyfriend. It was a calming distraction from the squishy gray meat they ingested beside me.

After all that we still had a few hours so we hit up the mall across the street from our hotel. It was chic and had a mini Medina experience within. There I purchased my final family gifts and got a not so special dinner at Burger King. Not very adventurous, but at this point, I was kind of done with risky behavior.

I had a crazy final day in Morocco and although there were some scary moments, there were twice as many incredible ones. Plus, the unnerving experiences make for great stories. It was truly an exceptional ending to my study abroad trip across Morocco.